Denoobing from the Bay Area
 

Hello forum. Been lurking for awhile and thought it was time to introduce myself. 35 year old in need of a
new hobby. Figured that my 99 10AE needs some TLC under the hood. I have owned the car for
almost 13 years now. Has been my DD for the first half of that time. Acquired a company vehicle so that was no longer
necessary. Fixed my oil leak and swapped my master and slave cylinders. Bought a used hardtop with matching paint and installed security brackets.Car seems fast for mods. So here's my plan.

Avanti Storm S1s with Continental Extremecontact Sports 205/50/15 (Just ordered from tirerack yesterday)
Brake bleed and fluid refresh
Hawk or other grippy pads
Xida Coilover (Deciding between race and adjustable)
Harddog M2 roll bar with single diagonal
Baseline dyno
After that I think the car will be ready to choose a path. Kicking around 3 ideas
Kmiata
Carb legal turbo (If that's a thing. Have gotten some mixed answers.)
N/A with IHE and custom tune from dynotropic ecu reflash.

after I get some HP numbers, install a new clutch and lightweight flywheel to match.

final dyno

I don't have a complete budget, but could easily get away with spending $6k a year
durning the process. I dont think this will be done over night. Along the way I would also like to
rellace most of the exterior body panels. For some reason people love hitting my car and driving off.
I have at least 10 stories regarding this.

So if I could stay street legal and pass smog I may go Kmiata. I have been in contact with them and will be on my own for getting the swap thru a referee. I do know a ref so I can get some tips buts it's all on me.

Wish me luck. If I go Kmiata I will video document it all.

Welcome.

Check out PFC for you pads. They make them to fit the calipers and the "11" pad material is quite good.

Post up some pics.

There's a few of us here in the bay area. :)

A ref'd swap requires smog equipment from the donor, right? Is there an OEM RWD K Miata application that you can transfer the header/cat/etc from?

--Ian

Not sure what you mean Ian. If u mean is there a setup I can borrow to get through a ref, no. I talked to kmiata and there are no carb approved set ups yet. Hence me wanting to be the first. However they did confirm the stock Acura exhaust will fit in the Miata.. Btw, just watched some of your track videos. My pants feel tight.

Let me preface this by saying that I've never actually done it, and everything I know about this comes from reading stuff online and talking to people, so I could be completely wrong. But, as I understand it the rules for engine swaps are:

1) car engines can only go into cars, truck engines only into trucks
2) donor engine must be same year as chassis or newer
3) all smog-related equipment from donor needs to be moved over or use CARB EO'd replacements

1 and 2 are no problems with Ks and Miatas, but 3 is the one that would worry me. A literal reading of the rules makes almost any swap impossible (not going to get a Honda gas tank into a Miata, for example), but even a reasonable one is problematic for K swaps because the cat is clearly an emissions-related part, as is the header and other piping that goes between the head and the cat. Since the K motor was (AFAIK?) only used in transverse, FWD (or possibly AWD) applications, the OEM manifolds & piping are basically all designed to have the cat mounted perpendicular to the engine, which in a Miata means it's going to poke out through the fender. You can swap it for a CARB EO equivalent manifold (if there are any), but since those are all designed to go in the same FWD transverse Honda chassis they have the same problem.

This means that making it legal isn't just taking it to the ref and having him certify it as being a legal engine swap, it means that you need to CARB certify the exhaust plumbing. That's expensive, the figures I've seen for it are $15-20K to have a specialized shop in SoCal do extensive testing on it.

Savington's track videos are much faster than mine. :)

--Ian

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Welcome.

Happy to see another new MT member in the Bay Area.