Alright I'm going to preface this with this is my first forum post ever, so if I get some things in this intro post wrong I hope no one gets too annoyed at me.
Having said that I've read all the awesome first time post guidelines from samnavy so I have all the tools to succeed and if this post is an epic fail, that's most likely on me.

So with that out of the way

Hi guys!

Long time viewer without an account, first time poster.

My names Hamish, I'm 20, and I live in Auckland New Zealand
I have a 1991 1.6 manual eunos roadster that I've owned for coming up to a couple of years now.
This is how it looked when I bought it



and this is how it looks now (+ a red hard top)



In that time it's either been daily driven or it's sat in my shed waiting for mods (the latter is where it sits right now)
Over my time of ownership I've only done a few minor things on it including but not limited to:
-Sparco sprint 5 race seats
-Dobi springs (which have now been switched out for yellowspeed coilovers)
-custom exhaust
-Jet stream headlights

and a few other minor things.

Recently a decently priced NB 1999 engine came up for sale so I thought, why not? and thus begun my parts hoarding for a turbo.
So far I've bought about 70% of the things I'll need for the block, just waiting on conrods and main caps from the states.
I'll get into a bit more of that if anyone replying wants to know more.

My final goal is for in 2 years to have the engine running at an easy 400hp, with a ford xr6 turbo gearbox and an RX7 diff.
I've basically scouted all the parts i'll need and am just waiting till the time is right to purchase them.

Finally I've gained so much valuable knowledge from people on this forum that are much smarter than I could ever hope to be and I can't wait to learn more.

I've added some photo's of my little 5, the look is constantly evolving at this point and doesn't look to settle any time soon.

 

Welcome to the forum. Personally I am partial to '91s.

Just as an aside, what are you doing to the block to eliminate any crank-walk on the '99 engine?

 

Welcome.

Is the new engine a 1.6, or 1.8? I'm don't know how '99's came in NZ.

 

Hopefully a 1.8 if the goal is 400 HP

 

I've bought an ATI damper if that's what you mean, if you have any more knowledge to share with me on how to eliminate this that would be awesome!
I'm a huge believer in only spending the money on a build once, so if you have any reliability tips that you wouldn't mind sharing that'd be great.

 

It's a 1.8, I bought it because I gathered from this forum that the 99 engine had a far superior head, which I'll be building upon before the engine goes back in the car.

 

This is what I was referring to: https://www.miata.net/solo/99miatath...ngfailure.html

Since you have the engine apart, you can ascertain if it needs corrective action.

 

Woah that's some pretty crazy stuff.
The engine has about 160,000ks on it at this point in time, I've taken it to an engine builder to get all the work done on it, reason being it's my first major build and I don't want to forget something minor and ruin all the parts I've put into my car.
That being said I'll definitely be heading over to his to have a quick look, I've got ACL race bearings to replace the old ones and after market main caps going in so hopefully this problem doesn't come up in the future.
I know the guy who owned the engine before me (he had the car for about 10 years) babied it and changed the oil regularly so I would hope this issue doesn't come up at all.
Cheers for the link though it's good info to know.