During the COVID quarantine, I fully restored the 1990 Miata that was handed down to me way back in elementary school (more on that later). I slowly added a few cosmetic things like wheels, roll bar, hardtop, etc., in high school and early college, although it remained almost entirely stock, looking towards the day I could have the time, money, and place to do the full restoration and mods it deserved. That came suddenly in March when my college classes went virtual, I acquired the finances needed, and I found someone who would let me work out of their body shop and use all their tools for free, in exchange for painting the car when the time came.

I stripped it down to the bare chassis, got it media blasted, welded a lot of rust (including chopping the a-pillars and welding in new ones), fixed all the dings and dents, and resprayed it in Porsche Riviera Blue, one of if not the rarest color Porsche has ever produced. Along the way, I fully restored everything. And when I say fully restored, I mean fully restored. every single part of the car was restored, either by replacing parts or restoring them to like-new when possible - down to even sanding and painting every nut and bolt before rebuilding stuff, as I plan to keep the car until I can no longer physically drive. Where I could, I replaced stock components with upgraded ones as this car will become my weekend/autox/track warrior, especially once I can afford a normal daily. Mods right now are mainly in the handling, braking, and ergonomics department, as I unfortunately ran out of money before I could start the turbo build, but every system of the car did receive a performance upgrade.

I made a restoration build thread full of pictures, details, and videos to follow along and log the progress of the restoration, which also explains how I got the car in elementary school and why it means so much to me, which can be found here: https://forum.miata.net/vb/showthread.php?t=716038

The end goal is to build a canyon carving beast, similar to Greg Peters' miata, while also keeping it comfortable enough to drive whenever (AC is a must, at least while I'm in Florida) I want, and clean enough to pull off being a show car (at least at a shitty show, lol). My build thread on M.net was archived and saved in the "good threads that were saved", meaning i can no longer post in it. That, and considering I am turboing it, are the reasons I am starting a new build thread on here. All in all, the restoration took me 904 hours. Main plans for the future include turbo, big brake kit, and functional aero.

 

Beautiful. Like the green tie in.

 

Gorgeous, excellent work!

 

Jeffbucc, is that you? I'm joking, but you should dig up his restoration thread if you haven't seen it.

That thing came out fantastic man, beautiful, great work. Time for boost!

 

Thank you, I think it blends with the riviera blue perfectly. When I get the bbk and pull the engine again for turbo, I'll probably have it all powdercoated Kawasaki green since it's lighter and I feel would look better. This is just grabber green from a spray can.
Thanks!
funny someone mentioned his name so early on in this thread lol. I remember in high school before I could even drive, sitting on the bus on my way to school in the mornings reading his thread every day for about 2 weeks. It's a shame he never posted an update again.. i wonder what him and the car are up to now. I thought about linking my thread in there as well, but I know one of the mods doesn't want people that aren't him posting there haha

 

can't believe it's been over a year since this thread got an update. I moved to DC shortly after the restoration for a short-term job, leaving the car in Florida at my parents' house to spare it the misery of salty roads and dings and dents from street parking. talk about hurt. Moved back to Florida in mid-august when a dual job offer as a junior race engineer/race tech at a race team and general mechanic/technician at a mechanic shop was offered to me by a long-time acquaintance. since then, I haven't really done anything else to the car as my plans have been to $ave dat money (cue lil dicky) for the quality turbo build I've dreamt of for years. Happy to say black friday treated me well with a decent deal on a MegaSquirt 3 Pro and an AEM afr gauge though, so I guess this is where we pop champagne and celebrate the beginning of the long-awaited turbo build. except I probably won't install either of those for at least another week or so, since I still have a good bit of reading and learning to make sure this doesn't turn into a blown engine swap build thread instead (ill admit I'm a wee bit afraid), and work keeps me pretty busy (test day this weekend at the FIRM). but it will only get better from here, folks

 

some glamour shots because i'm excited and I like to play around with my camera. 2 of the 3 black friday goodies I acquired, the third being a stage 1 Fab9 intercooler that should get here by end of week. per logical sense and also greg peters' turbo miata series, I'll be piecing my kit together in order of essential parts, buying and installing all of the supporting mods that don't require actual turbo hardware first, tuning accordingly and ensuring no problems pop up, one item at a time. once I get the ecu and afr working and the car runs well, ill do the radiator (still deciding between Koyo hyper v-core, flyin miata crossflow, and the supermiata crossflow, so feel free to chime in on your experience or thoughts on the 3), then interfooling the car to determine my intercooler pipe routing, and lastly fuel system and ignition system. after that, the real turbo parts will begin to roll in. eager is an understatement

 

Since you asked me about this in a PM I figure I might as well reply here.

All 3 are good quality. A Crossflow design maximizes core area and efficiency so I'd eliminate the Koyo downflow on a FI build.

Outside of that, The Supermiata crossflow has a 5 year warranty vs. the FM 2 year, and the Supermiata one is $50 cheaper.

 

that’s what i’ve narrowed it down to, for the reason you stated. my remaining concern, and really the only reason i’ve yet to pull the trigger on the radiator, is basically summed up by this quote from Emilio:

Without A/C or a vented hood but with a reroute, this will keep 250whp track car cool in the hottest weather. Above that power you will need a substantially vented hood. For cars with A/C or 300whp+, a vented hood is a must for track use. The radiator is optimized for use with just a single OEM fan for track use. Cars used primarily autocross and/or street driving with A/C should retain the A/C side fan and wire them in parallel.

Being in south florida where even now in december it’s still hot and humid as ****, i plan on keeping ac until i move out. With ac, the heat and humidity, and my goal of 250+/- whp, am i wrong in understanding the supermiata would struggle with temps on a track, even with a reroute? The mouth will be heavily sealed including an under tray to the axle centerline underneath to direct all the air through the IC and radiator, but I’d like to refrain from cutting my hood, at least until i can garage the car when i move next year (lots of tree debris under where i park at home). would the added 5mm core thickness from fm’s unit dissipate enough heat to make a difference?

id love to get both and use both to collect real, empirical data, but i’m not made of money

 

His statement holds regardless of radiator choice. Whether you are running our rad, FM's, or even Trackspeed's monster of a rad, you need hood vents to keep a turbo Miata cool on track.

Will the 5mm thicker FM core help? Maybe. Will it make the difference between needing hood vents and not needing them? No.

To be clear, the whole "keeping a turbo miata cool" thing means allowing you to run full pop for a 20+ minute session. Even without hood vents you can go out and have a good time for a few laps, then run a cool down lap, then go for it again.

 

yeah, i kinda figured as much. i don’t mind the hood vents, i look forward to them for both the performance and the aesthetic, especially since a good design helps with reducing lift and i plan on developing some functional aero for the car, it’s just not practical for me yet.

Other than that doubt i had, i was leaning towards the Supermiata unit already, since it has higher fin density (19.5 vs 18 i believe) and is lighter weight. the warranty you mentioned is an attractive bonus

 

in other news, this train of thought pretty much went out the window. the foundry producing Kraken’s cast manifolds notified him they are raising their prices, forcing
him to raise his prices to compensate, which is happening sometime this week.

I spoke with him over the weekend to get my order in before the price increase kicks in, and i placed an order for one of his low mount t25 garrett manifolds and 3” downpipe. I’m really excited for this piece, as it seems to be the best turbo manifold that’s been designed for us so far.

He also mentioned that he’s been working on a billet aluminum mixing manifold replacement, since the oe unit has to be hacked and rewelded in order to work with the low mount. It’ll come with AN fittings, braided hose for the heater core, some barbs fittings, AN plugs (i think) and even a turbo water return line port for the turbo feed. He said it should be ready by early January, and sent me pics of the CAD part. it looks pretty damn sweet. It also makes me believe i’ll be the first person, or among the first few, to get this, so that’s a pretty neat brownie point too. +1 for unique parts. I did ask him about CFD or flow bench tests, which he said he didn’t have, so there’s a little skepticism there, but the rest of his stuff seems to be top notch so i’m sure he has his **** together and knows what he’s doing. The price he gave me for it was killer, too

 

Love love love that color. I love my kraken setup. It has served me well

 

Oh yeah, forgot to comment on that. This car is totally fire, looking forward to the completed build.

 

thanks, i appreciate it. pics don't do it justice to be honest. the paint looks insane under the sunlight, very deep but very bright. at a meet from a few weeks ago

 

small update since not much is new - i reached out to Michael at Kraken last week regarding my order that was supposed to ship/arrive mid-January; he said some problems with the machine shop have pushed orders behind, but 1.6 orders should be getting fulfilled this week, meaning I'll be receiving a special package from Bulgaria by end of February hopefully. the only other significant purchase for the turbo build so far is a new rear end. 2002 type II 3.909 torsen LSD, 2002 driveshaft and 1999 axles. using fm's ratio calculator, this taller gearing should make the car much more practical and useful at my power level with boost.


between the subpar packaging and fedex handling the packages like a sack of potatoes, a few of the cooling fins cracked on the housing. pretty upsetting, but it is what it is i guess. maybe I'll weld some material in to fill out the missing chunks when i weld in the arm reinforcement plates, at least to make it look symmetrical again. that damn ocd of mine

 

meanwhile, im enjoying the car as much as i can and getting some seat time. did my first track night in it last week at my local track (PBIR). fastest lap was a low 1.45, and consistently hit mid 1.46s on Proxes RR and hawk blues. SMT times on that track are around the 34s, so im pretty pleased with my pace considering it was my first time on that track and the lack of good lighting made it hard to look into some of the corners and learn them well.


aside from a coolant dribble coming from the 2 thermostat neck T hoses which popped up 2 days prior to the track night, the car performed perfectly with zero issues, which is very rewarding for me as its the first project car that I've tore down entirely and rebuilt.

regarding the coolant leak from the thermo neck hoses, I plan on running the next track day (March 3) and want to fix the leak beforehand. I believe I can completely cap off the thermo neck T, and simply connect the 2 hoses, right? the hose coming from the air valve on the top side of the intake manifold to the hose going to the mixing manifold. temporary solution while I get my qmax reroute and delete the neck all together.

 

track night next on the 3rd so I'm prepping the car in the week leading up to Wednesday. Looking to get a 1:42 now that I've driven the track and know it better. I think it's attainable and corner balancing the car, hawk blues in the rear and a slightly tweaked alignment should help. Might stiffen the suspension a bit too, an instructor told me I was a bit soft for the toyo slicks I'm running.


i fixed the leak mentioned above today by removing the thermostat housing T with pliers and drilling the hole out with a 21/64 bit, then tapping and plugging it with a 1/8th NPT square head plug. used a 5/16th barb to connect the two lines coming from the T. cleaned debris from inside the thermo housing as best as I could, put it all together and let it warm up and idle for a while to make sure I had no leaks. Drove it somewhat hard around before heading home and it had no leaks or other issues, so I'm gonna say everything's good. Flushing the coolant out tomorrow and nut and bolting the whole car. i have a small to-do list to get through, so ill be working during my lunch and after work for a few days.

also picked up some slightly used toyo r888rs for cheap after getting a few nails and a sidewall bubble in 2 tires last week. im using them for the street since I have used slicks from work that I use for track days. I'm rubbing a little on my current ride height when going over large dips or small bumps, and i wasn't before on my dunlop direzzas or yokohama advans in 205s, so there's definitely less sidewall stretch and a bit larger contact patch width on the 888r's too I believe. aside from the slight rubbing and a squeak from the RR bushings which I'm fixing soon, the car is feeling really good. love driving it

 

small update and Kraken appreciation post 6 months of waiting for my order was so worth it. I know I don't need to bring praise to his products in this forum since we all know how quality his work is, but god damn this **** is top notch. Welds, material selection, completeness of the kit, everything is amazing. And not to mention that he packages and protects the contents inside the orders better as a one-man operation than some bigger companies I've bought from in the past (shout out to ESR for packaging my $1400 order in what could've been a Lays potato chip bag...)
Also,
this piece is killer, and the whole bundle he pieced together for it is amazing. looks great, weighs nothing, configurable for AC and non-AC set up, has accessory ports and is so much smaller than the OEM mixing manifold.





was gunna run a catless exhaust but Cheezit insists otherwise

 

for the coffee table ....