Helped a friend install a new front mount on his MSM

[nycMS3]

A buddy of mine (Also a member here, big5xmurf) asked me to help him install a new core. I said SURE! how hard could it be...... well it wasn't hard just I didn't think we would be forced to use tools that shouldn't be used on cars.




I carefully removed his bumper and carefully because even though its a 2004 msm, the car only has 7k original miles. I didnt want to scratch or break anything. Here is the bumper next to my car.



This is the core that will be replacing the oem one, quite the difference.



We first cut the oem core out which went smooth, we used a Rigid battery powered hand tool with a cutting wheel. Took sometime but did the trick.



We then mounted the core and that was a bitch, the couplers seemed to small and one of the t-bolt clamps was definetly too small, so we used a worm clamp. That resulted myself in getting stabbed with a screwdriver trying to get the tbolt clamp to fit





Once the core was mounted, my friend began to make the brackets to secure it to the car. This is how we did it, we used a metal grate, an axe and a brick.







After a few cuts, cigarettes and cursing we finally got everything finished. Reinstalled the splash shield and mounted the bumper



And a picture of his car in the garage, my ms3 and his sisters 3 (you can sorta see it)




Also im sure he will chime in soon, he has a few pictures as well. Especially of the brackets installed on the car

[PunjabiPlaya]

looks pretty good

noodz of sister

I was really scared when you said "how hard could it be"
/TopGear

[messiahx]

Looks good. Lol at tiny stock ic. I always laugh at those. Ghetto fabbed brackets are the way to go. We used a similar process (except we had an actual vice, which helped) to mount aaronc7's ic. Mine is mounted with some angle bracket used for corners with drywall.

[bigx5murf]

Home Depot + Ebay = Tuning FTW lol

The brackets were made from 1/8" aluminum strips, lots of trial and error. Learned some things about working with AL. Like bend first then drill, else it'll bend right at the hole. AL also heats up fast, and transfers it fast too (drilling cutting), so have a way to constantly cool it.

We had to relocate the horn... it sounds either broken or vintage, depending if you're the half full/half empty kinda guy.

Here are the individual brackets, 3 total




And one more of the final product

[mazdaspdmike]

this looks awesome, loving the black! You lucky sob with your pre-installed piping and just having to cut the core out xD quite a bit harder for us MS3 guys.

[bigx5murf]

yea, I wanted to do the black IC since I haven't really seen anyone do it around here. It helps the core was cheap, and comes with a lifetime warranty. People on the miata forums are hating though, claiming the silk-screened "mishimoto" defeats the purpose of a black ic lol

Oh yea, almost forgot this pic... looks like an epic phail about to happen, OSHA would not approve lol

[predapio]

Looks good.^^^^ Hey Krys, did you burn your hair off or something?

Makes you look like a Lightbulb head.