Yes lumbar support is hilariously minimal

Yeah, lotus seats use an air pump to pump the lumbar. IMO still don't do a lot to make the seat comfy, even with probax (which IIRC don't use an air pump).

Best thing to do is replace the foam with some really high quality stuff.

Couch Cushions ? revlimiter.net

Seat Rebuild with Kemmler Air2Gel Foam - Page 4 - LotusTalk - The Lotus Cars Community

Yea, I actually might flip these. Aside from spending tons of dosh on seat brackets, this sits higher than oem and feel more reclined. Not sure if I like it too much.


Are there any oem seat belt friendly seats that will work in sliders and sit equal or lower than oem? Not trying to race harness a daily. I'm going to fail broomstick at this rate Sept9.

Lotus seats on custom sliders honestly are your best bet for the money. Tillet seats work very well with OEM belts because of the very low side bolsters. But I imagine you won't enjoy the lack of cushioning very much.

Nakame are great if you're ballin. I know there are some 911 seat makers who make replica classic Porsche seats that look awesome and work with stock belts. Check out Garage Quinn Motors on YouTube, and look at his red turbo NA. He has a set of seats you will love.

Before you sell, check mine out. I have the flipside brackets.. looks like you have the chance brackets.

Actually, the seats are growing on me, but I definitely think they need to be lower. Can't wait to check out your flipsides.

Car looks beautiful! You did well.

Forgot to mention, I also have the Kemmler Air2Gel padding in mine. It was installed by the Lotus owner, but it looks easy enough to add.

Gah! Making tons of progress! Looks amazing!

I'd be interested to see if/how an ND seat fits in an NA or NB. I was pretty happy with how the seats felt when I sat in them at the auto show, plus they don't just slide forward and back, they seem to sit further down in the car the further back you go. I don't know if this is a function of the seats themselves or the Miata they are mounted in, but I am interested in seeing how they work out.

Is it a manual rail/lock or electronic? I wanna go to a dealer now to test sit.

Manual. Part of me is thinking that with all these "Long Road Racing" Miatas that are getting converted to race cars with race seats there have to be some floating around somewhere. They are ordered completely equipped from the factory and converted at their facility.

EDIT: I was wrong -
This does mean though that when the original seat is replaced by a racing seat SOMEONE will likely be selling it.

Here is what I found: my NA seats with factory sliders and a foamectomy, sat as low as my Sparco evo2 with absolutely minimal mounting rails. I had to cut out my floor to pass broomstick. Check the last page in my build.

I think we should meet up someday and you teach me everything you know.

TheBandit made awesome block off plates with an fpr mount. Come to find out, it has a 1.75" hole spacing, unfortunately I didn't have the fuelab it was marketed for so a created an adapter to mount my radium fpr (2.25") to it. It shares a common hole.

Tomorrow I drop a bunch if stuff off for powder coating, get windows tinted, spray penetrant all over the bottom of the car, and finish drilling zerks into control arms and pulling the bushing sleeves out.

https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...988d3e2920.jpg

Did I see earlier in this thread you are doing a full V8R control arm set up? Bronze bushings too?

Correct

I really wish I didn't drill holes into my firewall for that FPR now. How much to get the adapter made? Did you already test fit it?

Awesome, I am headed down the same path right now. Hopefully everything goes in with minimal snags.

https://www.miataturbo.net/miata-parts-sale-trade-5/coolant-block-off-reroute-spacer-egr-block-off-egr-block-off-fpr-mount-88962/

The adapter to mount the 2.25" eye-to-eye to the 1.75" that this bracket had was just made out of some scrap 3/8" aluminum. I don't often get access to the machine shop, but when I do, I love making things. It can be made more quickly if I didn't care about matching the mount shape of the radium. Maybe @TheBandit can make a more universal mount to fit the 2.25" spacing?

https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...f6e7c34f54.jpg




You have my vote of confidence!

Looking good buddy!

It's tough to make something universal enough to fit a wide array and still look good and be functional. In hindsight, I probably should have designed in a bit more flexibility, but I don't know that it would have been enough in your case.

Shibby - Send me some information on what fpr you are running and I will see if I can help out. :bigtu:

It's this. Fuel Pressure Regulator

You can probably just make the fpr mounting portion wider with one or two holes slotted for adjustment.

No worries, I jumped because it was a clever mounting solution for tight real-estate. Still great stuff.



Sending a bunch of stuff out to get powder coated today.

Also pulled out the sleeves in the control arms and drilled the rest of the zerk fittings in.

Do you think I can use energy suspension Hyperlube for the upper and lower ball joints and drive shaft? Or should I used traditional axle grease.
https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...5c2f88606d.jpg

shame to have such nice control arms and just put poly bushings in them :P

But I have the SADFab sleeves going in. Should be okish

oh nvm then, should be pretty sweet. Maybe not quite delrin but should be a good setup. I hate my standard poly bushings.

This is what I hear from everyone. Definitely pushing me towards a full rubber set.

https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...340163469e.jpgThink I need an oil cooler. This is 70mph at 4k on the highway.

https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...eb1d32a999.jpgDownmented. I owe this guy huge.

https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...db44cb070f.jpgThis was great!

https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...e3bcc0e963.jpgTime to remove gas tank, wish I could undercoat the car.

https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...21e9e267a0.jpgFUCK. PPF bolt sized and the head got fucked. Ended up destroying a PPF to remove this.

https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...3e24c9a6ee.jpgI need a other PPF nut. This is stuck. I have a PPF and all new bolts, just this one nut is holding me back from my dreams.

https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...f07dfcf32f.jpg

We done for now. Someone help. I don't have a drill press, lathe or special things for PPF nut

Pretty sure I have spares. When do you need it?

Yesterday :(

My car is incapacitated. Can't really move forward with the whole driving thing. I may try to get my hands on a drill press to see if I can core the bolt out and retap. I have the tap and bits,just no lathe or drill press to keep it concentric and protect the knurl.


Ive been desperately looking for locals with spare PPF and parts.

Who is in that area? Isn't soviet around there?

I'm in Annapolis at Downmented 's place. Is @soviet still in Nova area?

Priority Mazda in Nova. Tommy who used to do parts at Rosenthal moved there. He should be able to get you that part quickly.

Yeah I'm in Sterling. I think I have *A* PPF, don't know if it has bolts/nuts - probably does

Thanks everyone. There was a dude that drove a PPF from Woodbridge for $30. We got it all in. It took so much time we didn't get to the front control arms, swaybar or front subframe. But the rear is completely buttoned up.

Brakes are Mush and a bleeder screw broke on an already siezed rear caliper. I've been waiting for a tow for the last hour and half.

Gotta sort the rear calipers and just get it aligned. I'll worry about the control arms another time. Those SADFab sleeves feel great. Ran out of grease but it's slick.


With the 1.8tank, we ran AN lines to the front with an I line fuel filter. I transferred the old 190lph walbro since I didn't have the right fittings for an external FPR.

No leaks on first start. Aside from the PPF debacle, everything dropped smoothly, and bolted up smoothly.

Huge thanks to Downmented and Shibby

https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...0459407d81.jpg

https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...e74441ba84.jpg

Playing it safe tonight until I can replace the rear calipers. https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...89e7649f80.jpg

WOW! That hub area shot and the undercarriage shot just scream motorsport. Everything looks so incredibly high quality. Too bad you'll only get to appreciate the aesthetic if you look.

What a great weekend, that PPF bolt seriously kicked our productivity in the nuts, wasted WAY too many hours on that. Luckily that was our only hangup for everything we did.

Heres a shot of the tank before we put it back up.https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...af2a87e9cf.jpg

New avatar for you: http://www.virkki.com/jyri/miata/ppf/ppf_sleeve_out.jpg

The rear subframe is pretty impressive. The only assembly issue was getting the bottom of the shock mount to clear the LCAs.

The hope was to get the car prepped for a track day at Summit early September, but being that I only have one weekend left before then, it's not looking too good. Too many people are deciding to get married. Worst decision ever.

The original bushings are rotted and in some cases missing (at least from the rear). The lower outer suspension bolt was seized and it just made sense to replace what couldn't be recovered. This was originally a New England car after all.

I'm hoping this will help with all the jiggles the car has and make me feel more confident and comfortable (Read: predictable) when driving hard. It's a full car makeover for smurfette; first outside, then now below.

Haha, thanks for punching that out. I think the PPF nut up top is the one single object I hate the most on these cars.

That looks amazing!

Thanks duder! If I took a trip out to you someday to hang, could you help me out with some exhaust hanger action (blob weld stainless)? For some reason I totally forgot the NB rear subframe does not share the same mount position as this NA and could totally use the extra support as the MT.net approved big muffler is only supported by the two body mounts on the passenger side. ick

I really do love the southwest. Looks good Payam.

One day I will mail you that 4th one like I promised. Along with whatever AC stuff you need.

It's a shame that the prettiest parts always get covered up and never to be seen again...

My freshly undercoating underbody, custom fabricated stainless steel EGR pipe to adapt 99 EGR to NA header, and this gorgeous fuel line set up.

I guess that's just how it goes. :laugh:

I totally agree, i had my coolant pipe that goes from the mixing manifold to the heater core powdercoated, and have my beautiful oil/ coolant lines routing by them annd none if it will ever be seen. But its the attention to detail that grants sanity to the overall integrity of the build :)

The devil is certainly in the details. Keep up the good work!

I just got back stateside last night. I want to drive the car, now with more brakes and alignment.

What did the brake issue end up being?

It ended up just having a lot of air in the lines. Even though I tried bleeding it twice. Maybe I just suck at this.


Got the car yesterday, the suspension feels very comfortable. I'm not at all worried about driving it around here and it feels more agile, but tends to understeer. They could only get -2.1° camber max in the front so I'm going to try to push for installing the new subframe and arms Friday/Saturday and get it aligned again.

Beyond that, the caliper that replaced the seized caliper is seized. I fucking hate this shit. Hope I didn't roast my wheel bearing. The wheels and everything where just ridiculous hot. The OSgikin was just clunky as hell. Now I also get a bit of a clunk sound up front after switching to wilwoods. It's not in the pedal, but when jabbing the brakes at slow speeds, the front right seems to shudder/clunk but everything is tight. I'm suspecting a combination of fucked bushings, bad balljoints, bad wheel bearings.


https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...96f9ce06c2.jpg

Put that bitch on a jack stand so the wheel is off the ground, grab that wheel and start yanking across different load axes. If you've got a bad bearing, bushing or ball joint you should be able to feel it.

Just don't pull the car off the jack stand and kill yourself, because that would be bad.

Hopefully being able to install the front end will replace all these components at once. Just need to do a realignment on a weekend.

Procured another remanned caliper during lunch. If this fails, then I'm just swapping to wilwood rears and ditching ebrake. I need this to be ready for Sept 9 but don't think I'll have an oil cooler installed by then.

Tonight I hope I can get the front subframe and control arms and new front knuckles installed so I can get an alignment first thing tomorrow morning at an Acura dealer that aligns my buddies NSX. Hard to find alignment racks on weekends for low cars and custom specs.

The exhaust rattles against the new subframe, not sure if I should try to bend the hanger so it sits a quarter inch higher, or just cut little bits off the subframes underbracing mount.

PTuning should do alignments on Saturdays, might need to make an appointment first.

They definitely do, but shop is closed down as they're all at an event until 8/29

Gridlife?

https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...96435f5d84.jpg

Front subframe has been changed. The steering rack was kind-of difficult, I had to cut the universal joint to remove the steering shaft. I don't have an axle nut socket (29mm?) or castle nuts for the tie rod ends.

SADFab sleeves where easier in front than rear.

Fat racing beat bar has also been installed.

I have to cut the singular brake shields because they contact the rotor and cannot be clearenced because the tie rod end sits right behind it .

That's about it. Run to parts store tomorrow morning, finish up then align