sounds like a plan

sorry to hear about the diff, on a side note, clean looking engine bay!

thanks :)

yep, heh, its open :barf:

turns out that whining sound i was hearing every since i bought the car was the diffs bearings, no more sound :) man i thought that was my tranny for 2 years now. bad bearings probly is what killed the diff i am thinking.

1.6 diffs generally die due to poor lubrication to the pinion bearing. The diff isn't designed that well and the pinion bearing doesn't get enough lube. The bearing wears, you get slack between the pinion and ring, and then you get what you have there.

Love the upper shock mounts. I have a set of M2 mounts that I have been very tempted to convert to somthing similar with a piece of pipe, but worried about strength. After looking at yours I think I may just have to go for it. Did you do any calculations as far as how high to stick the mount, or just go with what looked good?

Considering it shares that same "design" as the 1.8L counterpart that is nearly bulletproof when it comes to adding power, I'm still going to assume it's simply too small of a ringgear to handle torque, plain and simple.

yes i had to look at the size of the bump stop and the length of the shock at full length and look at when i will get coil bind and how much adjustablility i will have on my sleeves. looked like 1.75 high on the pipe was the trick, but i probly could have gone 1.25 and still been fine. i also went with a 6" rear srping instead of the 7" that usually give you for the rear. looking at it now i could have gone 7" but i like the ability to still lower and raise it up.

all 1/8" mild. 1.25" welded bolts to the mount. 1/8" wall tubing and stick welded tubing to top circle peice for extra strength, all else is tig'd. spring perch hat is 3.5" across and the tubing for the 1.75" stretch at the tope is 2.5" od, enjoy :)

ah yes, reminds me of my metal caesar salad, mine was not drivable at all though after it happened. i blew one of the spider gears apart. i also, had an open 1.8 diff chillin in the garage for swap. but i made an oath to myself not to own another open diff... so, i swapped it out with a 1st generation rx7 lsd carrier and 3.90 final drive. much better. this one is holding the abuse just fine. i like how stripped down your car is, its gangsta.

The size of the ring gear doesn't help anything, but considering how many people kill the 1.6 on stock power there is more to it than that.

I got the info about lube problems from a local diff shop that does rebuilds on miata diffs. Apparantly if you take one that hasn't blown appart yet, there is usually a fair bit of wear and slop in the pinion bearing. They replace that bearing, and all the others, and run the diffs on heavier oil. Apparantly after doing that the 1.6 diffs have no problems (of course this rebuild costs nearly as much as a 1.8 diff, so why bother).