Your intercooler piping makes my pants tight. Mmph.

Glad to see your car is sticking with its New England roots :P

 

I've been sitting on a Skunk2 throttle for a while. Lot of bad things happened this week so I just zoned out and tried to remain productive. Ported the manifold opening on a spare squaretop I had powdercoated. Seemed to be ok.

I just have to decide if I want to transfer my existing idle control valve, or find a new one. Then transfer tps. This will be installed when I replace the fuel rail.

 

So my driver side headlight only opens half way.

It resists opening further when trying to use the red ****. It creeps down ultra slowly when everything is shut off. Aside from the retractor relay under the hood by the firewall/brakebooster, are there any other relays I need to be looking at?

I know there where some differences with NA6 cars and NA8

 

I think i have a spare idle control valve.

Is the lower portion of your manifold powder coated? I'm trying to decide if i want to powder coat both halves or the top is sufficient.

 

Headlights:
Low and behold, I just kinda forced the adjustment **** past the resistance and it popped into place. Opens and closes fine now. Curious.


Aidan:
I have both top and bottom powdercoated. To be honest, if I where to do it over, I'd only blast the bottom portion and powdercoat the top. Because of the rough cast finish, the coat doesn't look that great. You can see some areas where it'd pool or fill in some asperities more than others. With the tricky 'pockets' and geometry of the lowers, it just looks like ****. Have you a spare NB icv? I'll trade you for the headlights. I can send them out tomorrow probably along with that solenoid as a plug.



New Project:
I got some new ABS plastic door panels that I hope to be wrapping in some diamond quilted faux leather. It's actually pretty nice, as all the cutouts marked for the different NA door configurations INCLUDING the LE speaker covers. 80 shipped at the following link:
90-97 Mazda Miata 'Forever' Door Panels. ABS plastic; v2.0! Made in USA!





We'll see how well it fits when all the door hardware arrives. I have 6.75" speakers which required me to mount them over my current door cards. I don't know if running a shallower spacer would keep them beind the door cards without the diaphragm vibrating against them. We'll see.... but the speaker cutouts are not concentric to the speaker themselves in OEM config. Has anyone else noticed this? Or maybe this is the difference between NA6 and NA8 cards?

 

I should have one. I'll check tonight and send it out today or tomorrow.

 

For the un-inclined.

90-97 Mazda Miata 'Forever' Door Panels. ABS plastic; v2.0! Made in USA! | eBay

That is a sweet find.

 

I've got like 5. PM me your address it it will go out tonight or tomorrow.

 

I've been thinking about these for the longest. Are you happy with the quality?

 

Initial out of the box quality, yea it looks loads better than my deteriorated stock cardboard ones. I'll post up on fitment whenever that happens. Have to reupholster them first and find new door latches/pulls and figure out how to do the speakers. If I recall, the cage is just slightly too large for the hole, so I don't know if it's just a matter of dremeling it out, or spacing it. It's spaced right not, but again, everything is bolted on the door card from the outside.

 

Why u no haz NB1 door cardz?

 

Because it looks like poo came out!

 

​​​​​​someone watched the grand tour.
​

 

 played around with upholstery.




Test fit, still have to trim some excess material and try to get three clips to resnap. Door pull is temporary until I can find a better alternative.

 

I'd hit it. Pull strap would look fine if changed to black.

 

I was looking for more of a two point door pull, but cannot find the right material. Tried all sorts of sources for antique trunk straps or webbing reinforced leather, but I cannot seem to find the right lengths, unless I want to invest in a fancy pants belt and just cut it up. I have a feeling that wouldn't last long under use though.

 

Spoiler alert: Perri's Leather

 

What about a leather handle from a guitar amplifier? I used to replace these for people all the time, and you can usually get them with hardware.

Cheap example, you can do some searching. Just look for the pre-arched ones as a lot of them are designed to sit flat.
Leather Style Guitar Amp Handle Fender Ampeg Vox Black Vintage Style | eBay

 

I was looking at cabinet handles and amp hardware, but I ended up using only the end caps. I wasn't sure at the time what length and the ones shown would seemingly mount differently but I was scheming how to utilize that bracket and the stock mount location. Finally I just used an old belt lying around until I can craft a traditional 2 point pull. It's not a priority at the moment. Figuring out why some of the snaps are harder to engage by the speaker area will take precedence.

 

Haven't seen an update in a while man... I hope all is well!