adamiata

iTrader: (1)

Hi There,

My name is Adam and I'm a 31 year old mechanical engineer from New Hampshire. Working the shitty minimum wage jobs you get when you're a teenager, I scraped up enough money buy my '90 Mariner Blue in the May of 2000 for $4500 with 54K miles on it. I've spent 14 years and 70,000 miles with the car, learning a lot along the way. For a long time it was my daily driver with some light modifications for autocross, before falling into disuse and storage over the last couple years.



Last year I tore the car apart, did a bunch of bodywork, and repainted it in my garage. It currently runs and drives under its own power, but I'll need to spend some time tying up all the loose ends I'm sure to find once I get a plate on.



Future plans include a wideband, Megasquirt, bigger injectors, COPS, clutch, 1.8 diff, and eventually a turbo with 200 WHP. I daily drive an '07 Forester XT, and I'd like the Miata to offer a similar kick in the pants. More broadly, I have a lot of sentimental value in the car, so anything I do will be with long-term durability kept in mind. If it ended up as a part-out thread, I'd be very sad.

I've been lurking here for some time and I've collected a lot of good information and entertainment already, so thanks for that. I read over Corky Bell's book and I have a copy of the DIYYautotune guys' EFI book on the way.

Current aftermarket stuff:
-Hard Dog Sport DD roll bar
-FM / KYB AGX
-Poly suspension bushings
-Borla exhaust
-Old Ronal wheels with old-*** Azenis

I've also got a spare '91 motor, 5-speed, end rear and lying around from a parts car I had.

AlexL

Nice work. Shame about the '90 chassis, is the 1.6 still healthy? Paint looks great for a garage job.

adamiata

iTrader: (1)

Thanks. For the paint I was just using a Nason single stage with a Harbor Freight gun. It took 3 goddamn tries and a shitload of wetsanding because I didn't know what I was doing.

The motor is pretty healthy. I changed the timing belt myself several years ago at 120k and I've got no crank wobble. Tested compression last summer, I don't remember what the actual numbers were, but it was nothing alarming.

Braineack

iTrader: (62)

adamiata, congrats on signing up at the best site on the web!