Midori

[Miataman00]

Subd. This is gonna be a good build... I can feel it. Hehe.

[ueru]

Thanks! I ended up taking hundreds over the year, but here are a few in mostly chronological order...


fire festival

first time to upgarage, sunset on the 5 hour bike ride back

biking around katsuragawa

snowfall in kyoto

walking back to the capsule hotel from daikoku PA, new year's at midnight in yokohama

visiting a temple in kyoto

walking back home from kyoto station through the snow

more snowfall

skiing/roadtrip through hokkaido with my friends

wandering around somewhere near where tokyo, yokohama, and kawasaki meet

kurazushi on nijodori, near residence A

spring at university

local summer festival in kobe

late night grocery shopping on shijodori

cool, old village up highway 162, north of kyoto

same place, in spring around when the sakura were blooming

there was still snow up in the mountains

summer trip to tottori with all the other exchange students, 1am, after main party ended

bbq with the ski club at katsuragawa, drying off around the fire after getting pulled into the water

women wearing yukata during tsuyu, the rainy season (which unusually lasted for 2~3 months)

stargazing up between takahama and oi, 3:30am, even further up highway 162.

around the corner from my apartment, yokoduna ramen on shijodori (went there a lot)

Can't wait to go back!

[RustRat]

I must visit Japan...

[ueru]

Washed my car for the first time in a long while, just in time for cars and coffee.



My friend Ryan and I finished cutting/drilling/sanding the aluminum mounts. It was less than $20 total for the aluminum and hardware (and I still have about 2 feet of aluminum angle left over).



And they're on! Cibie Iode 45, driving light on driver's side, fog light on passenger side. Same model lights as the ones on a rally-styled BRG Roadster in Japan I admire (there are some photos of his car in the minkara photo gallery thread). The wiring is basic on/off right now, but I'm going to try to wire in a DIY high/low function for the driving light since it has no cut-off.

[ueru]

So, we finished the mounts... even more. One of the arms started drooping/began pointing downwards, so we added some turnbuckles. They work great!




There's been a crack growing across the top of my NA6 dash the last couple years sadly, so I bought some leather to lay on top of it. Going on as soon as I can find time to get the dash out and repair the crack.




And I must suck at painting or something (I've been fighting blistering paint jobs on the tombstone for 3 years now), so the center console is taking a different route now...




A couple friends helped swap in my header and suspension too. Went smoothly except when faced with the O2 sensors. The 5-sided socket most tool places sell just wanted to strip the head. The first sensor (from the car we were swapping the header off of), I tried torching it, waxing it, soaking it in PB blaster... until we just cut it off with an angle grinder, which let us remove the header from the car and wrench it off with a 6-point socket and a very long bar. The second O2 sensor (on my 20 year old stock header), we had the same problems. I decided quickly to just slice it off with a dremel and use an extension and a long bar to get it out.

Later, when we went to screw in a new O2 sensor to the old stock header (after it was already torqued down to the car), we found residual metal in the bung from the old O2 sensor. The threads must have tore off from the body. RRRRR. Everything else was a piece of cake. It really surprised me how easy the suspension is to swap. I was ready for a headache lol.



Finally, after 6 years of autocrossing, I can use something stiffer than a stock setup.




I also got kind of tired of using blue tape for numbers after all these years, so I finally ordered some vinyl. Plus, I kinda wanted roundels. For a long time.



I layed out the design on Forza 4, inspired by the old Alpine A110 rally cars. I used some arbitrary measurements to maintain scale and managed to keep pretty close to what I had in mind. These are 19.5" diameter roundels, if you're curious. I've seen all sorts of sizes on Miatas, so I guess there's no common size. My goal was to avoid a too small size when viewed straight-on (smaller roundels look better at 3/4 view, but look smaller when viewing the car's side profile) and have it slightly cut off at the bottom door sill.



Applying kind-of-large vinyl was a learning process. The driver side, the first one we tried, didn't turn out nearly as clean as the passenger side or the hood. Up close, it's easy to tell which we learned on lol. The easiest way was to wet the body with soapy water and then lay on the vinyl gently. We tried dry the first time and it was nearly impossible to lay it down bubble-free/we kept stretching and deforming it. Soapy water was 10x faster and 100x easier.




Still have some seat mounts to make, a rear bumper to mess with, and an amp to wire up. Projects projects projects...

[ueru]

Got around to cutting into my fenders to install the side winkers.



Wasn't so bad. Just took some time, went slow, and it went smoothly. But the sounds of cutting are enough to bring tears to your eyes; the dremel was bad, but the metal file was the worst.



Got around to selling my 2nd Miata as well...



I had a second Miata for about 6 months. It was a 1994 M edition, relatively high miles, good mechanical condition, and a terrible respray job over the standard Montego Blue. The actual hue was fine (close to Starlight Mica, but a tad brighter?), but there was over-spray everywhere. The M Edition badges on the car were completely blue when I got it. I bought it because it was cheap and had some parts on it I wanted (RB header, Bilsteins, sway bar, etc).

Fixed some maintenance things like the CAS O-ring, aftermarket alarm, cleaned off the M edition badges, and then sold it to a good friend of mine. He's big into itashas (drives a pink/white Nico Yazawa MS3 usually), so he said he doesn't mind the spotty paintwork. He's still laying out his itasha plans for the car...



Then we took our cars drifting! We've been autocrossing for years, but this was a first for both of us. Pretty fun time, and great value. I got 25 runs in for the day, and the entry fee was the same as an autocross.





Enjoyed the last bit of not-summer after putting the vinyl on. I've since got the numbers/class lettering as well, but haven't been to an event yet to test them out.









With the help of a Jeep friend, got some seat mounts sized, cut, and welded. Matching SPGs now!



lol


And now the car's apart to update/fix a few things.
-Harness sub belts have been installed (and a harness bar was welded in at the same time we made the seat mounts for the shoulder straps).
-The broken gauge hood came out to be replaced with a new Rspeed piece.
-The RS gauge panel had some bolts coming loose, so that came apart to get some nylon insert nuts, replace a piece of that indicator light panel that keeps the high beam indicator from blinding me, and a nice cleaning for everything.
-Seat mounts came out to get a coat of paint.
-Bosch reflectors have been replaced with some Cibie E-Codes and new, uncoated bulbs.





And I've been working inside with getting tombstone ver.2 finished. Along with cutting up some amplifiers to get working audio again, I had some trouble with painting the plastic these last few years, so I made a template and cut out some aluminum sheet. The shaping is mostly complete. All that's left is painting it black, cutting out the side plates, trimming some leather, and mounting it.



The old plastic knobs that came with the amplifier are leaving in favor of some aluminum ones I found at an electronics store in Kyoto. I wish they were a bit smaller, but the better quality is worth it.

Hopefully soon, the dash will be out for repairs/leather as well...

[Ihatecars]

I absolutely love your build, Weldon.

The mix of cool Japanese and handmade parts really makes your car special.

[Greasemonkey2000]

Can't wait to see the finished tombstone, looks great so far! Want to do something similar.....

[ueru]

It's been a while, dang.

Got kind of side tracked from my interior and decided to piece together a new exhaust. Replaced the RB power pulse w/ sport connecting pipe with an RB resonated connecting pipe and 6" x 14" muffler. It's only a bit louder. It was bordering on 'obnoxiously loud' at first, but it's quieted down since then. It's about perfect now; quiet enough to drive under bridges and underpasses and blend in with the traffic, but it yelps and burbles when I give it some boot lol.
















I don't plan on leaving the pipe so long, but I don't know exactly where to cut until I finish the rear bumper, so it'll be like that for a while longer.


Also added a Miataroadster short shifter and an RS Factory STAGE hand brake handle + button to match the Jimmy shift knob.

[ueru]

Then I (mostly) finished my tombstone/dash project. I love my 1028 style tombstone. It's exactly the style I wanted for my car. But time had not been kind to it and the finish was wearing down quick. Plus, it was handmade by someone else and the joined areas were slightly... unjoining when it flexed, which made it hard for paint to stick well. So, after living with the results of my apparently horrible painting skills more than thrice, I decided to just skip paint altogether and go straight to aluminum. (I hope you'll forgive me for drilling into the tombstone, Joel!)

First, I cut the tombstone shape out of some aluminum sheet...

*1, 2, skip a few*

and here it is:



And then painted it black and bolted it onto the tombstone...



Then I started cutting out the side pieces from aluminum and riveting them onto the tombstone...



And what goes well with aluminum? Leather. Leather does.



Cut out some pieces and stitched some unnecessary ornamental stitching, then began cementing them onto the aluminum side pieces.



Then the paint failed and I went back to raw aluminum for a while...





This bottom aluminum/leather piece is removable so I can slide the face piece in and out underneath the leather overhangs.



And here it is in the car:







But I wanted it black originally, so I took it back off, removed the face piece and decided to try vinyl this time. Some matte black 25% headlight vinyl straight from amazon. (anodizing was a bit pricey, but I still wanted to seem some luster underneath the black finish).









And I say mostly finished because I destroyed my 2nd amp (this time from soldering iron heat I think) and I need to buy a new one, take everything back off, and wire up those knobs and switches. So you might notice that the eyeball vents aren't actually popped in in any of the photos.

And I had some leather left over, so I decided to cut out a dashboard-sized piece and cover my dashboard in it.



Contact cement, trash can defroster vents referencing the 1002... it's very much a shameless copy of revlimiter's dash, just more poorly done (I was being a fool and made some nicks in the leather where the crash pad meets the dash top). His came out so well, I couldn't think of any way to improve or change it.

Here are some dark photos that make everything seem okay:





I love those silver vents. Also, if it seems like there aren't enough photos of the leather dash to see how it looks, every photo in this post (except the first, you can see the leather sitting atop the top of the dash top) is of the leather dash. I did the dash covering before the tombstone lol.

[ueru]

Been wanting to update this thread more often, but not much progress lately. But here's some stuff that's happened in the last several months!


I picked up a spare trunk lid a while back. My car got hit by hail early last year, and the trunk's got it bad. Well, worse than the rest of the car. A few big dings and countless small ones. Been sanding and repairing this trunk these last few months. It won't be mounted, but it'll help me down the road I think.


And I painted my muffler matte white. It got as dirty as one would imagine a white muffler would.


And it's chipping off too... :/


I also found an example of one of my favorite steering wheels, a 350mm Momo Cavallino. It has no date stamp, so I imagine it's pretty old. The leather and all that is fine, though the stitching could use some cleaning or repainting. And the grip is thicker than anything else I have. Very comfortable to hold. Really happy I got one!






Then I went back to Japan for about a month and a half with my friend Logan (@loganae on instagram). Had a job interview, saw some old friends, and did plenty of car stuff. Sad I don't get to stay longer, but hopefully I'll find a job over there soon lol. Got to hang out with Saito-san from ClubNA some more this time too!


18hr layover in Shanghai. The morning after wandering around the city all night, with no hotel to speak of.


Daikoku on a Friday night. Lots of Roadsters were in attendance!


Karuizawa 2017. Had a lot of fun this year, didn't take quite as many photos. A little less than half of the photos I got in 2015, but many more parts this time lol.


Came back to the States about a week ago and started installing all my stuff.





New stuff, and a list so I can remember myself:
-Nielex M2-type oil cap
-unknown vented headlight lid
-Garage Vary vented headlight lid
-Zoom Engineering Monaco 240 white rear view mirror
-Nielex M2-type shift knob
-Momo Mod 07 leather steering wheel
-Corn's Eunos Kneepad cubby thing
-Better condition Eunos Roadster turn signal, US passenger side
-Jetstream gas/trunk lever FRP cover
-Black Sabelt harness pads
-unknown header heat shield
-unknown side winkers
-Tipo AIR roadster magazine
-Eunos OE yellow strut bar

And then there's stuff not from Japan, like the white Cibie light covers and the DIY aluminum HVAC panel. Also, Zoom supplied a G-1 arm with the mirror at Karuizawa. Not sure it's just a website error anymore haha. I had no idea about mirrors, so I came back and found out that it didn't fit. Went out and bought a compatible Subaru mirror base bracket at a local dealership (BASE-INNER MIRROR 92031FC000) and glued it to the windshield, and it all works fine now.




Now I'm trying to save up for wheels so I can paint all the parts I have laying around and fit those...

[Greasemonkey2000]

Midori is really coming along! The tombstone turned out incredible! Really like the dash vent mesh. Look forward to the new additions making there way on.

[RustRat]

I was drooling over your photos from you trip in Japan. Looked like a lot of fun!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[etikoner]

Man, that interior looks so freaking good! Love the way this ride is turning out!

[ueru]

Finally got my hands on a set of wheels, so I made a little progress. Got some parts out of the boxes they'd been occupying the last few years and onto my car. Photos courtesy of my friend Logan (@loganae on instagram)











Watanabes! These are my dream wheels, and I'm over the moon here lol. Aluminum 14 x 8.5J -13 R types wrapped in 195/60 SS595's. Thanks to Rod at Tetsuya Garage for helping me buy them! Can't recommend him enough.

The suspension does feel a bit softer after fitting the wheels, which I was kind of expecting considering the offset. Steering does feel different too, a little odd. Not quite as quick/sharp maybe? Just my honest observations so far, happy overall though! Hoping to get to an autocross soon to test it all out/check more thoroughly for rubbing.

I'm trying to get some pictures of my entire car as it sits, not just detail shots of me cutting it to pieces lol. But all my cameras are film, so it'll be a little while.

That's all squared away, and I've since finished the stereo wiring too, so now I'm focused on the trunk and the rear bumper. Hope to have a prototype trunk finished in a couple weeks to start testing. But I've said that every week for the last 3 months, so we'll see haha. After that, if those other two go well, there's a front bumper I've been sketching a bit...