Blueiii - the search, the build. . . the miata journal

[Blueiii]

Man do I need to update this.... I'm posting right now as motivation to do so over the weekend!

[Blueiii]

Sooooo.... haven't updated this in FOREVER since Photobucket decided to kill, well, everything.

Some of the MR.net OG's might remember this car. A few updates to set the stage:

I bought a house
I got married
Wife and I had kiddo #1
I accidentally bought a miata via online auction
I toured the Mazda Basement with the OMO crew (Met Revlimiter and OldGray while I was there)
I intentionally bought another miata
I Sold the Mazdaspeed3
I bought another miata
I bought another miata

That puts me on miata #5, although the latest acquisition is named "Project Trash" as it was purchased sight-unseen and is going to be parted out.

Rather than going through every detail, I'll cover major stuff.

In 2016 I purchased my second miata via Copart somewhat accidentally. I had bid WAY below the reserve over a week before the auction; however, I ended up winning the car and had to take it. It was a pile, but I made most of my money back parting it out.

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[Blueiii]

I kept the motor from the NB and decided to go full race car build. The car to the left of the NB was purchased to be a shell. The paint was rough but it was rust-free underneath. My thinking was I could always get it painted, but this was a good chance to try my hand at rebuilding the engine from the NB and my first motor swap.

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[Blueiii]

NB tub was hauled away:
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And the motor went into the '89:
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[Blueiii]

This period is something of an odd stream of consciousness, so my apologies.

2017 involved slowly building the '89 for CSP, racing and developing / adding goodies between events. This included a NB rear subframe after finding the rear was slightly bent, torsen, etc. (I'll provide a detailed list of what's on the car currently in a couple of posts.)

At the end up the season I was underneath the car and had my hand resting on part of the frame when I noticed... it wasn't flat metal. It was supposed to be flat metal, but it was curved. Closer inspection identified that there were some welds that were popped and had begin rusting. For the grip levels of a CSP car, this is bad.

The wife agreed to let me buy a different chassis and start over and within 2 weeks I thought I had found the car. In fact, I bought the car, intending to sell some stuff off of it to recoup my losses (and to sell the '89 to a local drift racer that didn't care if it was a little banged up.)

[Blueiii]

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[Blueiii]

And the car I bought to turn into the new race car:
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One owner, '99 car with 52K. The original owner was a former racer that bought the car to baby as a retirement gift to himself. A few mods, including a supercharger. The pictures don't do this car justice. Its just STUPID clean. It had never seen rain until I owned it (sorry). I had intended to sell the engine and supercharger, but it just drives SO nice. Plus, I still had Camber, and it would take more work to move Camber from half-&*^#'d race car to street car.

When the wife saw the NB, her response was "Are you SURE you're going to be able to hack that car up." My response.... "Nope. Don't think I can."

[Blueiii]

No clue why these pictures are upside down...

[Blueiii]

That brings us to a little less than 1 year ago. I decided to keep the NB as is (and will upgrade it, because, well, I'm an addict.)

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[Blueiii]

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[Blueiii]

I managed to get the car "built" (are which seems like the wrong term, since "built" implies its done) when it was still way too cold for racing season. The goal was to debut it at the Pittsburgh Match Tour. The final weeks were a mad dash with a major issue that my tuner and I fought with for almost three weeks. As it turns out, I was developing harmonic resonance in the fuel rail that made the car act like it was having fuel cut at 3,500 RPMs (but electronically was fine.) My tuner was literally ready to give up. We were chatting when he said, "Its like there's some weird mechanical resonance." Turns out the solution was to add a fuel damper! Got her running and off the dyno the Thursday before the Match Tour.

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[Blueiii]

Summer racing season was spent developing the car and driver (as one?) The change to the car has been radical, and as a driver adapting to the change was a BIG jump. I kept finding more grip (which in turn meant slicing up expensive tires on the fenders, cutting more off the fender, then repeating. It was the circle of hoosier.)

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The car is by no means done and will continue to be a work in development for years. With luck, both car and driver will get faster. Winter plans are somewhat muted due to other priorities at the moment, but highlights included my first trophy at a national level event (contingency!!!) and a divisional class win.

[Blueiii]

Mod List
Engine
BP4W - shaved head and decked block to factory minimum, rebuilt using stock pistons (no overbore)
Flat Top Manifold
Skunk2 Throttle Body
FM Fuel Rail
RX8 injectors (flow matched by Witch Hunter)
Garage Star waterpump & alternator pulley
3D printed (high-temp nylon) intake, filter mounted outside of radiator (in bumper)

Exhaust
Racing Beat Header
No cat - direct bolt up to dynomax bullet & Burns Stainless Mufflers (2.5") *This will be changing to a 2.25" exhaust

Fuel
DW300 Pump
DW e85 Fuel Filter
Full stainless braided lines
Aeromotive (? I honestly forget) adjustable fuel pressure regulator

Electronics
MSPNP (2) - built by Ohio ECU solutions
AEM Wideband

Interior
Swiss Cheese Kirkey
Full-body Kirkey
Sparco suede steering wheel
Garagestar stereo delete panel (mount my tablet here for Solo Storm)
Qstar 10Hz GPS receiver (bluetooth)

Suspension
Whitener Valved Bilsteins
Extended top hats
800/500# spring rate
Full poly bushing swap
Small Fortune Racing front sway bar / no rear bar
Miata Cage Spacers

Wheels
15x11 6ULs
275/35/15 Hoosier A7s
*Picking up another set of 15x10s
*15x8 6uls might be used for rain tires - need to find funds

Other
A/C delete with proper air "tubes"
4.30 Torsen
Soft top removed
Tiny battery-shark ext9 knock-off
Custom designed 3D printed battery bracket / tie down
Joefis Racing rear spoiler
Custom built (and in the process of redesign) front splitter
Stainless Clutch Line
1.6 Exedy clutch
7 lbs. Findana Flywheel
Hawk Blue pads
Stainless brake lines

Car weighs in just over 2000 lbs and makes around 148 whp currently. There's still power to be found, weight to be removed and suspension improvements to be made, but like I said... they're never done. Currently I'm finding more speed with seat time than anything. I have cam gears to install still and have the car re-tuned (Shout Out to Ryan Foltz of Northcoast Speedworks. He's amazing.) I also plan to run a flex fuel sensor since e85 in these parts is available but somewhere between e71 and e92 depending on what day you fill up.

[Greasemonkey2000]

Nice updates! Yes the addition of the supercharger is very nice, isn't it? Had to look up the Small Fortune sway bar, that is a sweet setup!!! Might be overkill for the street(need to do more research and maybe contact them for more info) but added a bookmark to their page anyways.

[Blueiii]

The supercharger doesn't make a ton of power but its definitely quick. I am in the process of collecting parts for "Gramps" (the NB) for Spring. Nothing major; it won't ever be a monster as I want to keep it civil for daily use. So far it has a roll bar, 6ULs and RE71Rs installed. The other stuff will wait.

I'm also sure I've missed a ton of stuff... there's so much that's done to the car that, looking at the list, it seems so short! Possibilities for winter are fund limited but include:

Sadfab Bronze Retrofit Bushings
Jenvey ITB
Build the VVT motor in the garage
Torrington Bearings for the shocks
Redesign front splitter (Aluminite vs wood)