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Rear had toe out but other than that it was pretty close. He got the toe in the rear dialed in and got the camber within the spec I requested (-1° to -2°) I can mess with camber in the rear now that I know where it's at.
The front is... well, the front is a catastrophe. Tech said he got the camber to where I requested it (again, -1° to -2°) as well as the toe, but the caster is AAALLLLLL over the place. He indicated that he thought the front end might be bent, which it absolutely is, and he did his best but wasn't able to get it symmetrical. I think he probably could have got it if they had him put more time into it, but I'll take what I can get for now. I remember there were problems with the front end back in the day when I first owned the car, so this is not tremendously surprising.
The car feels SO MUCH BETTER now on the street, and funny thing, the front end alignment moved things far enough that I've got new clearance issues. No matter! I have a solution for that!
I need to go through and give all the alignment cam bolts some serious ugga-duggas, then do a for real bolt check. More boxes on the list I guess!
Picked up this bit of excellence from the classifieds last week:
949 Racing Supermiata Coolant reroute parts! Wooooo! I wish I had this ... 6 months ago when I was jacking with the block off plate at the back of the head? No matter! It wasn't available then and I'm more than happy to have it now. Thanks @Jamikins ! My apologies in advance for putting such a nice part of such a dubious vehicle.
Clean some of this crusty funk off the bolts and we are good to go.
This also gives me the opportunity to use something else that has been kicking around the garage for probably 8 or so years...
That's a Gates 22436 Radiator hose, from some GM product IIRC. This was "the ****" from way back when we were all bungling around with BEGI reroute spacers and Kia water necks while cursing BEGIs hack *** machinists for not actually cutting a groove in the spacer for a thermostat and the other mouth breathers in Corky's employ for doing zero goddamn QC before shipping. Not that I'm bitter or anything. Anyway, you know its old due to the white "patina" on the rubber. I decided to wipe it down with some WD-40 to restore that factory luster (and maybe find a production date) and instead, I found this:
Made in the USA, that's how you know this ****'s old!
That's almost everything I need to setup a reroute, sans radiator. If I'm going to do this I'm going to do it right and I'm going to get an NA radiator with an offset inlet. The inlet with the stock style radiators is miserable because it comes in direct contact with the crossover pipe I'm using with the JRSC. I'm probably crushing 1/3 to 1/2 the diameter of the upper radiator hose with my current configuration. This is unacceptable. Until I can fix that problem, I won't be installing a reroute.
The real big "unfortunately" here is the cost of an offset inlet radiator. Both 949 Racing Supermiata and FM both offer a crossflow radiator product that would perfectly meet my needs, but (somewhat suspiciously) both are out of stock.
Here's a pic of the stock location, for reference (random pic I pulled off the internet)
As you can see, the inlet basically points directly at the throttle body. Huge PITA.
Supermiata crossflow (kinda) showing the inlet at the far edge of the radiator on the end tank
Same with the FM
What's more, even if they were in stock, both are well over $350 to my door. As with most things, I'd love to buy a good used one, but none appear to be available at the moment. I'll have to keep my eyes open for one. Hell, I'd even buy a "scratch and dent" one with bent fins or dented tank. As is the theme with this car, it doesn't have to be pretty it just has to work. To be clear, the motivation here is the offset inlet. I'm of the opinion that any actually quality radiator when paired with a reroute, proper ducting and OE fans is sufficient for the vast majority of streetcar use. I have a copper/brass radiator in the car now, its a very good radiator but again, I can't change the inlet location. I'm not interested in the various el cheapo ebay/Mishimoto/China slave labor aluminum radiators (oh, I'm sorry, I just repeated myself 3 times ) that are all over the market with the stock inlet location. Notice a theme here? OFFSET INLET.
Also, inb4 someone who didn't read the wall of text "helpfully" recommends the Trackspeed Engineering Radiator, I'm more than well aware of its existence and how awesome it is, I have one in my NB (aka Project Sisyphus.) But that's also a $625 radiator, and this car does not need a $625 radiator.
So... I'm going to be a cheap bastard, make things difficult on myself, and reinvent the wheel, as is tradition. I have a couple of candidate radiators in mind from different OE applications and a very good friend who also has questionable judgement and a TIG welder. My plan is to buy one of these inexpensive radiators and have it modified to meet my needs. I'm also hoping to move the radiator up slightly and possibly, maybe, kick the bottom of the radiator back towards the crank a bit. The goal here is additional ground clearance (there will be more on this in a future post.) I'll need to do a lot of measuring and head scratching, but I think I'll come out of this on the other side with a crossflow for under $200 and an obscene amount of sweat equity.
Bonus Nachos: It might actually be capable of cooling the car too! What a novel idea!
I'm going to be a cheap bastard, make things difficult on myself,
I'm using a vw polo rad, crossflow & twin-pass so more efficient than standard type rads, lot cheaper than the posh items you've mentioned also
they're available in several widths but I've chosen one of the narrower types as I'm building a NA / throttlebodies sorta thing, also the vw rads are not as tall as the standard Mazda setup...
they are designed to use a remote mounted expansion-tank.
As usual I didn’t read. But I literally just pulled an old Koyo from Nigel’s NB2 that I’m sure he could sell you, and you can hack up and actually kinda have something cool maybe? (pun intended)
I'm using a vw polo rad, crossflow & twin-pass so more efficient than standard type rads, lot cheaper than the posh items you've mentioned also
they're available in several widths but I've chosen one of the narrower types as I'm building a NA / throttlebodies sorta thing, also the vw rads are not as tall as the standard Mazda setup...
they are designed to use a remote mounted expansion-tank.
<image snip>
one of the work-in-progress photo's...
Rich.
Very very nice. That's exactly the kind of thing I was looking for, the fin density on that radiator is like, woah. Nose to radiator ducting is going to need to be SPOT ON to keep air going through that thing. You could even fit an oil cooler core in the vertical space next to that rad. Can't wait to see how well this works out!
I'm guessing that's a MK5 Polo radiator? Do you have any idea what other widths are available? Unfortunately we didn't get the Polo in North America, but VAG is very much a "parts bin" type company so I took a quick look at a MK5 Golf radiator...
Source vehicle for this image is a 2006 VW Golf 2.0. Prices range from $45-$75 from the usual suspects on RockAuto.
The fan assembly looks fairly competent as well
If this is the right one, of course. The fan is listed as fitting the MK5 VW Beetle, Golf, Jetta, Passat, Rabbit and Audi A3. I do love repurposing OE stuff and there are definitely MK5 VWs in the junkyard in my neck of the woods. Humm...
So this is from a generic all aluminum replacement radiator on ebay, listed as fitting a 99-05 Golf Jetta Mk4 / 98-06 Audi Tt Mk1.
The Mk4 radiator looks a bit larger than the Mk5. The 28.5" listed width might be too tight to get between the frame rails on the Miata, but the 15.75" height appears to work. I'd have to measure more accurately than just "shove a tape measure in there in the dark" before committing to a Mk4 radiator. I need to find one of these listings with similar dimensions for a Mk5
Unfortunately it looks like the Mk4 & Mk5 have the stupid proprietary VW radiator hose ends. Is there an easy solution for dealing with those?
I used ebay adverts to see the sizes as they are always on the listings...
I chose this as was not as tall so could gain a little ground-clearance @ front - I might take the car rallying so would need a sump-guard of some kind & it's handy to have an angled front for 'obsticles'
as to mounting an oilcooler in the side gap, I did consider this but want cold air ducting to the throttlebodies
and I'm using a Laminova exchanger (& drysump) - nothing simple?
I have an '87 mk2 golf (tdi converted) and a pair of B3 Passats ('89 & '93, also tdi converted - see a theme?) and they all have similar rads but slightly different sizes....
Put it in the lathe and turn it down to a normal hose barb?
That would require an ENORMOUS 4 jaw chuck, not sure if would fit in my tiny lathe.
I could also put a cutter in the chuck and mount the radiator to the lathe, that might work. Or I could put a boring head in a mill and put the rad on the table, then cut around the outside with a boring bar. That sounds equally as terrible, lol
Originally Posted by Zed.
iirc, the polo rad I'm using is from a mid80's model.
I used ebay adverts to see the sizes as they are always on the listings...
Ok, I see where you are going now. I think the crossover for that one in North America models is a Mk2 Jetta, Golf, Passat or maybe a Scirocco? I'll have to do some reading and find some more dimensions. It looks like all these VWs have the same side inlet/outlet dual pass crossflow configuration so they should be highly efficient. Plumbing will be a challenge but not an unsolvable one. If the fittings become a massive issue I can pick up all aluminum "race" versions of these radiators from various sources on eBay for relatively cheap and weld on whatever is needed. The more I look at this the more I like it
Originally Posted by Zed.
I chose this as was not as tall so could gain a little ground-clearance @ front - I might take the car rallying so would need a sump-guard of some kind & it's handy to have an angled front for 'obsticles'
I could also put a cutter in the chuck and mount the radiator to the lathe, that might work. Or I could put a boring head in a mill and put the rad on the table, then cut around the outside with a boring bar. That sounds equally as terrible, lol
Wuss
BUT did you Die???
Originally Posted by EO2K
Bah! Just lift it, go over the obstacles
if you go fast enough.....
you either deflect off OR defuse through said obsticles
also, after your lift, whats bumpsteer like?
as to plumbing, I'm using a Volvo 740 expansion-tank (horizontal sausage-shaped thing) and going to mount it on the innerwing near the bulkhead - where your brake-mastercylinder & booster lives
not so much 'out of the box' but more 'out of the partsbin'....
At times like these, ask yourself "What would This Old Tony do?"
He'd probably make a new radiator out of a chunk of solid aluminum.
The super cheesey way of doing it would be to take the hoses out of the same car in the junkyard that you get the radiator from. Cut them off a couple inches down and put a coupler in it.
He'd probably make a new radiator out of a chunk of solid aluminum.
Abomb might.
ToT would partner with Ron Covell. Ron would form each individual tube and fin using a hammer and a block of wood (as well as the end-tanks), and TIG-braze it all together.
Tony would turn the fittings on the lathe, and CNC the cap. The fittings would be two-piece: a female-threaded aluminum base TIG'ed to the end tank, and then a male-threaded titanium nipple (with integral O-ring), so that different diameter hoses can be accommodated.
01-20-2021, 06:53 PM
2
oh wow this actually went full circle and is kinda cool now
No matter! It wasn't available then and I'm more than happy to have it now. Thanks @Jamikins ! 
My apologies in advance for putting such a nice part of such a dubious vehicle.
