This Saturday AR Auto Service hosted a meet and greet with Austin and Kalson of FFD Motorsport. I have been running their Evo 1 wheels on Lazarus for a while with great satisfaction, and they just released their Evo 2 in 18x10 +25 offset in BMW fitment, and also 18x10 +32 in 5x114.3 to fit a variety of your typical Japanese cars.
We had a lot of local BMW guys come out and test fit the wheels and we also put them on our shop race car E46 M3. The results speak for themselves, but I personally think the wheels are beautiful. Austin and Kalson were wonderful to talk to as they explained the technology behind the manufacturing of their wheels. It was a great day and I thought I would share some photos. I managed to sneak one of the 5x114.3 wheels onto my daily driver as well and I love them, I need to dial in some more camber and I'll have a set on order soon.

 

This Saturday AR Auto Service hosted a meet and greet with Austin and Kalson of FFD Motorsport. I have been running their Evo 1 wheels on Lazarus for a while with great satisfaction, and they just released their Evo 2 in 18x10 +25 offset in BMW fitment, and also 18x10 +32 in 5x114.3 to fit a variety of your typical Japanese cars.
We had a lot of local BMW guys come out and test fit the wheels and we also put them on our shop race car E46 M3. The results speak for themselves, but I personally think the wheels are beautiful. Austin and Kalson were wonderful to talk to as they explained the technology behind the manufacturing of their wheels. It was a great day and I thought I would share some photos. I managed to sneak one of the 5x114.3 wheels onto my daily driver as well and I love them, I need to dial in some more camber and I'll have a set on order soon.

 

Just a teaser
also the world most modified mixing manifold
and laz had company for the night

 

Lotus AP Racing BBK success achieved! Just waiting for the lines to be made and they'll be on permanently. 288mmx25.4mm rotors. Rotor in comparison shot is a stock 1.8 miata rotor.
Requires a centering ring for the rotors and obviously a bracket was machined for the caliper. They are a radial mount AP racing 2 piston fixed caliper that you would normally find on a Lotus Elise/Exige. The rotors are 4x100. If track testing goes wheel I'll be putting these into limited production.
plenty of clearance on 15x8 FFD Evo 1 wheels in +32 offset, no spacer required. I can test fit other wheels if people want to send them to me.

 

Cost of consumables?

 

cobalt pads are the same, rotors are way more expensive but I won't have to change them nearly as often

 

I googled and saw like 90 for 2. Are those just junk rotors?

 

Never mind the picture was of 2 rotors but it was only one.

 

They're anywhere from 100 to 550 for a pair

 

Those look very nice, nice job creating them. I am interested to see how long these rotors last.

 

From the sounds of it the initial buy in for the brackets will be about as much as any wilwood BBK, pads will be even as well, rotors will be 2-9 times as expensive, but only need to be replaced every ~1-2 seasons, and calipers are a question mark.

 

Lotus brakes are lookin' good. Brings me back to the good days.

 

So I got the brakes are all buttoned up. Checked to see if there were any clearance issues with the new brake lines, brake ducts, or anything else. Nothing rubs, everything fits perfectly.





Tested fitted a few sets of wheels. I normally run FFD Evo 1s in 15x8 +32, and they clear with absolutely not issues



I also tried to some 15x8/9 6ULs, and unfortunately those require a 5mm spacer in order to clear.









For fun I also threw on a 308mm Lotus Exige Cup car rotor that we had laying around. Much to my surprise I can actually space the caliper out to fit the rotor and almost fit inside the wheel. If the caliper was shaved down a bit or I didn't run any wheel weights the setup would just fit, which would be amazing considering the rotors are over 12 inches in diameter. Perhaps another day when I have a 400whp Miata.



Here is a comparison of the stock 1.6 front rotor, standard Lotus Elise/Exige Rotor, and the Exige Cup Car rotor.





Moving onto the cooling system I got my reroute spacer and welded 1.6 thermostat cover in.



Turns out that a Samco upper radiator hose makes a wonderful lower radiator hose when you flip your mixing manifold, you simply have to trim about a half inch of each end and voila! You can see the T fitting that is being used for the heater hose.



Tomorrow curly is coming over and hopefully we'll get this sucker fired up!

 

Is flipping the mixing manifold necessary on a stock msm setup?

 

There is a difference between the bolt pattern. There is a wide block 4gxx block and a narrow block 4gxx block.

The narrow block was used in DSMs Galants and Early Evos. The wideblock was used in some trucks, vans, and Hyundais.

I am unsure about the evo block. I know it is flipped 180 degrees.

Bill Hincher makes (or made) adapter bell housings for many popular rwd transmissions.

 

Not at all, it actually proved to be quite troublesome.

Pros:
1. Flipping it gets rid of the hard line under the hot turbo manifold, and keeps the soft heater core return line away from runner #4.

Cons:
1. MSM manifold runs into the belt. Either extensively modify, or use a non-MSM mixing manifold.
2. Getting rid of the hard line gets rid of the water return for the turbo. Martin has converted to a SS AN line. We're happy about that, since the rubber line going to the hard line disintegrated in our hands upon removal.
3. Small water line from front neck/throttle body needs to be removed and welded shut
4. Hard line return hole needs to be welded shut.

 

Some of the cons can be interpreted as pros but with PITA factor.

 

Which is kinda why we did it. I only had to mention a few "cons" before Martin was on board. getting rid of that impossible-to-reach soft water line from the turbo was a HUGE pro.

 

Yeah, when that line fell apart in my hands upon removal I was full speed ahead on the flipping. In retrospect a non msm manifold would have been better but it all worked out quite nicely.

 

I know how much miataturbo loves cats, and trubokittens specifically. Have you ever wondered what happens when a trubokitten gets its wings and grows a unicorn horn. I did.

thanks to Mobius for sourcing this for me, it's a clear decal so it doesn't really pop out until you get right next to the car, I really enjoy it, feel like it goes well with the lady gaga sticker.
Car has been started and run, had a small coolant leak to fix but we got the timing set and it's idling nicely!