Here's what I would do:

-Buy UV dye, light, and glasses. Kits on amazon can be had pretty cheap... like 20-30 bucks.
-Use brake cleaner or something similar to spray down your engine so there's no oil visible and it's clear of most grime/dirt.
-Put UV dye into oil.
-Go for a short drive, i.e. enough to let the motor get up to temp. Give it a few harder efforts when it's warm too so you have some more oil pressure when the oil's warm.
-Look at motor with UV light to see if you can find where the leak is.

I'm considering doing this as well once I get a few things squared away, but my oil leaks seem to be not as bad right now.... knock on wood.

Yeah I was going to go the dye route but then got a wilde hair up my ass and pulled my intake manifold and timing cover off. I guess I really should just put them back on and use the dye. I think I will.

You can pull off all that stuff after using the dye too! So that hair can stay put if you want it to. 😂

So the quest continues. I was getting my car back together and I am running into an issue. The bolts for the air intake mount bracket are fighting me. The torque spec was 38 lbs but I am using more than that just to get them in. Anyone have any experience here? I don't want to crack any cast aluminium. also the angle appears odd. are those supposed to go in before the nuts on the 10 studs on the motor intake side? Halp please.

Have a pic? Are you talking about the intake manifold brace? If so, just remove it. It's not necessary.

I am talking about the Brace. However I don't think I should just remove it. Anyone else chime in on this? if anything I would just leave the bolts out.

https://www.miataturbo.net/general-m...d-brace-34029/

Lots of reading on this from every Miata site in the internet. Search for 'removing Miata intake manifold brace'. Up to you, obviously, but if it's giving you fits, removing it is an option.

I notched mine for clearance back when I was using the oem throttle body. Once I went to the skunk2 TB the brace went away. I was superstitious about the stock TB failing due to vibration without the brace. There's a ton of conjecture but nothing proven regarding this.