I guess I didn't take into account your ECU choice with the sequential question haha. I only ask because I did a lot of work to keep mine sequential for a while (diy fabco solenoid rack) but eventually went non-sequential at the end of the day with mine when something went wrong again later on. I don't know what power I ended up with but pushing 12+psi on the stock turbos (even with a ported wastegate it would creep a little) definitely maxed out the stock injectors, probably pushed the duty cycle further than I should have, so you may wanna just toss some slightly bigger injectors while your in there if you can for now.

 

Did you have a fuel pump rewire? I've purchased the kit, and a 255 pump, in hopes that I can keep fuel voltage/pressure from dropping, a known issue on the stock wiring. I will consider a secondary injector upgrade though, maybe leaving the OE primarys for idle/cruise. Thanks for the input!

How did you like the car non-sequential (vs sequential) since you've tried both? How'd the car feel at 12+psi? Should be in the 300+ whp territory.

 

I did have a fuel pump, but the power fc was showing 95+% duty cycle on the injectors which was concerning. That very well could have been more fuel than it needed, but I sold it pretty soon thereafter so I just let the next owner know not to push it until it got tuned/maybe turn the boost down a hair.

It felt pretty good non-sequential still. I did prefer sequential but at that point for me it was not worth keeping. 12psi was enough extra kick to feel good on the stock turbos too.

 

Continuing the wire wheeling I came across another rust spot, this one on the seat belt anchor:



It was big enough that I felt like the only option was to cut it out, learn how to weld, and patch it. PIcked up a little flux core harbor freight welder and gave it a shot.

https://www.harborfreight.com/easy-f...der-57861.html




Not too bad in there once I got the rusty spot out.





This **** was paper thin, not really a flux core's forte. Or my forte, I have no idea what I'm doing. But some youtube and testing gave me confidence to send it, I couldn't make it any worse.

Pretty much just tack welds all the way around + grinder to get it looking decent.


Re purposed the seatbelt nut:


Made a new seatbelt bracket.



They aint pretty, but good penetration at least.



I'm pretty happy with that. Acceptable, and I trust it for the belt anchor. It's getting undercoated soon so not too worried about looks. I did grind the welds down a bit to smooth things out before undercoating.

 

Hell yeah dude! Props for picking it up and sending it with the welder after just watching some vids on it.

inb4 custom fab'd parts start showing up on the Miata.

 

Ha, thanks man. I'll have to post up some pics, I was able to lay some fairly nice beads on some thicker steel plates. But that 22GA sheet metal the flux just tears through if you try and lay a bead, so I basically did a bunch of tack stitch welds to get it in there. I've got some more sheet metal repair to do, including some projects on the miata (needs a new battery tray, and the triumph needs an exhaust) so my "fab" work will definitely be making more appearances.

I certainly ain't no welder but happy to have this thing to be able to fix stuff that was previously impossible to me.

 

Overhead 22 gauge flux core for your first welding project. Nice!
Stitch welding is really the only way to do something that thin with a wire feed. Even if you could, you wouldn't want to lay a continuous bead due to warpage.

 

I keep telling myself I'm almost done. I'm not, but it helps. That said, I do think I'm done with the worst part of the chassis, overhead angle grinder with a wire wheel is dangerous, and it sucks painting upside down. Well really everything sucks under here, the quickjacks make this bearable but I can't wait to have a real lift.

A few shots of what we're dealing with. Fortunately no more holes were found, this was all surface rust and came off fairly easily:









After what felt like endless hours of wire wheeling:







Suited up to start painting.


Masked off:


Failed to take a pic of it primed. But the gray is the same corrosion inhibiting primer that is intended for use with the raptor liner.



Finished product. I'm just doing it in digestible sections. Next will be the engine bay:









All said and done my repair doesn't look to terrible. Totally happy with this.

 

Heck yeah dude! Lotta work but the final before and after pics are gonna be so satisfying to see!

I've got an area on the roof of my van that the PO hit and subsequently bondo'd. The bondo cracked at some point and I can see trails of rust coming out from underneath it. I'm gonna tackle that project next week. Never knew about Ospho or corrosion-inhibiting primer before this thread. Will definitely be grabbing both of those for the repair. Thanks for inadvertently turning me on to them!

 

Haha, glad I could help! I've learned more than I've ever hopes to about rust products. Will come in handy on some of my other projects though.

I did pull the bumper on this thing and it wasn't too bad under there! Good stuff. Also mocked up this hot boi bumper that came with the car and I think I have to run it. It's in better shape than the oe one that came on it and tbh I like it.




Also, pretty impressive meltage from the oil cooler. Ive seen this once before on the legendary BenR's miata, but that was after track laps on a supercharged b6. Rotarys are great for making heat, cooling mods to come!

 

FD with good bumpers and skirts are God-tier. Run it, but you have to get skirts.

 

+1 on the bumper cover. If it were a Miata, I might say nay. But like Stock said, bumpers and skirts on an FD are killer!

Make sure to grab a bunch of 2000s tuner company decals to slap on the fenders and doors too.



In all seriousness, I support the aftermarket bumper.

 

Yeah, I'm still working on this. Feeling good about the progress but definitely tedious. Not pictured, now that it's painted (I actually painted the subframe too already), I've started bolting some basic parts back on. New clutch master, and rebuilt the brake master. Minor **** like that, but damn it feels good to be putting some parts back on this thing.

The gray again is an epoxy corrosion inhibiting primer. The color match is in a can, and actually matches pretty well. I should have done a better base coat because you can see some of the different colors in the right light under the montego blue, but whatever. Like I said this is absolutely not supposed to be a show tier resto, I just want a driver that isn't hideous underneath. Literally the level of my miata is the goal for it (chassis wise), which is far from perfect but soooooo clean compared to this.

Anyways I'll keep grinding and keep y'all posted. Also hoarding parts, I've got a bunch more random **** to go on it. Fluidyne OEM location rad, Petit racing SMIC intercooler, 99 spec wing to go with this bumper. All new brake parts (gotta refurb the calipers though), etc.

 

That's pretty heavy-handed right there

More cats given.

 

HELL YEAH FD BUDDYYYYYYY

That clutch looks brand new. They're very thin when they're new unfortunately. They don't slip very well, but, I street drove one for a while and they could definitely be worse.

 

THANK YOU for that. It looked new to me too, but so thin i was skeptical. Now I feel much better about running it. Surely overkill for stock twins but assuming all goes well with the motor break in I have plans for a single setup. You have an FD too?

 

I do, I had a 93 touring that I sold a couple years ago (that had the same clutch brand new in it when I got it) and then eventually acquired a 93 R1 which is a work in progress. I'm trying not to go as far as you have started here, but, who knows how that'll go. The R1 has a motor that's full of coolant right now, I'm in the process of pulling that to investigate. I'll probably make a build thread eventually.

 

Parts are actually going back on the car, and it feels great.

So the brake MC was leaking, to be honest I usually just replace these when they leak on any car I've had. However, for the FD they are like $450, so yeah, nah.

A rebuild kit was $140, also a bit steep but I could deal with that. However, after reading a few threads it turns out that you can buy a 626 MC which is also a 1", and the guts are identical to mine. So I ordered a 1995 MAZDA 626 Cardone MC for $22 on rock auto. Not pictured, but I had the guts of the MC side by side and compared everything, and yeah, 100% identical and measured out the same with my calipers. So the rebuild was super easy, just clean the inside out and in goes the new guts.





I also installed a walbro 255HP along with the fuel pump rewire, basically bigger gauge wires from the bulkhead down, then on the chassis side (not yet installed) is a wire that goes straight to the battery, and a relay to kick it on. This should fix the dreaded voltage drop which can cause fueling issues.




So much time has gone into cleaning up all the little pieces. I wish I had better pics but anywhere you see silver here, was straight up rust. Thanks to Evaporust for making this do-able.





Brake and clutch MC's installed. The clutch MC is brand new exedy unit, reasonably priced thank god. Also notice the chase bays braided clutch line that replaces the stock rubber/curly-q setup. Similar to a miata.



And again, dirty *** control arms. I had already painted the rust-*** heat shields, but these needed cleaning up badly. Ended up going with a nylon wheel instead of the wire wheel to try and not scar them up. Then elbow grease with degreaser + scotch bright, then finally wd40 + scotch bright for the finish.



Good 'nuff:



In the quest to kill all the rust, I hand painted with a tiny painbrush the ABS fittings. Didn't have a good before pic but you can look back in this thread. It stuck out like a sore thumb and was the last remaining rust in the bay.



Also note the SUPERPRO poly rack bushings (and painted rack/subframe). It's dirty in these pics from wire wheeling some more misc ****, but cleans up great.

 

Hmmm, that 626 master looks like a close match to the later NB Sport brake master cylinder. There's lots of talk of swapping to a 929 master cylinder, but the outlets are on the opposite side and I don't feel like dealing with a $100+ master cylinder and modifying my car to suit. I wonder if the 626 could be swapped as well.

Awesome work you're doing! Thanks for sharing it with us.

 

DAAAAAMN dude! That’s looking very nice. The amount of time it takes to clean parts like that is huge.