Aug 16/15

After a LONG time waiting to get exhaust, I finally have the car back home.

An acquaintance who is a licensed mechanic did the work in his home shop in his spare time, so it took a while but turned out pretty good. There are a few ground clearance issues I'll have to deal with once I get a few minor bugs worked out of the conversion. Car looks good, sounds good...maybe a wee bit loud, started right up and made the 15 min trek home without incident. Engine is freshly rebuilt, so I have to take it easy for a bit, but so far, so good.

I want to address the ride height (needs "moar lowar") and then get an alignment done, but first up are a few issues to get sorted:

1) My fans don't come on- probably need a new fan switch-(FIXED- loose ground connection)

2) Small coolant leak at one of the hose connections- easy fix-(FIXED- loose hose clamp)

3) Header bolts keep backing out. Will have to keep on this for a few heat cycles -(FIXED)

4) Occasional grind going into reverse- either a clutch pedal or slave cylinder adjustment -(FIXED)

5) Calibrate the tach- it's way off, but I expected that -(FIXED)

6) Recheck the timing. Initial timing was set without knowing the exact idle speed, so it's likely a bit off -(FIXED)

At that point I'll run a thorough check of any OBD1 codes. The CEL is not lit, but some codes can be present without triggering the CEL.

I should be able to sort through all of that this week. Then I can get working on the ride height.

Exciting!

Sept/15

A month later:

Well car has been on the road for a month, and I have just just about worn a hole on the exhaust from scraping the ground. My friend was not able to get the exhaust tucked up high enough and it scraped on EVERYTHING on the road. So, it's out getting redone at another shop. Will get it back shortly.

The good news is, I was able to quickly and easily fix up those other issues and the car runs really good. It's a handful to drive, but it's a blast. Drove it to a couple local cruise nights a few weeks back and received several positive comments.

Right now I'm getting ready to order a new coilover suspension package that will allow me to adjust ride height and shock rebound. Once I install it, I'm overdue for an alignment. It's a little squirrely right now. )

A couple weeks later:

Got the car back from exhaust. Bob Jamieson at Twisted Pipes did a great job. I got some ground clearance back. Been playing with timing and fine tuning things a bit. Holy crap this thing is fast. So fun to drive.

I received my coilover kit from V8 Roadsters. Will be putting them on tonight, then try and get a few more miles put on it before it goes in for alignment next week.

I have to try and get some pics and video up here to show off the mostly completed project.

I drove into London yesterday to show the car to some buddies that helped me out with the engine rebuild. Both guys LOVED the car and said I did a great job with it.

Hard to believe I was still driving this car as a 4 banger less than one year ago.

Video I took for the fellow that bought my 4 cyl drivetrain.

Installed the DSD coil overs from V8 Roadsters. I like them. Car sits better, less jouncy over bumps and easy to adjust the height and dampening. Went and took a couple "after" shots.

Nov/15

We've had unseasonably good weather in SW Ontario this fall. Recently got a few good weeks of top down driving weather, and several hundred more miles on the car. The gas mileage has seemed to settle in at around 11L/100km or about 28 mpg. Not bad. It's real hard to get good gas mileage with this car being such a hoot to drive.

Weather forecast for the next 2 weeks looks pretty good, but I'll be lucky to have the car still on the road on Dec 1. Will likely be put away for the winter before then.

Which allows me to start my shopping list of upgrades for next spring:

Hard Dog Deuce rollbar

Racing Beat front tubular sway bar and endlinks

Reinforce transmission brace to floor of the car. Some folks have done this and noticed a reduction of driveline slop.

Heatshield and sound dampening the interior

Possibly new wheels and tires.

Lucky for me I don't have expensive taste, and actually like a stock looking Miata, so there won't be a lot of cosmetic upgrades other than to pretty up the engine bay a bit.

More to come.

Last drive before winter storage. See you in the spring.

April 2016

Spring is here.....finally.

I had a small window of good weather at the end of last month to get the car out of storage.

Got my Hard Dog Deuce roll bar ordered, and decided to gut the interior to add heat mat insulation to the floor.

The dash has to be removed to completely remove the carpet. Not a quick job, though if I had to do it again it would go a lot quicker.

While I had the interior out, I added a through bolt to the transmission crossmember. I added a captive nut to the passenger side floor so I don't have to pull the carpet to remove the brace.

I also had to cut into the bulkhead behind the seats to add captive nuts for the rear subframe brace. Those braces weren't added to the original Miata's until a few years later, so I sourced one along with the mounting brackets.

Roll bar install went fairly smoothly. It's solid.

The heat mat went down easily.

The carpet went back in, then the dash, and finally the seats.

The roll bar seems to have added some chassis stiffness. I like it.

I think the heat mat will really help keep the interior cooler, but I won't know how much till we get some hotter weather. I have noticed a reduction in noise. The product I used is also marketed as a sound deadener. It definitely does that.

Aug 2016

Car has a few miles on it now, and it’s been pretty trouble free.

I spent some time trimming the under engine plastic tray that all Miatas come with. The tray makes the underside a little more aerodynamic and it supposed to aid in cooling and keeping the engine bay cleaner.

In an effort to expel hot air from the engine compartment I also added FM hood vents.

A little online research helped me find a low pressure area where the hot air would be drawn out.

For sure it was a little nerve wracking cutting into a nearly perfect hood, but the end result looks good and is functional. I tested by tieing some string to the vents to see if the string would be sucked into the engine bay or drawn outside. Success- at speed the string is drawn outside.

This page is getting super long, so let's go to Build Blog P.3 to continue.