I feel like I've lurked here long enough and spend enough time slacking off not doing my build that I could at least catalog my Miata build so far. What follows this first post is a bit of work that could have taken a lot fewer years if I could actually focus on one project at a time.

I'm missing some early engine build pics apparently, but story as old as time, I overheated the Miata, assumed I blew a head gasket, and decided to pull the head off. Found out my crank keyway was wallowed out from a loose as hell bolt, and suddenly, the engine was out.

I tore it all down and started ordering parts for my turbo build. Here's a short list of the highlights. It's been too long for me to remember/find a whole list because I'm basically the opposite of organized when it comes to a build list.

Supertech 84mm 9.5:1 pistons
Manley Forged H-Beam Rods
ATI Balancer
Boundary pump
KING XP race bearings
ARP head studs
FM Level 2 clutch
ACT XACT Prolite flywheel
Supermiata Hybrid motor mount (
Volvo VS437 / 418737Valve Springs
Block machined to nearly zero deck height (in theory I did the math correctly on this for good squish/quench, but I could also suck and have messed it up), my rough math put the overall compression ratio after machining to nearly 10:1. It's been a while. Don't quote me on any of this. I'm not an engine builder.



Yup, it's an engine. Don't have my pics from before this in the assembly process. I'll have to dig up an old phone if I want them.




Gross.



Let's fix that grossness.


In the middle of this apparently I took a couple pics of my homemade duckbill/tail. This thing was made on a whim out of a thin cardboard core, and fiber glassed together with unspeakably horrible techniques. Somehow it holds together though and can hold my weight, though it's showing it's age and issues on the back edge these days.




Lapping valves more than my dog laps up water




Ready for some fun times


Just kidding it wasn't fun, just tedious


Phew


And then the actual fun part began. SHIMS


I don't remember much about figuring out the shims. It was a fever dream. I couldn't even tell you how this spreadsheet works, or if it makes any sense, but by the end, the valves were properly shimmed. Which I apparently thought no need to take photos of the process lol.


Starting to get closer to looking like an engine




Let's bolt a few more things on here




Got this in ahead of time and capped off for the turbo, even though I was running NA at first on the build. PSA though, this is TOO HIGH. Go lower. My AC bracket had to take a lot of trimming to keep it. And I'm a sweaty boy so I had to keep it.


Basically done


Just a couple more things


There's one


And two


At some point in this process I apparently figured seats were more important than the engine. I got some FD seats from a buddy for $50 and made some brackets for them. They sit a little high because of this but I gutted the foam on the drivers seat. I'm only 5'7" anyway so I'm fine.



Now with that slight detour for a butt cushion complete, the Miata was ready for it's dinner. With the help of a friend of course.



And she's in!


I decided to go with the Flying Miata radiator and "Stage 1" Fan kit because I was too lazy to make my own setup.



Also in the process got myself a used set of the Fox coilovers from someone on the forums here. Thank you for saving my $$$! And good riddance to those shitty blown Tein's the previous owner had on. My god they were bad.



Summer workshop


I had some fun with a grinder and installed the official MiataTurbo bumper bar


Finished up the rest of the fun business and put some catch cans in. If you have a keen eye you'll realize I did the in/out's backwards on the PCV side because obviously I'm a genius.


My puppy decided it was time to take it for a spin


Proof that it drove. Did a few autocrosses at this point on some Yokohama A052's and was hitting fastest time of the day sometimes at our local little group.


Free window banner sticker needed a home but I thought it was funnier back here


I have multiple pics of it in the snow because of the years that passed doing this lol


At that point in time, snow was a good excuse to start on the turbo stuff (aka the beginning of all my problems. Kraken 3" Exhaust is pretty mint though. Highly recommend. It's probably as quiet as a 3" gets, fits great, and I love it.




I went with the EFR 6758 Turbo because I want more power than is reasonable of course. I would question my sanity about wanting that much power but I'm not smart enough to do that.



For intercooler I went with a questionable choice of the Fail9 intercooler for my power goals, routed using FM turbo kit silicone lines. I of course made lots of cuts for installing both the intercooler and hoses, and had a real fun time getting it all to fit up, but at the end of the day for some totally mismatched purchased components, it really wasn't all that bad. I did use a couple hard pipe sections to make it work. One you can see on the bottom right to get the radius better, and one that you can't see that is vertical up to the intake elbow. DO NOT buy the fail9 intercooler if you want something plug and play to install though. There is plenty of cutting involved.


Flowforce R8 coils and 960cc injectors will hopefully set me up for plenty of power for a while. That intake is some piece of crap that I still need to replace with a real filter. Don't judge me I just keep forgetting!



These bad boys are basically a staple necessity.


And I got a raspberry pi tuning computer setup in the passenger seat for fun


So I put that all in, got some garbage tuning done running it off of wastegate pressure boosting at 8psi. Obviously according to the butt dyno I'm at 8,000hp but in reality probably still under 200whp with my tuning skills. Just running it rich AF and trying to slowly dial it in as I go.


Eventually I brought it out to autox again of course to really see if I could realize all the mistakes of turboing my car. I had a good wheel hop incident partway through the day and then many nasty noises under acceleration for a couple laps. Obviously I convinced myself that I broke something in the transmission at this point. I had already had it out once because the shift fork/throwout bearing was rattling, so that sucked to take it out again. Having convinced myself it was the transmission I broke, I ignore all other warning signs of what actually happened and tore the 6spd apart.


After finding nothing wrong and putting it back together (mind you I've never built a transmission before) I was able to drive it to my new house, but it kept popping out of 6th if I shifted into it. After I drove it there it sat for a while as I dealt with the pleasures of moving. Also the real problem was actually in fact that I'm a complete idiot and forgot this spacer on top of the diff for the PPF. Turns out under enough load it flexed the PPF to just barely knick the driveshaft under hard acceleration, and that was the cause of all my terrible noises that I convinced myself was the transmission.


Eventually with the problems after re-assembly, I just bit the bullet and bought another 6spd, tossed it in. It's been amazing. I also in the process installed the Kpower Diff arm reinforcement plates, and diff bushings, and a miata roadster tall angled shifter, which is amazing I will add. If you ever need a way of solo tipping the engine back in order to get a transmission in, this was my method. Questionable, I know, like many of my life choices, but it does work quite well after putting one in for the 4th time. Just don't leave it tensioned for very long.



And that's really about it for right now. The car runs again, getting actually 23mpg on the highway which ain't too shabby for my questionable tuning skills. I've got the boost controller wiring hooked up ready to go, but I killed my AFR gauge somehow so I'm waiting on a replacement to start bumping up the boost. It's good to drive again. I got 3rd fastest overall at the last autocross on 3 year old tires. Just threw on some Proxes RA1's so we'll see how they do at the next one at the end of the month!

 

Holy hell, not bad for a first post! Sick car and sick amount of purple in the engine bay, man. Looks like you’ve done all your research and then some on here. Looking forward to seeing the progress continue once you get your AFR gauge troubles taken care of!

 

Welcome to the forums!

Ratchet strap engine leveler is something I'll keep in mind for later.

 

Awesome first post, I can see you've done your research. Welcome to the group, excited to see where this build goes.

 

Lmao @ the valve shim spreadsheet. That is exactly what mine looked like but I color coded it which just made things worse. It eventually ended up having 5 different colors and being impossible to understand if you were to walk away from it and come back. But hey it worked, all valves sit at the loose end of the tolerance range except for one exhaust valve which is good enough for me.

Also, this is an NB1 with an NB2 front bumper right? Noice.

 

Thanks guys, I'm looking forward to documenting my build a little more. I know a decent amount about cars but have never had the money to spend on building things the way I want until now. Still gonna be pretty budget restricted to a sense compared to things I would like to do(Someone pay me and I'll swap a 3 rotor in in a heartbeat) but at least I can finally afford something more than an eBay turbo setup on a stock block.

And yeah NB1 Bumper with questionable fitment and NB1 headlights with broken mounting tabs lol. I bought this from a kid who definitely drifted the front and back end into stuff a few times. But no real structural damages. Unfortunately his repairs were a little questionable too so none of it is attached very well leaving plenty of gaps. I only paid like $2800 though so I can't complain. My goal is to essentially build the car for time attack (someday, until then just track days/whatever I can afford) So I'll address those as I do aero work.

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My next big hit list items are

​​​​​​Brakes. Mine feel real bad right now. I'll probably pad slap it with some freebies I got to get it safe for now but my next big purchase is probably the superMiata 11" kit.

Roll bar - for obvious reasons

A real tune - still gotta find someone somewhat local that I trust to do tuning

Aero - some DIY stuff on the front, probably nothing too crazy that can't already be found in the aero mega thread. Knowing me I'll probably feel the need to do something dumb/different though. For the rear end I have a buddy who makes chump car wings and will probably enlist his help. Probably won't do flat bottom for a while but that+diffuser at some point

Oil cooler - seems like this is basically required for me to get it trackable