It is time...

[mizboo102]

I bought a '99 Miata in the summer of 2010 and it looked like this:

100k miles, hardtop, American Racing 15s w/ crappy all seasons, aftermarket horn, and awful fog lights.

I registered the car, went to school, then went to @socks house and it got me my first speeding ticket I parked it, put it on craigslist, and let the MS3 scold it:


But... there were big plans for the miata so I kept it. Ripped off the ugly fogs and painted the wheels chalkboard:


Shortly after I bought a 4-1 header, midpipe, and muffler for it to open up that 1.8L of fury.


What must we do to a miata after this? Drop it of course! Tein SS coilovers installed:


For the safeties... Hard Dog Double Diagonal installed 8/11.


Graduation gift from me to the miata? 6UL 15x9 with 225/45R15 Hankook RS3:

Picture taken after 100 miles, looks like I need to turn harder.

Have I bored you yet with my tiny bolt on mods to the miata? Listen up, cuz it's about to get real.



Whale? Rhino? Mountain for the miniature golf course?


04 GTO Engine w/ Tremec T56




Update 2:
Day 1 with the engine, we unpacked - it came with EVERYTHING. All accessories, ECU, O2 sensors and the part of the exhaust they were in, pedals... everything.
At the end of the day it looked like this:

We used a borescope and checked the cylinders. The cross hatching looked good. The compression was between 180-190 on all cylinders (cold, haven't actually heard the engine turn over).

Then I ordered more parts: subframe, k-members, clutch kit (Competition Clutch lightweight flywheel), and oil pan from V8R and took over the dining room (aka "car part room").

The oil pan arrived Friday, 8/10 after I ordered everything 6/21....

The miata took the trek to EECMM w/ @socks and Carolina Mazdas. We came back on Sunday and the tear down began.

The old engine, on its way out. Nothing wrong with it, other than it being a n/a 4cylinder:



All the interior had to come out:


then it was time to remove 13 years of dust, dirt, and grime:

in hindsight, we should have done this part after all the grinding and cutting. we made a mess:


cutting takes you from this:


to this:


then banging gets you here:


and once you cut and bang, its time to test fit. We didn't quite get enough clearance on the first try - the passenger side head sits further back and I got the kit that mounts the kit in the "standard" position to maintain balance (the other option is 2" forward). So it went in, came out, and went back in:



Special thanks to @socks and @Masterofnone !

have got a few good tips from some other v8 miata folks, one of them being the drivers side tunnel mods. we ended up banging out the tunnel a little too much, and ran into clearance issues with the gas pedal (nobody wants that), so theres a little more to do before we weld it up and start putting things in finally.

For now, we are painting suspension parts waiting on more things to arrive. The mig welder arrived today, cam should ship tomorrow. I still need to order the rear end but probably going with Getrag LSD and the blockhugger headers so sean can fabricate my true dual 3" exhaust (always wanted )

Stay tuned!

[mizboo102]

Update 3:
8/26/2012:
While waiting on more parts to arrive we went ahead and modified the stock LS1 windage tray. The new pan is considerably smaller than the stock pan to clear the subframe so a section had to be taken out for clearance and another part to fit the oil pickup.


We cut these gussets out on the inside:

and were supposed to reuse them, but after all the banging, they didn't line up so well. So instead we bought some 3/16"x1 1/4" mild steel stock and welded those in it's place

Painted them white to "match" the inside.

We relocated the radiator brackets ~1.5-2" forward and the a/c condenser brackets 1" forward.


Then taped off and painted all welds and trans tunnel with rubberized undercoating


I think I'll get some split vacuum tube or something to go over the edges where the transition white/black is, it doesn't look great at the seams.

For those of you that know my mazdaspeed... you shouldn't be suprised by this:

Painted the stock frame rails so it shows through the cutout in the V8R rails.

This weekend, we had a few friends over itching to wrench on something so we tore into the engine.
Stock cam came out:


New cam went in (Comp Cam 224/224-114 from Texas-Speed). PAC 1218 .600" Single Springs were installed:

I wish I had a picture of the cam going in but I only remembered to get the camera when I saw the guys doing this. Looked too ridiculous to not take a picture. The guy with the mask would also protect his favorite body part every time the spring was released.

Engine was cleaned up:


But sadly this is where we had to stop because the head bolts that came in the Summit Head Replacement kit were 2" too long

ARP head bolts and rocker arm bolts come in Tuesday (8/28) (est.)
ASP balancer should be here Wednesday (8/29)
Flyin' Miata order (Headers, Fuel setup, and misc) should be here Tuesday (8/28)

Today, I put the clutch and brake master cylinders back in and added sound/heat insulation to the cabin:


It's all in, just have to add a little tape here and a little glue there to make it permanent. Then all the carpet will go back in.

On another note, this is our driveway on Saturday when people came over, it's not just me that has a thing for white cars



Update 4:
10/14/2012
Is it time for an update? Switching jobs has left me with less time in the afternoon than I’d like.

While waiting on parts, I wrapped the hood (which has been sitting in our guest room) with HEXIS pearl white vinyl. I must admit, I’m not as thrilled with the color as I thought I’d be so I haven’t ordered more. I have enough to do the hood, hard top, trunk, and windshield surround.


It has a bit of a green/pink hue to it but sitting on the car in the garage at some angles looks just like the stock color. I’ll have to actually see it on the car before I do the rest.

We ordered new head bolts from summit. Poured oil in the heads to let it drain through and hopefully collect dirt that may have gotten in.


We cleaned out the head bolt holes with a vacuum, fast food straws, and electrical tape.


Put the head on with ARP head bolts, torqued them down, and drained all the oil.

The oil pan wasn’t leaking, but it didn’t look like the gasket was stable. We had to install the dipstick anyway, so we removed the new OEM gasket and tried using RTV gasket maker but that proved to be a bigger hassle (kept getting into the oil cooler passage). I think we tried this two times with different waiting periods but it was just a mess. So we cleaned it all up and used the gasket again. Looked great. The end. For any of you that may try this… there are two smaller bolts that hold on the modified oil pan, one is recessed into the pan and the washers that come with it will not fit. We grinded it down to fit in the hole with the bolt. Not sure if it actually needs the washer, but we had it so we made it work.
Here is a picture of the dipstick - it’s really close to the oil baffle but that’s where it fit. We scored the dipstick at 0.250” below the baffle when the engine is right-side up or above the baffle in this picture.


We made new brake lines instead of bending the old ones - it turned out to be easier than we expected and much cleaner looking:


We dropped the rear sub frame. Unfortunately, the car was not raised high enough to just roll it out. In hindsight, I should have put on my old wheels (narrow) because we rocked it back and forth to be able to roll it out (one of the wheels under the center and the other clear of the mudflap)


Also… should have loosened the axle nuts with the car on the ground but it wasn’t going back in so we tried an impact, then a blow torch, then a breaker bar with 6’ extension, … heat eventually worked. Then came the BFH to get the axles out.


Only one mushroomed a little but I fixed that up with the angle grinder.

Then we worked on adding the tabs to the rear subframe to mount the Getrag 3.23 LSD (from Cadillac CTS). It is important to get it mounted to create a 1.5* angle for the driveshaft.



We put the rest of the accessories except A/C, belt, valve cover gaskets and rear main seal on. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to torque the rear main seal so we wrote it on the wall and called it a day.

Next weekend, the engine came off the stand to put the Competition Clutch flywheel and clutch on.

Kind of hard to torque something that isn’t mounted. Thanks to our friend Mike for trying to hold it steady.

The transmission went on


And it went into the car for the last time!


But wait…

Why is rear main seal still written up there? Fail. Gotta love having a chalkboard wall though - it saved a lot of trouble down the road. Out the engine came, transmission removed, pressure plate almost removed but brand new ARP bolt broke off.


New ARP bolts ordered from Summit at 8:30pm arrived before 10am the next day. Bolt drilled out. Put back together, erased off the wall. Engine went back in for the last time (fingers crossed)!

Stock miata power steering reservoir modified and reused then mounted in stock location - the GTO one looked like crap.


Measured for the line with a welding rod and had one made at Aeroquip in Charlotte, NC



Headers installed, coilpacks tried to install, headers removed, coilpacks installed, headers installed. To say it’s a close fit is an understatement.


From the beginning, I knew I was going to contract out the wiring harness. @socks bravely took on this task. He modified the GM harness and the stock miata body harness to play nice with each other. After he did a few of the wires we bumped the starter and checked the fuel pump. The GTO pulled more current than the miata battery can supply so we jumped it with the BMW.


We filled it with oil (6 qts) then drained some out because it was too high. There is still old GTO oil that drained out as well so maybe this wasn’t such a bad thing. Bumped the starter some more to get the oil moved around. Put the fuel pump relay back in to prime the fuel rails. It doesn’t hurt to tighten all the lines one more time before doing this or you could end up with fuel spraying underneath the car like we did. Not the first time this has happened so I took off the metal plate covering the tank and Sean took off the line to stop the siphon. We put everything back on and tightened everything. Then we left the garage to air out a bit. After lunch we successfully primed the fuel rail - took about 5 times of turning the key (it stays on for 3 sec each time) before it was complete.
@socks mocked up an intake:


Now what? We try to start it of course.

YouTube Short

YouTube Short

 

[mizboo102]

10/28/2012
We installed the driveshaft, which is a bigger pain than it should be. It is a cast piece and where the cast is filled, a nub is left. With the nub, it doesn’t seat flush against the diff. I tried and endmill but it kept catching the side, then a dremel which was extremely slow. @socks ended up drilling it out with a drill bit.

The last thing that was going to take some time was getting the headers coated. I talked to a few places in Charlotte (semi-local) and decided on Calico Coatings. They gave a lead time of 10 days but I nagged them until they shorted it to a week. @socks dropped the headers off at @Masterofnone ‘s house Saturday and @Masterofnone graciously took them the rest of the way on Monday to drop them off. I was surprised when barely 4 days later, Friday, I get a call saying they were ready. Everyone I knew in Charlotte was busy so I left work at 3 hoping I could make it before they closed. Picked them up at 4:52, 8 minutes before they closed. Success.


Saturday we went to work. The headers went in:


The interior went in:


Transmission and differential were drained and filled (Mobil 1 ATF and 75W90 respectively). The clutch was bled, the back brakes were bled… the front brakes didn’t want to be bled. Looking it up, this is fairly common when the lines are completely empty. We waited until Sunday for @Masterofnone to bring his newly purchased powerbleeder. After reading the directions, that worked like a charm. We tightened a few things down, zip tied the ECU in place, and put the car on the ground!

Forgot how low this thing sits… since the beginning of august it’s been 18” off the ground.

For the detail oriented folks: the trunk is missing because I was planning on vinyl wrapping it last week.

Taking a quick peek under the car showed us that we should not drive with the exhaust ½” off the ground. Front wheels came back off to raise the front a bit. We also noticed the toe was way out. I would have been able to turn-in like crazy but decided I’d like to at least attempt saving the tires while I can. We eye-balled the toe in until it was about straight. An alignment will be in the cars immediate future. Wait… and alignment is only needed if the car actually spends time off of jack stands. Time for a drive! The appropriate cell phone video camera devices came out and around the block we went. @Masterofnone @socks care to post yours?

The body panels were put back on and I think I’ve decided I like the vinyl. Going to wait and see what it looks like in the sun to fully decide.


Intake, midpipe-back, radiator fans, and alignment will be the next steps then after a few hundred miles change all the fluids and check torques.

Total time to driveable LS1 miata? 3 months.

[mizboo102]

reserved3

[Colin1337]

Nice! Thing should be a beast when it's done



Sent via carrier pigeon

[greenespeed]

Your are gonna need MUCH better tires to handle the power difference. Gonna be an awesome build none the less. Will be watching.

[PapaSmurf]

ive been waiting to sub to this thread bonnie...

smack sean in the ass for me.

[3Gee Tee]

So glad you didn't go 302, LSx FTW!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Uberfly]

wow! this should get real interesting, real quick. when do you think you'll have the new engine installed?

[uncorked11]

Jealous

[I_Heart_Haters]

yes. yes. yes. subbed.

[socks]

she had to run out for dinner with some people from work. she hasnt quite caught the build thread up to current. stay tuned.

as far as tires go, these are pretty much the widest fitment in a miata (i think 24.5") size tire for a street tire. i have the same width on the Rx7, and they hook with ~300whp, although the rx7 doesnt have over 300tq right off idle.

[SPEEDRAC3R]

Oh hell yes!

[Easter Bunny]

I came.

[mizboo102]

second post updated! This is where we are to date

[TiGraySpeed6]

This is awesome! Can't wait to see how it turns out

Makes me want to look even harder for a 240Z to small block....

[lilred]

I want this Sooo bad

tapafuck

[Toymachinespeed]

@InFeXIoN

[Dash08]

Fuuuuuuck!!!

This is bad ass on so many levels, I can't even begin to explain.

Bonnie, Shawn, you guys are the absolute shit.

Subbed for epically epic epicness.

[SarcasticOne]

tapatalk was unable to cope with the awesomeness of this thread, it kept making it crash, so i logged onto a computer to view it and glad i did

[lpugfan2004]

So much win in this thread already. Subbed for more win!

Hope to see this at NC Nator BBQ's in the future?

[BudUMfan]

This is sick as hell. Holy shit is all I can say. Oh yea...and wow!

[EdgeAutosport.com]

Good stuff in here, cant wait to see this all completed.

Just curious what time frame are you looking at?

[JacksonMS30]

The amount of win you are using up on this build will only make @Darksun280 fail harder...

In for sick build!

[Masterofnone]

I'm glad you started this build thread! Pictures are great! Looks like Mom will have to spend a few more Saturday's shopping. LOL

[Sweetsandman]

Beautiful!! And so fitting since I just watched a video from MotorTrend about the Monster Miata company. Made me immediately do some investigation into used Miatas...I'll just live vicariously through this thread instead

Sent from my DROID BIONIC using Tapatalk 2

[TRex]

something i have always wanted to do, but dont have the resources or technical know how right now

please keep this going, it will be a great starting point for when/if i want to try this

[Darksun280]

Can't lie I got a little jealous of the trans for a second.

[jtt]

This is epic! subbed for impending donuts.

[MS3-a(sore)ASS-rex]

Kick ass Bonnie! I've been following (trying) this through your pics on fb but this will make it much simpler. Keep it up!!

[Dash08]

Originally Posted by TRex something i have always wanted to do, but dont have the resources or technical no how right now please keep this going, it will be a great starting point for when/if i want to try this

It's not as nerve racking as you think. Just a lot of cutting and hammering to make things fit. After that, it's mostly wrench turning. It's just labor intensive work.

Bonnie, be glad you're doing this on a Japanese car.

I did this on 50 year old Detroit steel and it was a fucking nightmare.

[TRex]

do you simply add a lot of bracing to make up for the part of the body that is cut away?

[mzr0818]

Subbed for awesomeness. Bring more pics on friday.

[socks]

Originally Posted by TRex do you simply add a lot of bracing to make up for the part of the body that is cut away?

the new front sub-frame is tubular, so it is stronger, and lighter. you also add frame rail stiffeners.

the part of the body that is cut away (the parts that blend the frame rails to the firewall) are not very structural. they are only even spot-welded in like 1-2 places. we'll weld the open parts up. the other parts that are cut are molded over each other, and welded in place, so no integrity lost there.

we might not get too much more done before friday, depending on how much work @mizboo102 is up for after work today and tomorrow. the new mig welder did come yesterday though, and i scratched around with the flux core wire it came with, and bought some solid wire to do the actual work with.

[Dash08]

Originally Posted by TRex do you simply add a lot of bracing to make up for the part of the body that is cut away?

This I'm not familiar with.

Old cars have true frames and don't rely on the body for structural integrity. So, basically we just hack the fuck out of it until the motor fits. LOL!!

New cars are a pain in the ass when it comes to full custom work.

[mizboo102]

Originally Posted by eric@edgeautosport Good stuff in here, cant wait to see this all completed. Just curious what time frame are you looking at?

Sean jokingly told me to make a gantt chart. I almost cried I'm hoping to have it started in the next month or so and driveable while the weather is good enough to drive it with extreme summer tires... but I live in SC so... I don't know. I want it done as soon as possible but I still have a few parts to source/order (rear end, exhaust, etc.)

Originally Posted by TRex something i have always wanted to do, but dont have the resources or technical no how right now please keep this going, it will be a great starting point for when/if i want to try this

Flyin miata has been an excellent resource for us but we'll be glad to answer any questions you have. I've also been trying to take pictures of things the flyin miata guide isn't very clear on.

Originally Posted by Darksun280 Can't lie I got a little jealous of the trans for a second.

I was too

Originally Posted by TRex do you simply add a lot of bracing to make up for the part of the body that is cut away?

There's not much that was cut away and Sean is right, the subframe is stiffer than stock and I have a rollbar. I'll try to get the front tires off the ground and test if I need it much stiffer up there

[TiGraySpeed6]

Originally Posted by mizboo102 I'll try to KEEP the front tires ON the ground and test if I need it much stiffer up there

There ya go- fixed that for ya

[NCZ13]

I was expecting a cutsie tootsie miata build... until I saw the picture with the wrapped up pallet..which is when I then proceeded to ruin my shorts.

Good luck on the build!

[bigx5murf]

Originally Posted by mizboo102 But... there were big plans for the miata so I kept it. Ripped off the ugly fogs and painted the wheels chalkboard:

so awesome, what are plans for this badass ride when it's done?

maybe a good idea to do this while everything's still easily accessible?

Flyin' Miata : Tech: Seam welding

[mizboo102]

Originally Posted by bigx5murf so awesome, what are plans for this badass ride when it's done? maybe a good idea to do this while everything's still easily accessible? Flyin' Miata : Tech: Seam welding

I plan to have it at 400 whp then see what kind of traction I have before going further.

We were actually seam welding yesterday. I doubt it's going to do much beyond the hardtop and rollbar but we'll see