Shin Kaeru 神カエル-My build(-ish?) thread

[Ihatecars]

Before the lip I want to nerd out about the roadster care-package I received in the mail just a few days ago.



And it was filled with, well, roadster nerd stuff



Like Road&Ster magazine





The newest issue of Drift Tengoku featuring an NA on the cover, and a section about drifting a 124 Sprider



A super sweet Tamiya roadster model

And lastly,



A little known Japan only Gameboy game called Roadster.



Released back in 1990 right at the start of Roadster/Miata mania.


With that out of the way, back to the Trap lip. I got the trap lip on Saturday night. A surprisingly easy install. Took me all of 20 minutes to get the Trap lip on the bumper. The left hand side was the only part that didn't line up at first go. Nothing a little bit of muscle couldn't fix.

I didn't take too many photos during the install, but I did take a photo once I got the bumper on.



The lip isn't much lower than an R-lip, and as Jimmy-V mentioned, the only issue is the shallower approach angle.



Here's a really great photo taken by my buddy Chris, or Killingdonuts97 on Instagram. Showcasing the lip on the Barchetta pretty nicely



All in all, I'm in love with the lip. It fits the Showa era club racer look I'm going for perfectly.

[NCGreasemonkey]

Glad I wasn't eating Cheetos when I read this! J/K You have one sexy build! Love that lip and bumper combo! You have me watching still!

Peace fellow Nutcase!

[Greasemonkey2000]

The Trap lip looks every bit as good as i thought it would, gorgeous!

[oldgrayleather]

Nic, that looks absolutely exceptional! Really ties out with the rest of Shin. The Barchetta is my favorite and it shows even better on darker cars and perfected with the Trap. Would love to hear how you get on with the approach angle. I don't know if Houston is plagued by the speed bumps, steep driveways and generally crap roads of SoCal but crossing fingers it's more workable that I imagine.

[CollinMB]

Fuu, that execution is spot on.

[etikoner]

Freak this car is sooooo spot on.

[oldcafe]

Looks perfect on your brg

[DarkSupra]

Damn, love how it looks!
Makes me want a BRG NA

[— Phatmiata —]

this car has raised the bar REALLY high.............. nice work !!!

really digging all the cool Miata related "nerdy" items too, very cool!

[Ihatecars]

Thanks for all the love, guys. It's really been amazing seeing all of the positive reactions from everybody on here. Just to know my car is being appreciate by the community on here really makes me feel proud.

Seriously, thank you all.

Japanese Nostagic Car did a little feature on the Sunday morning meets here in Houston. Pacman 99's car and my car make a little bit of an appearance. Pretty neat seeing my local scene getting some pretty big coverage.

http://japanesenostalgiccar.com/even...ningstar-meet/

Would love to hear how you get on with the approach angle. I don't know if Houston is plagued by the speed bumps, steep driveways and generally crap roads of SoCal but crossing fingers it's more workable that I imagine.

So far so good. I haven't had anything bad happen. Driveways are my biggest concern, but going in at a tighter angle and even slow speeds seems to be the trick.

Houston doesn't have the worst roads, but they're far from perfect in most areas. I spend a lot of time on the East Side and in the Midtown area, which have notoriously bad roads. Driveways aren't too bad because of how flat Houston is. I avoid speed bumps when at all possible.

[etikoner]

Ugh this car makes me happy

[Ihatecars]

It's been a while...



Maybe it's been more than a while.

Sorry about that guys. Yeah, this thread has been neglected. I've been busy and this thread hasn't exactly been my number one priority. but you know what, I'm here . I'm not going to make any promises on how long I'll be sticking around, but heck. I'm here.

I've actually really missed you guys

Last I left you guys off my roadster was looking something like this:



Not much had really changed. I'm pretty happy with the way my roadster is looking so that's my excuse for not changing much. Funds have been the biggest factor in stopping me from updating my roadster. Mostly because I spent most of my roadster funds on a trip to Japan.



Long story short.

IT WAS AMAZING

As I think most of your would know from my thread, I love Japan. Just about anything Japan. Video games, anime, movie, cars, etc. So I can't stress how absolutely amazing all of this was for me. At the risk of sound cliche, it was like a dream came true. I was in a constant state of shock for the duration of my ten day stay. So even though I brought three different cameras with me over seas(four if you count my cellphone) I took surprisingly few photos.

As you some of you might be able to guess from my photo above, I was able to visit the Studio Ghibli museum during my trip. I've never been to any of the Disney theme parks, nor have I really been all too into Disney really. The Ghibli museum was probably the closest thing I have to the "magic" people expense while at Disney Land. Honestly, "magic" is probably the best way to describe the museum. Sadly, photos aren't allowed inside of the museum. Something to do with "preserving the experience" for others.







Here's one of the Robot Soldier without me infront



And consider youselves luck because here's an unauthorized photo of the inside of the museum.



The Ghibli museum was breathtaking, but wasn't my only incredibly experince



I got the opportunity to visit Karuizawa during the massive roadster meeting. One again, amazing. Here are some of the photos I took. Please excuse the mixed quality of the photos. My digital camera's battery died within minutes of getting to the meeting. Please enjoy what photos I do have.

[Ihatecars]

Karuizawa was truly a Roadster Mecca. Well worth the trip.

I didn't get to Karuizawa all too early so I didn't get to check out the swap meet section, but I did get the opportunity to blow loads of money at all of the vendors that set up shop. One of my more notable pick-ups was a NA Roadster specific driving charm available only at Karuziawa and blessed by a local temple.



I also got the opportunity to add some of the previous years Karuizawa stickers to my collection.



The entire trip went by so quickly, it's almost hard to think back to everything I did. Mostly because the trip consisted of my girlfriend and myself rushing from location to location to try and squeeze the most out of our short ten day stay in Japan.















The worst part about the trip was coming back. If I had the opportunity to go back, I would without a second of hesitation.

[Ihatecars]

Now a little more on topic,

My roadster



Yep, that's it. Anyways. Onto the "build" part of this massive update.



I was able to get an ARC Intake Chamber off of a seller on Instagram. It was in much worse shape than the seller me to believe, so it ended up sitting for the better half of a year.


I bought a replacement sticker considering the Intake Chamber I bought didn't have one of the signature ARC stickers on it. I opted for a slightly different style sticker, which is more like the 1980's era logo ARC used.

I also managed to pick up a Works Bell quick release hub off Yahoo Japan Auctions for a pretty good price.



I'm really happy with the room it gains me inside my roadster. Good upgrade all around.



I also scooped up a pair of SEV Marchal fog lights with covers off eBay. Yeah, they're still not on my car.





But I did paint them yellow.



I also installed one of the 949 Racing Hybrid motor mounts.



I didn't take any photos during the install, but it was pretty straight forward. Crazy amount of vibration for the first few miles, but everything settled down after 100 or so miles. A good upgrade overall and something I'd quickly recommend to anyone looking for an upgrade over the Mazdacomp mounts while still keeping NVH down.

While searching through YAJ I found a lot of super cool Roadster Manga. Some stuff I'd never seen before. I love stuff like this. A little slice of roadster passion captured in manag form.









I did a little maintenance and used Ford Motorcraft MTF for the first time and it's as good as people say it is.



I got some awesome stickers from my friend Pete(@oldgrayleather on IG can't remember his name on here)

And some stickers from Hanamaru Racing in Japan



Adam(Revlimiter) also made some radical horn buttons for my buddies over at RDB.



Oh, and I got a Switch



It's pretty cool.

[Ihatecars]

Now onto the last part of my update,

This is when a lot of the part I'd been hording made their way to my car.

It all started because I wanted to repaint my valve cover. One thing led to another and I ended up cutting the timing cover portion of my valve cover and filling the lettering on the top of the cover.



I went with black, but I somehow messed up the paint.



This led me to ditch the boring black and I went with a slightly more usual green. More specifically Detroit Diesel Green. The same paint used on the eponymous Detroit Diesel engines.

A but valve cover means one thing



This led to me installing some of my parts stash



ARC Intake Chamber cleaned and polished, Maxim Works headers painted, and all installed.



With my car now being over 25 years old I no longer need a catalytic converter.



My temporary solution is a Racing Beat test pipe. I'll most likely go to some sort of high flow option soon in the future.



Extra weight savings bonus of just short of 3lbs.



Once again a "while I'm in there" lead me to a Super Miata coolant reroute.

After far too much time I got everything buttoned up.



It was really , but one thing was missing



Moroso coolant expansion tank



It's a pretty part, but nothing overly special really.

Here are some glamor shots of my engine bay taken before installing the Moroso tank







These photos were taken on Kodak Ektar 100. I didn't expose correctly so the scans came out with a weird green cast. It was much worse before editing.

But with those four very long posts, my build thread is all up to date. It's nearly 2am and I stopped proof reading about an hour back, so please forgive my inevitable misspellings and my awkward working. I'll try getting back to this once I have had some sleep.

Sorry about the radio silence for the past year.(oh man, actually over a year.) I'll try keeping you guys in the loop a little more in the future. Lastly, thanks a lot MR.net.



See you space cowboy