Wine and cheesers, turn away now.
 

Figured I'd show you guys a pic of what I've been working on the past couple days.

Took out the dash mainly to clean up some wiring that I kept bumping my knee against, but after being inspired by the Targa car, and a few shots I saw from some stripped interiors at the Leguna Seca track day, I decided to take an angle grinder to the dash. I also finally took out the speakers and stereo, not needed for a race car. They were nice on the drive there, but now I have my iPhone and headphones for that.

There's still a lot of cleaning to do, and my old switch panel needs to be replaced like the one from the Targa, although with five switches and a starter button. For the empty holes left by the speakers, I was either going to cover the current panel with a thin piece of ABS black plastic, or remake them completely with some ABS. Beyond the switch panel and starter button hanging out of the middle of the dash, the one wire you see hanging below the steering column is the excess from my AEM uego, which I'll cut out soon. So at the very least I accomplished my initial goal of getting the wiring out of the way. Like I said, once I've finished everything and tucked it all away, they'll be a lot of simple green used to clean spots of the car that haven't seen the light of day since 1993.

I have a small trash bin full to the brim with stuff I've taken out, and it easily weighs 20lbs. That doesn't include the stereo, speakers, all the plastic cut off the dash, the glove box, or the dash vent tubes (which actually weigh next to nothing). the main weight savings was the metal cut from the dash structure and the HVAC unit, which is now manually operated by reaching under the dash, and I've put the fan knob by the dimmer switch (which in the picture is not the final mounting solution). I had some difficulty taking this out of the car on my own and hauling it inside so I could work in the warmth (with my foos ball table as my workbench). But by the end I could lift it easily with one hand and maneuver it in the car even with the top still on.

Attachment 207079

As Cueball has told me before, my car is all about light vs. might. I can't afford MS, a huge turbo, or a 1.8 swap, so this is what I do in the mean time to try and make my car faster.

BTW not that this is an excuse, but this camera is famous for making beautiful things look like shit. Not that this or the rest of my car is anything beautiful, but it looks better than the picture IMO. If you don't like it, :fawk:.

You're my hero.


I'm all about the lightness, regardless of what the naysayers say.

I just took out my PS and A/C, and really felt good about it. I had already taken out the stereo, and the carpet is next.

Good work, looks good even on your camera.

Thanks, stay in school, and don't do drugs.

This was the first big step towards me getting a stripped interior that I actually liked. Technically the first step was getting all four screws in the shift boot to match. Next is painting the e-brake alcove and foot wells (same area a normal floor mat would cover). Possibly with some sort of rhino liner type stuff, for durability and grip when I have wet feet.

So far I have no AC, PS, emissions, jack, spare tire, carpet (including the trunk), momo start with seat belt removed, stripped a lot of the wiring loom down, (my "dream" is to do the entire harness, I can't stand seeing that huge airbag wire in a place my hands can't reach.) there's a bunch more I've done but I can't think of it for some reason. I really need to weigh my car.

cool. I want a dedicated track car with all the shit I have in the green car.

turn off the flash and turn on some diffuse lighting. will de-harsh it some. and prevent dust from looking like gravel.

figured I'd show a quick update. CNC'd a switch panel finally at work, just a simple bolt pattern with a bigger hole for the starter button. Cleaned up a little, sadly these photos don't really show it. Still some wiring to finish cleaning up, as well as a quick and dirty polish job of the panel. Couldn't figure out which picture I liked better, so you guys get both crappy iPhone pictures, enjoy.

Attachment 206883
Attachment 206884

from left to right:

Starter button, kill switch (formally activated by clutch pedal), fans, hazards, lights, acc (only heater and wipers now that the radio is gone), and main ignition.

Going from three to six switches has gotten me a little confused, so I'll probably end up labeling these, possibly with graphics instead of words, we'll see.

where did all the wires go?

What wires are you refering to? For the switches? They're behind the panel. The stereo wiring was all cut out, and the dash harness thinned to only the neccesary wires.

Damn you! I hate to think how fast you are going to be if you ever get some real tires.

For those that don't know, he's running close to spec miata track times on crappy ALL SEASON TIRES!

I want to strip my car bad. :(

lolz, cueball you make me blush. But you forgot to mention street brake pads too :fawk: Not anymore though!

Striped car FTMFW! I love the looks of it, my stupid radio was supposed to be black but had a stupid blue tint to it. Ihated it eveytime I looked at it. No more!

One of my front calipers started leaking fluid when I pushed the piston in as I was swapping in my porterfield rs4 race pads. So now they're coming off to be cleaned up and painted. I'm hoping since I didn't unscrew my master cylinder cap the extra pressure just blew by the seals. At least that's what a buddy said probably happened.

that reminds me, the rs4's I bought didn't come with the metal shims on the back of the backing plate like my hawks did. Do I need these?

no, you don't need them.

you dont

but they may squeal like a pig.

Looks great man. Makes me want to rip out the lower half of my dash.

It's pretty easy once you take it out and stare at it for a few hours, plus the photo's Keith has on his Targa site. Look at your dash, look at his, look at yours, his, yours, his, yours, his. Oh, that's where I cut.

You just need to be willing to get rid of the stereo, speakers, HVAC, interior lights, cig lighter, and dash vents. You'll have to fab up a panel for the hazard/lights up buttons, although if you don't care too much about looks and you reuse the stock buttons, it'd be pretty easy. Getting the curves right and mounting it is the hardest part. I CNC'd mine at work with a fairly precise program, and I'm still not very happy with it. If you cut off the center console right below the vent holes you could keep the vents and buttons and it'd look pretty good still.

I'm off to finish my brake pad install. When I took my caliper apart to paint it I found that the speedbleed valve was squished and probably scrap.

Savington, didn't I sell you my extra set of speed bleeders? Are you having any problems with them? Mine looks like it was screwed in too tight, squishing the little brass valve, and putting a crack on either side of the valve body about 1/4cm long. No bueno.

Lame. No issues here, although I kept my stock bleeders just in case. First inkling of an issue I have with them, the stockers go back in and I'm buying a Motive setup.

I never saw any leaks, except when I opened them up a little, they leaked through the threads a little. I probably over tightened them.

The dust seal on my driver side front caliper ripped when I was putting the piston back in, can you buy these separately? It seems like its glued in, otherwise I'm going to have to buy a new caliper.

Stripped interiors are almost as fun as strippers. BALLER! Welcome to the "stripped the fuck outta my interior" club! :pitlab:

I think you may have stripped it just a wee bit too much though...no steering wheel makes it harder to turn.

Only problem with the stripped interior is now he doesn't want to drive it any distance to track it! We have Portland International Raceway here in town but Pacific and the new Oregon Raceway park are 2+ hours away. 2 1/2 hours of stripped interior driving is about as pleasant as hot waxing your naughty bits. Unfortunately the pain of the driving lasts longer!

WHAT DID YOU SAY?!? I'M SORRY I DROVE MY CAR THIS WEEKEND AND I STILL CAN'T HEAR!