The Spruce Moose Build

[Andy]

Today I had someone finally contact me about my want to buy post over on another forum. I scored these and they are being shipped to me now. I am full of excitement. Now I need to figure out what brackets to use.

[Andy]

This will just be a temp pic from my phone. I busted out the Nikon to get some better photos.





Only one seat in for now.


Seats were weighed without the sliders.

Just me on the scale


Me with the lotus seat


Me with the stock seat.

[Andy]

Here are some better photos. Amazingly I was able to fit this massive box in the back seat of the Volvo. I still have some cool things that are still in the mail for this car.

Lotus Seats by xbeatles4x, on Flickr

First seat
Lotus Seats by xbeatles4x, on Flickr

Comparison of the stock seat with the rails still attached to the lotus seats.
Lotus Seats by xbeatles4x, on Flickr

Side profile shot to see how much lower the lotus seats sit compared to the stock seat.
Lotus Seats by xbeatles4x, on Flickr

The driver seat is installed to compare to the passenger stock seat. The lotus seats do exactly what I needed them to do. They get my head far enough away from the rollbar and they sit me lower. Win Win

in the photo it looks like the elise seat is taller than the rollbar. That is not the case, the seat is just a shorter than the rollbar in height by a small margin.
Lotus Seats by xbeatles4x, on Flickr

Lotus Seats by xbeatles4x, on Flickr

[— Phatmiata —]

what seat rails did you end up using? Looks like they are on factory sliders, digging the OEM fitment look.

[Andy]

I bought a secondhand set of Chance91 brackets. I spoke with chance and he said that he would be making them again sometime late summer.

[Andy]

More parts just keep coming in. This picture should be a good teaser. I am going to have a fun weekend getting all of this setup.

[Andy]

I went out of my way and sourced some used power window regulators a few weeks ago and I made my own wire harness loom using the connector ends off of a parted out Miata. I had to do all of the wiring myself to get these power windows to work and I must say it is awesome. While I had the regulators out I greased up the tracks with super lube. I don't know why people complain about the windows taking longer to go up or down than manual windows. For me it takes about 4 or 5 seconds with the car off to get both windows either up or down.

All of this was done so I could have some of this beauty in my dash. If it want for this part there is a large chance I would never have attempted the project at all. I am so happy I did It.

These particular revlimiter window switches have his new redesigned frame to sit flush. It is absolutely fantastic and there is amazing attention to detail on the parts.



I will be making a how to: on converting a Miata with no provisions for power windows to power windows.

[Paul B]

that window switch looks great! So do the seats.

[Andy]

Thanks Paul. Not much has happened lately since the window switches went in. I have a lot of contemplation left to to with what direction I want to take my car in.

[Dave737]

Looking forward to the DIY how to on the power windows.

Love how this build is progressing. Great car Andy.

[Andy]

I haven't updated this thread in a while. I have been sourcing some parts the past year to make my car better.
After the summer of 2015 I took out the elise seats and sold them. They were ok ish for an hour or two tops on roads. I ended up driving my miata that year from Miami to MATG then to Iowa to visit some family and then back home. After that trip I swore off those seats. They really did hurt on long drives. No idea if it was because they were not the probax seats or not but I could not tolerate them much after that trip. It was very bad.


Back in June of 2017 I purchased all the new replacement parts to get my engine in tip top shape for cooling since I had an overheating issue.

I ordered and installed a new nb radiator cap, oe thermostat, timing belt, water pump and cam seals. It all went together well with no issues.
Then minutes after putting it all together it dawned on me what my overheating issue was. When i drove with the ac on, which was seldom but did occur from time to time, the passenger side fan was only spinning sometimes. I called up a local miata dismantler / repair shop and $20 later I had a working fan and a miata that no longer had overheating issues.

In preparation for the Miatas at the gap trip I bought some new sticky tires and had a better alignment done. I ended up with Hankook Rs4's and an alignment of -1.5 front -1.5 rear with no toe in the front and ever so little in the rear but almost none.

The car performed well in miatas at the gap and had no issues.

[Andy]

[Andy]

I bought a torsen 4.3 diff back in August. Then we had Hurricane Irma come our way so all miata stuff halted and I scrambled to get our cars up on jackstands in the garage. Thankfully the only damage sustained was a broken wooden fence in the back yard and some down limbs.

On flyinmiatas black friday sale I was able to score a FM happy meal stage 1 10lb for my car. I had a leaking rear main leak that has been bugging me for a very long time. I figured if I am going in there to fix it I might as well throw in a fun flywheel. I installed the new rear main and i applied copious amounts of permatex indian head gasket maker all over the seal between the block and oil pan to make sure the rear half moon doesn't act up.

I took apart the diff carrier to make sure that there wasn't anything wrong with the torsen diff and to give it a good resealing just in case. I installed new seals for the output shafts on the diff.

I also had to locally find an nb axle for the diff since one of the axles that I bought with my diff was hyper extended. But, I have all the parts to be doing a 1.8 diff torsen swap on my miata while still retaining the same final drive ratio. Yay! Those aren't exactly easy to find.

[Andy]

Today was an eventful day. I managed to pull my engine.