My fastest lap of the day, despite the variable-geometry suspension. Looking at it, it's not particularly good driving. My lines are all over the place. Garmin says my optimal lap is faster, but I bet there's time to find even beyond that.


And my stupid spin on the next lap. I thought about my shift point too much and forgot about the apex...

 

I finished the welding project I had going and finally got the car into the garage (after some light cleaning).



I love California. I zipped off the axle nut with my cordless impact and pushed the axle free with my thumb. The P is for passenger, for whatever good that does me.


The welding project: a dolly for the 12v hydraulic power unit for my QuickJacks. Holds a mega AGM battery, the hydraulic unit, the hoses, lifting blocks, and control pendant. Started with a $20 Craigslist dolly with mismatched wheels. I’m happy with the result.



Arms come off tomorrow. Gotta be ready for the May 9 event!

 

One corner stripped. Everything came apart quite easily and looks good. I’ll clean up the pins and bushes before it goes back together.


I really like these storage containers from Harbor Freight. They’re clear, you can rearrange the compartments a bit, and it’s easy to label everything in Sharpie, on the outside. It wipes off with just a bit of alcohol.

I’m missing one damn washer. Pretty sure it wasn’t in there when I disassembled things. Pretty sure I’ve seen it somewhere in the garage, recently. But I will NOT drive myself insane trying to find it. I will simply order a replacement from Ed, once I’m sure I’m not missing (or haven’t destroyed) anything else. I will not drive myself crazy over this. I will not drive myself crazy over this.

Pretty sure these arms are going to get painted this time around. Orange or Machine Gray?

I pressed the hub out and have the rear bearing moving. It was almost 10pm and after the second big “pop” from the hydraulic press, I decided to call it a night.

 

Oh for ****’s sake. I can’t get the upper “long bolt” out. It gets hung up on the sway bar bracket nut. It took me way too long to realize why.



Damn K swap! I had to space the front subframe down in order to get hood clearance. That means the “long bolt” gets spaced down relative to the sway bar bracket, thus causing interference where there was barely enough room before.

Wow is this going to be a pain in the ***!

 

Removing the sway bar brackets.

Are the AWR brackets really the only upgrade out there? I thought Mazda Motorsports made one at one time.

hopefully don’t bash these up too much trying to break the last little bits of spot weld.

 

Minor success. Ugh.

 

V8R sells upgraded mounts, but I'm not sure I'd recommend them. The hole spacing is different than stock so you end up having to immediately modify the part you just welded on. It's a pretty strange design decision.

If all else fails it would be pretty easy to sendcutsend new brackets (with the correct hole spacing). You might even be able to make some money, they have a marketplace program now.

 

K24Z swap mounts suck. All the racers I know with the swap carry multiple spares.

 

Huh, that’s not actually a spare I keep on hand. Is there a group chat or FB group I’m missing for us poor Z-swap suckers? The main one I see is seriously pro-KPower…

I’m frustrated with the sway bar mounts, not the engine mounts.

After holding a mount in my hand and overthinking for ten minutes or so, my short term plan is to remove the front weld-nut from the stock mount and just use a regular nut there. The long term plan is to make a removable nut-plate so I don’t have to hold a nut in place while bolting/unbolting the sway bar.

Not going V8R, too many KPower-like stories.

 

Maybe I missed this, but why not go with the AWR mounts? they are beefy, have stock bolt pattern, and bolt right on. I just put some on my car and was impressed.

 

I’ve considered it, but I’m not convinced they’ll actually solve the problem. I think they might make it even worse - they’re beefy, and I’m concerned that this means there’s even less clearance for the long bolt in a stock location, so my lowered subframe would interfere more.

 

Ah, I see what you mean. For me they solved the problem because I don't have to fill that hole with a re-enforcement plate.

On the other hand they do kinda solve your problem because they bolt on, so you don't have to drill out tack welds to remove them. That said they probably aren't that fun to remove either, it's kinda hard to get to those inside bolts.

 

I should also say: the simple solution would seem to be to unbolt the subframe, remove the spacers, lift the subframe, and remove the bolt.

I don’t like this because I think replacing an upper A arm should be a paddock-easy task. Screwing with the subframe is doable, but way too much work. And I haven’t even calculated what would interfere or get hung up.

Removable sway bar brackets would be OK. I plan to improve on that.

 

Live chat, I like it!

Those inside bolts aren’t as difficult as I expected actually. Drilling the spot welds was no fun, and removing the rad supports wasn’t without challenge,
but it’s paddock-easy.

From what I’ve read, the AWR mounts are really tight to the frame, not something to be simply “dropped” off the way the stock ones will.

 

You aren't wrong about that, but on my '90 chassis they weren't nearly as hard to get on as some things I had read (I think they are a much tigher fit on the NB rails). They mostly went on by hand, then I tapped them with a rubber mallet to get them flush so the bolts would go in. Honestly a pretty easy process and I'd vouch for those mounts in most cases - though you are probably right that the bolt might not come out with the spacers you have.

My complaints were similar to yours, but I was running the stock sway bar mounts with re-enforcement plates which made it super annoying when needing to pull that bolt. Just tedious and annoying to remove those spacer blocks, the last time I did it I told myself this is the last time and ordered the AWRs.

 

I’ve made a similar declaration several times myself, though TBH it was worse when I had power steering and A/C lines.

I dropped a comment in the KMiatas FB group, we’ll see if anyone has bright ideas. But now you have me thinking about the AWRs again…

 

I get most of my information from a semi-private Miata GLTC driver chat. It is mostly K swapped cars, a few of us running BP's, a Ecotec, and some NCs tossed in for flavor.

 

I FOUND THE MISSING WASHER!

I'm at the reinstall step on the first arm. The four rear arms have been torn down, wire wheeled, and painted. Also the two rear uprights, which are getting new bearings and Supermiata Chubbs.

I forgot how many parts are in this bushing kit - sorting through the bag of urethane bits, searching for the right part numbers, is time consuming. I over-inserted one bushing in the RLOO location because the random washer I'd been using to force them into place was too thin and dished in a bit. It'll be fine.

I got put on a last minute in-person project at a client location next week, so I really need to buckle down and get stuff done this week and weekend so I can leave for Thunderhill on Thursday the 8th. There's time, but I'm going to have to be efficient, no slacking off on the weekend or being too tired to work in the garage in the evenings.

I have an idea for the sway bar mounts that I may try to put together in this timeframe, however getting the car together and aligned is the priority. Worst case, I simply bolt the stock brackets back on after reinstalling the long bolt and kick the can down the road a bit.

 

Post from garage. Please forgive any odd text encoding.

I just can’t seem to get this rear, lower, inner bushing to seat fully. The OAL of the two bushings, as they sit in the arm right now, is 72mm. The OAL of the pin and machined washers is 70mm. The space between the “ears” into which this slots is a -tight- 70mm.

I can compress the not-seated-flush bushing in until it’s seated, but the instant I remove the clamping force, it pops back out.

I’m not sure if it’s possible to pull this bushing out or not and I have no idea how I’d do that, given the lack of things for a puller to brace against.

I’m going to work on another corner for a bit and pander this, I would -really- value your input. @turbofan or @emilio700 sorry to tag you, but if you’re reading forums for some reason, I’d own you another bottle of choice beverage if you had input.

I’m running out of time to get everything done for Thunderhill on Fri/Sat.

 

Additional info:

I’ve tried squeezing this in using 1/2-13 all-thread with large flat washers (RR and RF washers from the kit) and nuts, no dice.

I’ve used a ball-joint C-clamp with a flat plate on the outside and the two different styles of adapters that come with it.

I’m compressing this with the steel pin out, obviously.