Timing belt looks awfully loose.

As an aside; cabin gets very hot driving on warm days, looking at ways to get some cool airflow. Any suggestions?

 

Everything at the firewall, front floor and tunnel needs to be insulated and closed off from the cabin. For example, hot air does flow from the engine to the tunnel, and then can escape out at the bottom. If you insulate or block off at the firewall it cools things down. Tim Whittaker is also making an air inlet for his car--apparently the Cobras he works on run hot too.







Air inlet goes to a pocket under the cowl, complete with drainage tube. The air can be sent wherever it's wanted.

 

From the swirl pot down to the radiator.





From the radiator into the water pump





The Kia outlet sends the hot water over to the swirl pot, the highest point of the system.





Hot water comes in, swirls around, and exits hopefully with fewer air bubbles. A temperature sensor sits at the bottom of the pot.





A custom fan shroud holds two 12" no name fans.

 

First fitment of the aluminum trunk prototype





It will have some space added to the rear portion, along with a flange to close the gap in the back.





Always remember to take your jack to the race track.

 

Perpetual motion machine!

Also I should really buy a windshield and a trunk container. Any thoughts on timelines of the trunk being available to purchase?

 

Is the swirl pot a purchased item? If so, can you post the info?

 

The swirl pot is a custom item. If there was enough interest I'd make a Miata-specific unit, but they're just not cheap to make. There are a few overflow tanks on Ebay that can be used as a "starter-kit" for a swirl pot. You'd just need someone who can strategically weld on a couple 1.25" tubes.

 

As you can see we've just started on the trunk. That aluminum buck was taken out and has already seen some "adjustments" via a band saw. In order to make a one piece fiberglass mold (our goal), there needs to be enough draft in the part so that it can be taken out of the mold once it's finished. This trunk had some small creases that would have trapped it in the mold. Once that's fixed, it moves on to the fiberglass mold-making stage. Your rear trunk lid will need to be "amended" in order to make a trunk, like this:

 

The trunk has some flanges now so it can be connected to the other pieces. Perhaps has striker plate will mount on the rear flange so we can hinge the trunk.



This is just a test-fit of the dash. The gauges will mount onto that blank aluminum plate. Right now I'm looking at a four gauge setup with Oil, Tach, Speed, and Water, from left to right. Volts, Fuel and maybe an AFR gauge will reside above the transmission tunnel.

 

Sometimes when you build a new part for a 25 year old engine package, you either feel very smart or very foolish. Usually after the crowd at MT.net gets done with you, it's the latter.

There's more than a few "coil near plug" mounts for the LS engine on Fleabay, and I picked one up, along with some truck coils. As there's no room behind the engine to mount them, I thought this solution was pretty cool. Thoughts?








Aluminum mount for the coil packs. Note the nice oil line routing (heat shield coming).





Coils in place.





Closeup. This might end up looking like spaghetti, but at least everything will be accessible.

 

I think it is acceptable.

 

Everything looks great to me.

 

Is the stainless oil line going to rub against the firewall and frame tube like that in the final design?

 

Would that coil mount work with VVT?

 

Not with the stock VVT hardline. Switching to use to a -4an line like FM does for their coil packs should work fine.

 

My concern thus far as well

 

I could shorten the hose a bit, but I think what we're going to do is add shrink tubing to the area that touches the firewall. Heat shield sleeving is going on already, so it will be done at the same time.

I would have missed that one...

 

Just needs a couple cusion clamps holding it to the sheet metal or something.

 

I'd at least try to fit a clamp or two somewhere to restrain it.

Any time anything rubs against anything inside an engine compartment, regardless of what the things are wrapped in, something is going to abrade first. If you're lucky, it's not the thing which contains a hot, pressurized, flammable liquid.