Welcome to my journal.

-Kimochi Cruiser-

If you're wondering, "why kimochi?"

Very roughly translated from Japanese, meaning "good feelings", or "feel good"~ it describes the emotion i feel when I'm around or inside of my car (or any transportation for that matter).

I have always held the philosophy that my vehicle should make me chuckle when i observe or operate it. I believe this to be true for all forms of transportation; it seems people are more concerned with fitting into a clique, being jdm/euro/vip, or arguing about other peoples modification choices to enjoy the fun of it these days.

I want my car to have that feeling of fun. I enjoy a "Hot Wheels" aesthetic; that toy shop "is he serious?" mentality.

Ive found inspiration in many of the Miatas that have appeared in the community; from super functional track purpose cars, overseas built wonders from carlife japan, extravagant bosozukus/itashas, to some very awesome builds from members on this site (very respectively i mention: coupeloop's wind chariot, slevin's na, scrat, woolery's pitcrew, sharka).

I will be pulling little bits from each Ive found to make me drool, to build a Miata that i can be proud of and make me and others who see it smile

Lets start


From the beginning

2 years ago I moved to California, And promptly bought this mint 1999 NB with 26,000 miles. It was completely stock, and in perfect condition.
I drove it for about 3,000 miles before i started modifying it.



A few weeks of work and i had rolled the fenders, polished the hood, and installed a hard-dog bar/GV lip/raceland coils/corksport dual exhaust/and xxr 002s (later replaced with 522s. standard 15x8 0et 195/50 s-drives)



This was cool for a short time, before i realized there was no thought put behind my additions, just cheap fad parts that i slapped on to get a "look at me, im low like the other members" appeal

This stayed for a while, until i grew sick of being cheap and uninspired. So began the revision process. A quick part-out later, i had a relatively clean slate to restart the process.

Though, some stains of my carelessness remained, and had to be attended to.

Package Tray Clean-up
Back when i first selected modifications, i did not have the proper tools or patience to install them in a quality manner.

My first venture into wrenching, cutting away the package tray to install the hard dog bar. Unfortunately, i was very meat fisted with my approach... using a jigsaw, i dug in and just cut random holes to size until the bar fit nicely. the jig saw left jagged edges and uneven cut lines. which to this day bothered me.

So- with a free day, i completely removed the soft top and frame, plastic shrouding, and roll bar. I masked off all the surrounding areas, and re-cut my package trays slots cleanly with a dremel equipped with a straight edge cutter. After, i soft wire brushed the whole tray, masked the wiring, and repainted the deck in black for a clean look and rust protection; also gave the tray covers a nice brushing.



I ended up putting the carpet back over the nice tray, road noise and fuel pump got annoying quick. but i feel better that its now done right.

Parts Arrival!

New front bumper and GV lip to replace a set broken on horrible school parking lot drives
Project-G: g-string in saddle tan
And a set of wheels that i have yearned for since i first bought my car: Work Equip 03's



Rear-Bumper Cutout

So, before moving on to the WORKs and G-string; id like to show you the first brave move i took towards the projects initiation: The rear bumper cutout

The rear end of the Nb is very nice~ it is full of beautiful surfacing and nice highlights; but for me, the butt always felt a little over stretched. Cutting down the rear section would give the miata a dynamic and pronounced stance; something i wanted to achieve without ruining the styling language.

I had to be very careful to follow the more fluid lines of the Nb.

I got down to it, using clay docking tape (a thin flexible black tape with a small tin wire embedded inside, used for automotive clay modeling) i threw down a few lines to determine my cut line. After a few tries, i found a nice balance point that wasn't overkill, but looked very aggressive.



Once i had one side masked out, i placed a sheet of butcher paper over top of the tape, traced the contour, cut the paper sheet, and flipped the sheet to mirror the other side.



The cutting was done with 3 tools. I used a jigsaw to follow the lead in edges and then took a box cutter with a heated blade/T-square to deal with the long straight portion.
Finishing was done with a light sanding of the edges, rounding off the burs and leaving an OEM appearance.



Overall, i love the way it turned out. Its very pronounced, yet still flows with the bulging contours that pick up from the rocker panel into the rear bumper.
I feel i might of maybe cut about a 1/2 inch to much on the long straight depth wise; as the crash support just sneaks a peek out from underneath...

After i installed the cut bumper, i realized how ugly the under-structure of the miata was... gooey paste welds showing and dull paint were making me tick. So as a solution, i prepped and painted the rear end under-structure in black to stealth out the weirdness.

The bumper covers most of this, but again, i just wanted to be thorough.

Works

Ive wanted a set of these wheels ever since i came into the car scene. They are an amazing balance of form and functional appearance (i say "appearance" for the fact of recognizing that my offset and tire choice is less than functional). the main disk's star cut is very outspoken without being overcomplicated and the machined face gives it an extra hint of contrast tucked back in those polished dishes. I guess i can also mention the amazing build and material quality of these wheels... they are feather-light and the finish is amazing!



I secured them with 2 separate sets of lug-locks for added security, 2 brands, two styles and keys. plus heptagon lugs where the locks aren't. OCD...



You'll notice my tails are now tinted red, i simply wanted to clean up the rear graphics by eliminating the orange and white sections.

Project-G - G-string

After sitting on my floor for 2 months, i finally came across a nice enough bow to mate to this amazing piece!. When mounted, it completely changes the look of my NB; dropping the roof-line, pulling out the aggressive cues missing with the soft-top (closed or dropped), and i love it!



Installation was incredibly simple. I quickly cut the bow and side seals and cleaned up the latches and plastic bits with some flat black. After that, mounting was as easy as laying down some contact cement into the front edge of the bow, and matching up the screw points to the punches in the material. final touch was using some black metal-to-polymer epoxy to install the clean up caps on the cut edge of the bow.



The cutting of the center support was a pain... my only complaint. shaping the front to sit flush in the hand pocket of the bow was easy enough; but it took more than a few times back to the circular cutter to measure up the pvc pole to fit snug front the bow to the roll bar.

That aside, the fit and finish is incredible! the stitching is cleanly done and looks incredibly strong! proper material cuts and reinforcements on stress points to prevent the piece from deteriorating. Im amazed by the thought that has been put into adding finishing patches around the garters and tethers points, as well as the center support cover flap.

Great work Project-G!

In addition to mounting pieces, i lathed up these inner strap-loop posts, and frankenstein posts (i didnt want to waste money on the real pieces that had an ugly phillips cut in the top surface, when i never intend to go hard-top).



New Additions

I began to focus on the smaller details of the build, as i currently shifted low on the income this month for some freelance projects.

Thanks to Tetsuya Garage, i finally found my dream Nardi! i fell in love with wood wheels after seeing amazing examples of craftsmanship during our schools Car Classic show and i wanted something that emulated those older side spoke designs. Tets found me this awesome side spoke woody with a black pin-line, and its beautiful! exactly what i had in mind! I'm bolting it up using the standard works bell hub



Along with the Nardi, i decided to pick up this Corns exhaust system.
I was captivated by the build quality, the welds are so uniform and clean, and the modular construction is really cool! The sound it produces is heavenly! Its smooth as silk and very mellow, its only slightly louder than stock, but has an amazing bass tone under acceleration.



Splitter Experiment

In hopes of filling out the profile view of the Kimochi, i constructed a set of splitters to bring the front lip around to the rocker panels. They were constructed from aircraft grade ABS and waterjet cut and machine beveled. I machined the mount flanges from 6061 and used steel studs centered in the edge to mount directly to the pinch rail.





I ran these for a good month, and got many compliments from miata and s2000 enthusiasts alike. but for me, the thinner ABS was not continuing the flow of the gv lip properly. The gv has volume and is smooth, while my piece is textured and planar; i thought they would be much more at home on a miata with a TDR front splitter in place.

It was later sold to FreshNB