So my name is Mike, I've had MULTIPLE miatas over time, getting my first one when I was 19 from my autoshop teacher right after I graduated high school. Since them, I've probably quired about 14-15 of them, some of them projects I didnt have the means to finish, some of them parts cars, and a few that made it on the road. My first one, being more "low n slow" because I didn't have the knowledge, or the budget to go fast. Fast forward, I'm currently 32, after some bad financial decisions, and girlfriends, one almost becoming a fiancé, I'm able to spend my money as irresponsibly as I want! And still get all the bills paid!

I dont currently have a pic of my very first miata, but lets just say, it turned out exactly how you'd expected a miata to turn out, after a poor teenager got ahold of it. Yes, yes it was slammed on raceland coil overs. Yes it did also have some 15x10 et0 Diamond Racing Wheels on it, with stretched tires. AND YES!!! It had a super shitty flat black rattle can paint job!

But all that is apart of the past! I'm a grown(ish) man now, and I make PROPER (irresponisble) financial decisions! "maintenance before mods", which is something I always heard when I was younger but never listened to. So now I perform all the maintenance needed, BEFORE making my vehicles unreliable.

So were gonna skip over a bunch of junk/parts miatas, and go straight for my pride and joy 1997 NA that I acquired pre miata price spike. A good friend who also is a miata enthusiast put me onto this deal, becuase he couldnt grab it at the time. I picked it up for 1,000.00 and drove it to the shop I worked at about 30 minutes away. It needed paint, maintence, wheels, tires, everything. It needed everything. So another project (another miata) got put on hole, and this one jumped to the front of the line. I took the hardtop off another car I had aquired, put it on the 97, and shipped it off to paint. Beucase I was getting the "homie hook up" it took a little longer than I would have liked, but the price was right. After about 9 months of being at the body shop, I was a miata that was all one color for once!

Then I proceeded to follow those wise words that I once ignored. "Maintenance before mods". So I proceeded to start ripping her apart!
Maintenance I did:
- Cam seals
- Front main seal
- Timing belt/water pump
- Rear main seal
- Valve cover gasket
- NGK spark plugs
- NGK wiress
- Brake, and calipers on all 4 corners
(upgraded to wilwood front BBK because I found it for a stupid good deal)
- Exintake cam swap
- Advanced timing to 14*
- Raceland coils
( YEA yea yea, I know, racelands, but it was what the budget allowed for to replace the blown out "stockish" suspension it came with)
- New flywheel/clutch (OEM replacements)
- Rear wheel bearings

And then proceeded to driver her to Tennessee about 2 weeks after, and again about a month afterwards for Miatas at the gap". Then roughly 6 months after MATG, the worst happened..... A brans new driver, a 17 year old girl, in a brand new Toyota 4 runner destroyed all the hard work I did.

Gonna skip to the pics to bring you from when I got it, to where it ended.

How I got my 97



after an unfortunate mishap, ironically from the gentleman who did the original body work before it got painted.


After a 17 year old girl, in a brand new Toyoa 4ruuner, decided stop signs from a side road, were optional......

 

So not much later than the accident happening, I'm getting a call from my friend sergio at Track Prep Performance (TPP), hes calling to inform me of a miata him, and our Casco, wanted to sell me a project car they picked up. They originally bought to to be a parts car/possible K swap candidate. Some phone calls laters, and a trip to Clearwater from SWFL. There was a Turbo NB2 in my possession, these guys kept me from going more than 2-3 days without a miata. And man did they give me a super good deal, but that wasny all they gave me.

They didn't know a whole lot about the car, they picked it up in the same shape I received it from them in. Which was a good start, but extremely rough around the edges, but was a very solid starting point. The owners before them were building it for a budget racing league, I mean they made due with what they had, but there was some concerning things I found getting it home.

Parts list when I got it
- Engine/transmission/rearend:
- Stock BP6D
- FM turbo kit (non- intercooled)
- Stock 5 Speed transmission
- 4.30 rearend (with a pinion bearing sooo bad, I've never heard one scream like it)

Management:
- FM Voodoo Box
- AEM wideband
- (What appears to be) RX7 Injectors
- Inaccurate cheap boost guage

​​
Suspension:
- FM springs
- 4 Way adjustable shocks


Interior/Body:
- Gutted a/c ( VERYTHING, front under the dash to the condensor, all gone)
- Gutted interior (no carpet, no parking brake, no center console, no a/c or radio controls.. Anything they could delete they did)

 

So, long story short, thats the condition I received the car in. The previous, previous owners, had the right idea, "Lets make a racecar", and they did so as cheaply as they could. I wouldnt say what they did was wrong, but they cut corners in the worst, best, worst ways possible.. As far as deleting stuff that they werent going to use, they didnt do a bad job, they removed it all "properly", they didnt just cut it all out. Seems that all connectors required to reinstall everything was there. But they did hack up all the center a/c duction during their boost gauge/and wideband install.

My biggest issues were, that one my way home from clear water on our 144 mile drive, I had noticed a "notchy" feeling in the steering, only thing I could relate it was felt like a pinch bolt in the steering column/shaft was look somewhere. It wasnt your normal slop that comes from worn inner or outer tie rod ends.

So, I get it home, and start doing what anyone else would do! Lets start taking the good transferable parts off my wrecked 97, and start swapping them over to the NB! So I swapped the wheels, which were TR Motorposrts C1M wrapped in 225/45/16 Hankook RS4 tires, my wilwood BBK! And lets start looking into what the notchy feeling was..... And go figure, it was exactly what I thought it felt like, loose pinch bolts in the steering shaft/column. Not just 1, but all 3! The 2 farther up the steering column were loose, not loose enough to turn by hand, but not as tight as they should have been. The worst one, was the one at the end of the steering shaft, were it slides on to the steering rack. It wasnt just loose, it was also halfway slipped off the stub of the rack!

Now, normally I do my work at the shop I work at. But I was anxious to start getting parts swapped over. So the followed week I drove it up to there shop, taking some time to get use to the new car. But also so I could do some maintenance to it, until I knew the extend of where the car was at, what did it need, and all that good stuff before I started ripping into it. So the coolant looked like **** brown water, brake fluid was dark, but the oil didnt look super dark. But there was no oil change sticker, so I said what the hell, I did a coolant flush, oil change, and brake flush so that I had some piece of mind by doing my due diligence and servicing the basic stuff.

Pics are of the night I swapped the wheels, and my wilwood BBK over from the wrecked white car to the new to me Turbo NB.




So the car seemed to do great the rest of the week leaking up to autocross! It handled a little more "jerky" than I was use to, it had alot of negative camber, and toe in up front, But I was just enjoying drivinge around in another miata!

So autocross weekend came, and my girlfriend co drives with me, I get my first run (recon run) so I take it easy just trying to see what the car is going to do, and to get a better look at the tack. Second run, I start pushing it a little harder. Thier run comes up, and right after I pull into grid, it starts getting a little on the warm side. So I park it and let to cool down, I miss out on my 4th run, as I didnt want to let the car get overly hot. So I was first run group, my girlfriend ended up running in the 3rd group, which gave the car plenty of time to cool off. So she stages, and gets 2 runs in. She goes to pull up for her 3rd run, and I noticed a BUNCH of oil from the spot we have been parking in, I run up to the side of the car and look under it. Its COATED in oil, so I call her off her run, and we park the car for rest of the day. I do my work station, and no sooner than being relieved of my work group. I'm in the car, and on the way to the shop to get it in the air, and see what happened,

Based on having the tupperware lip on it, this picture might now have been from THAT weekend, but Sergio had found me one fairly quick. But, no biggie, this is just a preview of the lift my car would come to live on, and then live under for a good while.




So I get the car to the shop, and get it in the air to see whats going on with the oil leaking. Behold, whoever installed the turbo kit didnt have all the parts they needed, so they improvised! Now I'm not againt a good ole rigging of something, if it gets the same result, But this obviously didnt work the way it was planned... The turbo oil return had 5/8th copper plumbing tube, cross threaded into the flange, that bolts to the turbo, and 1 of the flang bolts were only finger tight. So I did what anyone else would do... I replaced the gasket to the flange, and tried to tighten up the copper pipe. I was in the heat of the moment trying to get the car straightened out, I dont think I grabbed a picture of it,

Next morning, were back autocross, And I made 1 lap, before he car started puking oil like Oprah at fat camp, It was also starting to have cooling issues again, which was quickly diagnosed as they only had 1 fan, along with a stock radiator.

So at this point in time, I had already had a bunch of parts that I was originally saving for my NA. I was going to take the white car off the road, following that autocross weekend to perform more maintenance, and installed it s goof amount of aftermarket parts I had collected for it. Luckily alot of stuff was interchangeable betweem the NA8, and BP6D. So started many trips to my storage unit, late night texts to sergio ordering last minute parts.

 

So, this car is starting to go under the knife, not even two weeks into owning in. And now that I was starting to get an idea of the workmanship of the car, someone could have told me they did the timing belt and eveything. And based on their work so far, I would have still redone everything again, just to have the peice of mind that it was done, done right(ish), or atleast I would be aware of what was halfassed!

I also took this opportunity to install the skunk2 manifold I had been saving for my 97, and thankfully I didnt open the pinch bubble wrap paper that cuddled the ms3 pro pnp I also had bought for my 97. I reached out to Sergio from Track Prep Performance, since I purchased the ECU new through him. He handled explaining the situation to DIYautotune, and instead of having to sell a BRAND NEW standalone for less than I paid, in order to replace it with one to work with the 2003. They took it back, since the pink bubble wrap around the ECU itself was unopened, a small restocking fee, and shipping later, I recieved a MS3 Pro PNP for my 2003 NB2!



So, a few days later, we have miata without an engine! Nothing that has been seen on this forum, or any miata forum for that matter, I had found out it was a junkyard engine, so compared to just doing your normal reseal, I decided to open it up a little further, and see what I'm working with. And would I be a lucky son of a bitch, it this inside of this engine wasn't 100% sludge free! Thats about the best thing I've learned about the car at this point.

With the somewhat forced, assistance of my lovely girlfriend of 7 years, were making some progress. I had her help me remove the engine, tear it down, and explained everything to her as we went, Allowing her to see how indepth these kind of builds go. I mean, she drove the hell out of my white NA at autocross, now its time for her to get her hands dirty!

First pic, I believe I had her tightening the turbo manifold to the block bolts.



And this her is very first autocross! I taught her how to driver a manual not even a full week before hand.



So, parts that I had already collected that were going to get installed on the NB, instead of the NA:
- MOMO Monte Carlo 330mm wheel
- NRG v3.0 quick release
- ARP head studs
- 2004 MSM 6 speed
- FM2 clutch kit
- 11 lbs flywheel
- Skunk2 intake
- Megasquirt
- OEM coolant hose kit
- OEM engine reseal

The car is getting off to a pretty solid start! Got everything installed, go for our first start after all the work that's been done! She first of first try after priming the fuel system, and letting the oil pump get some oil running through it. I'm setting up to get the base timing done once it gets to operating temp. Things seem to be going great! Seemed.... To be going great.

Out of now where, we heard a fairly LOUD *TINK*, and the engine shuts off.. I get in the driver seat so I can crank it, and it sounds like a very labored crank. Almost as if you tried to turn your car over with a half dead battery.. So I start looking around for what caused the loud *TINK* noise, and I visually couldnt see anything wrong, I pull off the valve cover with the same success.. Nothing. All of the cam lobs look ok, none of the lifter shims spit themselves out. I try cranking it over a few times, but now I'm holding the throttle open a little, and you can heard it popping back through the intake a little. HMM thats werid.

I move on to the next step, and verify my physical timing, come to find, I'm 5 teeth off. Now that is definitely strange... As I'm very familiar with timing miatas, I'm actually very experience with timing jobs on multiple brands, and styles of engines. I know I took my time, and verified my timing marks.. I continue forward, and rest my timing, it gives me a slightly rev up, but quickly dies. I begin performing crank/no start data longs to send to friends, as this is my first time working with a aftermarket computer. And no one can see anything that is obviously wrong. I hunted after this issue in my spare time after work, for roughly 2 weeks, we probably adds up close to 4.5-5 hours of physical time I got to spend on the car. I'm chasing computer and sensor issues, thinking I did something wrong in tunerstudio,

Sergio brings to my attention to check the physical timing between the cam, and the cam gear. My logic on it is, well I had it running with the way I had it timed, so it should still run. But I took his advice, and pulled the exhaust cam gear, because that was the side that ended up "off time". At first glance with everything set to TDC you can see the dowels for the cams at the 12:00 position, with all the timing marks lined up.

Now with this next picture, look close.


The cam dowel SNAPPED!!!! Allowing the gear to spin on the nose of the cam shaft. No worried, I had another exhaust camshaft laying around, I'll just swap it out. Easy peasy... WRONG!




Something had block oil flow to the front cam cap of the exhaust cam. I did have the head off to inspect everything, and (so I thought) cleaned everything pretty thoroughly. But the only conclusion I could come to, was something restricted oil enough to gouge the cam, and journals causing it to lock up. And with the force of everything else still in motion, broke the dowel pin that aligned the exhaust cam gear with the cam.

So after getting that part figured out.. I said **** it, I had a BP4W head, that was meant to replace the BP05 head on the 97.. And so it began, pulling the BP6D head, to be replaced with the none VVT BP4W head!



But, thats all the time I have for today, theres still more stuff to cover. But for now. Heres my kitten

 

Just want to make sure your aware the NB cylinder head is a raised intake port head and the NA is not. Is the intake manifold for a NA or NB?

 

The skunk2 manifold is drilled for both. Just need to make sure you have the corresponding intake gasket.

The vehicle has been running for awhile now, this is just past work I've done. And haven't had a chance to finish updating to where its currently at.

 

Ok, so to pick where I left off..
After figuring out that little PITA problem, the ball was rolling again! Got the Supermiata coolant reroute installed, CSF radiator is in, timing belt, and water pump done, ARP head studs installed. Engine has been resealed will all new OEM Mazda seals.

While I had everything apart, I decided I was going to extend, the injector harness so that I could run it under the intake manifold. With the skunk2 intake, it leaves everything pretty open, so I didnt want the super ugly factory sub harness being an eye sore. Now wiring isn't my strongest area, but I'm a glutton for punishment so after an evening of ebay shopping, I had all the heat shrink I could ever need, fancy harness loom, none insulated butt connectors (cause I suck at soldering, yea I know its easy, I just suck at it), along with some heat sleeve tubing for the heater core hoses, and smaller coolant hoses.

And then here is my final result, not the best by any means, not the worst either. It'll do what I wanted it to do.

I also extended some of the main wiring harness so I could run it behind the timing cover trying to clean some of the engine bay up. Its far from done, as the car is still a work in progress, but I'll get back to cleaning it up more later on once the car has been sorted out.

Oh all of this was being done 2 weeks before my girlfriend , and I were suppose to drive it up to Miatas At The Gap.

So next item on the list to tackle, was the intercooler piping, as they didnt have it intercooled. A buddy had a brand new mishimoto intercooler laying around, that he wasnt going to use. The previous owner had seem to have started getting the vehicle ready to install an intercooler. They cut a hole behind the driver side head light for the charge pipe, so I decided to go ahead and do the same for the pasenger side. Compared to trying to wiggle it past the sway bar, and cutting extra holes in the LRB SPEED under tray that I'll be installing later on. So the routing I picked allowed me to tuck it up fairly high in the fender well, completely out of the way.


And my little homemade intercooler support bar, took some spare bracket material we had laying around the shop, notched and bent it to fit tight against the frame rails. Removed the bumper support brackets, and drilled a hole on each side to secure it with some hardware. It actually turned out to be pretty sturdy.


So I got everything wrapped up with about a week to spare before driving to MATG, had some minor issues with the first start. I had a bad connection at the came sensor, so it wouldnt run, tracked that down, and fixed it. and BOOM SHE WAS ALIVE!!!!! My buddy Matt helped me out with a base tune, to get her rolling. Shake down for the week went fairly smooth, just a small hiccup with me not nut checking the turbo coolant line banjo bolt, obviously resulting to a coolant leak.

Well, now its a couple days before before the trip, the car has been doing great! So I was at easy a little, and decided to have a buddy make a decal to cover my hood.


And we made it! the car did great the whole trip!






It was our second year attending, and it was a blast! And we will continue to go as long as the event is hosted!

 

The trip itself, and parts I had to order in order to have the car ready to go, put a hurt on my wallet. Not including the physical exhaustion from long nights at the shop trying to have the car ready. So I took it easy for a few weeks, and just drove the car.

Well as I had mentioned earlier the car didnt have ANYTHING for the a/c, and yet again, another buddy comes in for the rescue. He was actually having the shop LEVEL 30, that was working on his car, remove EVERYTHING for his a/c. And generously passed it on to me. So I started planning to take the car off the road for a few days to install all the under dash stuff, and install a uncracked dash I had acquired.

Then, one morning when watching The Car Passion Channel, they were doing an episode focusing on the CANcheck guage. And I fell in love with it, I loved how much you could change, to monitor what you want. And it removes the gauges from the air events, which I'm not a fan of, nor am I a fan of pillar pods. This gauge was the answer to everything I wanted, it repurposed the spot for the dummy oil pressure gauge. But allows you to add sensors, youre ecu may not have a imput/output for.

It wasnt hard to talk myself into ordering it, my girlfriend was as thrilled. "But sweetie, I'm already going to have the cluster out, so I might as well do it all at once!"




Its alot smaller in person, (thats what she said) than it was in the videos. But is still visible enough to see clearly when I'm in the relaxed driving position. I'm roughly 6' tall, so my seat it set pretty much all the way back. While I had the dash out, I decided I was going to relocate the megasquirt over to the passenger side, and hide it in the cavity were the passenger air bag would be. With the tuning cable easily accessible from the glove box. I also rerouted, and reran some of the vacuum lines for the MAP sensor to the ecu, and boost gauge. While doing that I found a random vacuum lined that was spliced behind the dash, sharing the line with the boost gauge, which I thought was broken as it never seemed to read accurately. And that explains that question, when I thought it was just the cheap gauge they installed.





In the process of rerouting all the vacuum lines, and trying to get the previous owners mess under control, while feeding them through the main grommet or the engine harness, that goes into the cabin of the car. I guess hit a wire just the right way. Upon finishing the dash swap, I started her up, and come to find that I now have a misfire that wasn't there before the dash swap. I already had a pretty good idea of what the problem was, and that being my wiring. I pulled wires to isolate where the miss was coming from, and found it was coming from cylinder number two, I had spark, So right off the bat i performed a noid test at the number two injector, and just as I suspected. I wasnt getting any pulse from injector number two. I apparently moved, or hit the harness just right, to cause one of the splices I made to pull out from the butt connector,

This pretty much brings it up to speed at where I'm at with the car. I'm in the process of redoing the harness, as I found the crimpers I used, weren't able to make as tight of a crimp as I needed. I know there's probably more connections just waiting to open up. So I rather redo, and use what I learned from the first time, to improve it this go around. I also decided to go ahead and order injectors, while I'm redoing the harness that way I can go ahead, and pin the connectors for them while I have it apart. Compared to having to run the adapter/jumper harness to make the injectors work with the Miata harness,

A few days later, my new DW200 255LPH fuel pump came in, along with my Injector Dynamics 1050cc injectors!



And another pic of my beloved Piper

 

This little fella decided to show up to the shop the day of the hurricane, he didn't give a single **** about the air tools going off around him, or any of the loud noises that are normally related to repair shops. he literally just showed up, and started meowing at people like he ran the joint, luckily it didn't take long to find him a forever home with a close friend of mine.




So progress on the car has been none existent since Hurricane Ian, our shop which is normally scheduled a week to a week and a half out, was closed for the week after the storm, due to no power, and getting our homes cleaned up the best we could. So we're super backed up with work, on top of one of our guys leaving a week prior to the storm hitting.

Man, Ian decimated our area, boats all over the place. Some areas that saw flooding there was random cars out in the middle of the road, docks everywhere. 90% of the county I live in was without power for the better part of a week, some areas for longer.

This wasn't our first hurricane, but it was definitely the worst one this area has ever seen. We were prepared for it, just like we were for every other hurricane that has hit us. We had about a weeks worth of food, and water. Filled up our vehicles before it hit. But after the storm had passed, trying to get any sort of supplies, or fuel was next to impossible. Gas stations had lines that I would guess were atleast a mile long, with hours of wait time. All you could do was hope there was going to be any fuel left by the time you got to a pump.

We kinda lucked out with fuel, a buddy of ours who's grand father lived in one of the areas that was severely impacted, had a very nice boat that he always kept filled up for those super early morning fishing trips. Well, the boat was totaled. So we used it as our own little stock pile of fuel.



And of course, a little goofing around to try to help lighten the mood.


Here are some picture of the area bis grandfather lived in, and the area that neighbors my shop.





And this is how the air field looks, where we host our monthly autocross events at. Currently its filled to the max with trucks, and trailers for all those out here trying to help us get back to being some what normal. So our events have been canceled until further notice, but we predict were be resuming after the first of the year.


There was a crazy amount of Linesmen out as you would expect to see after a very severe storm, and seems like there was just as many tow trucks out grabbing all the cars from the areas that had severe flooding.

But aside from the injectors, and fuel pump that I received right before Ian hit, I finally ordered my coilovers.
I was fighting with myself between ballin' out, and going with a set of Ohlins, or going with a set of the Silvers North America coilovers. I've driven cars with both set ups, and god the ohlins were AMAZING, but I couldn't justify the price when the vehicles main use is street driving, and autocross events. So I opted for the Silvers, which are still a very nice coilover!


And after the car is back on the road, I have some wheels sitting in the storage unit, I've just been waiting on getting some proper coilovers, getting the fenders rolled, and pulled. Then next is ordering some Falken RT660 tires in a 245/40/15 to go on some 15x10 jongblod wheels!

 

Damn Mike. I didn't know about the head. You certainly have a motivated work ethic. After all the Miatas and all the problems you just keep on fighting. Sounds like it's coming together. It's stock rods, isn't it? How much HP are you aiming for. Isn't a turbo Miata so much more fun than a NA one?

 

Yea, stock rotating assembly, I have a block on the side I'm going to start building here soon. But for now I'm shooting for between 250-275

 

Nice thread! Following to see how the build progresses.

Sorry to see all the storm damage in your area, hope the cars made it out unscathed.

 

Thanks!
Yea, our town got pretty rocked by Ian, and the NB was tucked away in the car port! But its needs a paint job, and some body work anyways. Which will hopefully be getting addressed here in the next few months.

 

I dont have any real update, aside from wanting to open boxes, and take pictures. And here we are! My Silvers coilovers arrived today! A whole 3 days earlier than what the tracking had originally predicted!

Now I just gotta find the time to work on the car... 😪

Between getting backed up from the storm, and the influx of flood cars. We went from having 2.5 techs, to just me. With pretty close to the same work load. And yes I said 2.5 techs. One guy wasnt a " bad" tech, but was a horrible employee, and found greener pastors somewhere else. And the .5 tech, wasnt a good tech, or a good employee. I'm actually glad he's gone, all he was, was a body in the shop. If you could call him that.. /endrant



Also ordered a retro style mazda flag to hang up behind my toolbox at the shop. I'll post pictures once I clean up my unorganized box, and rollcart, and have it hung behind what I call my storage box.

 

So, my car moved!!! But only because we pushed it... Needed the car port while I was doing some work on my friends Exocet. Just some basic preventive maintenance.
- Water pump
- Timing belt
- Cam/crank seals



Got to drive it around a little bit that weekend too, and my girlfriend had never got to go for a ride in it before.



But I did finally get some time to work on my car, didn't get as much accomplished as I was hoping as it was the holiday weekend. So there was a bunch of running around, and family stuff going on.
So it returned to being a hover car for the time being.

In the process of working on the car, I found I neglected to check the VIN on the dash I swapped into my car. My car is a 2003, and the dash I swapped in came from a 1999. You know what that means! The dash wiring is different! Great another thing to add to the list...

However I did manage to get my Silver's coilovers installed finally, along with the Paco extended balljoints I've had sitting around since I had them left over from the 97. Along with the replacement bumper, and driver front fender. I'll be dropping the hardtop, and front bumper off at the body shop this week, or next week.




Also received the cheap double din radio, and install kit I ordered off amazon, and a Mazda Roadster short shifter, and circuit sports shift ****!


Thats where I'm at for now, I'm going to try to get some other things buttoned up during the week, so I can make it to a small Miata meet that were having here in Ft Myers this up coming weekend.

 

Santa also came early for me, I decided to trade in my old Sanp-on tool box that I've had for around 8-9 years. It was slammed full, and my rollcart was over loaded. I've wanted this toolbox for the longest time, and finally pulled the trigger.
My new 68" EPIC, both my old, and new boxes are a bit of a mess as I'm getting everything swapped over, and organized.


Almost forgot

 

Well, its one step closer to being driven again. Was trying to drive it to a small miata/car meet that was being held at a friends gas station. But rushing caused me to make a very small mistake, that lead to the car still not moving.

I did manage to get rest of the suspension buttoned up, and torqued down. A good buddy should be coming by sometime soon to roll/pull my fenders, that way I can get the new wheels fitted once I get tires.

While I was attempting to install my Injector Dynamics 1050x injectors, which are specifically designed for the Miata where no spacer/adapter is required between the injector and fuel rail. Well, its a VERY TIGHT fit. At first I thought I was missing a spacer, and that wasnt the case. But Serigo (Track Prep Performance) managed to find someone with pretty much the exact same set up as myself, and was able to get some pictures of everything installed.

• BP4W head
• Radium dual feed fuel rail
• ID1050x injectors
• Skunk2 Manifold (OEM intake manifold gasket)

Pics below are the ones that were sent to us, and you can see how tight it is. To me, it looks like its making contact with the intake manifold. But he had managed to get everything to line up. I on the other had couldn't get it anywhere close. I spent about 2 hours trying to fit the injectors facing different ways, and scratching my head, thinking there was no way they don't use some sort of spacer, or that I was really that retarded.


Once it was confirmed I wasn' t missing any parts, I ended up using a dremel to take a very little bit of material off the manifold where the connector was making contact. I'll have the intake off I'm sure sometime in the nearish future, so Ill clean up the spots I ground down later on.

Pic below is not my picture, but circled in red is the areas I took some material off of.


Well after getting that sorted out, and rushing to get it all buttoned up, one of the injector seals ended up rolling, and causing a leak... [img]data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7[/img] So that's when I called it quits for tonight, as nothing good was going to happen after that point.

But I finally dug my hardtop out from its hiding spot on the side of the house. Its been sitting back there since it was removed from my 97. Gave it a quick wash, and dropped it, off at the body shop Thursday to join the trunk. They said they should be getting started on everything fairly soon.





And a couple pictures I found of our cats from when they were shittens.

No laundry was in any immediate danger of being folder, and put away if they had any say in it. They still love to help to this day!

Piper on the left, and Enkei on the right.

 

Not a whole lot to update on, got the vehicle run, theres a few finally little vacuum/boost leaks I have to get sealed up.
But I did get my CANcheck guage installed, and figured out how to switch settings, and set "pop up" alarms for sensors that go outside of their "min/max" value readings that you can set. Figuring out how to change the displays was kinda of a PITA. As the instructions we receive for the Miata's, basically just covers the physical installation.

I mainly for it to use for AFR/Boost gauges. As to avoid blocking the A/C vents, since this car will be driven alot on the street.

But here's a couple pics showing the POP-UP warnings, I set the max coolant temp just a few degrees above what the engine was at, at that time to see how it worked.



Once you get use to changing which sensors are being displayed, its actually REALLY simple. I absolutely love it, and would recommend it to anyone. And hopefully soon I'll be getting a oil pressure sensor wired in, but according to someone I've talked with in another thread. CANcheck is having some firmware issues, so even with the proper voltage scale, the oil psi reading isn't accurate.

I've also received more stuff in the mail!! MY TIRES CAME IN!
So whats the first thing I did? I went, and grabbed the wheels out of the storage unit. And now, they'll occupy our Honda Element until A close friend of mine can get them mounted, and balanced for me.



In some other news, we've placed a deposit on 2 Miata's that I found being sold as a bundle. One is a 94 Manual car with 86k on it. The other is a 96 auto with 165k, that was originally meant to be a parts car, but I guess upon them getting the car, it was in too nice of condition to be torn apart. But, unfortunately its an automatic. So the fate of that car hasn't been decided just yet, we'll be traveling 7-8 hours the first weekend of January to go pick them up. The sellers have been more than willing to provide me with pictures of the rockers, and quarter panels, and other common spots for these vehicles to get rust. And both seem to be rust free! These sellers have honestly been probably the best ones I've ever had the pleasure of working with thus far. They even sent me some more pictures today after his son spent some time giving it a good clean up.

Hard
The 94, was apparently his mothers weekend driver, that they've had for approx 20 years, and had 60k when they got it, but it does has a little bit of front end damage from striking a pole. Its hard to 100% tell in the pictures, but doesn't look like its taken on very much structural damage. Might need to do a little pulling, and tweaking, but well see when we get up there in person. I was told both vehicles ran before being parked a few years ago. Either way, for the price we would definitely make out money back in parts. And I've also go a early 90's shell that's been sitting in the back corner of my shop that I could do something with.

So hopefully the deal goes through, and we end up bringing them home.

Pics of the 94, I don't have any decent pics of the 96 auto car saved.

 

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE! I know I'm a few days late to saying so, but just been busy working, and trying to make progress on the car.

Finally managed to get the wheels, and tires mounted, and balanced. Along with getting the fenders rolled, and pulled.




I have an appointment with a remote tuner for the 14th, to get the tune dialed in more, and also signed up for the HP Academy tuning classes just to get to more familiar, and become more confident in any changes I'll have to make in the future.

Also found a pretty good deal on a ATI Super Damper locally. Not that I really need it right now, but it'll definitely get used when I start building an engine on the side.


AND this weekend is the weekend, we finally get to go pick up the other 2 miatas!!!

 

Well, I finally have the car some what dialed in. I haven't really posted much, again "Because I've been busy with work". And since my last update I found myself going to a last minute track day at The FIRM, located in Starke, Fl. Which is about a four, and a half hour drive from where I live. So I pulled some extra long nights after work, and some weekends, and managed to get the majority of my "To Do" list that I've been procrastinating on finally checked off.

I had alot to do, and managed to get it all done (for the most part)
- The car got some "street remote" tuning done by Steve Hanegev
- It definitely feels like it has "less power", but the cars drivability during just normal street driving is SOOOO much better now. That alone made it worth it, and I'll be going back to Steve when I'm ready to start making more power. But now the car runs, and idles smooth, performs consistently. And I enjoy driving it now, compared to before it was more of a "chore"
- Finally got around to swapping the 2003 dash harness back in
- Did final adjustment for ride height
- Replace rear pads/calipers, went with stoptech upgrade rear pads with oem replacement rear rotors
- Installed the ATI dampener
- modified the LRB lowered air damn to fit the NB with the intercooler piping

There was still a few things left I wanted to do, that I never got around to, but they weren't going to keep the car from going on track.

And the car did AMAZING to my surprise, not that I thought the car was going to fail. But I'm surprised I didn't run into any small issues, as most of the time I get to work on the car is rushed.