Hey guys

I thought I'd start a build thread here about my beater track toy that has been affectionately named Lazarus. Coming up on two years with the car and it continues to put a smile on my face every time I thrash him at the track.

This is what he looked like when he was purchased for the princely sum of $625 in 2011


1991 classic pink/red
227k on the chassis
No clue on the motor
Worlds only remaining functioning VLSD

Car was rotting away in a gravel pit getting rained on. The hood flew up during my test drive, bent over the windshield and hit me in the head so hard I almost passed out. Car tried to kill me which only made me want it more. This was merely the start. More to come.

 

Started collecting parts to do the timing belt and water pump job as well as all the various seals throughout the motor.

 

IRoadster from clubroadster graciously donated these to the project

Stoly from clubroadster sent a care package of various odds and ends to help revive lazarus

TDR and other CR members continued to donate bits and pieces

Revlimiter came forward and offered up a set of his gauges for the project as well.

 

Duuude you must be popular over there. Tons of free ****. Awesome. In for results now.

 

I'm not sure who gave who a reach around to get some of these care packages, but quite frankly we all have bits and pieces laying around people's garages they'll never use. I think a number of these came from folks that have since gone to a 1.8 setup, or just had left over bits from a 1.6 build. I know I have a drawer of miata gaskets I steal for here and there. Stuff builds up, and we got the left overs.

And for future reference, here's the car's main build team:

Owner, #1 Driver, and project hooligan: Martin, aka GreddyGalant
Co-owner, Principle Photographer, and part time driver: Nial, aka Nail, aka StorminNormin
Helpful friend, Chief Engineer, and hasnotyetracedontrack: Josh, aka curly

There has truly been an amazing splattering of help in the form of labor, parts, and advice for this little car. Seems to be huge community effort to get this thing race ready. A giant thank you to anyone and everyone who has helped. (Please note however: although we probably won't turn down any parts, later on in the thread you'll see we're pretty well set at this point and we're not begging anyone for anything)

That being said, it truly is a blast. The most fun coming from a smoking good deal on NB Bilsteins from JakeLS01 on CR, $300 if I remember correctly. I didn't get involved until a little later, but this car has seen some incredibly good luck. Roll bar for $100, mint condition hood for $35, and a check for $400 after a BMW 7 series cracked the rear bumper in a fender bender. We just picked up a new one for free too! It's currently bumperless. That's a post for another day though.



4.5" springs were...tossed.



Eventually FM rear hats and NB for the front found their way into our tool box and a set of 6" eibach springs as well.





Unpictured is a RB solid with RB endlinks, and a removed rear sway.

 

Well, apparently I've been put in charge of getting this build up to date.

The main goal at the heart of this entire build has been weight savings. We've taken a porky 1.6 with air conditioning, power steering, an aftermarket stereo system, alarm, and taken as much out of the car as possible.









A little seam welding along the way





Current weight is somewhere around the 1900-1950 range depending on how much gas is in it. It hasn't been weighed to my knowledge with the MS in it, future plans include removing the pop up head lights and replacing heavy stock seat and belt with a lighter racing seat without sliders, a 5 point harness, and we've also replaced the gutted stock wheel with a Nardi.

With the wheels we've gone from the NB **** pictured in the first pictures to BBS ****:

To Eagle Racing **** with cash on top:

To TR ****:

And finally to our awesome Konig setup:





Maintenance has obviously been done through this entire build.
Before:

After:

 

Power is probably the most interesting and exciting aspect of the build for the MT crew. We've upgraded to a JR header, Enthuza test pipe, Racing Beat midpipe, and originally a Racing Beat exhaust, however it's since been changed out for a much lighter Spoon style muffler from Ebay.




And then finally an MS was installed to make use of all these mods and without my consent they stuck the filter through the hood. It must of worked though, after a dyno session we were sitting at 115 to the wheels.



As of last Friday, it also has FM's happy meal clutch and flywheel setup in it as well.


Exterior: what fun when you don't give a **** about the car!

We've gone from this:

to this:




To this:


Friend of ours did some graphics. At this point we had jokingly called our group of friends working on this car Lazarus Fabrication, or LazFab. Ghetto modifications with the single goal of a fun track car.



$11.99 at the junk yard finally fixed our droopy bumper



Anyways, that's about it. Martin has assured me he'll post about our events, which so far have included the dyno session, half a dozen track days, a rallycross, and an autocross. We hope to include a drag race eventually, as well as a hill climb. We unfortunately don't have the power for a drift event. Shucks.

 

I like it. I would build something exactly like that if I had a track closer and was more dedicated.

Beater track car is awesome, get some vids of it passing porsches.

 

Here's one of my car with a flyby of Laz in the beginning. He's beating me on SM take offs by about 1-2 seconds at this point. I was at 165hp with NeoGen all seasons and an open diff. He ran my tires a few times until he bought the white Konigs. The SM RA-1 take offs were worth about 5 seconds a lap.



And I'm pretty sure there's a fair amount of passing going on in this video:



Like I said though, I'll let GreddyGalant step in and post more about the events we've made it to with Laz.

 

The exhaust actually sounds really nice in those videos.

 

Thank you josh for catching us up. Ill include a current mod list and some photos and video of my track excursions in laz.
Chassis/safety/interior:
Any unnecessary brackets cut off, bumper supports removed etc. car weighs 1940 with me in it.
Auto power roll bar with a diagonal welded in
Boss frog harness bar
Sparco harness made by Schroth
Sonic motors recaro spg replica on homemade floor mounts
Cut 1.6 dash
Rev limiter gauge cluster
Completely stripped and gutted interior.
SM window brackets
Nardi 330mm steering wheel

Body:
Hardtop bolted in
GV replica lip
Ducktail rear spoiler


POWA:
Jackson racing header
Enthuza test pipe
Racing beat resonated mid pipe
Spoon style muffler that is questionable in its muffling capacity
MS1 tuned to an earth shattering115whp
PS/AC delete
VLSD with garagestar delrin bushings
FM stage 2 clutch
8pound flywheel


This was before the new clutch and flywheel with a less than optimal intake setup
Footwork/brakes:
NB Billy's with eBay sleeves with eibach springs 500/400 rates
RB solid front sway and end links/no rear sway
ES poly bushings
SS front lines
Cobalt xr3/5 pads
Konig flat out 15x8 +25 with 205/50/15 RA1 sm takeoffs
Garagestar BMC stopper.


Future plans:
AMR engineering coilovers
Oil cooler
More weight savings
Drive the **** out of it


Straightening the core support



Below I've included some photos and video from a variety of on and off track excursions in Lazarus in chronological order






Didn't get stuck once





Our rally cross adventure landed Lazarus on speedhunters
#FEATURETHIS: THE ROADSTER SHOW - Speedhunters

Curly and me




911 gt3 just couldn't hang. $2000>$120000
Skip first two minutes
Lap 7 is my fast lap
Lap 8 contains an off track excursion
We take track prep seriously at lazfab

A full session of Curly and me terrifying others on track. Good battle of his boosted smurf against laz. This was before MS1 and clutch and flywheel.
Shaming BMW owners
Gave rides at a charity auto x in 95 degree heat for 7 hours



Lazarus made the journey to Oregon raceway park where he sustained his first battle scar.


Went into a corner a little hot...
ORP triple play

That's it for now

 

Also while my miata may not be turboed but I'm not a complete newb when it comes to forced induction. This is my daily driver that I turbocharged myself with OEM evo parts. Makes 260/290 on 13psi on an evo8 16g. I've learned all I know about cars by working on this thing it's been in my family since brand new my mom actually purchased it as her first new car after moving to the United States. Too many modifications to list. It sees track time as well

 

You should definitely post another thread on the galant and how you fit all the EVO parts on it.

 

Maybe.. Don't want to make any of the mods mad by posting up a galant build on a miata forum

 

why would we care about that?

 

Whats the weight now? I know you can get a 1.6 car down to about 1950 with just option package conversions, seats, exhaust and suspension bits with no stripping or body panel cutting required (because thats a well prep'ed STS car weight).

 

Haven't weighed it in a while ill be weighing it soon since I'm going to be doing NASA time trials and need to know the weight

 

Last I heard was 1950 with a 140lb driver in it.

Things that are hampering us: stock seats. We keep leaving both in because passengers always have a hoot. And heavy popup lights. But we actually bought a parts car!

Laz received an Ebay hub, Nardi 330 steering wheel, seat with floor mounted brackets, "CAI" parking lights, and FM's happy meal with I believe their 10.3 lb flywheel.

We were also "borrowing" the MS out of this car, so it's officially ours now, along with the LC-1 wideband.

All together I'd think that is:

33lb passenger seat
15lb driver seat net savings?
4lb steering wheel net savings?
10lb flywheel net savings?

And I don't think it's been weighed since the MS install, which saves quite a bit. Our new intake is also replacing the entire pop up headlights. Not sure what those weigh.

Should be sub 1800lbs with our fingers crossed and helium in the tires.

 

New intake setup and new poly motor mounts installed. Gotta fab up some tabs to attach the headlight cover from the hood. Filter currently sits right behind a turn signal intake .,as you can see there is still a substantial amount of rally cross mud still in the bay.

 

Super awesome.

Basically what I am aiming for my miata to be like.


How long are tires and brakes lasting on this car with low power?