Hey all nice to be here. Im 39 year old guy from NC. Im an auto tech for a job. Been building cars for long as I can remember. Mostly built 240's back in the day before they got stupid popular. Couple hondas as well. Had a couple miatas growing up but never had a chance to keep/modify any. Couple years ago I was working for Mazda and got the itch so started looking around and found a mostly stock 99 with a set of konigs. I got a heck of a deal so snagged it up. Immediately started modifying it. Grabbed some coilovers, wheels/tires, isr catback, hard dog roll bar, KG Works cluster, revlimiter gauges and hvac gauge faces. Did all the normal maintenance that had been neglected for years. Timing belt, wp, all fluids, engine mounts, diff bushings, full suspension bushing set, Flying Miata BBK for front and wilwood prop valve, hardtop, carbonmiata hardtop rain rails, carbonmiata hardtop wing, put a skunk2 manifold on it but quickly sold it because I got a terrible buzz in my accelerator pedal that literally tickled my foot so bad I couldn't drive the car, so got a eudm squaretop manifold, added some sway bars and adjustable end links, bunch of other stuff. Also the car was ungodly slow. I later found out that the damper was wobbling so got another and did that at the time of the timing belt which really helped but it was still too slow.

So at this time was probably 3 months after I bought the car, I started piecing together a budget turbo kit. Got a tacotaco manifold, cheap 2871 clone (was listed as a 2860), pieces to build a downpipe, intercooler, couplers to build my piping, radium fuel rail, ID1050x injectors, and found me a used ms3x pnp. Got all my parts in, got it put together and fired up. Ran pretty darn good on the basemap. Got a decent street tune on it and started driving it doing some minor tuning here and there. Was driving it for about 4 months when one night all the sudden I lost oil pressure in boost for a quick second and knock knock knock. So down it went. Unfortunately I haven't had time to take the engine back apart and see what it was but I think I spun a rod bearing on one of the back cylinders.

So after all this I went searching for a new engine and happened across an 02 vvt engine. Snagged it from a guy couple hours away and started ordering some more parts. Here was my build list.
Wiseco 84mm 8.5-8.8:81 pistons
K1 Rods
ACL Rod/Main Bearings
ARP Head, Main, Flywheel, Intake, Exhaust studs/bolts/nuts
Felpro 99 Model Head Gasket
Supermiata Coolant Reroute
LS2 Coils w/Sadfab Bracket
Magnecor 8.5mm wires and MSD boots
Gates Racing Belt And All Idlers, etc.
CX Racing V2 Turbo Manifold
Borg Warner EFR 6758
Boundary Engineering Oil Pump
Competition Clutch And Lightened Flywheel
Innovative Engine Mounts
ATI Damper w/ 36-2 Wheel
Some other stuff I'm sure I'm forgetting.

So I slowly built this engine at work over the course of about 4 or 5 months. Then it sat on my stand at work for about 6 more months. I got too busy with life and just didn't have the time to put it in. Well 2-3 months ago a head stud in my f250 randomly snapped and where its at the cab has to come off to replace it. So it was time! Worked on it over a couple weeks and battled countless issues. But finally got it in and started, minus the borg warner and cxracing manifold. I don't exactly know why but my manifold for the life of me would not fit in the car. No matter what I did. I had cut the rear shelf when I did my first install but it makes contact with the steering shaft and the section by the strut tower. I clearanced some more but I never could get it to fit. I finally got fed up with it so I just installed my old setup back in it for now and ordered a kraken low mount manifold and full 3 inch system. That should be done sometime at the end of this month or beginning of next. But until then its together and running pretty good. Ive got it tuned pretty good. Not amazing. But I had also found an old HKS 2530r I rebuilt awhile back in the back of my shop (essentially a gt2860rs) I may end up throwing on it in the time being. But that's pretty much how it sits now. Ive got a few bugs and I'm working on upgrading my fuel system now and trying to decide what I'm going to do about a transmission.

But I do love the little thing. Its so much fun! Here's a few pics of the progress.


First day coming home

Just got home

New wheels

Mazda tech certification

Hard dog bar going in

KG Works Cluster, Revlimiter Gauge Faces, Vertex Fatlace Wheel

Boosted On Stock Engine


New Engine Being Torn Down

New Shiny Parts

Borg Warner EFR 6758

Engine Back From Machine Shop, Going Together

Motor Almost Done

Sadfab, LS2 Coils, Magnecor Wires

Time To Go In The Car

Another Interior Shot

Car Back Together

Little Christmas Fun!

Making some wires to install fuse box in the rear to run the fuel pump off of a relay and have some extra spots for future upgrades.


If anyone wants to add me on Instagram (DrifterDavid) or Facebook (facebook.com/slydyn) feel free to do so! Thanks for having me, I've learned a TON from this site. Hopefully can contribute something back!