Hm. Thats a good question, the only idea I have, is to try flaring both connections like I did, and use something like the Gates Powergrip heat-shink style clamps to connect them. I dont know if this is the type of solution you are looking for, but I bet it would work if you flared the lines a bit cleaner than I did!

Gates Power Grip Clamps | JEGS

 

Okay, brief update coming in! Ill start with a couple "out-and-about" shots!! I installed a GV-style, amazon special lip. I love the look, and install was relatively easy.





So far, I've put about ~200 trouble free miles on the car! No strange vibrations or drivability issues. Everything appears to be working as is should; besides my OPG.

If you recall, I swapped my NA "real" OPG into the NB cluster. On startup (not key on), the gauge jumps to around 90psi, and stays there, doesnt jump with RPM and doesnt lower when the oil gets hot. On key off, shut down, the needle falls to ~30psi.... THEN if I key back on and dont start the car, the needle sits back at zero. Kind of a strange issue, im guessing either a ground, or the needle itself is getting hung up on the gauge face or something silly. But overall, not too concerned about it, since I know im getting adequate oil pressure. None-the-less, its on the to fix list.

Moving on. Ive had a , probably irrational , fear of my car instantaneously bursting into flames if I do so much as look at it wrong. Im sure some of you can understand this fear, after having invested so much time, effort and money into a project.


So to calm this fear. I picked up a BC Halotron Fire Extinguisher. These arent cheap, but for the peace of mind it provides, Id say its well worth it! Makes enjoying the car, much much easier.





I am also proud to say, I recieved my first successful speeding ticket already. For those who havent, I suggest you add on some extra funds in your budget to allow a couple of these. It is TOO easy, to get moving quickly in a ~400whp Miata =D



And to conclude my update, and let you know how the car sits now... Well its back up on jack stands. This past Sunday, a couple of local Miata owners were planning on a spirited drive which I was going to participate in. With ~200miles on the car, everything was due for a once-over. I wanted to recheck that bolts were tight, and there were no leaks , unusual rubbing marks etc.

So I put the car up on stands, and went over the car working from the front back. Everything looked great until I got the rear.



Crap.





At this point, Im hoping that for some reason the axle just threw the clamp off, and I just needed to repack with grease and pop on a new clamp. Unfortunately, upon further inspection, the boot was also torn. I suspect that was simply aftermath of the clamp coming off, and whipping around.

 

So, after contacting The Driveshaft Shop, I confirmed that this is NOT covered under warranty. Even though I purchased less than 6 months ago, and there are only ~200 miles on the car. I can also positively, that this only occurred during the last maybe 40 miles, since I had just recently had this wheel off to adjust the rear parking brakes the other day.

Regardless, they did offer to send a replacement boot/clamps, or send the axle in for them to service, at my expense of course.

I did not take them up on this offer, I opted to just grab what I needed locally and get to work.

So I pulled the wheel, axle nut, brakes, rotor and the bolt out of the upper bushing and pushed the axle back through the hub with no issues ( as to be expected ).

Pulling the axle back out of the diff on the other hand....... Well, 3 days later, no dice. Ive never been stumped like this before. When installing the axles in the car, the axles installed very smoothly, and without excessive force into the diff. There was absolutely no binding through the entire range of suspension travel. I verified this before I ever drove the car. My slide hammer was able to pop the axle about 1.5" out of the diff to the point where the splines were completely disengaged, however it felt/sounded like the c-clip was engaging in a second groove (perhaps between the differential and the bearing?) After hammering and prying for many hours, I caved and separated the axle at the inner CV.

So anyhow, the boot is replaced, and I am going to finish up reassembly this evening. But thats been my fun story so far!

 

The front lip looks outstanding. Hope you can keep it looking pristine since it appears to be a real nice scoop. Guessing it will pick up everything in it's path that is not nailed down.

On the axles, is your presumption that the Driveshaft Shop did not tighten the clamp properly, bringing on the entire mess? That would be my first guess and, if so, I can see where you are pissed they are not covering their mistake.

In one respect I have to give you thumbs up for the ticket but on the other hand I hope it does not effect your insurance. The ticket can be the cheap part of that sort of thing.

 

Good to see you've had it on the road with no major issues. I will be checking the tightness of the boot clamps on my driveshaft shop axles this week :-)

So you were able to replace the boot without removing the whole axle? Not sure what would be preventing it from coming all the way, hopefully nothing broken or mangled.

Agree with you on the spontaneous combustion concern. When you've spent this much time/money on a project, and you've completely disassembled and reassembled a complete car, you're bound to have forgotten to tighten a bolt somewhere.

Halotron is the way to go though I just with with a simple automotive extinguisher. The way I look at it, it might be YOUR car I'm extinguishing on the side of the road somewhere... doesn't mean MY car is the one that will go all Zoolander-gas-station-scene-style!

 

DSS not properly tightening the clamps is literally the only thing that makes sense to me. You should definitely check your clamps and maybe even attempt to try and pull on the boot a little and report your findings!

I left the inner cup in the diff and separated the axle at the inner CV. I could not change it on the car, simply because I couldn't separate the outter CV to get the boot on since the inner CV plunges and prevented me from getting a good whack with the hammer.

I did not want to use a "universal style" or a 2-piece bonded style. Otherwise you can expand them over the entire cup or glue them together without removing the axle from the car.

 

That blows for the ticket. I've been stopped twice for speeding, but no tickets. The cops enjoyed my build lol

 

So. I attended the Season Opener AutoX yesterday with the local club and had a blast.

Spent the day Saturday going over the car, and playing with the tune a bit. Still have a lot to learn about HPTuners, but im getting the hang of it.

I also snapped a couple pictures of the little skid plate I made a while back to show you guys.









Sunday turned out to be a gorgeous day, and a really wide open , 1.05mi track. FTOD ended up being around 84seconds!





Had a blast, and was honestly surprised at how well my lackluster brake/suspension setup handed everything. Im even more anxious to upgrade those bits now that the season is upon us. But so much fun either way.

Now, for your viewing pleasure:

 

Thanks for sharing the video and pictures.
That skid plate is an outstanding idea. Might have to do something similar myself.
We have some stainless plate floating around that would work.

A question for you.
Now that you have had a bit of time behind the wheel, what do you think of your exhaust and Flowmaster muffler?
How much noise do you get at idle?
Any drone?

 

Thanks!!

As for my exhaust, I love it! Idle is very mellow all things considered. Ill try and get a walk-around video soon.

Only drone Ive noticed is very mild and tolerable on the highway ONLY with the top and windows up. Top down and its super pleasant, no noticeable drone.

Only thing I might go back and change would be to add some short resonators just to knock the rasp down a smidge. Thats only in retrospect, it certainly doesnt bother me enough to go back and add them at this point. Im just trying to be constructive!

 

What seats do you have?

 

Ditto for me. And the seat mounting situation. How tall are you WCW? Just trying to see if it would work in my NB with rear seat mounts removed and still pass the broomstick test with helmet on (I'm 6 foot).

Also curious about the steering wheel too, might want to upgrade to a 3-spoke and ditch the airbag wheel. That seems to look good in the Miata.

 

I am 6'0" , ~170lbs .

They are Momo Start seats, I made custom bracket for them, still a little room to go down. However, for my ideal seating position, a little massaging of the trans tunnel was required.

I had Sparco Sprints before that, and sat even lower in the car. But I just wanted to try something new. These are fiberglass, vs the Sprints which are tube frame. So a bit lighter. Sprints are a little tighter in the shoulder area, while the Momos are a litter tighter in the mid-section. But I am happy with them for the price.

Steering wheel is a Momo Prototipo, with a Momo 5702 hub, and a NRG 2.5 Quick Release

 

Great build - and already proven on track! Enjoyed the video as well - the exhaust sounds terrific on the course. I imagine the corner workers had a fun but brief view of you passing them by..!

 

I'm sure WCW can clarify, but I think he's running Magnaflow



I have Flowmaster 40s myself, but haven't had a chance to really test them out yet.

 

Another great weekend of car things here!!

Went to a cars and coffee event that my work hosted on Saturday morning. There were people there that had better cameras that my beatup old cellphone. So you can enjoy some pics.

This also made me hate running a MAF. That ugly old thing hangin out up front there.... Im in the process of tuning still, and drivability thus far is making me strongly just consider deleting it permanently.









After the event, I went home and started prepping for the AutoX event on sunday.

While I was under there, I noticed that my rear diff mount was a little tweaked. Too many torques I suppose.

Anyhow, it wasnt bad enough to not run it. I knew it wasnt going to break. So off to the event I went! ( Stay tuned for updates on the rear diff mount. )

I didnt bring my GoPro this time, so hopefully some club members will post up some videos for me soon. But lots of pictures to enjoy!! The morning was pretty miserable. My class didnt run til the afternoon, and it rained pretty good all morning, so I gained about 10lbs in water weight from standing out working a corner. BUt the afternoon started to dry up and more than made up for it. What a blast.....

I really need to upgrade the suspension and get some real tires on this thing.

 

Just got caught up on your build. Nice car!

A thought ... Now that you see the diff mount tweaked, have you considered that it was like that when you couldn't get the shaft out? Could the alignment issue be causing or compounding an issue back there that might have contributed to the boot issue?

Just a thought.

 

Thanks for the post!

There's no way this contributed to that issue I was having with the axle. Its really not that bad of a tweak ( or else I would not have AutoX-ed on it ), but just enough to be visible to the eye. Ill have pictures up by tomorrow hopefully. Thank you for the consideration though!

 

From the pics, it looks like you're at the new and improved Dragway 42. I grew up about 5 minutes from that track. I plan on driving up from Florida in August to make a few passes.

 

The easiest and most reliable method of joining aluminum to copper is to weld it with aluminum bronze, a welding alloy of aluminum and copper, works well, and has a nice gold color too.

 

That is what I actually ended up doing.
Did a couple of posts to explain the process in my build thread.
Great minds think alike.

 

Moar videos for your viewing pleasure.

 

Awesome runs.
The car looks very neutral in the corners. Tough to tell from the camera angle but it looked like the car got a bit loose exiting a couple of corners but nothing you couldn't handle.

What classification does the swap and modifications put you into?

 

Thank you!

Ive played a lot with alignment settings to get it more neutral. No rear sway bar. The car really demands you "drive" it. Ive datalogged multiple runs, and even on a course this large, I typically dont get over more than 50-60% throttle due to lack of traction lol.

Modifications put the car in either XP or STC depending on tires. XP if you want to run sticker than 200tw, and STC with 200tw or higher.

 

Hi Will. Thanks for the very thorough build thread!! I'm just starting out, but plan to do a lot of the fabrication myself as well. I'll return to this thread frequently! I've had a Momo Start in my Mustang for several years and it is making the move into the Miata. I'm 6'1" and 165, so it sounds like we are similar of build.

Are you still active with the ASCC? Last year I ran my 2008 Honda Fit (when the Mustang wouldn't start) and my '83 Mustang. Hope to meet you, and see / hear you dodge cones!

Bryan