Sharka

[revlimiter]

Coolant reroute parts!!! Ninja help optional.

This is the first half of my coolant reroute project. Nothing earth shattering. Just the same thing a lot of guys over at MT are doing. BEGI spacer, Kia water neck, and a really long pre-formed hose for some sort of truck.



The front blockoff plate and adhesive gaskets from Napa. I decided to do the plate and leave the OEM front neck in place. There have been some freeze plug failures that sorta freak me out and keeping the neck means I don't have to move my turbo water lines.



The 97 Kia Sephia water neck.



Napa 101 thermostat (180*). It has been pre-boiled to make sure it works before I stick it in the back of the head.



The big daddy. The BEGI spacer. I've got it filled full of sensors and plugs. I actually shot this after test fitting everything.



This spiffy VDO sensor will power my extra gauge. And it juuuuust fits below the coil pack.



Lots of threads sticking out. I need to stop by the bolt shop and get some slightly shorter ones.



How everything fits on the back of the head. SO pleased to be able to fit things and measure clearances without having to use a hand mirror.



Not much clearance for that one bung. I guess the 1600s without the oil cooler don't have this problem.



I'm quite pleased and impressed with this VDO sensor. It fits in this tiny space. Also, notice the minor mod to the coil pack mount?



A couple quick slices with the dremel and you can just slide the coil pack over that damn little bottom bolt. It's tight, but it actually works.



This stays permanently mounted on the head. (credit goes to MT for this idea)

I typed a shit ton of stuff about all of these parts on my blog. Go check it out if you're curious. And huge HUGE thanks to the entire MiataTurbo forum. Without all of the excellent coolant re-route information posted there, I'd... well, I wouldn't be doing a reroute.

[revlimiter]

For complete info and meandering commentary, visit my coolant reroute blog post.



This huge hose is what got me started on the reroute idea in the first place. It's Autozone part number XL-1215. I have MiataTurbo to thank for this excellent hose.



Spacer, gaskets, and Kia water neck all installed on the back of the head. There's juuuust enough room.



The big hose has just enough room to slide over the neck and clear that bung.



It routes nicely around the intake manifold. And there's plenty of room to bolt the IM back on with the hose installed.



This is what's so great about the hose for MOST Miatas. It routes right to the radiator inlet.






But I have an FM2 with a 94-97 throttle body. The intercooler up pipe wants to live in the exact same spot. No problem right? Just route the coolant to the other side...



The idle air bypass doesn't like this. I don't like it either.



Sooooo........... I got this nice M pipe. MiataTurbo was again the place where I learned about this hose's existence.



Just slice off a V from the M to turn it into a Z.



And cut the big hose in the right spot...



Then I used this stock pipe (it goes on the exhaust side) to make a coupler. One side has a flare. The other side has badly cut grooves.

[revlimiter]

hate the 15 picture per post limit!!!!!!!!!!!










Easy!



Clearance on the front. It doesn't look like much, but it is enough.



Throttle body clearance.



Sharka's new sticker book.

[revlimiter]

The next few updates will be a little anti-climactic since I've got Sharka running. But I've got pix and stuff, so I'm posting anyway.

On the first try, Sharka didn't fire. Just a nice chug chug chug.... pop pop! chug chug chug... No starting, just some great backfiring out the intake and an awesome gas smell. Ew. After that initial disappointment of "oh man, it didn't work." I reasoned out the problem.



I cracked open the valve cover and saw this. This is bad. The cam lobes shouldn't be sort of pointed at each other like this. The front ones should be pretty much like: << --- >>



See, the Miata shop that helped me port the head did the valve seals and cam oil seals. I never even checked the actual cam timing. I just did the normal cam gear timing like always.



Removing the bolts showed this. The little dowels should point up.



A zip tie to keep the cam gears timed and a big wrench to rotate the cams. That's all. 5 minutes.



ta-da! Sharka fired on the first crank after getting things correctly timed.

[revlimiter]

I've got some pix from a post dealing with ARP head studs. I thought I'd include them here.



The ARP head stud box and enough lube to do several sets.



Chasing the threads. I don't know why I don't read about this more. Seems most threads I found on the topic had people not following ARP's directions in cleaning the threads.



Yuck. Also, that's M11x1.5.



Compressed air to blow out any leftovers. And tape over the holes to keep it from getting in the oil & coolant.



ARP goop on the threads.



Finger tight.



A fine line of studs. Notice the fronts?



The fronts do indeed stand taller than the rest. That's fine. It's supposed to be that way.



Head gasket installed. Correctly!



ARP washers on top. Stock on bottom.



Showing the OD difference. The stock washers are wider. I used those to spread the force out.



Head installed. Sorry for the lack of photos showing me and Ben dropping the head in place.


Lastly, do NOT follow the ARP 80 ft/lb torque spec. Read this and don't crush your head. I followed the stock 54-60 ft/lb torque spec.

[revlimiter]

I've had this sad thing in the rafters of my garage for like 6 years. Ages. I remember who I got it from, but no circumstances surrounding it. It's not an OEM top and it looks to have sat in the sun top down for all its life. And there's a ton of shit and cobwebs on it from my gentle storage methods.



Uh oh.



Moments later....



Free! I got out a grinding stone to clean up any rough spots.



Laying the front bow on... something?






Bikini goodness! G-String that is.



The center brace. I cleaned it up a bit more. This was a test fit shot.



Fit in the handle.



I can't get over how clever this is. Replacing the boot clasps with long bolts and then running the hidden straps to them? Brilliant!



Hidden strap.



Rear strap.






Forgive the wrinkles. This was just a first fit. I also didn't even notice them when I was shooting.

[revlimiter]

2.5 lbs of Halon and Brey-Krause mounting bracket.

This replaces a 2.5 lb dry chemical extinguisher I had mounted in the trunk. It's been back there since I bought the 95. It was never horrible having the bottle in the trunk, but could I have really reached it if I needed it? Who can say. Fortunately, I never had to find out.



The AMEREX halon bottle from OG Racing. I decided to stay with the 2 strap bracket that ships with the bottle rather than going to a single pin quick release. The bottle still comes free very quickly, and I can add a QR later if I want.



"Me Grimlock like green label!"



"Me Grimlock munch metal!"



This is the Miata-specific extinguisher mount. I didn't think to measure the area around the hole on the rail they use. My Elise seat bracket interferes slightly.



The die grinder made quick work of it. My cuts were good, but the sun makes it look like I fucked up on the right side there.



And it fits!









Installed! The fit is really good. I was worried the mount would protrude away from the seat too much since the Lotus seats have a slightly more shallow seat pan than the stock Miata seats.



And most importantly, I can get to the bottle quickly from the driver's side. That was the whole point of this upgrade.

This isn't as baller an extinguisher install as a few cars on CR, but it will do the job well and looks nicely vintage while doing it. And maybe a plain ol' red bottle won't be as attractive to thieves as a nicer aluminum one.

[revlimiter]

What's this?



revlimiter Gauges - Version Rossa

I made myself some new gauge faces. Been working on them for months in between gauge commissions. My old ones had been in for over a year and I was getting tired of them. I wanted something a little more vintage.

These are inspired by the Jaeger gauges worn by a Ferrari 250 Testa Rossa.













And at night...










And as always, if you want a lot of my own personal brand of lame ramblings, I've got a whole blog post for these gauges.

[revlimiter]

I got a new dash. Well, new to me. It's 20 years old and in need of some love.



yuck.



before...



After!

I decided to restore this dash from the back side working in. The first pieces were the ducting tubes. They ended up quite supple and clean. They started out a bit less.



Not bad. Not great, but not horrible.



And then I got the frame out. It looked much better in the car.

I realized I wouldn't be able to just hit a few small spots with a wire wheel and call it good. It needed a lot of help. So I ordered some stuff on the internet and cleaned/restored the back side while I waited.



The back side came up nice.



The only broken bits were these two tabs. They were broken before I started working on the dash and had probably been so for years. I figured a little Plastic Welder would fix it right up.



Done! More on this later.



This is what I got to take care of my rust problem. POR15. It's a 3 step process.



Step 1: Clean and degrease.



Step 2: Metal prep. This leaves a coating of zinc oxide.



(the previously mentioned zinc oxide)

[revlimiter]

15 IMAGES PER POST......................







Step 3: Paint on the POR15. It stands for Paint Over Rust.



Done. The tiny can had enough for 3 coats of the whole frame. What you get after is like a hard candy shell. It's really impressive stuff.



Frame installed. Looks awfully nice.



A brand new gauge hood from Mazdacomp.



And a brand new double-DIN tombstone from Japan. Overnighted of course.



Restoration done. I was SO pleased with myself.

and then....



CRACK.

The dash cracked right before my eyes. I rubbed my hands over the crack and could feel a high spot where the dash was being pushed up from underneath. The small bit of stress caused a crack. I flipped the dash forward and saw that the source of the stress was that Plastic Welded stud that I repaired earlier. My guess is that the whole dash had sagged a bit over the years due to those plastic tabs not being connected. Now that they were repaired, I created a stress area.

So... now I get to repair the crack. And I'll probably create a couple more during the repair.

Oh well. I've got a whole hide of black leather in the mail to me at this very moment. I always wanted a leather-covered dashboard.

[revlimiter]

I had to take a break from the dash repair. I think you'll agree that my reasons were good.

NAKAMAE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!



Gorgeous stitch work.



It attaches with velcro. I never knew.



Mine had this one tiny problem. A little bite mark from the original owner's seat. It's right at the bottom of the passenger side (for LHD cars). Not in an area I'd ever see.



I didn't let the fact that I'd never see the little tear stop me from repairing it.



Cloth backing



Filler glue



Patch goo. I was worried at this point.



Apply heat and the grain pattern. The little stick gets heated by an iron.

and....



Fixed. A little of the repair goo got into the seam. Considering how nice the patch looks, I'm not too unhappy about it. The repair is great. It even feels like the surrounding vinyl.



Nakamae squares compared to my diamond door panels. I wish the Nakamae stuff was diamonds, but they match pretty well. Even the finish of vinyl is similar.







I’m very happy with Sharka’s interior. After I get that early dashboard restored and installed, I think it’ll be… (I can’t bring myself to type the d-o-n-e word.)

[revlimiter]

Sharka has vintage side stripes!
(click on this for a bunch of text about the vinyl install process)



My vinyl install tools. The tape measure managed to not be in this shot. And notice the hypodermic needle? That's the best tool ever for popping bubbles.



Bottom edge marked



Measuring out each stripe.



First stripe done.



2nd stripe. Notice the lack of contact paper? I hate the stuff. I'd rather measure manually.



Heat gun: activate!



Contact paper trimmed down to the absolute minimum.



Before



After! And a couple hours later, the contact paper came off.

[revlimiter]

Continuing mk2tmr2's tradition of posting the new baby photo to the build thread.

I can't wait to take little Harriet out in Sharka. The black Recaro carseat is gonna look PIMP.

[revlimiter]

Sharka got something new.







I'm so happy with this! No more little pictograms. No more orange text. No more Stig. The Stig was cute at the beginning, but I got tired of him kinda quick. This seems much more in keeping with the rest of Sharka's interior.



This is how it looks without the AWD metal overlay. I... kinda like it more like this. I'm on the fence. It just looks so retro all in black.

[revlimiter]

I got a couple things in the mail...






Redline Goods shift boot and LOOSE-FIT brake boot

As far as I know, I'm the first guy to photograph the brake boot. I bought it sight-unseen in hopes that it would be nice enough to replace my 11 year old PBC brake boot with.

And it is.


Old PBC boot - very hard and starting to crack



Redline shift boot. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm!



Old PBC loose-fit brake boot. Which I always thought looked pretty good.



Redline loose-fit brake boot. Blows my old one out of the water.









I put up a full review on my blog. A few more pix and a lot more of my own commentary. This is the cliff notes version in here.