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Picked up this car about 5 months ago. It was in OK shape and I didn’t really have many plans for it when I got it. I have a second daily car so I don't need to drive this everyday, so I figured, lets make thing a little more fun and a little less reliable, mostly just for street driving and taking me to different mountain bike trails in Southern California
I like everything to be in working order before I set onto the next project so I took care of little things like oil leaks, missing interior bits, a cracked dash, clutch hydraulics/lines, basic maintenance. I mean it when I say I like everything to work as it should.
I've never done this sort of project but I've done basic maintenance on my own cars, and done some mechanical/fab on older motorcycles (70s hondas) and have a short background in Automotive electrical engineering . I’ll be doing all the work in a one car garage.
I've been reading this board quite a bit since I got the car, so I felt it was time for me to contribute. I'll probably be more productive if I have this thread going. I was originally going to do an mkturbo build but a barely used FM kit popped up and I impulse bought it.
The car as it sits today:
-6 speed MSM trans
-Rota wheels
-Healthy 1.8L motor
-DIYPNP Megasquirt (running batch injection)
-AEM UEGO wideband
-1.6 Dash swap
-Hard dog Roll bar
-Sparco Sprint bucket seat/ harness
-MOMO steering wheel
-AC/PS are in the car and will stay in it
-Big aluminum radiator
-BC Racing BR Coilovers w/ swift springs
The car currently runs on my own tune fairly well. Idle with AC on needs a little work, and warm startup could use improvement but I will wait until I setup sequential injection before I dive much further.
Parts I've ordered:
-The majority of a Flyin Miata FM2 kit
-Garrett 2560
-EV14 Injectors
-FM Intercooler
-Full 3" FM exhaust
-Transistors for Seq. injection – who on here runs trubokitty.com? thank you
Future list:
Hardtop
Some type of boost control
Clutch – Im thinking Flyin Miata FM1 w/ OEM flywheel currently
Brakes? – Probably the final upgrade, hopefully I’ll be able to source something used but I need to research this more
Dyno tune
Cooling mods – another thing I have to research more. Will likely build my own undertray as the stock one is missing. Maybe a coolant reroute in the future but I really don’t want to do it with the motor in the car. I’ll see how warm it runs later in the game. Again, more research
So hello! thanks for the reading
Last edited by dc2849; 10-04-2017 at 11:35 PM.
Reason: numbers
Succesfully had the car running with seq. injection using the info from trubokitty. Low RPMs were noticibly smoother than batch, so I do recommend it.
I received my FM kit from a terrible seller in several packages over a few weeks. It was frustrating but I got it all together.
I also picked up a hardtop. It looked to be in great condition when I looked at it. The only thing was it came with the incorrect hardtop brackets (ones for a snugtop). A few days later i found that they used the wrong size brackets to cover up stripped/drilled/self tapped holes at the original mounting points. After weighing my options I decided to try filling the holes with jb weld and drilling and tapping them. I wasnt sure how it would go.
Clever huh? I was not pleased.
Before:
Added JB weld:
Tapped:
So far it seems OK. not ideal, but it should work. Worst case is i use self tappers into the jb weld.
Here's a shot of the mini 1 car garage im working in:
Currently I have the car on 11.8 psi wastegate. Im trying to decide if I should lower the wastegate and use a MBC i have..
Things to do:
-Relocate gauges to A-pillar. I made such a nice peice to mount the gauges above the radio, but its so difficult to utilize them there
-Remove Airbag module behind dash - the lights keep coming back
-Replace clutch
-Fix my damn window finally