All of this has happened before...
 

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Nice, the body looks like its in good shape...

looks good! what year is it?

Does it make the Kessel Run in less than twelve parsecs?

Details, man. Details!

aidz paint.

once you get those gold lamé seat covers in, it'll be SO SWEEET.

Yeah, if you ignore the dents, the rust, and the places where the paint is literally falling off, it's actually in pretty good shape. :D

Seriously though, if ever there was a candidate for a $50 roll-on paint job, this car is it.

The top... holy cow is that thing ever destroyed. I drove it home the first night with the top up, and it came off. The frame is still attached to the car, but the vinyl sort of isn't. :rolleyes:


It's a bone stock (read: smog legal) '90 with 206,xxx miles and a shortnose crank.

What absolutely amazes me is that everything on it works. It starts on the first turn, idles perfectly, passed its emissions test by such a wide margin that I thought the dyno was broken, the tranny is smoother than the one in my '92 (which, I admit, has lived a hard life) hell, even the A/C blows cold.

The horn does not work, nor does the windshield squirter. The inside left tie rod end is loose (replacement on order from Rock), and the right front wheel bearing has some play in it (got one from a '99 on the bench.) But aside from that, the damn thing is in mechanically perfect condition.

Now I remember why the Japs got such a reputation back in the late 80s / early 90s for building reliable cars. It's because they did. Damn shame that they lost the recipe.

Feels weird as hell, though. Not just the fact that it has no torque, but little shit, like the fact that there's no gauge to tell me what the AFR is, and I can't datalog anything. I'd forgotten what a stock car feels like! Dammit, I don't trust the ECU, I need to see the data!

Sidebar: you know you're spoiled when you think that the stock suspension on a Miata (which was pretty much universally acclaimed by the mainstream press back in the day as being awesome) sucks.



It's funny. Part of me wants to keep the flaky Earl Schieb sparkle-teal paintjob on general principle, the other half wants to paint the car bright pink and put a giant Hello Kitty sticker on the hood ala the late-70s Firebird.



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So what are the plans for the car? DD?

Am I the only one seeing Adama, Solo, Alec Guinness, and some old guy? Or have I missed a thread with other pictures.

Joe, about the washer reservoir: I'm sure it's at the bottom of your list, but mine was plugged up when bought, and the motor just pops out of the bottom of the reservoir. It comes apart, cleans, and reassembles easily. Just a little m.net tidbit for ya.

yes it is a unit of distance but you have to account for the navigational anomoly of the MAW wich was essentialy a huge cluster of black holes just out of reach of kessel. So essentialy Hans ship was so fast that it skimmed a black hole singularity and pulled out intact, with out the spice but intact at any rate. When this is factored in it is quite impressive.

Isn't it obvious what the plan is for the car. MOAR BOOOOOST!!!!:laugh:

This thread. It is going places.


Delete this post if the information doesn't need to be out there...but is this your yearly smog passer that allows the Jessica build to proceed? I know little about Cali regs, besides that they suck.

This may be the most intelligible post ever by magna.

No kidding.

I read that this morning and thought:

"Who the fuck are you? And what did you do with mangina?"

maybe he's back on meds?

this is what I've been saying for light years!

The "old guy" is the Guardian Hybrid, who was the one that prophesied that "All of this has happened before, and it will all happen again."

(He also said something bout Kara being the harbinger of death and leading humanity to its end. I'm hoping that doesn't happen here.)

The other guy is Col. Fisk, reacting to the fact that his XO was just shot in the head by the captain for refusing to follow a suicidal order.


When I pull on the stalk, it's not triggering the wipers to do their usual "one slow pass" either, so I'm gussing it's a bad electrical contact somewhere. But yeah, this is on this list somewhere below fixing the suspension, replacing the wheel hub, getting some fish tacos, mailing my tax return, and arguing with Hyper about something.




You, my friend, are a nerd.

(Also, that picture was from the Family Guy "Blue Harvest" special, in which Chris spoke those words in response to Han's boasting, which caused Han to shush him and move on.

Damn you for planting this idea in my head. I hadn't even considered it until now...

The intent is that this is the new Daily Driver that allows the Red car to be sold. I'm not quite sure what to do with Jessica at this point. It may end up in the '90, I may sell it in pieces, or I may build it and sell it as a built motor. Accepting offers.

But the overall plans have changed pretty significantly. This is not the shape of things to come. I'm not getting out of Miatas entirely, but the next project car is going to be... different. :D



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Dont blame me for the sudden coherence the new GF has had a positive influence on me i get to talk alot more and not to myself. woot

What IMDB says about the parsecs comment:

Incorrectly regarded as goofs: When telling Obi-Wan and Luke how fast the Millennium Falcon is, Han says it "made the Kessel run in under 12 parsecs." A parsec is not a measure of time. It is a measure of distance (approximately 3.26 light years or just over 19 trillion miles.) However, he was actually referring to the shorter route he was able to travel by skirting the nearby Maw black hole cluster, thus making the run in under the standard distance.


However, I can remember looking this up a decade ago on IMBD and they said that Lucas put it in there to show that Han didn't know what the hell he was talking about. I am not sure where either one of those explanations came from.


Star Dudes:
http://download.theforce.net/theater...stardudes.html



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I can't believe I watched this three times. :giggle:

First post was awesome. I admire the creativity. Looking forward to seeing what it do what it do.

I dont believe the Maw was mentioned until Jedi search where Han and Chewie go to Kessel and meet Kyp Durron etc in the spice mines. This is also the introduction to admiral Daala as well,(cheif of state Daala depending on how far down the time line you are :P) This time line is also somewhat covered in I Jedi as well. To show off more star wars nerdness

You never told me you could read...

I'm staying tuned, and hoping it's something that will showcase some of the capabilities of the MSIII, as well as some awesome JP fabwork. You did know the MS3 has 8 injector drivers right?

Is this going to be the car that showcases Joe's ideas on supercharging properly?

Joe, a car with a bad convertible top was how Red Beast started. I was too cheap to replace it so I removed it instead. If you had ever driven a 1900 pound turbo'd Miata you would know what you are missing. Just saying....

Some miata parts on this, I reckon?

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The goal for this car is just to keep it stock and reliable and use it as a DD.

I am thus far on track for that goal. A new top has been ordered ($199 no-zip special) as well as the bare minimum of service parts I need to feel comfortable- one inner tie rod end, some Redline CV7 and a couple of caps, a valve cover gasket, a water pump and timing belt kit, and a couple of engine seals. I have no immediate plans to spend more money that that, apart from maybe replacing the radio with one that plays MP3s.

That is one of the options currently being considered.

The only real problem I have with it is that the engine and transmission being in the front causes the driver's space to be rather cramped, specifically the footwell. I can probably mitigate that to a degree by fabricating a dropped forward floorpan (to match the rear section) though I'd still like to be able to have a dead pedal, which the Westie simply won't accommodate.

Putting the engine behind the driver would solve that problem.

It sure would.

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Hell, I think that could fix a LOT of problems. Might even save my marriage.

As sweet as that is, I really like the 32 hot rod kit they have.

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See any poly boat paint colors you like? Want to see your typically thorough documentation of a roll on paint job on that thing.

Japanese cars used to last forever since they were underpowered and simple. Think about how good the early rwd corollas and the like were. Tough to be simple with modern amenities and safety gear. Hell the cheesiest Kia you can buy has 6 air bags, ac, satelite radio, ipod jack, stability control, abs, tire pressure monitoring, bluetooth and on and on.

The new car needs racelands, boat paint, 949's new cheap wheel, home depot racing lips, ebay catback/header, etc. Your new build should be a LS1 miata!

The GTM is pretty interesting, though I'm partial to the look of the SL-C and the Ultima GTR:

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A couple of problems with these cars, though.

First, they're heavy. Every one of 'em weighs a ton.

Second, they're expensive. The Porsche G50 gearbox alone typically sells for over $5,000. Total finished cost on those cars regularly exceeds $50k. And well, they're superars. You have to maintain a much higher standard, or they just come off looking cheap. Bare aluminum and exposed rivets are OK on a Seven or an Exocar. With a supercar, you're damn near obligated to make everything out of CF, or cover it in hand-stitched ostrich leather.


No, I want to do something simpler, lighter, cheaper. The Westie is pretty close, I'm just thinking that in the long-run, I might be unhappy about the physical driver accommodations. In the picture which was linked to above, you can see my boots lying on the floor behind the car. Even in my bare feet, it was tight. Dropping the floor will help some, but it's not going to buy me any space beside the clutch pedal to rest my left foot.

(For reference, I wear size 14 shoes, so my problems in this regard are probably not typical of most users.)


I've been researching it. I'd probably splurge and spend an extra $20 on a cheap spray gun to hopefully reduce the amount of sanding required.

The other side of the coin, however, is that a part of me actually likes the way the car looks, what with the paint faded and falling off. It makes the car look like something that thieves (and the police) need not even concern themselves with. I will be removing the stupid little wing on the back...



Well, it's a mixed bag.

My '87 Celica GT was a piece of shit, quite frankly. Now, granted, that car had lived a very hard life. But the transmission always ground into second, the shifter felt like it was coupled to the gearbox with two pieces of wet rope, the engine liked to knock under heavy load, it wept fluid out of every possible orifice, the suspension sucked harder than Hustler's mom, and I'm pretty sure that they borrowed the design of the steering rack from a schoolbus.

And, of course, not everything that Mazda put their name onto in that era was pure gold, either. A friend of mine in college had an older 323, and even though it had been reasonably well taken care of (semi-regular oil changes, etc) that car still devoured its own transmission, and ultimately blew a head gasket. She wasn't really pleased with the overall ownership experience.


Racelands are sitting on the shelf. wheels and tires will be coming off the '92. No racing lips, no exhaust mods, paint is about a 50/50 decision right now.

Once all is said and done, it may end up with a V8. But that decision is a very long way off. For now, it's just the beater.

I think a raged out Ultima would be sweet. Put a no fear sticker and a gun rack on it.

I'd pay a lot of money for a few minutes in this thing... I'm fairly certain I could write it off as a religious contribution...