Mazdaspeed Swapped 1999 NB Miata

[TurboKitty]

Hi guys. About five months ago I picked up my first "sports car." A 1999 Mazda Miata with an engine out of a Mazdaspeed Miata. Here's what the ad said when I bought it:


Anyways, it didn't take me long to figure out that some of this shit was wrong. Examples: 15x7 wheels were actually 15x8. Plus it was on Bilstein suspension.
Also some stuff not listed, like the clutch. Still have no idea what it is but it is a tricky pedal. Stalled it for weeks (first manual) before I finally got the hang of it and I still mess it up sometimes.
Anyways, here's a picture from the first day(sorry for potato cam):

And just hanging out with some friends:

http://scontent-a.cdninstagram.com/h...27843805_n.jpg

Couple of other random pictures, lazer cut a shitty hoonigan stecil and plasti-dipped it because why not right?:




Oversteered into some brush and bottomed out the front bumper, breaking the fiber glass at the bolting points near the drivers side headlight. Great. And bought some Dunlop Direzza DZ102's because the RS-3's on it were almost all showing some wire. Went from 225 to 205 width so they made it look a bit funky. Also threw on some vinyl eye lids because so aggresive actually started to look pretty bad ha:


Cleaned up the hoonigan stencil, bought new wheels (Enkei J-Speed 15x8 +25) and tires and drilled some holes to zip tie my bumper on. Actually looking decent.



Got a "chopped" fingers sticker and a custom plate, and got featured by Mighty Car Mods, which was pretty awesome:



Took the bumper off because it was too low to get on ramps. Was held on with like three bolts and a pointless rivet I had to break. threw a water bottle in the tow hook for jdm sex appeal



Boost gauge action:



And autocross because turbo miata. that electrical tape still has a faint print on the plasti dip. Won't come out. dip sucks anyways



Aaaaaaaaaaand I wrecked it. Because 18 years old, inexperienced, 2400lb car, and over 200 RWHP. I know. stupid. It was wet outside and I was attempting to apply the concept of throttling through a corner. Realized I was going too fast, hit the brakes. No ABS. Brakes locked up and understeered into a curb.



Sold the rotas and dunlops to help pay for repairs. Actually went to a local autocrosser.



On the trailer to get repaired..



Took a long time, but finally back on the road:



Yes it looks beat, no that duct tape wasn't actually serving a purpose.



Here's the engine bay after fixing it up a little more. Mishimoto radiator, Fab9tuning Stg.1 intercooler, new radiator mounts, new tow hooks because the others were bent. And a few other little things to get it running



So basically, after getting everything in to get it running again, we started it up and it gave a real lumpy idle, going between 1500-2000 in a pulsating sort of way. It had been sitting for over a month so we determined this was idle air control valve. We test drove it and it was hitting full boost. After a bit of driving the lumpy idle went away. Car was back to normal. But, weird thing here. I had a line going from my waste gate actuator to my hot side intercooler piping. It wasn't really connected though. it was just shoved in a hole with a rubber grommet "holding" it in. My mechanic/friend rerouted the line to a different part of the piping and was going to tap and plug the hole where the line was previously routed, but he didn't have a tap to fit the hole. So, just so I could drive home, we taped the hole with duct tape. yeah. bad idea. Anyways, after driving around for a while, hitting boost and whatnot, I start noticing idle air problems. Then, gradually, it got to the point where it was only hitting about 5-6 lbs of boost. After a few days I realized the duct tape had blew out. So I used electrical tape, it would last a couple of days for daily driving (this is my only car) until it blew out and I could just replace it. It would actually hold boost for a bit. But it never went back up to full boost. Only about 7lbs. Even when that hose wasn't in the rubber "grommet" before it was rerouted, it would still hit full boost, i'd just have idle air problems. I ended up buying a tap and bolt to fill the hole, then tried wrapping it in electrical tape because the fitment wasn't perfect. It'll hold boost for a while but still won't hit full boost. I actually hit 9lbs the other day though, which is strange. I found an OEM replacement for the intercooler piping so I'm finally going to get rid of this ghetto-tape fix and just get it replaced when my paycheck comes in. I don't think that's what will solve my boost leak though, so I need to find that. It may be at my bypass valve, as the OEM mazdaspeed miata ones are leaky. Anyways! Enough of that, here's some more flattering pictures:







I also finally found a bumper to fit my car, a 10ae front bumper. Which should be tomorrow. So I'll update with pics of that installed, here's a teaser though:



All that said, I know it's nothing amazing, and yeah it could use some things. I'm trying my best but it's not super easy being an 18 year old who just dove into this thing, plus I work at a restaurant 5 days a week and go to college 3. I just started waiting tables and I get paid to go to college, so the miata should be doing a lot better soon, but don't expect super frequent updates. This is just to log my progress.

That said, here's some future plans:
-Hard top
-Respray factory Twilight Blue
-Fix the small dents (obv before paint)
-Maybe a 5mm front spacer and 10mm rear
-DIYPNP ecu
-Bigger injectors so I can turn up the boost to 14psi, I know a guy with the same swap that has done it with injectors and a tune. I'm already at 12.
-Bucket seats and harness
-Upgraded brakes
-Hankook RS3 v2's in a 225

Thanks for looking! Expect some updates.

I'll leave you with this shot from today