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I've been in out and all around my Miata in the 10 months I've owned it. I'm planing on boost so so it's time to get out on here and be active! Here's my 1990 1.8 swapped Miata!
Welcome to the forum! What are your plans for the car? Hopefully a nice DD/track car and not a wannabe drift douchenozzle like the car to the right of yours in the pic.
Your car looks nice with the quality wheels and really upscale paint color. Good job.
Welcome to the forum! What are your plans for the car? Hopefully a nice DD/track car and not a wannabe drift douchenozzle like the car to the right of yours in the pic.
Your car looks nice with the quality wheels and really upscale paint color. Good job.
Ha thanks! I almost forgot I set up this post! I would like to continue to drift it but I'm not going to focus on that. I'd much rather have a autocross/track set up car! I'd like to continue autocross and do some road racing next year. My plan right now is to buy seats and harnesses and have a local shop build me a roll bar or cage depending on price since I need one to do most events. I'm also looking for a ms2 so I can fine tune the 1.8 swap!
Welcome to the forum. Your Miata looks really nice and clean, congrats. What mods exactly are you planning to do?
Thanks man!
Also the paint DID look good but it turns out the owners did a cheap clear coat job that got blow off my mirrors and bumper last weekend.... So paint may be in my future! I'll probably go through and put out some more pictures and some more details on how it got to where it is!
Time for the full write up on this lil rocket! I've got big plans this winter but I'm not going to talk out my *** I'll just show as I go! Quick background on me I'm a big photographer and diy fab guy. We'll start with the OG high school Honda that served me well and let me get out most of my ricer urges ... I also practiced my high school auto body techniques because she had the typical quarter rust so I cut that out welded patches in smoothed and painted the whole rear end.
Next we have my "STANCE" Scion tC that I did love but I sold because I wanted something more fun to drive and cheaper... well it turns out Miatas are an addictions... an expensive one
Now to the real deal I bought my 1990 NA Miata in October of 2015 from a local autoshop owner who said his wife drove it and that it was immaculate... this turned out to be complete ****... I got it completely stock with a red hardtop and 110k on the odometer. He did tell me that it had head work done recently so it had a new water pump, timing belt, and head gasket done. Now I never asked why the work was done I just assumed he knew what he was doing. So first off since I sold my tC this was my new DD and winter was coming so I got a set of Firestone Winter Forces. I don't know why people advise you not to drive these in the winter because I had a blast driving all winter! I mean you're screwed on the ice but I navigates 5" of snow with no problem. I also had to go through and flush all the fluids and do some cleaning and tweaking of the IACV and such.
This was all fun I worked two jobs all winter and started putting a 1.6 turbo kit together (diy pnp with iac and sequential injection, 440cc injectors, HF fuel pump, aem wideband, coolant reroute, Vmaxx coils, wheels and tires) but in late February going out to cruise my engine blew just casually coming down into a town... A $170 tow later it was in my driveway and I started tearing into it. I had always planed on tearing into my engine but not this early lol. Thanks to the help from The Car Passion Channel and Haggard Garage youtube videos she was in my drive way at 6pm the head was off by 7pm and it turns out I had two valve seats drop out in cylinder 1. So by 10pm it was 30 degrees out but I had the motor pulled and on an engine stand. Now it was time to think rebuild or swap?
Well I started by selling most all the parts I had been building up to afford giving my lil go cart new life! It turns out my tough decision on rebuild or swap was made easy when a guy on Miata Club put up his 97 1.8 with the FM 1.6 swap kit already installed and came with a coolant reroute also already done! It was a good pick up for $600 with 115k miles (mine blew at 113k... 3000 miles after I bought it... ). I did have to have it shipped from Florida to South Dakota which was spendy because the weight was off and they got dyslexic with my address which both had extra charges tacked to them. Buuttt a week later and they dropped her off at work! While I waited I also sprayed truck liner in my bay as well as depowering my steering rack as per FM's instructions.
So Finally the weekend came where I was going to throw her in! I had labeled all the connectors as I pulled them so it went surprisingly easy. I only had 3 main issues. One was I didn't have a cross over tube for the intake... so I had to order some piping to make one. The second was the most common swap mistake... When I went to fire it up it wouldn't start and that was disheartening but then I remembered that everyone gets the fuel line backward. So I switched those and bam she fired right up! Now the other one was I only had the 1.8 header so I had to weld up a YOLO straight pipe to get it drive able(side note I don't know how people can drive stock straight pipe it is so annoying).
I felt pretty accomplished after this and went on several test drives to make sure it was all good! This sucked because every little smell you get in a convertible you just assume the engines on fire or something... But she took it all well and now two auto x events and a drift event later I have fully confidence and the little bit more torque the 1.8 gives you is exactly what it needed.
Now to where it sits now. I'll be rattling these off real quick! First was installing the Vmaxx Coils. I thought these were a little soft at first but now I'm very pleased with them. I got a deal on the 15x8 XXR 531's with 4 225/50r15 A048s and 6 more 205/50r15 A048s for $600! All the tires are about half life and the 225's rubbed like no other even with my fenders rolled. So I'm still rocking the 205's which I still feel like is more grip than the car has power haha. Then I finally got way to sick of the straight pipe and we had a forester xt muffler sitting in the garage so I welded that in and dumped it out the side! It's funny but I love it! Then the top had leaked since I bought the car... go figure... so I swapped the soft top and rain rail which wasn't hard just really tedious and long... Then finally came the boredom hood vents! I had been promoted to a shop tech at Honda so i quit my side job but it turns out I only averaged 30hrs of work a week... so there was a lot of free time to mess with my car.
Well there it is so far! Thanks for reading if you've gotten this far there will be more updates to come!
Hi exscion!! Nice NA, nice work, and nice garage!!! You are doing a great job! I like a lot those side exhaust but here in sapin they are forbidden.... I am also trying to get all the parts for supercharging my VVt NB, t is not easy but I hope we can get what we want!
Welcome from spain, sorry not spain, welcome from the vasque country!
if you go to portugal, I invite you to Bilbao in your way to the south, wonderfull and narrow roads and the best T-bones or rumpsteak or however is told in english!! If you come please let me know!
or you sail from North america to portugal by ferry? or it is in the UK?
Hey man, Dustin from Sioux Falls. Car looks awesome. I had the same issue on start up with my BRG the first time I tried firing it off after my 1.8 swap.
Keep up the good work and maybe we will catch out out west some time.
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06-24-2016 | 05:31 PM
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... I also practiced my high school auto body techniques because she had the typical quarter rust so I cut that out welded patches in smoothed and painted the whole rear end.
). I did have to have it shipped from Florida to South Dakota which was spendy because the weight was off and they got dyslexic with my address which both had extra charges tacked to them. Buuttt a week later and they dropped her off at work! While I waited I also sprayed truck liner in my bay as well as depowering my steering rack as per FM's instructions.
