Just a quick sound clip to post for you guys as promised! I dont think you will be able to distinguish much without decent headphones.

Obviously the sound is very skewed since the exhaust is pointed into the back of the garage. Also, no intake makes a TON of noise, which you can hear. But hopefully she'll be outside someday soon to get some better clips!!

 

Sounds fantastic! Can't wait to drive it can you??

 

What is the M54 going into? People need to know.

 

REAL TALK. Im at the stage where I really really want to start taking shortcuts just to be done. But I'm resisting! Im working on silly things like repainting brake calipers and such. Thanks for the compliment! Cant wait to hear it outside.

Haha, priorities, you have them! To be honest with you, im not sure yet. Picked up the dropout for a bargain, now im just browsing craigslist for a project. I have a few things I would LIKE to put it in, but honestly it will probably be whatever falls into my lap haha.

 

an m54 would go excellent in an e30!

I'm at the point where I'm tired of waiting for perfection and next level stuff. I'm still putting together a quality car and won't skimp on parts that will be inaccessible later. But simple bolt on parts are not high on my priories right now. I reallllly want to have my car ready for miatapalooza.

 

Alright guys. Until the "first drive" update, im afraid my updates are going to be quite lack-luster as I continue to just tuck things away and try and make everything look pretty. Which is really all ive been up to lately.

Ive been refinishing my brake carriers/calipers here and there, was tired of the old dirty faded red, and decided to bake on some gloss black caliper paint. Not quite finished yet so no pictures so far.

Although I did install a wilwood prop valve.



Next I finished up my fan wiring, as that was the only thing keeping me from taping up the engine bay wiring harness. It was actually quite simple, and for those of you using a dual fan setup this will work exactly the same; because I wired mine for two speeds. What I did was:

- Allow the stock miata wiring/relay to handle low speed fan or fan1
- Connect Blk/Grn that fed into the Miata ECU to the Dr Grn "Low Speed Cooling Fan Relay Control"
- Connect the OE miata fan wires ( yellow and black ) to the low speed or fan 1

- Add new relay to handle high speed fan or fan 2
- Using a SPST 30A or higher relay as well as a connector pigtail
- Supply power and ground to the Relay. I used the alternator lug (+) and a chassis ground(-) just above the driver side swaybar mount.
- Fish the signal wire for the relay, back up the main miata wiring harness back into the cabin, or to wherever you ECU is located.
- Connect this signal wire to the DK BLU "High Speed Cooling Fan Relay Control"

Thats it, super simple. Heres a test! :





Woohoo!! Everything in the engine bay is offically done, completed, wrapped up, secured and tucked away! Thats a good feeling!





Warning, really poor pictures incoming! I wrapped the starter, wiring going up to the fuse box, fuel line, and made heat shields for the engine mounts.









I am going to make an additional sheet metal heat shield to better protect everything underneath the car as well, just as an added layer or protection, not that I dont have faith in the capabilities of the DEI sleeve.

 

Here have some photo updates!

Just cookin some calipers:



"Ceramic" painted the exhaust after finishing up welding some hangers and 02 bungs





And made a heatshield to protect the wires/fuel lines where they got close





Fired her back up with 02 sensors in, all the way up to operating temperature to bleed the cooling system as well as bake the paint on the exhaust.... Ive already solved this issue, but Ill see if anyone wants to take a guess as to what I did wrong here??


Lookin like a car again!!

 

I don't see an injector or o2 signal

Did you cook the calipers with the dust seals on? What type of sauce did you make? :-)

 

Not sure why the signals dont show up in that display. But I assure you they are both reading . Try again.


As yes I cooked them with dust seals. They are brake calipers afterall, those seals are designed to handle some pretty hot temps, they had no issues at 400° in the oven for a little while. Although I do have a new set of caliper rebuild seals on the way anyways.

 

Another tiny update. Me and doge hung out in the garage last night to enjoy the "warm" weather. Got the rest of my dash put together and installed my Momo hub, NRG QR and new wheel =D

 

My guess is you reversed polarity on some wires since the FT values are negative?

 

Not much left to do before the first drive! Just waiting for some nice weather!

Tied up a few more things over the last week. Bled the brakes, made my intake and started making brackets for my new seats which I am in love with. Way more comfy than my old Sprint V's =D

 

Those fuel trims look suspect to me. Lol something is way wrong

 

You would be correct!! We're getting closer...

 

The steering wheel and seats are a nice match. I'm pretty sure I'll tire of the airbag wheel I have now, and move to a 3 spoke wheel as I've done with other cars. The seat looks comfy for a fixed back. Again, something I will need to address.

Where did you pick them up?

 

Long overdue for an update!

Ive spend the last couple weeks just fiddling around with different things, improving fitment here and there etc.

Having gone over, and fabricated every component I could of this car. Something just felt wrong about having someone finish the "final" step and align it.

Ive come this far, with my own two hands, I can do this part dammit!

So, behold, DIY alignment:




















Once this was done... what was to stop me from a little spin around the block? Well..... nothing?

So off I went! And do my amazement, it went off without a hitch! It seems, I am capable of building a running driving LS swapped miata, and aligning it with no immediate issues. How bow dah?

Still plenty to tie up, I will have videos for you soon.

 

On the fuel trim thing, did you have different /larger injectors on the one bank? I'm glad you were able to drive your car! I'm getting close too. Waiting on a driveshaft, and some coolant parts

 

Nice work on the alignment. After some suspension work when I bought my car, the shop that aligned bitched and moaned about how difficult it was - too many moving parts I guess and I had made no effort to get it close beforehand. Another shop turned me away because the car was too low... lol.

I don't have a flat or very solid garage floor so a good DIY alignment is pretty much out for me. I have a Smart Camber gauge but the issue with using those is you need to have a level surface and verify your ride height is even from one side to the other before you trust any of the readings.

In for burnout videos.

 

No sir. The 02 sensors were simply plugged in backwards.... The car started and ran fine for a bit, but then as the ECU started to try and tweak fuel trims, it would try to say: lean out bank one a tad, but instead bank two would get leaner. So it got itself into an endless cycle of trying to fix fuel trim problems that it was creating for itself! lol

Easy fix anyways, just switch the connectors

Ill be anxiously waiting for your videos

^ we are definitely on the same page. I was worried about the lows also, plus i didnt really want some rando driving my car haha.

Dont let the uneven floor discourage you! It can be leveled out with tiles like I did! The task seemed a little daunting at first. But it was a great learning experience and Im glad I did it.... And to be honest, Im looking forward to being able to play with my specs on a whim.

My garage floor dropped about 1/2" along the wheel base of the car!

 

Aligning the car and taking the time to do it -- is impressive. Glad the first trip around the neighborhood went well!

 

Where did you find those plastic 90 deg. elbows? I can't seem to figure out an exact description to find them. Also, what size firewall grommets did you use? I am wondering if the elbow requires a different size than the existing ones?

 

As for the elbows. I purchased them from Amazon, but I have seen them in parts stores such as Autozone/Advanced/Pep Boys :

5/8" Hose - Dorman 47062
3/4" Hose - Dorman 47063


I reused the factory gromments for the A/C lines. One was a perfect fit, but IIRC the smaller of the two needed some trimming of the ID to fit 5/8" Hose.

Thanks for asking!

 

Home Depot carries the 90* elbows as well as unions.

 

NAPA has a decent selection, on the racks usually, of heater hose connectors. I used brass barb unions myself under the hood.

 

I actually prefer the copper fittings on the Yellow Submarine thread but have run up against a little snag. Being an NB, the connections to the Heater core are Aluminum rather than copper. I don't know of a way to connect the Aluminum directly to the copper without a rubber hose. Since I will need to run a rubber hose anyway, I don't see any gain of a small piece over just running the rubber hose the whole way as it was done in this thread.
If anybody knows of a reasonable and reliable way to connect the aluminum to the copper
I would love to hear about it.
I guess the other option for me might be to locate some NA copper connections, presuming they are interchangeable with the NB heater core. I bought a replacement heater core and it appears to be aluminum.
What I absolutely do NOT want is something that will start leaking a short time after completing my installation but I do want to switch the firewall connections over to the passenger side for a cleaner look.