Bitches all be trying to make me spend money! I agree though, it does look rather ricey.

I didn't get any photos of the aerocatch install, I was trying to get it done fast before I had to go back to work today. Pictures make the angle look weird but it looks great in person.

Didn't have time to bolt it down to the backing plate so it still is a little unfinished.

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1396278302

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1396278302

To be fair, the driver's side TSI will be effective at night with the barn doors open -- especially with the cold air isolation box Jeff built.

The passenger side TSI does nothing but pressurize the engine compartment behind the radiator -- which is bad. Pure rice. But it is symmetrical. :D

Aerocatch look great!. Those turn signals we were talking about are on egay all day long for cheap, i don't remember how much though..

Also, who the hell installed the seats in that car?! The all new Sparco Sprint Pre-Gangster lean edition.

Curly posted the smoked ones.

Not my car, much too pretty. Driver's side appears fine. The passenger is definitely going to appreciate left hand corners more than right.

I agree I'd sell the TSIs and get normal turn signals. Just my 2cents but I also think the smoked turn signals are ricey. I think what would look best is if you bought a set of clear ones and baked them to seperate the lenses from their housings and then painted the chrome inside the housings flat black and reassemble.

There appear to be 2 holes in your bumper

I forgot to fill them prior to sending it off for paint. I'm going to leave it for now. I'd love to get that eunos blue/white emblem but KG Works is ludicrously expensive.

I'll see what my options are price wise on the lights. Not really a "must fix now" item on my list of things to do.

Right now the list is very short. I'm getting extremely giddy at the prospect of being able to drive my car(if everything goes as planned) this weekend. My parents want me to drive the Miata up to their house in Southern Idaho for Easter so that is the new deadline for the car to be finished/titled/insured

-Rewire injector harness for sequential
-Add some flyback diodes to a couple wires
-Connect all inputs to the DB12 connector
-Wire in the TPS IAT connectors for 99 TB
-Make a new skid plate & radiator cowling
-Paint the hardtop
-get an alignment
-tune for new settings.
-Plug TB coolant and intercooler TB IAT bung
-bondo front lip and repaint it. Question is should I match the body color or keep it black.


What are everyones thoughts on a license plate names. I usually hate vanity plates but I thought it'd be fun to do it to this car. Utah Vanity is 5 long, if I can manage to register it as a classic and the normal vanity letters for Utah are 7.

I'm not coming up with anything clever so I'll probably do a normal plate and call it a day.

OCD

DOUGH

For 5 letters: SMURF
If you get 7 letters: RSTBCKT

YEAST

MIA-TIA (from the movie Cars)

I'd definitely leave the lip black. That will chip/scrape for sure. And remember, I'm the one that likes to paint mud flaps.

Scotty, do you have a photo of how this looks finished?

Are the turn signals on the stupidly nice looking blue Miata clear or tinted? They look perfect, the tinted ones I've seen are way too dark. Just asking for a fix-it ticket in Utah

They're tinted i'm almost 99% sure. Look at his sidemarkers, also tinted. Would point to the Depo tinted "full set" that can be had for under $100.


Here's the tinted signals on another blue miata. (Mine.) True darkness on them is somewhere in between the stupidly nice car and my pile of fun. The stupidly nice car was darker in person than it looks in that rather heavily processed picture.

The corners are not ricey looking in person and aren't so dark that you'll get hassled by the po-po-police. On the contrary, the crystal clear signals look ricey as shit in real life. (Second example, the other miata) They look good from afar, but up close, it's painfully obvious that they're cheesy aftermarket lights.

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1395171130


https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1395168947

OK that isn't as bad I thought. I found a ebay listing for front/rear side markers and turn signals for $120. Cheaper than I thought it would be.

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1396295623

Also, yay or nay on painting the Aerocatch LSB? I have a bottle of LSB and clear coat and have been tempted to blend them in more by painting them

I'd probably leave them black in fear of them just chipping after repeated latching.

Leave them black.

I think they look cheesy paint-matched.

In the past I really liked the TSI's but paint matched like that I just don't like it. Another vote for smoked turns.

God damn it I hate you guys so much at times....:vash:

:party:

I vote nay on painting the latches. At least we're saving you work on that. LOL.

It's like you all are the collective Borg sitting in your damn cubes reiterating the rhetoric of, "resistance is futile bitch!"

Or maybe my willpower has the strength of an inflatable packing peanut and you all know it too well.

When has our commentary ever focused on saving Jeff any work? :rofl:

Car will be incomplete with out smoked TSI's & markers

Exactly. You guys get FULL blame for how long the car has taken. I'd be done 2 months ago, but nooooo why don't we just offhandedly suggest something innocuous to the man who will research the shit out of it!

If you can't tell, this is how I say thank you and I appreciate the help, but also that you are partially to blame for the 5 years I've cut off my life expectancy doing this build.

Jeff - please don't ever associate a packing peanut with the inflatable packing material. I do a LOT of shipping and receiving and I have this thing against packing peanuts.

No matter what sized box I get I feel that I need to completely empty the package if it's filled with those idiotic peanuts in fear that I'll be tossing expensive parts into the trash if I don't. Then after I've dumped them all over my office they somehow develop this static force field which renders them nearly impossible to pick up by hand. Even if you try to dump them directly into the trash from the package at least 30% of them somehow end up on the floor... End rant. You may proceed not painting those latches.

I couldn't think of the correct term for the balloon of air. You think packing peanuts are bad? Search raffi paper and then we'll talk.

Also shop vacuums make packing peanuts easy mode.

I looked for this "Raffi Paper" you speak of. The second google photo result was the only thing that resembled what could act as a packing material. ...If this showed up in my package I imagine it would somehow bring me peace, luck and somehow offer a humbling sense that this little Raffi Paper fish has my parts protected.. :giggle:
https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1396299761

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1396302167
Yellow llamas eating sweaters, really ticks me off.
This was the 6th google image result for 'raffi paper'

Moose with Goose
Kiwi with seaweed
Bear with a brush
Fly with a tie
Llama ...eating pajamas?
Whale with ..herpes?

I think its time I got off the internet for today.

Sparkling whale sperm..? Err, sparkling sperm whale, rather.

its a gay whale

a gayle

...Whale with a spotted tail.

Let's start a new thread? "Random keywords that net funny Google Image results".

Back to the build thread Jeff... lol

Keep the TSIs! Block off the passenger one (mine is also blocked off) and call it good.

Bwahahaha! Vlad, you should know this by now, you have a kid

We'll see. 15 day return period so if I like the TSI look better I'll snap ehm back in.

Y'all did a line of artificial sweetener while I was busy. For some reason my rep calls it raffi paper but its really called kraft fill wrinkle cut paper. Its used to fill gift baskets/bags as pretty fluff

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1396311793

It's like glitter, once you open the box it gets everywhere.

I could see that being annoying. I still think it's one better than Packing Peanuts. I even dislike that unpleasant sound of packing peanuts as you aimlessly dig through the abyss.

Finished up the Aerocatch hood pins. Aerocatch makes a great product, it wouldn't hurt them to include bolts that are 5 mm longer though. I was worried about the nuts backing off so I put some blue loctite on to ensure no issues. Also they could include some extra washers too. Things are so damn small that if you drop one it turns into a game of Where's Waldo.

You have to cut through the inner layer of the aluminum so that only the outer hood aluminum is sandwiched between the top and bottom layer. I ran out of dremmel cutting wheels so it isn't a very pretty cut but I'll just put a sticker over the holes later. I also put some blue touch up paint over the cuts and inner layer to church it up a bit.

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1396367375

All closed up. Tolerances are very tight. My brackets were off by about 1mm so I had to bend the top of the hood pins very slightly to ensure it would slide in. People who are worried about rattling can rest easy, I have to push down on the hood a little to let the catch pin slide through the vertical pin and after pulling on the hood hard and shaking it there wasn't one MM of movement.

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1396367375

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1396367375

Also, I bought my Aerocatch latches from Flyin' Miata. They include 4 Locking washers for the top and bottom of the hood pins ensuring they won't loosen.

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1396368243

I love those Aerocatch latches I just can't justify them on anything I currently own. They really are so much nicer that "hood pins" though they can get a bit fiddly to operate. I always seemed to have trouble with the ones on Crusher but they may have been a little tweaked becauseracecar. I think someone yanked on one of them in the heat of the moment and bent it slightly over-center on the little internal linkage arm thing (if you've ever worked with these you will know exactly what I mean.) Keep them clean and you should have no problems.

Not that you wouldn't keep them clean, but you know what I mean :rofl:

Yep! Nordlocks I believe? They also include those in 8mm with some of their turbo parts. I have them plus K-nuts on my outlet elbow -> downpipe connection.

If I was to do it again I would just put the stock hood latch back on. Epic levels of aluminum grinding means it gets EVERYWHERE. Plus it took forever to install them and adjust them properly. Probably about 6 hours total, I'm sure I could cut that time in half but I always take my time the first time I install something. You couldn't fit a piece of paper in between the hood hole and the latch so no chance of anything moving and causing premature failure.

Congrats on the 1,000th post BTW. You've gotten more done in your 1k than my 3.3k :facepalm:

I honestly woke up today expecting to see a post from Jeff saying he lost interest and was going to part the car out. You know..... for April Fool's....

1k posts and 6 months to build a Miata from scratch(except for engine work). Not too shabby if I may say so myself.

I barely know what day of the week it is as of late!

Looks great. Honestly, my hood latch rattles and is starting to wear away the metal "latch" that's built into the hood. Gotta find a way to fix that, hopefully without hood latches :giggle:.

Looking great though!

Please even out that hood-to-headlight gap.

Shit now I cant stop looking at it LOL

I've tried a lot of stuff to close the gap up but the headlight cover won't bend very much more. Maybe smaller washers to give the metal tabs more room to bend, not sure.

====

Cut little Roman David's dicks off the TB and put a plugged them up.

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1396376927

Forgot I bought a new factory undertray so I trimmed the side to clear the intercooler hose. Waiting to do the cold side till I can bolt the I.M. back on(waiting on injector connectors)

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1396376927

Thinking of cutting the tabs off the bumper and then making a little piece out of ABS plastic and extend it to the screw holes for the front lip. Will making just a flat piece be enough to seal up the engine bay? The only reason I haven't considered bending it 90 degrees up into the bay is that the intercooler hose is right in the way.

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1396376927

Hello DP my old friend

Keep the progress influx coming, this thread is one of my daily checked interweb items during my work downtime.

:bowrofl:
Someone please sig quote this.

I got the 9" wide filler piece to help seal the undertray and help with radiator flow all done. Screws look weak I know but on the upper piece I widened the hole and added metal screw fasteners so it has a solid mounting point rather than plastic-to-plastic.

Once I got it screwed in I used a heat gun to help the plastic stay curved rather than under tension.

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1396407358

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1396407358

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1396407358

Have you tried wrapping a bit of duct tape or aluminum tape around the latch a few times? Ghetto fab fix but it worked on my old Subaru's door latches.

Anyway you can seal the sides of that filler piece? That's spilling a lot of air that should be going through your IC and radiator.

I'm trying to find a good way to but with the intercooler piping coming out horizontally right where the curve would normally go up it is making it hard to.

How well sealed does the bay need to be for efficient radiator cooling? Would adding a piece of ABS on the sides of the intercooler-to-radiator help or does the entire bay need to be thoroughly sealed?

Maybe cut a 3" hole to pull the pipe through the vertical pieces? I don't have an engineers brain like you are fortunate to have Rick.