I bought this high milage classic red '97 Miata back in March of 09. It was completley stock and in need of some TLC. It had 190K miles on the engine and chassis when I recieved the keys. Over the past year and a half I have been slowly restoring it to its former glory, with some extra goodies. After reading through alot of build threads and turbo info on this site, I now have a clear goal of how I want to setup this miata. I am aiming for 200-230hp with a slight increase in power later as I slowly eliminate the weak links.

Here it is after a few weeks from purchase and fresh bath:

4x4 ride height to be dealt with later:


After saving some coin and extensive research for a low cost yet comfortable ride(my wife drives the miata too) I opted for GR2's to replace the blown stock shocks. For now at least. Not pictured, I bought a remanufactured steering rack to replace the old worn out one. I Installed Super Pro poly steering rack bushings that I ordered from flyinmiata. Ordered new tie rod ends from ebay as well.

For a hint of extra travel and spirited performance I ordered FCM top mount kits with 46mm bump stops. I also decided to reuse the stock springs since I did not want to lower the car that much.


More suspension goodies. Now I don't care what anybody says, these ES poly bushings are not as rough driving as everybody says they are.


New alignment bolts from 949racing. Good price and free shipping.


Crappy plastic end radiator had to come out. JB weld works good for a temporary solution.




CXracing thick aluminum radiator.


My hand model wife posing the bling. Those fans are going to come out soon in favor of slim fans later.




New rubber for the stock wheels. Bridgestone Potenza RE960as. It rains alot down here and I am stock power so these will do for now.


New softop from miatatopsource. Old top was fubar and leaking alot. When you see it, it will be lulz. Top was a pita to install, but still fun.




Trying to find pictures of my brake install. I am stopping on centric rotors and hawk hps brake pads. Excellent stopping power, horrible dusting. I could live with that.

 

As she sits now. No lowering springs. Ride height is 12.5f 12.75r.




Backtracking a bit here. The cxracing radiator did not allow the stock intake tract to fit with the stock fans. So as a temporary solution I used a straight 2.5" aluminum pipe, two 90 deg silicone bends, and a used air filter to rig up. I got all items free from my brother who had no use for them. A local fabricator welded in the ports for the IAC and PCV lines. It cost me 20 bucks for some good welds. I know the location of the filter is not ideal, but it will have to suffice for the time being.




Now on to the good stuff. One needs a good EMS before going turbo, thanks to on a well built diypnp. I also picked up a m/f db9 10ft cable for $5 at a local pc store. It was the shortest they had. And some 5/32 vacuum hose at napa


For extra fuel I bought some used rx7 460's. Gonna send them out for cleaning soon.


LC-1 wideband that came off my wrongwheel drive mx6.


I ordered a roll bar from Bethania Garage about 2 weeks ago. It is the HDHCSD bar, but it was out of stock at the time of purchase. An email from them said they'll be done and shipped out soon.

I just bought a new laptop, so i don't have all my pictures on this one yet. I have to rummage through my old laptop for all the other small upgrade projects I did.

 

HA HA I was going to use them on my other 94 MX-3. I'll charge your *** later.

 

I installed the diypnp ms Saturday evening. Pretty straight foward process especially after reading over the instruction write up for the past week. I get to the part where it is time to start up the car, and it doesn't fire up. :(

Install shots of the wide band 02






Here is a datalog while cranking


Now what to make of this. The ms has the basemap currenttune.msq that had put. Everything is stock.

 

post the actual log file... are your temps in *C? are the 460s installed?

 

Coolant is in Celsius and Air temp is in Fahrenheit. The 460's are not installed yet.

 

I changed the req fuel to 13 ms and it fired right up, but its idling bad. I have the timing matched up to 10 deg. My wideband is going from 12-17 and for some reason my tach is off from TS by about 1000 rpms. I got an idea for the idle part, not so much the tach.


EDIT:
Got a good idle going, but I still need to richen up the entire map. Tach issue is solved, it was a settings issue. I just changed the tach output to "on" and "tachout put". Now my dash reading is correct.

 

Got a good road tune on the megasquirt. Still got some other small kinks to work out but the car runs really well.

I got this in the mail the other day. Hopefully my brother helps me install it.

 

Yeah I'll help you out restock a bottle from my collection if not I will be watching you DIY.

 

This is what I figured this issue was, congrats on being smart and figuring it out yourself.

 

Yeah, I did a little searching and found what I needed.

I also wanted to double check something. When I throw in the 460's, I change the req_fuel to 5.2ms. From there I adjust the VE table where needed.

This weekend I am going to work on accel enrichments using EAE. Should be fun.

 

I finally got around to getting the rollbar installed. My friend came over and gave me a hand. He is not mechanically savy but can follow directions very well. Big thumbs up for his help as it took us a few hours to get it bolted on.





















I still have to trim some of the rear carpet and plastic panels to fit, shouldn't take but a few minutes.
Next in line are some some turbo goodies.

 

What bar is that? Mine didn't need trimming of that big metal panel, only the body colored metal behind it. Yours must be good with a soft top. Then again mine was too...

Good luck with the carpet. I always hated my hack job, and then I just tore it all out.

 

M1 HDHCSD

I didn't need to trim much of the metal cover. Just a few sq/inches on both sides. It was easier than cutting through the shelf, which I did both with tin snips. As for the carpet, I've got some patience for neatness. Shouldn't be too much of a hassle.

And I have good head clearance too. I'm only 5'8 so I guess I'm too short to have that kind of problem.

 

Have you upgraded your fuel pump yet! its gonna be a PITA to put a new one in with that roll bar, ask me how I know...

 

in for updates

 

Not yet, with a 200hp +- goal, I don't think I'll need to mess with it for a while.

 

yeah, but in the event of upgrading you may have to unbolt your RB to get enough clearance to slide it out of the tank. the harness bar gets in the way and makes it almost impossible to get it out....

 

That"s what you said with your MX-6 GT and what happen there you still don't learn little brother.

 

Lately I've been pondering about going with a simple exhaust setup. A nice v-band full 3 inch ss exhaust would be nice, however budget is the keyword for the mean time since I have some other financial obligations. With some quick searches I stumbled upon this:





This is just what I had in mind. A small dp that would connect to where the n/a header would. Mine would have to be made with a v-band since that is what my churbo is going to have. I know a fabricator who could whip something up for a fraction of the price of most downpipes($60-80). This route would be on budget and get me boosted alot quicker. This would be made to work with an artech mani, t3 churbo vband, no p/s.


So power output has to put on the back burner with this concept since I'll be looking at 140-160hp with a stock exhaust. And later on when I get some coin saved up, I'll be getting some bling.