'94R - The Black Pearl

[Massiah]

Hey all, new to the forums but I wanted to start a build thread for one of my cars. Mainly to encourage a bit of participation on my end. I tend to stay away from the national stuff and hang out on my local forums (and /r/miata). Some SF Bay Area people might know this car already. It's been around to meetups and shows and was owned by the coolest parts guy, ever. He's been around the scene since the beginning and has a few Miatae as well. Most notably a supercharged '92 Sunburst which is quite possibly the nicest Miata I've ever seen.



It just so happened that he was thinking of getting rid of this 184k '94 R Package. I'd had a few conversations with him before about the car, but I never actually thought about buying it. At the time my '99 was down (it had been for a while, long story) and I was driving the S2000. The S is a fun car, no doubt, but it gets a bit boring when you can't be in the powerband. It's a bit soft and detached as well but I digress. I could go on forever with complaints!

The deal was struck about a month ago. I took it home, gave it a bath and took some pictures. I also browsed through the mechanical history, and what a huge amount of history it has. I've got every piece of paperwork starting from 70k miles. Before that, the dealer has the history.



Mods/Accessories
Powertrain - JR intake, RB Header, FM Cat, FM Midpipe, RB Power Pulse Muffler, Rebello Racing built head, Reflashed OBD1 ECU, Mazdaspeed 10lb Flywheel
Chassis/Suspension - FM Springs, NA Tokico Illuminas, FCM Tophats & Bumpstops, Racing Beat F/R Sway Bars, 949 Endlinks, FM Frame Rails, Beat Rush tower brace, HardDog Deuce, 15x7 +38 Panasport Pro-Rally, Bridgestone RE-11 205/50/15
Interior/Dressup - JDM Eunos MOMO, Roadwire Upholstered "Raodster" seats, R Package number plaque, Billet gauge surround, Billet needle caps, Billet E-brake, NC Shifter, Mazdaspeed pedal set, cool stereo with amp (I have no clue about stereo stuff), clear front markers, smoked rear markers & tail lights, JDM Eunos badging, JDM Roadster badge.



The things I've done so far are pretty minor. PO had some hardtop trim laying around so I put that on. I had 949 Endlinks laying around so I put those on, too. I also did plugs and have plug wires on order, even though the car runs silky smooth (was done 20k+ ago, figured it's time to do it). Ordered & received rear FM springs to replace the sagging ones on the car. I attempted to replace them already, but the shock shaft kept spinning and I didnt have any point to clamp on to it. So Monday I'm going to a friends house to smack it with some air tools, haha.

The last bit of maintenance it needs is the front eccentric bolts. Lots of noise from them, probably never replaced. Got those on order as well, coming next week. Oh! I also have some RB sway reinforcement blocks I'm putting on. And I plan to put the MiataRoadster short shifter in. Jesus this is really starting to pile up already...

Further in the future, the first "real" mod work I plan on is to put a MegaSquirt in it. The reflashed ECU seems to run a bit lean (no knocking, just plug reading) and the curve just doesn't feel right. It pulls well, though. Long after that, it's going to need a new bottom end. This stock one is burning a little bit of oil.



So, that's all I've got to put up for now. Thanks for reading!

TL;DR: Hi, I have a Miata. I'm gonna do things with it. Stay tuned!

[wannafbody]

Clean looking car

[Massiah]

Clean looking car

Thanks!

So I ended up doing a few things on my list the other day. Brake fluid flush first, as it was pretty bad looking.



Had a can of ATE Super Blue laying around so put that in. Brakes feel pretty good now but the PO had OEMs installed. I will likely change to something a little more aggressive in the future.



Second thing to strike off is the RB sway blocks. I'm a strong supporter of these as I've seen the sway bracket tear in half with heavier bars. Not a pretty sight.



I was thinking about taking off the bushings for the sway to shave a little bit off. RB bushings are known for being a little too thick and binding up the bar. I didn't want to have a bunch of red urethane all over the garage so instead I put a washer behind each mount point. Seemed to do the trick. All in all an hour or so of work. Next up is the eccentric bolts but I'm waiting for them to arrive at my local dealer.

[—atank—]

I love the R Package !!

[Massiah]

Changed out the rear springs last night. Sadly, no pictures. I found out that the shop which did the install for PO screwed up the tophats and bushings. Looks like they hit the top nut with an impact. After cleaning everything up (threads, bushings) reinstall went pretty smooth but I am going to be looking at a new setup sooner rather than later. Probably take what I have on the NB and put it on this car. The NB does need a stiffer setup for sure.

I did at least end up getting the 1/2" of travel I was missing due to the old sagging springs.

[Massiah]

Picked up a tube of Shin Etsu grease from a friend the other day for my hardtop weather stripping. I got really tired of the loud squeaking over bumps. Along with adjusting the latches I went over all the rubber. Happy to report that a good majority of the noises are gone.

It's been pretty hot here, about 100-105 and in the 90's at night. Trying not to work on anything since the garage is just as hot if not hotter.

[— Agent☣Orange —]

Good job on the sway bar blocks. I know they're a bit of a pain to get in but feels good knowing they're in.

Been hot here too. It's hard to work in the garage when it's hotter than outside plus 100% humidity and mosquitos.

[Massiah]

Good job on the sway bar blocks. I know they're a bit of a pain to get in but feels good knowing they're in.

Been hot here too. It's hard to work in the garage when it's hotter than outside plus 100% humidity and mosquitos.

They actually aren't so bad after you've done them a bunch of times, also easier with no power steering. The worst is NAs with ABS, power steering lines and a washer bottle in your way :/

Trying to keep cool! I've got parts just waiting for a break in the heat.

[Massiah]

Been a week or so since I updated. I got the car dyno'd on a Dynapack hub dyno, 111whp/104ft/lbs. This dyno reads a bit lower than everything in the area (consistently 20whp lower) so everywhere else I would expect 125-135whp. The AFR up top was actually quite good with the reflashed ECU, but below 4k it was much too lean. The numbers and curves were very consistent with what I felt. Because of the lean bottom end (not really, lol) I ended up picking up this:



A Braineack built DIY MS3PNP. A friend of mine was selling this since he already had an AEM unit he was using, works perfectly and has never been used. I plan to start this project next week. I've actually never done and ECU or modern tuning before, so I'm quite excited. I loaded up tunerstudio MS already and am impressed and overwhelmed with the amount of knobs I can turn.

Aside from this I haven't done anything. It's cooled off somewhat but I've been building a custom coilover setup for my NB. I'm waiting on some 550# front springs then I will be taking what I have on that car (FM1) and transferring it over. It's a great daily driver setup, so I can't wait to have it on the NA.

[maharaj]

Very nice looking cars. Welcome to The Forum.

[Massiah]

Thanks for the welcome!

I just want to take the time and say that whoever designed the JR Intake was extremely short sighted. I went to check timing today, possibly advance it, and figured out there is a giant intake box in the way. There is no way to check it without removing the box. And it's wedged behind the radiator fan shroud, PO had to cut it a bit to get it to fit. So after removing the intake and starting the car, with no filter, I was able to check the timing. It was set to 12degrees, so I just left it that way.

At least I know what to do once I get my MSPNP installed, I guess? This intake will likely have to go, sooner rather than later.

[Massiah]

This Sunday was The Great Suspension Swap day. I replaced the NB setup with a custom cheapo coilover kit. MSM Bilsteins, NB Tophats and cut bumpstops, Ebay OBX coilover sleeves, #550 6" Front & #350 7" Rear springs.



Came out much better then expected. Not much harsher than the FM setup that was on previously. Has better turn in and transitional load capabilities and is overall better feeling. Over small bumps it glides over, hard bumps can be felt a little more and long stretches of crap road is a bit more harsh. Only came across two issues. The rear springs I chose were a bit too long for the MSM bodies, so I've ordered #375 6" to replace. And the front sway needs to be set to soft, as I noticed a bit more push. For ~$400-$500 the setup is much better than many $1000 coilover offerings and damn near close to the $2000 stuff.

Anyway, all that work to take the FM kit that was on the NB and put it on the NA. As previously mentioned I felt that the current 12" hub to fender was too low for daily driving. Not only that but the FCM tophats were rattling something fierce. With the new stuff I'm currently sitting at 12.75" or so all around. Doesn't look as slammed and feels much better on my 4 mile commute, Lol.

I also replaced the eccentric bolts while I was in there. I went with the updated NB style, picked them all up for $78 out the door from my local parts guy. Great deal since everywhere else wants $80-$90 +shipping.

So all that is left is to get it aligned and I will be done with suspension bits. I've still yet to order a Wideband O2 for the MSPNP. Might do that this week to install this weekend. Until next time!

[Massiah]

The setup ended up settling at 12.5" front and 12.75" rear. Pretty much perfect for daily. I got it aligned today too.


Camber: -2 F/-1.5 R, Caster: 4.7F, Toe: Neutral F, 1/16 Total In Rear

These are pretty conservative numbers to save tires. The front end is much more stable now even compared to the old setup. I'll likely have to do this again in a few months, I plan to buy a bushing set and I think the steering rack has a bit of play internally. A friend of mine has an entire set of control arms that he had taken out when doing his own bushing job so I'll pick them up at some point and clean/paint them.

[Massiah]

So I haven't updated in a while because, well, I haven't done anything in a while. That is, until this past week/weekend. I finally picked up an AEM Uego WBO2 so that means I was able to get started on the MegaSquirt install. The first thing I learned is that I should have piecemeal-ed the install, the GM IAT ended up taking a little while and a few trips to the hardware store. I drilled a hole into my JR intake piping, but I didnt have the appropriate tap bit. Trip #1 - buying a tap. Trip #2 - returning the tap because it's wrong. Trip #3 - buying JB weld because it's all wrong and the hole is now too big. Hah! I will eventually take it off yet again to weld the bung in, it's what I should have done in the first place.

Then came routing the vacuum tubing for MAP. This was super easy and took 15mins. No trips to the HW store, just drilling out a rubber doughnut.

After this I installed the Uego, much cleaner and easier install as well since I used the DB15 pinouts for power, ground and signal. It took a while because I did clean soldering with shrink tubing and wire looming, as well as a Molex 4-pin. It paid off because now there is only one loom to route and install/removal is one connection away. I also decided not to install the gauge in a permanent location, and I didn't want to have it in an obvious location, so in the glovebox it went. This was the last thing I did until a few days later, as it was late at night and I didn't have time to mess with anything.



A couple of days later I installed the MS. Took about 10 mins, as easy as they say. Got signal from the unit, messed around with the sensor calibration and attempted to start. Unfortunately, it didnt, but it wanted to! So I kept at it for a while. Long enough to drain the battery from starting attempts. Jumped it a few more times and realized that it eventually wasn't even firing on any cylinders. I had given up and run out of time, so I reverted to my factory setup (took about 15mins) and tried to fire it up... No dice! Oh boy. I was not pleased.

So let me stop here for a second to mention an intermittent, and seemingly minor, issue I've had with this car since day 1. After sitting for a couple of days in the garage, cold start was really very rough. Running on 2 cylinders rough. After a few seconds (10-20) it would clear itself up, so I thought to let it be until it became a real problem. Well, it became a real problem.

All of this happened on Saturday, and I have 3 cars. But guess what? I had none, since the S2000 was being loaned out, my NB was being used by the GF and now the '94 was down for the count. After deducing that I had no spark at all, and the fuses were okay, I had narrowed it down to either the CAS or Coil Pack. Remembering the previous rough start issue and figuring them to be related, I had strongly thought that the coil pack was now completely blown. Luckily I have a local salvage business (Static Nine Garage), so a quick call to them and I was off to pickup a CAS (just in case) and a coil pack. Also ended up calling a friend, since I was out all my cars too. Heh. Unfortunately they had given me a '96-'97 3-pin coil pack but I didn't realize it until I got home. I replaced the CAS and, well, yet again no dice... I had to wait until Monday to exchange the packs. This time the car fired up on the first shot!

So, next time I install the MS, I am going to need adult supervision. Haha!

[Massiah]

I returned to messing around with the MS again a week ago, this time with adult supervision. Apparently that doesn't seem to matter as I blew yet another pack. This time, though, I figured out why! Spark setting was set to Going High (normal) and this is not the right one, shitty because this is with a 94/95 Basemap. Oh well, basically it's a 50/50 shot to have this set right.

Anyway, after blowing yet another one and replacing it again, I decided that spending $40-$80 per pack and trying to locate a new one wasn't the best of ideas. I've gotten smart this time and have built some Toyota COPs to safegaurd against this. All I have to do this time is set the dwell correctly!

I ordered COP's and brand new clips on eBay for a combined total of $80 shipped, and also picked up the bracket from Andrew @ Trackspeed Engineering for $45. While the COP stuff was shipping I cut off the coil clips from two of my dead packs.



And used a dremel to cut out the gel so I could solder to the pins.



You can kinda see it, sorry for the bright photo. The rest of the parts came a few days later so I built the harness. I only have one 16v 10kuF cap so I need to pickup another for both 1/4 & 2/3. I also need to wrap the wires but I'll do that after I've confirmed everything runs on the stock computer. Here is the semi finished and assembled setup:



I hope to be fully finished and running on the MS/COPs by next week. We'll see.