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I thought I'd make a thread for my car now that it's at a point I feel comfortable sharing it. Recently brought it to First Class Fitment for it's first "real" show, and met a few of you fine gents while I was there. Couple pics snagged from the photographers at Canibeat:
The story.
The car has been an ongoing project for the last 4 and a half years. I bought it with the first paycheck from my first real job after graduating college. It was a bone stock 1990 miata with a blown motor, in need of some body work. I've done essentially all of the work myself, with the exception of the welding and assembling the bottom end/valvetrain. It's certainly been a labor of love that's for sure.
Back when I first brought it home...
I really did work on it outside, in the driveway just as you see in the picture above, for the better part of a year. Believe it or not this all started out as a simple engine rebuild and bolt on turbo kit, only to last "a few months at most" but I fell victim to scope creep, and the end result is what you see now.
Speedhunters featured it during their builds month: http://speedhunters.com/archive/2011...ted-miata.aspx
This was the first "public" attention the car got. I have a build thread up on the miata forums, but unless you have a miata, you'd be none the wiser.
The first time on the dyno (Dent Sport Garage in Norwood MA) it only managed 256whp before rupturing the diaphragm in the brake booster (check valve was frozen up), ending the tuning session for the day. I swapped the booster out and just enjoyed it as-is for the remainder of the season. Kept tweaking it over the winter, drove it in the spring, and almost a year to the day I was back at DSG for the last bit of tuning, and to see what this little car could really do. It managed to put down 298.6hp and 270 ft lbs of tq to the wheels on pump gas (93 octane). That's on a dyno dynamics dyno too. I'd call that 300 in my book.
Those numbers of course mean nothing without the charts to back them up, so here they are...
I've spent a good bit of time under the hood as you can imagine, but it's not been only on the go-fast bits. The wiring, brake lines, fuel lines, catch can lines, and vac lines were all tucked. Anything that could be removed was, and the rest was hidden neatly away. I tried to make the bay as clean as possible, while still being functional and easy to repair/work on.
It's fast. Really fast. To handle the power I designed an adapter plate along with a modified clutch fork to mate an RX7 TII transmission to the miata engine block as well as shoehorned a TII diff out back. This was a decent amount of work, but now the weakest part of the car is me.
Recently had a friend of mine/part time photographer do a photoshoot of the car for a full feature on juststance.com, which actually just came out last night. For those looking for all the details, the full spec sheet is at the bottom of the feature, as well as a bunch of AMAZING shots.
One of them even manged to find it's way onto the Work Equip gallery. Wonder how that happened??
I'm blown away at all the feedback I've received about the car, and wanted to take the time to share it with you all. This car has become a huge part of my life, as I'm sure all of yours have, and there's nothing more rewarding than seeing your hard work being appreciated. Thanks for reading/looking.
The story.
The car has been an ongoing project for the last 4 and a half years. I bought it with the first paycheck from my first real job after graduating college. It was a bone stock 1990 miata with a blown motor, in need of some body work. I've done essentially all of the work myself, with the exception of the welding and assembling the bottom end/valvetrain. It's certainly been a labor of love that's for sure.
Back when I first brought it home...
I really did work on it outside, in the driveway just as you see in the picture above, for the better part of a year. Believe it or not this all started out as a simple engine rebuild and bolt on turbo kit, only to last "a few months at most" but I fell victim to scope creep, and the end result is what you see now.
Speedhunters featured it during their builds month: http://speedhunters.com/archive/2011...ted-miata.aspx
This was the first "public" attention the car got. I have a build thread up on the miata forums, but unless you have a miata, you'd be none the wiser.
The first time on the dyno (Dent Sport Garage in Norwood MA) it only managed 256whp before rupturing the diaphragm in the brake booster (check valve was frozen up), ending the tuning session for the day. I swapped the booster out and just enjoyed it as-is for the remainder of the season. Kept tweaking it over the winter, drove it in the spring, and almost a year to the day I was back at DSG for the last bit of tuning, and to see what this little car could really do. It managed to put down 298.6hp and 270 ft lbs of tq to the wheels on pump gas (93 octane). That's on a dyno dynamics dyno too. I'd call that 300 in my book.
Those numbers of course mean nothing without the charts to back them up, so here they are...
I've spent a good bit of time under the hood as you can imagine, but it's not been only on the go-fast bits. The wiring, brake lines, fuel lines, catch can lines, and vac lines were all tucked. Anything that could be removed was, and the rest was hidden neatly away. I tried to make the bay as clean as possible, while still being functional and easy to repair/work on.
It's fast. Really fast. To handle the power I designed an adapter plate along with a modified clutch fork to mate an RX7 TII transmission to the miata engine block as well as shoehorned a TII diff out back. This was a decent amount of work, but now the weakest part of the car is me.
Recently had a friend of mine/part time photographer do a photoshoot of the car for a full feature on juststance.com, which actually just came out last night. For those looking for all the details, the full spec sheet is at the bottom of the feature, as well as a bunch of AMAZING shots.
One of them even manged to find it's way onto the Work Equip gallery. Wonder how that happened??
I'm blown away at all the feedback I've received about the car, and wanted to take the time to share it with you all. This car has become a huge part of my life, as I'm sure all of yours have, and there's nothing more rewarding than seeing your hard work being appreciated. Thanks for reading/looking.
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