Thanks; This gives me a map to start tracing this out. Cool!

Rear cradle and diff reunited this morning. I cut about 5/8's in. off the nose dowel on the diff, (that centers it in the U-joint plate); this still engages it for center, but means the cradle and diff only need to be lowered about 2in. to allow the driveshaft to be removed in future. A question for the guy's with completed cars: Were you able to rotate the clutch slave bleeder upright, as all bleeders should be? It was quite awhile ago that I joined it to the tranny, and I seem to remember it would only go in the way it's pictured, (upside down, to any normal bleeder I'v ever seen). The Camaro photos I'v seen also show it upside down. If so, did it bleed OK, and not trap some air? Now that the drivetrain is in, it will be less fun to mess with, but better to change it now, before I fill the fluid.

Mine is down and bled fine

We can install the driveshaft without dropping / loosening the subframe. Just need to compress the CV joint.

Bleeder is keyed - only faces down.

Thanks for confirming; I was pretty sure it had to be that way, but it's been a year since I plugged it in. Glad I don't have to mess with it.

With the drivetrain all in, and waiting for some SS exhaust bends to show up, I'v turned to the final wiring for the dash, and to power up the ECU. I chose to go with AutoMeter gauges, as I'll never figure out how to hook a laptop up to anything, let alone start changing stuff with one. Tach gets it's signal from the 9117 (AutoMeter) black box, wired into the LFX coil circuit, and the speedo is a GPS unit. Gas gauge will go in the near side HVAC dash hole. Tubing showed up today, so I can start fabbing the exhaust.

Nice sheet metal work. Is this a race car? I like the Autometer stuff, but I like turn signal lamps as we'll.

Nope, street car. The turn signal lamps are there, between the speedo/ oil gauge, and tach/ water temp. Hight beam is center, at top, and check engine center, below.

Hood cut. etc.
 

She's pretty much finished; fired up for the first time a few days ago, and just need to bleed the brakes and clutch, and wait for Spring. For the exhaust, I ran the V8R's down pipes into a "Y". exited into 2 1/2 in. dia. resonator, and 2 1/2 in. back to a Dynomax valve muffler. Looking forward to what she sounds like running down the road, but in the garage, it's pretty tits! Here's a picture of the hood cuts needed to clear the engine; pretty simple for the NB. Not a great photo of the exhaust, but without a lift it's hard to capture much.

That's pretty amazing you got it up and running already. I'm still wiring up my car and my exhaust is about half done as well. Where did you get all the wiring info? I have a full set of manuals, but they aren't really designed to help you wire up a car. I guess it's kind of my fault since I decided to finally put an electronic copy of the schematic together instead of writing it up on a sheet of paper. Anyways, congrats!

Thanks, it was a big relief she fired up! The V8R harness takes care of a lot of the problem, and deciding how to power some circuits just took a lot of looking at the Miata diagram to find logical leads. Still haven't figured out the AC completely, but as long as she is running, I'm happy!

I think the easiest way to find out how to wire it up is to look at what signals feed back to the LFX ECU and then integrate it into the Miata hardware. I think everything is compatible, but I haven't gotten into the ac yet. GM used a lot of reference voltages which I think are generated from the ECU. Not sure it applies to ac. I guess it's to early in the year to really run the ac. I was planning on integrating the emissions stuff as well, but I think with the new tune it all goes away anyway.

Hows she running Tom? Any pics of the engine compartment?

We'v had a week of unseasonable weather, which allowed me to do some short laps around my sub, which uncovered some issues. I had filled the rad to top, and the pressure tank, but mistakenly thought I'd filled the block to level as well. Waking up at 3am with the jolt that the thermostat being closed, no coolant got past into the block (!!!). I hadn't run it too long, and after using a funnel, with the top rad hose pulled, as able to get the block full, and ran her for a half hour in the garage. She went up to 190, and stayed put, no issues, so I'm hoping no damage was done. Next trip thru the sub, she's running pretty well, but with the idle hunting around a bit, and throttle seeming to hold the rev's a few seconds after being closed. I had originally made an intake with 3 1/2 in. OD tube, and I'm wondering if that is confusing the MAF size-wise, so this week started over, and am making one out of 3 in. OD tube. That's why the intake tube is missing in the photo; still needs the MAF port welded up.( Guy's with finished cars can him in here with their info, please). The exhaust is too loud as well, perfect at idle, and OK at cruise, but open the throttle, and the DynoMax valve muffler is super loud, so I pulled it, cut off the Dynomax, and welded on a Borla, and hope it will be better. Won't know till the intake is finished, and snow clears off the roads. Guy's on the Camaro sites complained that the Borla was too quiet, so I'm hoping it will work; just not a lot of room down there for a single pipe/single muffler system, even with the resonator upstream. Now I just need Spring!

Right now it is stock, but I have the Elite Eng. catch can coming in the mail. I hadn't read anything about that issue till just recently.

also available through summit. We jbwelded it to a piece of tube (though now we can weld aluminum - but it works).

Impressive. I hope the engine mounts won't need to be changed any time soon as it looks like it would be a total PIA to do :)

https://www.summitracing.com/ga/part...et-performance - and I just remembered one more detail. Use 3.25in pipe. We used 3.00 and had to retune the MAF fuel 20% down (because the MAF is only measuring air velocity, it assumes the amount of air as the cross section of the pipe - 3.00 is 17% less crossarea than 3.25)

The V8R engine mounts are robust, don't expect to ever need to change them out, but the whole unit can be unbolted with the engine suspended, and slipped out, if need be.