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Thread: This ain't no build thread!

  1. #31
    Individual-1 ☚ ☻ ☛ Agent☣Orange's Avatar
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    I remember those new back in the day. That sure is a fine example of the era.

  2. #32
    Nukuler banned! chiefmg's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Phatmiata View Post
    WOW!!!!! This RX7 is so sweet looking!!! Just love it! Thank you for sharing!
    Thanks. Wait until you see it once I get off my ass and restore it, big things planned.

    Quote Originally Posted by YellowYata View Post
    Jees Chief, you sure did it the hard way. You only need a screwdriver to get the old one out and to get the new one in because they're flexible. Those usually don't need replacing either, just the lower bushing (the tiny one that goes on the lower shifter ball).

    Oh, here's mine from before: http://gearheadsmiataclub.net/vB/sho...hifter-project
    You forget, I'm a highly trained professional! With tools! It actually wasn't that bad the first time (can't recall right now just why I did it a second time. EDIT: remembered but you will all have to wait as I don't want to put something out of order), just took my time with it. I remember your write-up, it was very well done (and I was jealous of your polish job on the lower bushing). The way I look at things like that, if I have a complete set of replacement parts I might as well take care of it all at once. One less thing for me to worry about while I'm gone, and for my limited time home.
    Last edited by chiefmg; 10-15-2012 at 12:59 PM.
    '00 SE, intercooled BRP MP62, Reverant MS2, Ohlins DFV, Konig Flatout (now X 2)
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    This ain't no build thread!

  3. #33
    Nukuler banned! chiefmg's Avatar
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    So I kind of got out of my rhythm with my last post about what I did, since this happened so long ago no point in my being too specific until I get right up to date. So onward...

    I bought a set of taillight surrounds off eBay, had them painted along with the hard top (Merlot Mica is very close to Mahogany Mica, but not close enough for me. Plus it had a couple of nasty gouges in the middle towards the front). I put on a HD lip (that's Home Depot for anyone who lives under a rock) and removed the Zoom-Zoom sticker off the factory lip. Replaced the driver's side foglight, I don't use them much so am not really concerned that the factory units aren't as good as aftermarket. I put some X-Pel film on them for protection against rocks. Cleaned up/painted the '05 header. Ordered some stock parts, a new driver's side inner fender liner (the piece with louvers that is on the very front of the fender), seatbelt attachment cover, and new inside door handle pulls (originals were scarred up). I got the last driver's side in parchment available in North America, I was happy about that. Installed my hard top side plates (I used my Craftsman Nextec multi-tool to cut the plastic, it is awesome), replaced both windows in the passenger door with used (there were small spots that appeared to be etched into the glass, it was annoying looking through them). Replaced both hoses on the brake vacuum assist line, whoever originally put the yellow hoses on didn't move the orifice over so whenever I shut off the engine, my brake assist disappeared immediately. If you don't think this is a big deal try it, makes life interesting if you stop on a hill.

    I managed to pick up a set of Atlantic Design trunk bags. These are no longer made, but they are a very nice way to carry more stuff without having to put a luggage rack on. The set is two bags with plastic covered metal hooks that go over the edge of the trunk lid, the straps they are on are adjustable to get them snug. There is also a cushioned pad that you lay down on the trunk lid before putting the bags in place.

    Got some goodies for the supercharger, an oil/nose coupler kit and a DDM Wonderbracket. Good thing I got the Wonderbracket as my bypass actuator arm was worn as well as the bellcrank it moves. I ended up buying a new actuator (only way to take care of that). I cleaned/oiled the air filter, it was pretty dirty and very dry. Based on the amount of sand I found in the area around the intake shielding I doubt it had been cleaned since it was in FL.

    I had bought an A-pillar with integral gauge pods from Moss, but when I got it didn't like how it looked. I did take the opportunity to redo the wiring on the gauges some, it was a mess with all different types of wire used (including some speaker wire). I was to find out soon just how shoddy the wiring was.

    Finally got around to installing the '05 header, one of the EGR pipe nuts put up a fight and I ended up messing it up. I forgot to take my own advice, which is that sometimes it's easier to remove more than you need to. In this case had I taken the coil pack off from the beginning I would have been much better off. Oh well. At the same time I opened up the supercharger, I didn't get much oil out of the gearbox (I had read in several places this was an issue with M45s, but never any thoughts about why) but it looked fine inside. The new coupler was very tight so I was happy about that. While all that was off I replaced the heater and lower radiator hoses. One of the heater hoses had been rubbing on the supercharger inlet, failure of that would have been a lot of fun (NOT!). I also replaced the engine mounts while I was busy. Got everything back on the way it is supposed to be without any extra parts (always a good thing). BTW, I found out it is best to have the radiator drain plug installed before filling it.



    Last edited by chiefmg; 11-01-2012 at 01:15 PM.

  4. #34
    Individual-1 ☚ ☻ ☛ Agent☣Orange's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by chiefmg View Post
    BTW, I found out it is best to have the radiator drain plug installed before filling it.
    I found out the same thing applies to the oil-drain plug as well.

  5. #35
    Nukuler banned! chiefmg's Avatar
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    Funny how that works, huh?

  6. #36
    Nukuler banned! chiefmg's Avatar
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    Next on my list was the rear of the car. I replaced the fuel filter (not horrible but worse than it has to be. Thanks Mazda). Next up were the differential mounts. This is one time I really should have taken pictures, because I found a relatively easy way to do it. I didn't want to remove the diff which I knew would make life more difficult, but I was sure it was doable. I did all the normal removals (rear bracing- actually did that before the filter-, PPF brace, diff mounts). I had read up on all the various ways people have used to do this, and tried just about every method (excepting fire). Those damn mounts would not budge. After several hours of frustration, I sat back and regrouped. Drawing on my years of experience and knowledge with removal of tight, stubborn objects from holes I took stock of my tools to see what could be done. Basically you need to use something that will allow you to press the mounts out of the diff arms. I found one of the spacers for my ball joint kit was just the right size (2.5" OD) to push against the metal that is on the outside of the mount. I used a two arm puller to grab the slight lip that is on the diff arm and just screwed it upwards to push the mount out. It was a little hard getting all the bits in the correct place so the first one took me all of 10 minutes to get out. Second one was easier since I had my method down.

    Getting the new mounts in proved to be a right royal PITA. I had the Mazdaspeed mounts, and they are slightly oval before installation. Since the hole they go into is round, there is a wee bit of resistance. What ended up working was putting them in place, jacking the diff up so that the weight of the car was on the mounts, then using a hammer and a piece of wood to hit upwards to get the mounts started. I then used the reverse of my removal method to jack the mounts into place, except instead of the puller I used a BACC. What's that, I hear you ask? A big-ass C-clamp. My local Ace provided it in all its 8" goodness. Once they were seated in place it was a matter of putting it all back together.

    I do want to mention here that I posted about doing this on MT.net on someone's thread about this job. I was told at that time that no one would buy a ball joint kit or other special tools to do this job. Maybe six months later someone posted about doing it using this method, and he was a hero. Of course he did provide pictures so that may have made the difference. If you can't figure out what I did from my description head over there and you will see what I am talking about (although he dropped the diff completely out of the car).

  7. #37
    2,000 rpm - light wheelspin, no bog here! roy obanion's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by chiefmg View Post

    That looks great!

  8. #38
    Nukuler banned! chiefmg's Avatar
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    So, last time around I had gotten quite a lot done since getting home. The reason for this was I had gotten my good wife to agree to take the Miata on our delayed honeymoon. Just to let everyone know what an awesome woman she is, not only did she agree to that but she also agreed that we could have a two-part trip. For the first part we went to Savanah GA and stayed in a B&B for a couple of days. Then we drove to Atlanta for The Mitty, that was the year Mazda was the featured marque and it was attempted to have the longest line of Mazdas around a track (we didn't make it).

    Anyway, lest you think it was all work and no play, along the way I did this:



    I got the magnetic numbers from a guy I know on another forum who has a side business. He also hooked me up with the wheel emblems and third brake light Zoom-Zoom sticker (which I have on all our cars). If you look back a few posts and peer closely at the pictures, you can see them. As you can see from the picture, I have a set of RyokuRob tow hooks. I can attest to the fact that they work (the front one does anyway), more on that a lot later.

    Before we left on our trip, I went to my local junkyard and picked up a couple of sealed door switches off a '93 929. Pretty much any bigger Mazda you look at has these sealed switches, while for some reason they skimped on the Miata and used open ones. The sealed ones keep crap out of the switch so there is one less thing to worry about. The only thing I had to do to get the switch installed was bend the tab on the switch so it was pointing 180 degrees away from where it was stock. The wiring on the Miata just isn't long enough to allow it to work otherwise.

    I also replaced the two nibs (or tits as I call them) on the upper top latches. The one on my passenger side was missing completely, as well as the screw that holds it in place. Off to Ace I went, the screw needed is M4 X 6. Did an oil and filter change, while I was under there I replaced the clutch hose and pigtail with the long stainless braided hose I had. It was only slightly a PITA, mainly in trying to get the old one out of there. For some reason Mazda failed to slot the one bracket the pigtail passes through, so I just got out the sidecutters and cut it into two pieces. I removed the hard top sideplates because the wife said she didn't want to use it on the drive.

    Finally did a minor foamectomy on the driver's seat. I bought some hog ring pliers (Ace to the rescue again) although I ended up not using them as everything was accessible enough for needle nose pliers.

  9. #39
    Nukuler banned! chiefmg's Avatar
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    So off to Savannah we went. I got into hot water when I missed an interstate change that caused us a couple of extra hours driving. She also wasn't pleased with my driving through a mountainous zone, I was playing with an STI and she seemed to think there was no need to drive the speed I was through the turns. Ah well, the bruises healed nicely.

    Savannah was nice, if you've never been I can recommend it (although not in late summer). The drive up to Atlanta was good, we met up with a group of people I have known for years on forums but had never seen most of them in person before. My wife isn't a huge race fan so she wasn't at the track a lot, she did take some parade laps with me and shot those with her phone. Here's one I took when we were trying for the record:



    While at the track, I was literally parked next to the Flyin' Miata tent. They were having a sale with free shipping, so I managed to sweet-talk my way into a set of V-Maxx and the frame rails with butterfly brace. In my defense, we did buy my wife a purse in Savannah so it's not like I was hogging the money.

    The next to last night we were there, we went to a nice restaurant in Atlanta to have an early anniversary celebration. We parked, only to find out that there was valet service. The guy asked for my key, I didn't really see the point but gave it to him anyway. After a very nice meal, we came out and a different guy gave me the key. I saw the car wasn't where I had put it, asked and he said it was around the side. When I walked around the corner, I found that my lowered car had been backed up over about an 8" curb and the front lip was on the ground. I was so mad I was shaking. I tried gently pulling it off the curb but the right exhaust tip scraped as I was doing it. I vented a little by doing a burnout, when I pulled around front the only valet to be seen was the one who had given me the key. When I asked him who the genius was that parked my car like that, he said it wasn't him. So that was nice evening shot to hell. The next day when I looked things over closer, I discovered that they had also damaged my rear mud flaps. Luckily there was a phone number on the ticket which we called and got things taken care of. I ended up with a new set of mud flaps (much to my surprise they were still available), the exhaust I just have to live with.

  10. #40
    Nukuler banned! chiefmg's Avatar
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    I mentioned about the Atlantic Design trunk bags I bought. I had also picked up a deck bag to use. You might think that would have been enough storage, but not for my wife. I had the car packed tight (I'm very good at using every bit of space) and there was not any room to spare. When we bought her purse a hat box was included (don't ask me why that is) but there was no way I could squeeze it into the car short of her holding it on her lap for the 8 hour drive home. Her solution was to have them mail it to us (no way was she not getting that box!). Even though you can't see the inside, this picture might give you an idea of what I'm talking about:


    I have been told in no uncertain terms that was the last long trip we were doing in the Miata.

  11. #41
    Nukuler banned! chiefmg's Avatar
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    While in Atlanta I developed a CEL. Borrowed someone's Hypertech to read it but there were no fault codes showing. I disconnected the battery to reset it. It came back on the way home, I noticed that the narrowband gauge stopped working at the same time. I went ahead and ordered a new O2 sensor just in case, but after reading the documentation I had and finding out the narrowband gauge was tied into the O2 sensor wiring, I began to figure out they might be connected (can't put one over on me!). Turned out that was the case, another example of how not to do wiring by whoever installed the supercharger. I soldered the connection back and everything was in business.

    I bought a set of hood lifts from RSpeed, got those installed. As it turned out I would have needed them anyway, but it is very nice not having to work around the prop rod. I did notice the sides of the hood appear to be raised a little and no longer line up with the tops of the fenders. I haven't really looked at what I can do to correct that, I suspect it will require bending some sheetmetal.

    I actually mentioned the tow hooks a couple of posts up but I installed them after our trip. I showed my wife the tow hooks so she would know not to back up too far. She informed me they were ugly, I should have consulted her beforehand and that they made the car less cute. By my reckoning that's a double win!

    I replaced my windshield header interior plastic piece, the original owner had placed the boost retard control there with two screws. I wanted to move that out of the way, as it was an open invitation to anyone to move the knob with possible disastrous consequences. The installer had run the wiring for it behind one of the dash brackets so I had to cut the wires to get the control knob fed back inside the car. Soldered everything back together and used heat shrink tubing for a nice neat seal. I also replaced my faded visors and the tinted interior light lens with a Mitsu clear one sourced from our very own YellowYata (thanks again man).
    Last edited by chiefmg; 10-20-2012 at 01:38 PM.

  12. #42
    Nukuler banned! chiefmg's Avatar
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    Along about this time my order from Flyin' Miata showed up. I'm glad I got the free shipping, all those bits were heavy. It was all well packaged but I was missing a couple of fasteners for the frame rails. I just ended up going to Ace as I didn't want to wait, I am sure if I had called FM they would have sent me what was missing. The instructions included were very thorough. Probably the hardest part of the whole installation (for me) was drilling holes in my floor boards. I would note that you want to remove the carpet as far back as you can, when I was drilling the first couple of holes one side had draped back down and my drill bit caught the insulation under the carpet. Not a big deal, just a minor annoyance but I should have propped it up better. I measured the frame rail locations on both sides several times, while FM allows for some leeway for the butterfly brace I wanted to have them as even as possible. I did the whole install myself, it does help having long arms to tighten those bolts on the inside of the frame rails. You do have to be a little creative when tightening the butterfly brace bolts as the stiffening on all the pieces combined with the exhaust on the one side makes it hard getting a wrench and socket in there.

    Was it worth it? Yes! I have read a lot of stories about how people noticed the increased stiffness leaving their garage, and that is no exaggeration. For me the big revelation came when I was pulling out of my drive. The whole car feels like more of one piece. On that first drive I could actually feel the suspension working as it should, instead of the chassis flexing (I'm used to it now so don't notice). I can't say how well just the frame rails improve things, but I do recommend this to anyone who wants a stiffer car.

  13. #43
    Nukuler banned! chiefmg's Avatar
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    I replaced a few bits for the supercharger (bypass actuator, restrictor pill in the hose to same, idle bypass check valve), the check valve improved my boost a little since it appeared the old one was the original. Replaced the plugs, one heat range colder set to 0.032 per TDR's recommendations. I finally found out what was controlling the fuel for the supercharger, it was a DFMM (which indicated just how old my kit was). A little black box sold by Jackson Racing, this was basically the eBay resistor trick to tell the ECU that the intake temp was colder than it was, so more fuel was injected. Hey it worked, but I wanted something better.

    Got her cornerweighted/aligned at a local place, they didn't normally do cornerweighting but turned out the owner had a set of scales from when he was dirt tracking, so he brought those in and they fixed me up. The tech who did the work is a nice guy who is very thorough. He loved the car. I go back there for any of my tire or alignment needs, it's good having somewhere that I can trust.

    I had gotten a chip in the windshield while going out to dinner one night with the wife. SafeLite said they could repair it, but I would be able to see the repair. Since it was in my line of sight and I would just be annoyed, I had it replaced. Got some money off the bill because I removed the interior/exterior trim so they wouldn't have to. It was nice having a clear windshield without the years of little pits in it.

    After some research I bought some Raammat to see if I could improve things on the noise side, mainly with the top up. I put it in the sounding chambers that connect the trunk with the cabin (you know, those opening that are on either side of the fuel tank). It was pretty difficult given the tightness back there and how the mat wants to fold over on itself on the sticky side. Got it in and it helped some, after talking to a local guy I bought a couple of nice fluffy pillows and put those in there as well. That helped even more.

    I had purchased a Thompson oil filter relocation kit from a local guy. I installed it towards the end of my vacation. Had a slight leak from the fitting on one of the hoses (the PO had made up a set of stainless braided hoses) so I took that apart to try and correct it. Thought I had it done except for a minor weep, but that turned out to be wrong.
    Last edited by chiefmg; 10-23-2012 at 03:08 PM.

  14. #44
    Nukuler banned! chiefmg's Avatar
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    After some of the summer at home, it was back to work (hey, I have to do something to pay for all this!). While I was out, I bought a used combination switch (mine had the lettering on the cruise stalk worn off which looked bad), an instrument binnacle, Innovate MTX-L, Garage Star wiper cover, and a factory wiring manual. After some agonizing about it, I bought a BRP intercooled MP62 kit from someone on CR. I followed that up with the purchase of a Reverant enhanced MS2. Have I mentioned that I have a very understanding, wonderful wife?
    Last edited by chiefmg; 10-20-2012 at 12:56 AM.

  15. #45
    3,000 rpm - starting to feel the power treeafodo's Avatar
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    I like this thread a lot, I can't wait for more posts to read.
    Austin.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Blueiii View Post
    Your priorities seem a bit messed up to me, although that's because I try to get my lap times to decrease.

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