psulja's '99 Twilight Blue Mica

[psulja]

Since I made a thread for my NA I figured I'd make one for my NB too. The main purpose of this car right now is as a winter car while I'm in school. Hopefully when I finished university in the next couple years I'll be able to turn it into a more track/autox oriented car.

I bought this car off a friend of mine in November 2011 after talking about it for a couple months trying to decide if I wanted to have 2 cars or not while in school. I eventually decided to get it since I'd need something to get around during the winter.

Quick mod list:
Flyin' Miata Springs
KYB AGX Shocks
Flyin' Miata sways F&R
RacingBeat muffler
Harddog Hardcore Single Diagonal Rollbar
Custom Cold-side Short ram intake
330mm MOMO Monte Carlo

Onto pictures:

Installing the FM Springs w/ KYB AGX's:








Taking care of winter duties:




Earlier in the season I went out with a group of guys to slide around in the snow in a big empty parking lot. Sure enough someone slid right into me hitting my rear quarter panel:


Since I didn't want to shell out the $2400 I was quoted by a body shop to fix it I had a friend help me bang out most of the damage just to get the basic shape back for the rest of the winter until summertime when the car is parked when I can fill it and get it looking proper again.


Recently put on a bunch of stickers I got on the bottom of the trunk lid:


That's pretty much it for now. I'm not sure exactly where I plan to go with this car right now but hopefully I can keep it running properly until I finish school at which time it'll start to see a lot more autox and track time (hopefully!).

Random videos from this winter, playing in the snow:


A video I found that had me in it from the very beginning of winter:

[psulja]

Got my summer wheels back on, they are Konig Heliums with dead Hankook RS-2 tires. Also plastidipped all the badges and the frankenstein bolts and waxed the car quickly.




My interior:


Hopefully will be getting some OEM sideskirts soon to cover up the rust.

Also, my coilpacks are on there way out so I'm having some bad misfiring issues on any harder pulls or sometimes when just driving along. Went to my local dealership and with the local club discount the price still came to over $550 Hopefully I can find them somewhere else for much cheaper than that!

Would also like to polish my headlights in the next little bit and possibly paint the inside of the housings matte black, but that means I'd actually have to do some real work so I'm not sure about that yet. Not completely comfortable with baking the lights yet, but I think it would look really good with the rest of the black and blue that is going on right now.

[blackchicken]

Love it with the Heliums and black emblems! Chrome is kryptonite for miatas and must be painted black.

[psulja]

Decided to actually do some work tonight. We'll see what happens with this (2 broken bolts so far )


Love how you can see the intake in that one ^

[morr]

Nice progress so far! Those snow videos look like a blast How'd the lights turn out?

[WASABI]

Decided to actually do some work tonight. We'll see what happens with this (2 broken bolts so far )

So what are you doing to this? And, what are you going to do for the rusty rockers?

-Jim

[psulja]

Nice progress so far! Those snow videos look like a blast How'd the lights turn out?

Thanks! I'm about to go to the store and try to trade my brand new can of white paint that's been sitting on the shelf for a bit for a can of black. But right now the chrome surround is primered just waiting for paint and then bake it back together.

So what are you doing to this? And, what are you going to do for the rusty rockers?

-Jim

I'm blacking out the headlight surrounds to tie in with the rest of the dark accents of the car, plus I hate chrome on dark colored cars. As for the rusty rockers, unfortunately the sideskirts I was going to buy didn't work out. The seller couldn't get them off of the car without doing some damage so he refunded my money so I may just leave them as is because that's a bigger project than I want to get into right now.

Here are the headlights split up just before primer:


I'm debating if I should keep the orange cover of the turn signal or not. Think it might look pretty good without amber in the lights and just all black with the reflector housings in the back but I'm not sure if I'll get hassled for not having amber turn signals.

[WASABI]

I'm blacking out the headlight surrounds to tie in with the rest of the dark accents of the car...I'm debating if I should keep the orange cover of the turn signal or not....I'm not sure if I'll get hassled for not having amber turn signals.

Looks good! That's what I thought you were doing. FYI: You can get amber bulbs that have a mirror finish. They are shinny silver, and don't look amber until you turn them on.

-Jim

[psulja]

Hmm, maybe I'll go look for some of those. I like the look of just the amber lights on while driving but hate the amber reflection in the headlights when they're off. I'll leave them out and run with clear turn signals until I find those you mentioned.

P.S - congrats on the 400th post

I was looking through my garage because I got the new can of white paint to go return but noticed the cap was cracked So while looking around I found a random can of black spray paint. So this is pretty much a completely free mod now. First coat is done.

[The Phen]

Subbing!

[WASABI]

Hmm, maybe I'll go look for some of those. I like the look of just the amber lights on while driving but hate the amber reflection in the headlights when they're off. I'll leave them out and run with clear turn signals until I find those you mentioned.

They are mirror silver when off, only amber when lit.

http://www.beastpower.com/p/bmw/sola.../BI-BE-SOL-FIL

P.S - congrats on the 400th post

Ha ha...watch out!

[psulja]

FFFUUU! You caught up to me in posts with your cheating For Sale thread posts! Not even fair, how can I possibly post whore enough to keep up? You know how many how-to's I'm going to have to write??

First Coat:


Finished and baked back together:


Now I'm going to polish the lenses again and reinstall, hopefully it turns out looking decent.

[psulja]

Done! I love it! Looks so much better now. Only a couple things I was bummed about, after polishing the lights again, rushed this time around, they didn't come out as well as they could have and one bolt on the passenger side that holds the headlight broke so it's a bit loose. Also, I need to fix my bumper sag on the driver's side, I think a couple of the mounting tabs were a bit stressed when the PO had an off in the snow once and then I did a bit more stressing to them this winter going through some deep snow at higher speeds so I think one of the tabs finally snapped and now the bumper is sagging on the driver's side.

But anyways, here are the pics! I used this stuff for paint/primer, scuffed the chrome really quickly before primer with some 400grit sand paper as well. Two coats of primer and about 3 of paint.


Finished result




Here you can see the light output without the amber cover for the turn signals. I think it is yellow enough that I won't need to get new bulbs and shouldn't get hassled for them


Will get proper pictures in a week or so when my sister gets back and can take some pics with her DSLR.


Next on the list is to fix my front lip which is in about 4 pieces right now.

[blackchicken]

Nice work! Cool you stopped in today so I could see finished result. Especially because I didn't even see this thread so had no idea you were "baking" car parts today lol.

Looks good. Now let's get that sagging bumper fixed.

[psulja]

What sagging bumper?