I’ve had the rough idea for this car kicking around in my head since I decided to sell Theseus, but it has actually started to come together over the last few months, so it’s time for a build thread. (Cool parts, new products, an awesome street car, and mediocre photography incoming)



I picked up this 103k mile ’02 Special Edition a few months ago. It’s fully loaded, including ABS (that will be important later), and there’s no Tupperware. The 02SE is probably my favorite Miata – it’s got all the perks of the NB2, one of the best colors to come on a Miata, and it’s the last year of the 3.909 Torsen. I never figured I would actually find this exact car (02SE, ABS, no Tupperware, in budget), so I was just searching for NB2s with ABS, but good things come to those who wait, apparently.

The purpose of the car is to act as a development mule for some new stuff we’re releasing over the next year or two. Our turbo kit is obviously the largest one of those items, but certainly not the only one. I’ve got a Reverent/MSLabs MS3 Basic and Flow Force 610cc injectors lined up, as well as a DW300 fuel pump and Fuelab FPR ready to replace the stock pieces. There’s a Racelogic TCS box waiting for installation as well, which will be fun to experience. Down the road, it will get an EFR6758 and a forged bottom end, but that’s probably 12 months out. I’ll run the EFR6258 with the stock bottom end at first.

It came with me to COTA in April, so to prepare for that event I did a few “basic” upgrades to it. Current suspension is Tein Flex, 7/6k rates, and I don’t know how people tolerate it. Perhaps I’m spoiled by the tweaked gen1 XIDAs in Rover, but I don’t even think my 700/450 Koni 8041s were this uncontrolled over large pavement transitions. I had never planned to keep the Teins very long, since I just wanted to evaluate them before moving onto something better, but they are surprisingly bad IMO. The wheels are 15x9 Nickel 6ULs, wrapped in the new 225/45 BFG Rival S. Front brakes are our 11.75” Gen1 kit, which will get swapped for the upcoming Gen2 version so I can drop the 5mm spacers in front. The rollbar is a Blackbird GT3 bar in single diagonal flavor, and the Lotus seats on Flipside Customs brackets are probably the best thing I’ve done to the car so far. The 3.909 Torsen was swapped for the 3.63 OS Giken that never made it into Theseus as well.

Blackbird GT3 single diagonal bar, powdercoated in 3% gloss black. I believe this is the only rollbar that works with a hardtop, a glass-window softtop, and a weld-in harness bar.


Lotus seats on Flipside Customs brackets. So comfy. No hole for substraps, so no harnesses, but it's a street car. I will probably set up an FIA/6-point setup that drops in for track use, but these will be the standard seats the car runs around with.


The goal of the car is to build an exceptionally competent street Miata, that can also be taken to the track. Essentially, I want to build the Mazdaspeed that everyone wishes Mazda had built. I know how to build a very competent race car, and I’ve done that a few times to good effect, but a true street car is something I’ve never really done. Theseus in its early days was a race car with 700/400# spring rates, fixed-back FIA seats and 6-point belts, gauges all over the place, and license plates stuck on the back. This will be a distinctly different build from Theseus in that there will be virtually no concessions made to the streetability of the car. I’m not willing to sacrifice A/C or even P/S, I want to keep my cruise control, I want to hear the radio on long drives, and I still want to be able to do lapping days. It will never be as nimble or engaging as Rover is on track, but that’s OK – it’s a street car. If I want to drive a race car, I have one of those too.

 

OK, with the intro out of the way, we can make with the building and the threading. First order of business is to get the interior nailed down. You can see that the rear carpet was left out, since I haven't had a chance to cut it for the rollbar, and the previous owner was a slob with a dog so the interior is being steam-cleaned tomorrow.

The Blackbird bar and Lotus seats are already in, and the cheap, awful, PO-installed eBay soft-top is getting replaced with a black Robbins vinyl top, but I’m mostly interested in seeing what the forum’s thoughts are on closed cell foam/butyl combos. I have a bunch of Dynamat, but I want to replace the carpet foam under the carpets with something a little better as well. I haven't decided whether to try and spend the time cutting out individual strips of Dynamat to lay in low areas, or whether to just cover the car in it and call it a day. I'll do that before the deck carpet goes back in, see how much of an improvement it makes, then carry the end solution through the floorboards too.

I’m also interested in opinions on a Bluetooth/Sirius-compatible head unit and door speakers, if anyone feels strongly about certain items for those. Recommend me stuff, MT

 

YES!

Very excited for this

 

Having done the WHOLE tub in dynamat, I'd have to report that it's overkill and not really needed.

Strategic locations is better, unless you're bored and have a ton of the stuff.

The closed cell stick-on mat (such as Raammat or many others) is also good stuff.

Remember: dynamat for vibrations, closed cell foam for actual noise. I'd do the "knock" testing method and apply where needed, and then just cover everything else in the foam if I did it again. (vs exactly the opposite, as I did in the white 01)

 

I've heard the same. I'll probably do the rear deck area in strips, then decide how to do the floors from there.

Any recommendations on closed-cell foam? Worth buying it with adhesive or butyl backing, or just buy the stuff in a sheet and use a spray adhesive?

 

18psi is (partially) correct, and my sound stuff is my greatest regret.

Don't just dump lots of dynamat or equivalent. It's not what you want.

I'm currently making plans to build a car with goals similar to your goals, Sav. My plans are to clean all pre-existing sound damping/dampening out of the interior, completely. Then I'd go in with a product like Second Skin Spectrum, and put initial coats of that down covering the interior. I'd also be using spectrum as an undercoating on the exterior as well. (Edit) I've been debating just using spectrum as a thick undercoat as well, FWIW.

Next step would be to put a product like Dynamat (Frankly, I'd recommend RAAMmat or (better yet!) Dampliflier pro, for several reasons, but that's another topic) in areas prone to vibration - especially door skins. Most especially door skins. As 18psi said, don't put it everywhere - both 18psi and I made that mistake.

Next step, applying an MLV barrier. Finally, applying a CCF barrier. MLV is very important, and if I had to only choose CCF or MLV, I'd go with the MLV (Assuming it's like Luxury Liner Pro, of course.)

Anyways, that's just how I plan on doing it in my future build. YMMV. Please remember that I HATE non-exhaust noise in a car, and am willing to pay for it both in weight and in money.

 

Also, I'm in the market for a perfect 3-spoke Sport wheel in all black, as well as perfect NB2 door cards in all black. I dig the brown interior, but not with the tan seats, and I don't want to risk dying the seats and screwing them up.

 

I would use the sticky-backed stuff. Spraying makes a mess, and without any sticky backing the stuff moves around quite a lot. The coating stuff Blaen is talking about spraying is cool too (I think Tom from Toms Turbo Garage on YT uses similar stuff called "lizard skin" on his Miata? look it up) but you'd need to basically strip and prep the whole tub to apply it.
For dynamat the doors (both inner and outer skins make a huge difference, the rear shelf, and I'd lay some down on the trans tunnel cause it will help keep it cooler. (this is all of course in addition to the spots you find with the "finger tap" test).
The foam you can't really "overdo", so go nuts with that stuff if you want. It keeps the panel squeaks and rattles down, and just cuts down on noise. Of course the biggest thing to cut noise is a hardtop, but looks like you want to keep this bad boy versatile.

People laugh at me trying to make our miata's quiet, comfy, and basically "lexus like", but I gotta tell you it's so enjoyable daily driving a car that doesn't have crazy loud squeaks, rattles, vibrations, etc.

You'll love it.

 

Looking forward to this..

 

Tan door cards to mach the seats? I might have a set of those.
<br />Also, in for updates. This car is gonna be cool

 

The previous owner of this car had a dog, and the interior was pretty gross, so I had the interior steam-cleaned today. These guys did Rover a few months ago after the interior molded over (don't store race cars outdoors under a cover for 3 months...) and they did a fantastic job, so I called them out to do this job as well. Pulled the seats and the center console out so they can get it as clean as they can. A little expensive, but worth doing right at least once in a car's life.

 

After reading about others and 18psi's experience with sound deadening I decided to install some as well.

 

Can you explain the "Finger Tap" test?

 

You can tell by knocking on a panel how dense/supported or thin/unsupported/prone to vibrate it is. It might be an ancient method, and I bet someone has a better way by now, but it works. knock on the sheet metal on your door and it's all tinny and loud (where it's not supported by the beam), knock on something like the seat belt pillar and that sucker is like a rock

 

I tried reflectix for sound deadening, while it was an improvement, it has nothing on the better products out on the market unfortunately.

 

Subscribed because I'm a loser who loves my Tein Flex 7/6k. Ignorance is bliss.

EDIT: I'm always looking for a notupperware 03 SE. Good job finding yours.

 

Subbed for sound deadening/heat management.

 

Andrew, why vinyl over cloth for the Robbins?

 

Vinyl is easier to keep clean and doesn't require re-treatment to maintain its waterproofing. Cloth is a little nicer but I don't want to deal with the added maintenance aspect.

 

I Dynamatted my doors and love the new solid "thunk" they make when shutting closed - even feels more solid when driving, hard to explain but definitely different (less tinny maybe).

I spent ages cutting bits to fit so that the inner doorskins were clad as much as possible, only to learn later that it's just as effective to apply in a checkerboard pattern (ie. alternate "squares" with Dynamat and no-Dynamat). This would have saved me a LOT of time, been easier to fit/shape the "squares", weighed half as much and use half as much.

PS: Don't think you can get away with using a hairdryer on the dynamat - it will only last about 15 minutes when cranked right up. I now have have a hot-air gun which performs double-duty as a lethal hairdryer.