Gawd damn! :likecat:

Lighting for the new garage is taking shape:

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1449510326
https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1449510326

High-lift conversion for the garage door should be happening this week -- really hoping to move in before xmas...

--Ian

smexy

More in-progress shots of the garage. High-lift in, walls are primered, final coat goes on tomorrow, moving in on Sunday.

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1450426597

--Ian

Looks great, the light colored walls make a big difference in how bright the place is.
Did you run comp air under the drywall? Air hose and power reels make life easy.
Now the lift install... Nice shop

Hm, no, I didn't think to put air piping under the drywall. Probably would have been a good idea, but oh well. :)

Lift is still sitting on the trailer, under a tarp. I'll put it up once we're moved in and settled, sometime after the holidays probably.

--Ian

Spending the weekend packing/moving. Dug out my collection of old, used brake rotors -- I think there's about 300 pounds of scrap iron here, definitely *not* going to the new house.

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1450562237

Miata in its new home!

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1450562237

--Ian

Be glad you didn't. Pipes will leak, almost all the time, and if they don't for some short amount of time, its only another short amount of time before they do. I would hate to pull dry-wall to fix.

Garage looks nice. Lighting solution is quite plentiful, always nice having enough light, sucks not having enough.

I dig the lighting! Very cool garage :bigtu:

No real updates on my car -- the past few weeks have been consumed with moving, crazy stuff at work, and the holidays.

TK brought his dashboard display over to test out on Saturday though. it works!



(Note: the reason the AFR stays at 14.7 the whole time is I didn't leave it running long enough to turn off the "ignore it for the first N seconds of operation" feature).

--Ian

Who is this Tk person? i feel like they and I should chat...

Very cool much want. I'm right in the middle of getting all my canbus stuff hooked up.

TK is Chris, you met him at Laguna.

--Ian

Any chance you could get TK/Chris to share his code? I think I have all the hardware for the display project lying around, but am too lazy to code.

Ian's gonna get the first one. :)

After that I'll github it, and maybe sell some ready-to-run kits with fancy faceplates if there's enough interest.

The github part gets a cat

Today was a lift-raising party!

Bend-pak ships the lift with the two runways forming the top and bottom of a package, a steel spacer on either end, and all the other stuff in between. With most of the packaging removed it looks like this:

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1452504818

To set it up, you put all four posts in roughly the right location, then slide the cross-beams inside the posts. Then you put a "ladder" bar into each one, it has holes in it for the safety catches.

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1452504818

Although if your ceiling isn't high enough, you need to lie them down to do this.

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1452504818

The runways are big and heavy, an engine hoist is the right answer for moving them around. You also want a lot of help. :)

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1452504818

Then I forgot to take any pictures for a while -- that interval included running a cable down each post, around various pulleys, and attaching them to the hydraulic ram that's mounted under one of the runways. Also mounting the motor and pump on one post, running hydraulic and air lines to the ram and the safety catches, and assorted other things. POOF it was night and it was working.

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1452504818
https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1452504818
https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1452504818

Some thoughts:

- Bend-pak needs to find a better supplier of zerk fittings, 3 out of 4 on the main posts were broken when we unpacked it, and another broke while trying to grease one of the pulleys.

- As of right now, the cables are about an inch too short to set the runways on the ground when it's all the way down. I'm told that the cables will stretch with time though, so perhaps this just requires patience.

- Putting the Miata on the lift is... interesting. Due the lift being positioned at the entrance to the garage, and the slope of the driveway, it high-centers on the breakover angle. Adding some short 2x4s on the deck helped until we adjusted the cables to try to make everything level, which resulted in raising bit at the front of the garage by 3/4 inch. As of right now, it needs 2x4s under both front and back wheels to clear the breakover.

- We put one of the roller jacks on the runways and ran it back and forth. It also needs the Miata on 2x4s to go underneath it, and even with that there isn't enough clearance to get the lifting pads onto the jackpoints. I think I can lift it using the center bar on the roller jack to lift on the frame rail braces. What idiot set the ride height on this car, anyway?

- The ceiling is 9 foot 4 inches, and without the hardtop the Miata is about 46 or 47 inches high. My calculations said that was enough that if the rollbar was brushing the ceiling, I could walk under it, but this turns out to be overly optimistic. The safety latch positions are 4 inches apart, and you need about 2 inches of space above the car to release the latches before it can go down again. We ran it up as high as we dared, Chris could walk under it, but I couldn't. Ah well, I did everything I could to increase the clearance that didn't involve a backhoe and/or completely re-engineering the roof structure on the garage.

--Ian

This is the place you've been going to, yeah? Synergy Auto Works
I'm always a little suspicious of a buisness with a facebook page but no website :vash:

I'm looking to do a baseline, post MS(and injectors and pump), and then post turbo run...

Sav recomended Mustang Ranch (but they seem to not be in business anymore) or Turbohoses in Livermore , but I'd rather not drive all the way out there :sad2:

Edit:
More details on the center jack on your lift? Who ever assembled my lift put on of the long rails on 180* backwards and I've been thinking about fixing it so I can get a center jack.

Yes, I go to Synergy. Well, really I go to Lawrence -- AIUI, he owns the dyno and is renting space from Synergy to put it in their shop. It's the same dyno that used to be at DynoSpot Racing. Bring cash.

I haven't been to Mustang Ranch in years, sad to hear that they've closed. I think the dyno there was a similar rental arrangement, so it's possible that the owner will move it to another shop.

Livermore is a long freaking way to go for a dyno. I dunno what happened, there used to be tons and tons of them in the south bay, now they're drying up.

The roller jack is a Bend-Pak RJ45, 4500 pound capacity, air powered hydraulic scissor jack. I bought two, but I have only put one on so far, and I haven't actually used it yet. Didn't have any hydraulic oil left for it on Sunday, and I've been busy with work/etc since then. Ordered a bunch of parts to plumb an air line over to it, so hopefully I'll have them up and running this weekend.

Which lift do you have, is it the same Bend-Pak? If so, is it the runway with the hydraulic ram that's backwards, or the other one? Swapping the ram one would be a PITA, swapping the other one is just a few bolts, an engine hoist, and a few friends.

--Ian

So now that the lift is up, how bout dat scope :)