Hi, my name is Nick. I ride bicycles and have a weird thing for hairdresser cars. I tend to avoid making build threads for anything, but I guess I should introduce myself a bit better, show ya'll my 94, and take you through a brief blast to where I am now. Hopefully I won't bore any of you.

HISTORY
Wanted a miata since I was a kid when the neighbor down the street had a sweet 96 m-edition. Fast forward a few years to when I got my license, one car that always caught my attention when I drove: Miatas. Fast forward a few more years to when the transmission in my Ford Escape blew up and I had a choice. $3k for a new transmission, or $3k for a Miata. Guess which one I chose!



This is the day I bought her. November 2013. Named it Potato. Some crazy hippy lady (unfortunately, she was a hair-stylist. ) wanted to move to some communist farm collective so she was selling off her worldly possesions. $3200 87k miles, 94, hardtop included, soft-top in great shape, and a little sooty on the tailpipe, and HLA clatter.

Went to work sorting the maintenance out. Looked like a grease-monkey special sorting through all the paperwork I got from her. At least she regularly changed the oil, but every 7k miles. Anyhoo, did some things to the car to protect my life.

1) Rollbar HDHCDDHTOMGBBQ
2) Door bars
3) 15x8 Konig Flat-outs wrapped in DZ102 tires.
4) Lincoln Log's old Tein Monoflex Coilovers.



Now in clubroadster herra stance mode, I needed to adress the overwealming lack of oomph.

1) Roadstersport Exhaust (first time I've experienced v-bands. )
2) Raceland Header (yea... still was a member of clubroadster then. )
3) Exhintake mod

I thought It would be glorious; it wasn't. Installing the Exhintake I had to do do timing, so I did WP, T-belt, and all that jazz. Ended up 1-tooth off on the crank. Car had NO power. This freaked me out enough to investigate deeper. I ended up finding the timing mistake, but during search for answers did compression / leakdown test. I cried.

Dry : 110, 100, 70, 65
Wet : 115, 100, 85, 80

Leakdown : 10%, 15%, 35%, ALLOFIT%.

Well. New motor time. Felt discouraged, saddened, like I had a string of bad luck from blown transmission in Escape, to now motor in potato. ********.

In my knee-jerk reaction state, bought a "rebuilt" motor off eBay. **** me. Don't ever do this. Seller took used engine, painted it, sold it. eGay's buyer protection policy states that the buyer is responsible for return shipping in the case of wrong product, wrong description, etc. So I would have been stuck with a $300 bill to frieght a motor back to him just to return it because he lied in the discription. Double ********.

I ended up keeping the motor (most expensive core ever....) and to venture down the path of building my first motor.



This is where I joined here. You guys actually know what the **** is going on. Amazing. I searched, read, and researched building a motor. In the dark depths of this site lay beautiful knowledge.

MT.net ubiquitous 'built motor', but without a turbo. Crucify me.
84mm wiseco 10.5:1 potato poppers (maybe turbo with e85 down the road)
Manley rods
ACL bearings
ARP main and head studs
MSM BP4w head with BP5a cam
Supertech light doubles
Manley +1 intake/exhaust valves
Flattop IM
Fidanza FW
Polished crank and balanced rotating assembly

Picture dump :









Well that was fun. Learned a lot, tried to noob as little as I could. Buuuuuut a 6-speed 'fell' into my hands too. Dude listed transmission as "1999 Miata 10th AE 5-speed transmission $300". Intrigued to know what was up, I emailed and asked for a picture. Picture came forth showing a 6-speed, I made payment, I recieved tracking number.



With my old engine limping along, and winter upon me. I parts hoarded.

Bought :

-The "Soviet Special" fuel system (return-based fuellab AFPR, Mocal AN everything, FM(M-tuned) fuel rail, gt500 EV14 injectors, black-sausage fire-sleeve). Thanks EO2K and Nigelt!
-APR Supermiata GTC-200 off lincoln logs
-Supermiata Racing Beat hollow sway (the big and thick one ) and MSM rear sway/endlink package.
- Mishimoto rad / m-tuned re-route (shoulda bought crossflow )
- Supermiata 11.75 bbk and rx7 FC t2 11" rear brake conversion, and wilwood tandem MC.
-TSE oil cooler kit
-RS3v2 tires
-Bunch of other random bushings, awr mounts, interior bits, etc.

PRESENT DAY
And that brings us to this past monday. Motor swappage!

Everyone's seen a motor-swap, but this was my first... and my first built motor... so












Aaaaaand yea. Here I am breaking it in and loving every second. I would guestimate power to be in the realm of ~150hp based on what others have built, high elevation, and shitty 91 octane go-juice, but it's a revvy, quick blast to drive! Now I am in abject poverty, but ready for summer!

I wish I could individually thank all those who provided valuable knowledge throughout the build, but it's far too many to remember. Let me just say I'm very greateful for such an intelligent, and dedicated community of people that helped me turn my fail-parade into where I'm at today!

 

Nice. Pics are hosted somewhere? Host sites are blocked at work so no lunch break lookee for me :(

Sounds like you have a fairly nice build going now. Any thoughts of putting a potato IN your potato?

 

All hosted on my dropbox. Should probably photobucket them as curly commands.

 

Props for an excellent post.

 

Needs more MKTurbo boosting power. Would be nice to see what the T3 can put down at 20+psi.

 

Must have missed the "im now in abject poverty" phrase.

Would love to MKTurbo.

 

I resize all hosted images to 1042x768. Displays on desktop and phone just fine. Even with a 21" monitor and good connection, this page takes 15s to load.

Excellent use of passenger seat in pick up.

 

Re-sized for viewing pleasure! They became oddly pixelated at 1042x768, but were fine at 1714x964. Hopefully they're not too large still.

21" monitor. C'mon Emilio! Surround 27" for 7668x1140p!

 

3x 23's actually

 

That is why I sell them ad abject poverty prices!

 

You had it on track yet? Hurry up and break in your motor and bring her out to HPR!

 

We shall talk. Maybe this upcoming winter. I'm mostly nervous about CR mixing with boost, and general lack of close e85.

Car nor myself has ever been on track. I'll see what I can do. Being 6'4" tall with foamectomy'd stock seats = broomstick test fail. I get a head massage from the hardtop every time I drive

Still need to address alla' dis too :

 

Updates!!! ish.

Good news :
-Got an alignment. Hello zero toe!
-Tuning is coming along... ish.
-Finally have time to install front BBK tomorrow!


Bad new :
-Missing an apparently rare parking cable bracket off my rear RX7 calipers that has prevented me from installing rear BBK.
-Tach is bouncing like crazy around 3k rpm. Coincides with logged missfires too. I've cleaned/checked all the engine-bay grounds. Might need to add additional ones and/or begin the LS truck coil conversion.
-Tried to input correct dead-times and voltage offsets for GT500 injectors, completely fubar'd my tune. Been attempting to slowly work my injector dead-times down from the 1.3ms to the .65ms incrementally, re-mapping my VE table as it leans out. SUPER time consuming.
- Can't get motor to closed-loop idle for ****. PID settings are shockingly far off. P=80, I=120, D=200. I went through the tutorial on PID tuning and the D portion is wacky.

The problem with my idle is seemingly weird to me. The rotating mass has been lightened so much that rpms plummet when the clutch is depressed and the motor has a very hard time catching it at around 1000-1100 rpm. Need more tuning/learning on the systems at play.
I need to work my dead-times down to where they need to be, then I'll tackle fixing this idle shenanigans.

I'll get this figured. Input/tips welcome.

All in all still stoked on life that I built a motor.

 

Swear I only clicked the button once... Double post.

 

Time for an UPGREYEDD!

Damn this car is fun. But everyone... and I mean everyone wants to have more power right? TurboTim to the rescue :







Tim's old Absurdflow top mount ps/ac compatible hilariously un-equal length mani/dp of awesomeness.

Turbo-Time Parts list :
- Absurdflow mani/dp- 2560r (also have a 3071r)
- FM 'new style' intercooler with silicone pipes + random BOV
- Trackspeed COP conversion - also have GM coils available too
- Skunk2 throttle body - Will port Square top to match
- DIY ebc solenoid + adjustable wastegate actuator (low spring + EBC = win?)
- Some form of a new clutch. Not really sure what mine can hold, but i doubt it will take more than 175 lb/ft. Will likely buy a FM2 if I cannot wait for the Supermiata clutches to resurface.
- Some haggard 3" exhaust until I can decide what I want and order a proper one.

My biggest concern moving forward is detonation. I'm running 10.5:1 CR and would ideally like to be able to run on pump gas as e85 is not plentiful around the Denver metro area. Still need to figure out oil feed too. Need to get a Tee off the oil pressure sender and looooong oil feed line.

This should be fun. I hope. Criticize, instruct, hoon as necessary. With any luck I won't

 

I absolutely love it when this thread gets updated.

Oh man, is that the one that makes the terribru subaru burgle noises?

I believe FM's "round the back" oil feed is 52" as I'm also playing with this right now. In for victorious insanity.

Also, you were supposed to tell me what fuel fittings you ended up using, and what you have leftover. Shoot me a PM playa!

 

Yes it is the hilarious miata-bru mani Cant wait to confuse the crap out of people. Subarus are EVERYWHERE in colorado. This should be fun.

Im glad your memory is better than mine. Im going to my buddies garage (my parts storage) and ill get an inventory for you tomorrow.

 

is this thing track ready??????

PMP August 8th.

 

It is, I'm not

8th wont fly. Have house inspection that morning. I need to find a seat that gets me lower.

 

your priorities are all wrong.