stng_96

Yeah I'm not worried about the speedo. It only happens every once in a while, and in all honestly all it will change is my mpg calculation. Since I didn't exactly build this car to hyper mile that doesn't make a difference.

How long will you be a deals gap? I will be in Gatlinburg next weekend! Also, I have been working on the hood vents more, I will have some updates soon.

V8Hopeful

Man how many NB shells can you possibly find! lol Love the build man it looks great, sad about your blue NA. My wife absolutely HAD to have a NA with the pop up headlights, then she saw project thunderbolt and now your car and is in love with the NB......

ordonez1307

I don't know how I missed all of this.

Congrats man. The car looks great!

I'm going to have to pick your brain as my build gets close(r) to completion. Lots of little details that your build thread outlines perfectly!

stng_96

Don't get me wrong, I have driven 4-5 hours for most of these cars, I search a wide range. I actually had a 96 M-edition also because my wife like the "blinky" headlights, but I ended up selling it and buying my 10AE.

stng_96

Thanks, still ironing out a few small details, need to get this thread updated but I've been spending time driving it instead of working on it!

stng_96

So I haven't updated this in a little while, but I have still been working on the car when I have time. Too much fun driving it now, not as much working on it......The entire time I have been building the car, my end goal was to have it ready for a major show in my area, Street Machine Nationals. It is held in other areas as well, some of you may have heard of it. Anyway, car has been at the painter for the past five days getting a few things cleaned up. The front bumper, hood were both painted, I added an MSM spoiler and NB2 Tail light bezels. Also, I have always love the look of fender stripes, given the right color. I had some vinyl ones on here, but I wasn't please with them, so I figured while he was blending the fenders he could shoot some stripes on. Below is a quick teaser. I know they aren't everyones cup of tea, but I really like them. I also pulled emblems to paint black, and any other chrome/shiny parts that were on it. I used the bleach method to remove chrome, then sand/paint. I should have plenty of pictures from the weekend to put in here later!! If anyone is near the Southern Illinois area, this show is a great one! Near 3000 cars expected this year from all walks of life.

crispy

I am digging the stripes.

stng_96

Always liked them, and I think they will really look great against the blue. Even though this is not a dedicated show car, I want it to look great. I figure blue car with a lot of black accents(Headlight bezels, emblems, wheels, etc) will look excellent.

ordonez1307

I really like the stripes. When I was reading your description, I got a little nervous about how fender stripes would look, but they came out awesome.

Did you get your hood vents on yet?

stng_96

Heres a quick cell phone picture from the show. I took a bunch with my DSLR as well so I'll get those on later. I love the stripes, they turned out great. I actually have the vents made, but since the hood go painted I actually really like the look of them being open so I haven't installed the vents year. I will though. You can see here I also painted the emblems black, and I tinted the side markers. Going for all black and blue.

97miatam

looks great!

ToySnakePMC

Sinister looking roadster! Waiting for more pics to show off the paint and final look. Did the car surprise a few show lookers??

stng_96

Yeah I think its safe to say that most people did not expect it. A lot of people have heard of v8 miatas, but in my rural corner of the world there have been very few spotted.

According to people at the show though......they are all thinking about building one....

stng_96

Ok, here are a few more pictures from last weekend. I need to get the car in some better lighting for these pictures to really pop, but I can do that later. I also included a few pictures on the cruise route from the show where we were parked, and a picture of the wife and myself. If you look way back in this thread you will see our anniversary picture last year where we are holding the picture from the year before, and year before, and year before. Seemed appropriate to show you guys here.
























My next goal is to get a few videos of the car running and accelerating so you can really hear it.

mazdaspeedmiata

Should be glad that you got the car done before the baby showed up, I haven't touched mine in a year at least

stng_96

So I tend to be really bad about getting a project 98% finished, then being a lazy bum on the last 2%. This weekend I actually wrenched on the car a bit and got another 0.2% done by installing the cruise control.

I'd have to say that it was probably the easiest single thing I have done on this car. I used the factory miata cruise setup, simply because all you really need to do is leave the wiring intact, and find a vacuum source. I ended up pulling vacuum from that male nipple on the front drivers side of the intake, and if you can believe it, the whole system worked exactly like it was supposed to the very fist time....Holy cow....I think I reworked everything on this car at least 3 times before I got it where I wanted it, so I'm not used to having stuff work perfectly the first time!!

stng_96

Ok, I am sorry I have been a little lazy about posting on this thread in a while, I've been out enjoying the car and my wife recently had our son so I have been focusing my efforts elsewhere. For my post today, I am including some payoff videos, but I have to apologize up front for the poor quality. I don't have any kind of a go pro or video camera, so these are just shot with my point and shoot garage camera. The first video is a start and walkaround in the driveway. The second is an edited video of a couple runs on the highway. This was also my first try at editing, so take it easy on me.

I still have some things to work on this winter, but at this point I've put about 1400 miles on the car and it has been an absolute ball. Its been a big hit at a few shows this summer, and it is now feared by a few vettes and mustangs in my area.

You'll notice in the walkaround video a few additional visual modifications I have added, which were in the pictures a few posts ago, but I didn't speak to. I decided on the MSM rear spoiler, just because it is suttle, yet still accomplishes the look I was going for. Same thing for the SE tail light bezels. Also put a light tint on the bumper reflectors, and painted the emblems. I absolutely love small changes that most people wouldn't even notice that really bring a whole package together.

portabull

oh my... i'd better sit down for a minute.

stng_96

They aren't too long!

ToySnakePMC

Hot damn! No need for your unwarranted apologies. The 2 videos delivered the goods! Love your C5 exhaust sounds and must go back and see what your cam specs were. That's the ultimate package you have there. And congrats on the baby boy and a happy wife. That's all kinda important too..!

stng_96

So a bit of an update for my car after the first year of use, no new pictures here now but some things to ponder over.

I have the car currently up on stands in the garage for some winter projects:

Passenger side axle seal was leaking a very small amount. I bought new seals/bearings for both sides and have replaced them.

Exhaust rattle in the rear. If you look back in this thread, the mufflers routed very close to the battery box pocket, and the drivers side pocket. I ended up trimming a lip that is on the mufflers off a little bit and my rattle appears to be fixed.

Tires.....As it turns out, rear tires don't stand a chance against 400 wheel HP and only 2500 lbs holding them down. Fronts were ok though so I picked up two new VR-1's in 245/40 size, hopefully they will hang on better. My biggest problem though is that it appears the recommended miata alignment specs don't work well as hard as this car squats on the rear, so the inside was worn considerably more than the outside. I will be getting the car re-aligned to 0 in the rear to counteract that.

One of my parts cars had a nearly new set of Vmaxx 2's on it, so I am switching out my bilstein coilovers for those, and finally relocated the sway bar brackets/endlink mounts to mount my RB sway bar up front.

Now the big enchilada....the major issue that has had me stumped since day one....cooling.....

If you have looked through my thread, you can see I chased cooling gremlins for a while with this car. I made several changes right out of the gate, and have continued to tweak all year....but still never could get the car to unquestionably stay cool, big part of the reason I didn't track the car this year. I'll spare all the details of what I have already done, but last week I was out running the car on stands and trying to think outside the box. In had my infrared gun out looking all over, but didn't really get much. In the end, my properly calibrated hands got me somewhere.

I run an FM V8 radiator and fans, which obviously is dual core. After 45 minutes of run time(fans on for a while), I noted that the top passenger side of the radiator was hot, while the top drivers side was cool.....strange. I then noticed that the drivers side fan was only pulling ambient air though, while the passenger was only pulling a little bit of warm air though....WTF. Fast forward a couple days, I pulled the radiator and discovered that the divider which actually makes it a dual core radiator was never welded in, so essentially coolant was going in the top and right out the bottom using maybe a third of the radiator.....I have been chasing a ghost for months now....I cried and jumped for joy at the same time! Working with Keith at FM, he helped get me lined out and they along with griffin are getting me straightened out, so excited to not have to worry about that anymore!

I'll get some new pictures up sometime soon, just wanted to throw up a little update. Put about 2500 miles on the car this year and I don't know how I did without this car before...

Flavaquero

Sorry but with what they charge for those cooling packages I would have expected a little better quality control. Glad to see you have a conclusion to the problem.

stng_96

Yeah it is a bit disappointing, and I would think that is a pretty key step in their fabrication process, but **** happens. It only takes one person having a really bad day sometimes, and in all honesty I'm so excited over it I just can't force myself to be upset. Keith has also been a good guy throughout the diagnosis. I probably didn't go about it the best way, but I have conversed with him a few times before so I just shot him a PM about it and he got it all lined out for me.

crispy

Glad to hear that you found the culprit.

pj_mcgarvey

Glad it didn't cost you a motor.

On your alignment specs, what were you running before? Was it zero toe, or camber? Or both.