This and That

I've been slacking on updating this and have been meaning to make a Bullshittin' In The Backyard 3 post... I'll get to it eventually. In the mean-time here's a quick random collection of photos from the last 6 months or so. Hover over the images for descriptions. 

Miata Cage Timeline 1

I've been slowly chipping away at caging the new Miata chassis; working a few hours at a time after work maybe once or twice month. I'm fitting the cage and tacking it in but having Dale burn it in because I don't trust my welds enough and because his will look better.  I'm extremely grateful that Dale has gave me full access to the shop and his tools; I can't thank him enough. Working around my free time and Dales has been challenging to say the least, but he's okay with it sitting in the shop, and I still have the other Miata for seat time. 

The interior has been stitch welded in all the important areas, the driver side floor and the Destroy or Die brackets have been modified/massaged to fit the bucket seat. I recommend buying a flat bottom seat if you want a plug and play bucket with these brackets, but I'm still glad I went with the seat I did. Most of the front half of the caged is fit and tacked in, just need to finish the driver side door bars and get the anti-intrusion bars mocked up. Hoping to get the cage completely fitted and welded in by the end of June. After that I will be painting the interior and engine bay, then trailering the car home wo start Engine stuff. KMiata swap stuff should be arriving later this month.

I didn't take photos of every step, but you'll get the idea. Hover over the images for descriptions. I've referenced Tom Hamptons blog (LINK) a bunch as it's been the best resource for photos of the installation process of the Advanced Autosports Spec Miata cage. Not a fan of some of the things he decided to do, but either way it's a solid resource and a fun read.

K power!

 Pulled the trigger on a K24Z3. This complicated the new build, but I think it's a better route than turbo-ing. Pretty excited to have 200ish WHP NA and Honda reliability. Got some new seats too. Driver bucket is bolted to a set of modified Destroy or Die brackets. Passenger is a stock black miata seat.

Good Enough

Still need to yank the core support over to get the hood to latch, but it's good enough for now and it doesn't look THAT bad I suppose. Headlights even work! Now two of my three running cars are hoodless...time to get the integras painted and FINALLY installed 4-5 years later.

New front LCAs, driverside UCA and long bolt, tie rod ends, ball joints, tie rods, and steering rack up replaced up front. Feels decent even with my eyeball alignment. Hoping Alec can get it sorted out here in a few weeks before the Mac Park event mid-September. I also put the godspeed rear UCAs on while I was at it since this thing needs a full alignment anyway and I want to see how minimal rear camber feels. I'm ready to rip this thing again. Shouts out to Alec for making me put this back together.

The new miatas pre mandrel bent DOM tubing spec miata cage parts came in, waiting on the straight DOM tubing to get here and I'll be starting that soon.Updates whenever it's worth it.

welp, here we go.

After getting the car back and taking a closer look at everything; The frame rails are shoved over roughly 2.5inches to the passenger side, seams on the strut towers have ripped and a lot of sheet metal is buckled. The front driver side coil-over lug is also bent.  I could probably cut everything off, weld another front end on (tube or factory) and be fine, but I decided to go another route.

Last weekend my pops and I picked up a 91 Mariner Blue (barf) rolling shell in Loveland, CO for the low low price of $500. Body is straight as an arrow with absolutely ZERO rust. The 1.6L in the car is half there, but it's scrap at this point. The 5speed feels decent (hooray, another spare). PO did a 1.8L LSD rear end swap (another spare!), and it  came with garage star fender braces, which I didn't realize until I got home, and the interior is maybe 50% gutted. Good for me because that's less work I have to to. If I didn't find this car I would continue with and rebuild the 95, but this was too good to pass up.

I've replaced the front LCA's on the 95, taken the hood and fenders off, put on a new PS rack from the junkyard, also replaced the endlinks and outer tie rods with some shit I had around the house. Hoping it can get a decent alignment and I can drive it for the rest of the year and maybe next year at events. I fucking hate being that guy with the cobbled together piece of shit, but I'm going to focus on rebuilding the 91 for now and keep racking up seat time in the 95 until the 91 is completed. The 95 will be stripped and I'll hoard it's parts as spares.

As far as the 91 goes: I already ordered a Spec Miata cage that I'll install and paint to match the car. I'm going back to Montego Blue because I fucking love that color and I don't want to paint my OEM hardtop. I'll fabricate some front and rear bash bars while I'm at it too. Uh, I ordered some cheap Godspeed rear upper control arms to get closer to zero degrees. I know, they suck but I'll use them as a template to fab my own or just swap in some better bushings. Just got a Racing Beat tubular front sway bar and some heavy duty mount brackets to hopefully reduce the body roll enough to where I can keep my existed Tein coil-overs (replacing the bent one only). Planning on going polyurethane for all bushings in the suspension... Might get some stiffer motor mounts? I'd like to get a nicer steering wheel and a seats too. Engine wise I can either swap the 1.8 that's in the 95 into the 91, or rebuild the original 1.8L from the 95. I'll likely do the latter to build for turbo and to keep the 95 seat time going as long as possible. That's about it really. I don't want anything to crazy, just making this new chassis a little more resilient to frame damage when crashed, a little better suspension, hopefully close to 200whp, and a halfway decent paint job. I got my work cut out for me if I want to get this done by next season, but we'll see what happens.Cheers!

KC Drift, Fender Fix, FullLock Drift

 Quick update; Went to the 2nd KC Drift event of the year and had a blast. The track was faster than the previous with less sweepers, so the miata did well. Alec and I pushed ourselves on some tandems and were getting some pretty close proximity to each other and other cars all day long. Then at the end of the day the old "one more run" curse got me. A 240 spun out and instead of rolling back he hit the brakes and I couldn't stop in time. Popped my drift crash cherry quick, haha. Luckily it was all fender damage on my end. Wheel was turned so it didn't get hit either. Sadly the guys hood, driver side pop-up, and fender were pretty wrecked. Luckily he wasn't mad and realized that it's just part of drifting.

Loaded the miata up and headed home still buzzin' from the event. Beau Desmarteau (@breau_desmarbreau) said it best, "Tandems ruin solo runs". The next day I removed the fender and banged on it for a few minutes until it was "good enough". Wound up looking way better than I expected!

A few weekends later Full Lock Drift had an event "Red, White, and Drift" at the MacPark go-cart track in OKC. Alec and I have been eyeing MacPark for a while and decided to give it a shot. This is the first legitimate track either of us have driven; up to this point its just been streeting and cones on skid pads. The track was a little more technical than I expected, so I had to do quite a few gear changes in my runs, but it was a fun and really productive in terms of seat time. MacPark has a little elevation change (nothing like the rollercoaster of love - still the wildest shit I've ever experienced in a car) but it still feels huge when you're going sideways. The track seemed narrow, but then again what do I know? I'm used to skid pads and being able to veer off if things go wrong. This event really pushed me to focus more on entry's and being as smooth as possible (I still have a ton of work to do). It took a few laps to get it sorted out, but within a dozen or so laps and a getting a few "cowabungas" into the dirt out of our system Alec and I were comfortable enough to start doing some tandems. Tandems on a track are a whole new experience. On skid pads I tend to focus probably 75% of my attention on the lead car and my proximity, but at this event it was a solid 50/50. This event was also a fucking oven with absolutely no wind.  I'm so glad I brought a pop up tent, but I'm pretty sure Alec was on the verge of heat stroke before we left. Shouts out to my dad and Alecs lady, Celsi for tagging along and sticking through the heat. Oh, and my #1 homie, Otis, is a champ. I brought a ton of ice and made him a bed of it in the grass under the trailer; but that still had to of sucked. He slept the entire drive home hugging the AC floor vent. Hopefully the 3rd KC drift event is a little more bearable and he's not miserable. Overall it was a good fucking time and I can't wait for the next one. Full Lock Drift is definitely on Alec and I's radar now and we're going to try to hit at least one more of their events this year.

Alec and I did a few ride along's from early on in the day and got some footage, so here's some solo runs after we kind of figured out what we were doing.

KC Drift #3 is a couple days away. Surprisingly Alec and I have everything repaired and inspected before hand, so we're not rushing this time around. Both of us wanted to check underneath to make sure we didn't fuck anything up too bad by going off course; all is well. Alec fixed his exhaust (you can hear it in the video below towards the end), replaced a wheel stud, got some steel lug nuts,and drift stitched his front end back together. I changed the CAS o-ring and re-timed the car, wrapped the exhaust under the tunnel (it's SO hot), got a cheap white delrin shift knob, and topped off fluids.

Red, White, and Drift - MacPark, OKC from Josh Brown on Vimeo.

Miata: Brakes, Brake Light, Battery, Dash, Valve Cover

Brakes are finally on, bled, and e-brake adjusted. Had a hiccup with the rear passenger calipers bleeder screw shearing off when I went to bleed the system, but luckily I got that sorted out.

I've always been paranoid about getting rear-ended in the miata (small car + low lights + idiots constantly staring at their phones while driving), so I bought a third brake light pulser to help reduce my chances of being hit.

My steering column had a lot of play and always clunked, so I got a new lower intermediate shaft and adjusted the steering rack slack. Helped a lot but I need a new rack for sure. 

Got an Odyssey PC680 battery to cut a little bit of weight and relocated it to the center of the trunk, side mounted in the "spare tire area" that's not actually where the spare tire goes. Made a custom mount too :).

Other little items... dash is bolted in and the tombstone block off plate finished, put the passenger cowl thing back in, made a hood release bracket from a cut up cruise control bracket, cleaned the tar off the door panels, painted the valve cover wrinkle black, new valve cover gasket, painted the header heat shield black, new PCV valve and grommet, and new valve cover vacuum lines. 

I'll post some photos of the finished car after its aligned and washed. 

Miata: Rear Brake Disassembly

Started working on the rear brakes after my Supermiata braided stainless steel lines came in only to realize that my rear wheel bearings are toast. Ordered some replacements that should be here soon as well as some 205/50/15 Federal 595 RS-RR's.Found some deer jerky remnants from an incident a few months ago, but Otis made quick work of it. Cleaning and refurbishing the calipers before putting it all back together.