Hi guys, long time lurker, I'm Ryan. I bought this 1990 Miata dubbed "Sandstorm" by the previous owner from the greater Seattle area end of March 2021.

I think it is about time I made a build thread, even though my car isn't quite done; The car has come a long way and is getting close to driving again.

My friend made a video documenting the trip.
When I got the car it had a cobbled together Ebay/CX Racing turbo kit, a 1.6 open diff, and many little problems.

In May 2021 I came across a deal($600) on a 99 Miata that ran and drove, but was in pretty rough shape, and the ignition was bad(needed towed) which I didn't mind as it was a parts car.
I pulled most everything of value from that car and sold the chassis for dirt cheap just to get it out of the driveway. I had a buddy weld plates in my spider gears and swapped in that 1.8 diff.

I also put in a push to start system with power locks as the ignition switch was going bad and took a few jiggles to start anyways.

In July 2021 My fiancé had our son Liam. That slowed a lot of things down on the car but it is still going to get done.

The plan at this point was to slowly buy parts/build the BP4W into a beast 1.9 and eventually swap it in. I saved for a while and ended up spending lots of money black Friday 2021 for parts that didn't really arrive until January sometime at the earliest.

I did loads of research on here, watched everything CarPassionChannel has to offer several times, and read until I couldn't anymore and ended up getting:

Wiseco 84.5mm 8.5:1 pistons and rings
Manley Rods
ARP Head/Main/Flywheel studs
Boundary Stage 3 Oil Pump
ACL Race Bearings
Gates Water Pump Timing Belt Kit
FM Coolant Reroute
FM 1.8 swap kit
FM dual feed fuel rail
FuelLab FPR
FlowForce r8 COP conversion
Id1050x injectors
Custom AN6 lines for fuel
Custom AN lines for turbo
Garret GT3071r .64 IWG 5bolt
CXRacing gen2 thicker equal length t3 turbo header for 1.9(I may be a guinea pig, it is much much nicer than other cx stuff I've come across)
Cometic Head Gasket
3 Port EBC
TurboSmart IWG actuator
Gasket set from FM
Competition Clutch Stage 4
Fidanza Lightweight 1.8 flywheel
I'm sure I'm forgetting things

As the car was already turbo it has a standalone ecu but it is just a speeduino.
I planned to use/modify the existing intercooler Piping and intercooler and downpipe/exhaust.
Also I have a spare 5 speed from the parts car but I expect this engine will blow both these quickly and I'll be in need of a 6speed or a built offering from WalterMotorsports down in TX.

A lot of Items were on backorder and I didn't have funds to order the turbo right away. When it did finally get ordered it ended up taking over 6 months to show up. Not a huge deal as I was busy
with life and other things, but not having the turbo really ate away at my motivation to finish that build especially when I was still driving the car.

The cars rear end was all over the place in a weird loose suspension feeling kind of way. I know some of you will try to blame my welded diff, but I promise this isn't that. I noticed my wheel bearings were loose back there so I swapped those out and it helped a good bit,
but it wasn't the whole problem it was still all over the place. Come to find out all the bushings in the rear subframe were basically non-existent. I ordered some poly bushings and threw them in. Around that same time (end of 2022 beginning of 2023 some time) The cars oil leak(always was there) progressed from a drip to squirting oil out of the engine. The oil pump seal had failed on the passenger side in such a way that oil was being pumped OUT of the engine instead of through it. This caused me to stop driving the car. I thought I would just finish up the build and everything would be good.



Small problem after small problem and life being life and of course laziness has held me back and slowed me down, but I had the block machined, put it together, ordered new bearings a few times to get it right on the plasti-gauge. Got the head on. Got accessories and intake and exhaust on. Found out I was going to be able to keep my power steering. Got the trans put back on and got it ready to go back in the car.

This brings us to almost now. A few weeks ago I pulled out the old engine, a couple weeks later I threw the new one in. Ever since I've been connecting, rewiring, and plumbing stuff to try to get it ready to be a car again. The wastegate actuator has 2 7lb springs in it so spring pressure will be 14 psi. I have 93 here but sometimes can only get 91 and there is no E anywhere to be found. I'm hoping to have somewhere around 300whp somewhat reliably when all is said and done but I'm sure I'll need a trans first. The car is lifted and on *****, I am not building it to be the fastest Miata out there. I'm building it to be fun, which to me I'm sure it will be. It still handles great lifted, and it can go more places than a lowered Miata. There's a lot of gravel mountainous roads here so it ends up being pretty perfect. Eventually I want seats/harnesses, a winch, onboard air, sound system, and who knows what else but the car needs to drive first darn-it.

Things that are "done": engine is in car, COPS are wired, Fuel is wired and plumbed, clutch and trans are all hooked up, Crank and Cam sensors are wired, all the plug and play connectors are plugged as far as I can see and remember, Charcoal can deleted, Oh I got a hardtop a while back, turbos all hooked up, power steering is hooked up

Current to do list: finish up grounds, finish up intercooler piping, make bracket for boost control/wastegate actuator, remove modify and reinstall downpipe, install radiator(NB Mishimoto from donor car have to get creative with mounting), fill all the fluids and bleed all the bleeders, tune and test!

Foreseeable Hiccups: Modifying the downpipe to get to 3"vband or garret t3 5 bolt and still fitting. I have adapters from 5bolt>3"vband>2.5"vband but with the stack of adapters the downpipe would be in the firewall. I work in a shop so I can probably cobble something together but I'm not 100% on how I'm going to do it yet. Tuning everything to work on the Speeduino may present some challenges but I'll have to get there to find out. Most notably I'm not sure how I'm going to run the VICS as I don't know if it is supported. I read somewhere that it isn't but We'll get there when we get there.

Going to continue buttoning things up and hope to be driving it sooner rather than later. Appreciate any insight and feedback especially on things I may be doing completely wrong or have forgotten about. I'll try to keep this thread updated. I attached pictures and videos, I couldn't figure out how to embed them where they go in the story but they're there and I'll try to upload more as there's more pictures than it would allow.

 

Very cool, from the one picture of the car on the road it looks like it's lifted? Any more photos of the car on the ground?

Sounds like you'll be in good company here.

 

It is indeed lifted on Silvers NeoMax Coilovers that were ordered custom to be longer by the previous owner.
I do have more pictures!
for a short period 2 of my brothers also had lifted miatas. Now only one does but it's currently getting some stuff done as well so not quite driving either at the moment.

 

I also forgot to mention that I replaced the stock pump with a walbro 255 at some point so i can actually feed the 1050x's. I'll keep updating as I think of and do things.

 

I found some more/better pictures of it before I quit driving it as well in case anyone's interested

 

Awesome ride, man!

I remember watching an episode of Roadkill a while back where they lifted an NA6 and installed a nitrous kit on it to make it a little offroad hillclimber. I think they even filmed it in the PNW too. Thought that was pretty cool. That thing is probably super fun on the logging/backroads near you!

 

Dope photos, I don't think there are too many active lifted Miata's on here.

 

The car was a blast to drive on the cx racing 5psi but I can't wait to get it going with this garret turbo and built 1.9. The handling is surprisingly good even being lifted with big tires. It's very fun in gravel. I need a winch to pull myself out when I inevitably get it stuck this summer though.

 

I have the radiator and intercooler mounted and plumbed, boost control wired sans ECU, got all belts figured out other than power steering need a slightly longer belt hopefully getting that today. I have break in oil in the engine and trans is filled. I need to bleed the clutch, fill and bleed coolant, power steering, and try to start. I have gone through my tune and changed everything I can think of for the things that I have changed. Hopefully in the coming days I will once again have a running turbo miata.

 

Nice dude! Glad to hear progress is still being made. That thing is gonna be a riot with the built motor. Can’t wait for the update once you get it running!

 

In my update earlier I forgot to mention the downpipe is also figured out. I took it to work and ground down the 2.5" vband flange, and cut my 2.5>3 vband adapter and slid it over the downpipe. I bead blasted the whole lot and had a buddy weld it up for me at work. I had to bend the shelf in front of the firewall where the ground is slightly but it is all plumbed now. Genuinely on to the final steps before I have a running car. Getting excited.

 

Last night I attempted to bleed the clutch to no avail. I couldn't get the master to start pumping so I left it to gravity bleed over night and I'll see where that gets me. I got the power steering belt on and the rest of my fluids filled. I soldered in the boost jumper in my ecu. I flashed my new tune. I turned it over for a second and heard fuel spraying. The front most injector is spraying fuel from between the injector and the rail. Tonight hopefully I can fix that, Get the clutch bled, and start trying to start it.

 

Okay guys so I got the clutch bled, I got the rest of the little things patched up, and I have been trying to start it. At first I noticed my TPS is reading terribly, so I ordered a new one but this one is working good enough I didn't think it should cause no start. I then after way too long noticed that the ecu is not reading RPM. I changed to COP audi R8 coils with the flowforce kit for this build. I followed their instructions but missed the part to jump tach to 2I on the ecu, so I figured that was my issue. I did that and still have no RPM signal. I'm not sure if speeduino isn't liking my 36-2 trigger wheel (I have that set up accordingly) or if it is cop related as I'm not 100% sure even where even speeduino gets rpm :/. Since it is not getting rpm it is not going into "cranking" mode so therefore no fuel no spark no go. I'm going to keep researching and trying things but any advice would be appreciated. I will attach my msq file.

 

I attached a datalog of cranking it over for two pretty long spurts.

 

Got it figured out and starting now, just need to get it to run slightly better so I can take it out.

 

Okay so got the car "ready to start" and had a big fuel leak from in-between an injector and the rail. I took the upper intake manifold off and replaced the crushed o-ring on that injector and another one started leaking, so it got the same treatment, then the line going into the fuel rail started leaking so it got some sealant on the threads, and then injectors were leaking again. It was a never ending nightmare but after much trial and error the fuel no longer leaks. got that squared away but left manifold loose for now so I can replace my tps when it shows up as the one I have is bad. Also noticed that my radiator has hole(s) in it and just leaks all the coolant right back out. fun! Got a new CSF radiator on the way from fab9. I found that my crank position sensor was sitting too far back and so it was not reading rpm. I was going insane checking settings in tuner studio for hours and finally moved the sensor forward by way of adding a nut as a spacer between the block and the sensor. It started immediately first try after doing so with minimal throttle, but died immediately too. Started again and it actually idled! And then... it died. It also wouldn't start again. Turns out it was out of gas! "It ain't got no gas in it". Poured some gas in and it started back up and then sputtered out and died after about 30 seconds. I also noticed an oil leak from the turbo return line. Going to fix that leak, replace the radiator and tps, go take it out to set rings, change oil, and hopefully have a car again! Lots of little things keep getting in the way but we are getting there.

 

Fluid leaks, especially fuel, always stress me out. Glad to see you're making progress. Hopefully you'll get all these issues patched up and each one will result in one less potential failure going forward.

 

Holy hell dude, what a rollercoaster! Glad you're making progress, though.

I had the same issue with my CKP sensor. I currently have a small washer between the oil pump and the sensor to get it lined up square with the trigger wheel.

 

Got the tps to start trying to get things going. Got base fuel pressure set and was trying to check timing (looks good) when we noticed there was oil coming from my downpipe. Turns out I need an oil restrictor for my turbo feed line. I have one coming and am hoping I didn't do permanent damage to the shiny new garret :/ Side note it needs basically full throttle to stay running, does this mean I need to pull fuel? I might post my current tune later.

 

Post your tune, but you didn’t tuning the turbo. It’ll take a while to burn off, but the seals are basically like piston rings. Typically when they’re over loaded they’ll leak, but once you fix it, they should stop.