Dan_W

Had to take a break from the project... but started it back up. I've got one full day a week that I can dedicate to it now and have wrenched on it the last 3 weekends. Since last time, I notched the pistons to create some piston to valve clearance, re-assembled the motor, stripped the miata, cut the gussets out of the engine bay, slit the firewall and I just test fit the motor on the new Monster Miata sub frame. He just started selling these, apparently I have the 5th one.

Martins subframe allows the use of off the shelf oil pans as it was designed around the one from Mast Motorsports. It also has 7 inches of space between the pan and the passenger side frame rail for header clearance... he pulls this off by moving the control arm mounts into the subframe... seems like a great idea. It accepts stock 5th gen camaro/G8 exhaust manifolds. Its too soon to know if there are any existing/stock headers that fit it.

I installed the engine for a test fit yesterday and the initial feel is good. It fits, bolts up, no drama. It does place the motor about 1 3/8" off the firewall which is a tad far out for me due to my trans and accessory choices. I'm probably going to move the motor back an inch which is not a significant modification due to the design.

Flavaquero

It will be interesting to see where an f-body T56 winds up and will there be some decent large tube headers that fit?

Dan_W

[QUOTE=Flavaquero;21402]It will be interesting to see where an f-body T56 winds up and will there be some decent large tube headers that fit?[/QUOTW]

Safe to say with mine, it would end up in the shifter hole, probably about an inch forward of center. I'm sure martin can build it any way you want... if you tell him to put the motor against the firewall, I'd bet he can do that easily. The design is excellent. It allows him plenty of latitude to do what the customer wants.

Flavaquero

Cost and how bad to ship to Florida?

Dan_W

You will have to get with Martin on the cost.

stng_96

Hold on now, I've never even heard of this subframe kit, and a google search tells me nothing, what is this witchery you speak of? How much was your subframe?

Dan_W

Did some work on the power steering. After i found out the mobile hydraulics guy that used to live near me moved, i decided to adapte the miata lower end of the pressure line to the f-body upper hose section using a swagelok compression fitting/adapter... 10mm to 3/8". The miata return hose tube on the rack just needed a slight tweak to work. I bought a flow restrictor from Turn One... Its exactly like the original flow restrictor except with a smaller .093" hole. I wish i had known... I'd have taken a shot at welding mine closed and re-drilling it. There was also a little grinding on the rack required for clearance/ fitment.

Dan_W

So i decided to try to run v8r headers with the monster subframe but had a little interferance in a couple of spots. I made up these plates to move the motor back an inch to fix the clearance. 3/4\" would have been better. I had to clearance to top of the tunnel with the additional setback. On the plus side, since i'm running f-body accessories, the extra inch up front means i wont have to comprimise on my fans/radiator placement.

Dan_W

LS7 clutch setup.

I had a \"viper spec" LT1 t56 and decided to run it instead of the t5. I needed to convert the t56 to an ls1 style which involved replacing the input shaft and transmissions front cover/bearing retainer... Tremmic calls it a "mid plate" There is no center register in the t56 bellhousing so to check runout, you have to bolt the mid plate to the bell. And check it on the bearing race.

Replacing the mid plate and input shaft means the transmission needs to be almost fully torn down to re-shim it properly. This was my first trans rebuild... Althought with only 5k miles on it, nothing needed to be replaced.

Dan_W

I think this pic was the shifter location before i moved it back an inch with the fbody t56.

I built a trans mount... Its very simple but was a bit of a pain to get the angles just right. I tied it into reinforced area where the seats mount. Its very solid. I may also hang the exhaust here.

Had my driveshaft shortened / balanced by advanced driveline in orlando. You can also see the front diff mount I made in this picture. Its a 7.5 ford with martins axles. I'm not 100% happy with the front mount... On my first attempt, i built it too high and the rear u joint was hitting the gas tank. I spaced it down to clear and its fine for now...but i want to rebuild it later.

Dan_W

Radiator all mounted up. I ordered a dual pass the right dimensions and fabbed my own mounts. The lower mount is an upper mount from a 2002 dodge 1500

I moved it forward an inch. There is still room for a condensor in front. The original upper mounts were cut down and welded to the core support.

The upper mounts before welding.

Flavaquero

You still have not disclosed what city you are in? I'm in Dade City and am just finishing up my build. The tune thing is a big deal as you will see.

Dan_W

I'm on the other side of Orlando from you, Melbourne area. The tuning thing is definitely not easy, especially because you're dealing with debugging a new build at the same time. I've tuned a few of my own cars with good success, carbs, DFI, Megasquirt, even burned a few eproms back in the day on for a 747 ecm in an OBD1 car. I went to the HP tuners GM class at the tuning school in Tampa last year to learn the Gen III and Gen IV GM stuff and have since done a custom OS/speed density tune on a buddy's LS swap. And your right, that has been a challenging project to say the least. Especially since its a fresh build with lots of stuff to debug. I'm not going to run a GM ECU in mine.

Dan_W

Trying to get caught up on the build progress up to now.


This was the first version of my diff mount before I realized I needed to lower it a bit to clear the rear yolk. I've already built a new rear mount, but for the front one I just added spacers. The rear mount is on polyurethane bushings.

Dan_W

Here is my motor with notched pistons. Frightening... Thats the spring compressor that I bought on top, that little screw sitting loose is the one it came with, I think it was 5/16. That tiny thing with its 60 degree thread was supposed to compress two springs. Laughable. It failed after 1 or two uses. I sourced a piece of acme thread and retreaded the end of it to go into their tool. Now it works reliably.

Thats the valve relief cutting tool on the right. Using it with a drill was causing too much chatter so I built the handle on the left so I could do it by hand.

Dan_W

Typical Corner mods. In retrospect, I'll try to leave whatever material that I can in the corners next time. It would be useful to have a template from a car with the motor already installed to see what actually "needs" to be cut.

I also ended up clearancing the top of the tunnel because I moved the motor back 1". I didn't need to cut it to fit it in Martins intended position. I know some people cut and notch here but I just worked it slowly with a hammer. It came out pretty good. I'll try to get more pictures of the tunnel mods the next time the motor is out, but they are the typical mods everyone does.

Dan_W

Random thoughts... I've already installed the fuel pump and fittings but I'm not sure if I left fuel in the tank... if I did, I'm going to regret it as I'm sure the gas is bad by now.

I didn't want to run any of the the kit radiators/cooling systems because in my opinion from 3 years ago, they were all a little overpriced and had a critical design flaw in that the fill ports looked to be lower than the top of the head. So my radiator does not have a fill port. It will have 2 steam/bleeder vents that will run to a firewall mounted remote fill port/tank which ties into one of the heater core lines. I'll also run the motors steam vent there. Being the highest point in the system, this is where the overflow tank will connect. I think I'm going to wait until I do wiring to fabricate that tank though... I'm thinking I may design an overflow, remote reservoir and oil catch can to mount on the passenger side firewall and I'll still need to fabricate and mount a washer reservoir. I want the engine bay to be clean, so I need to think on where to put/hide all this stuff


So at this point my near term to-do list is something like:

Design, waterjet, weld, fan shroud and shroud mounts
Design, make, weld 1/8" npt vent bungs for top of radiator
Finish welding trans mount
Weld tunnel backing plates for trans mount
Install starter and dip stick
Fabricate exhaust
Design and have sway bar bent

Flavaquero

not to worry i wound up draining the tank from the drain bolt on the bottom. It is funny because I have been debating about the tuning school for myself. It is a bunch of money but I am only 35 minutes from them. Any others with experience from schools like this?

Dan_W

Oh, wow, didn't know there was a drain plug, thats great news! If your starting out, I'd suggest Greg Banishes books first, then maybe the HP Academy Videos. The tuning school is cool because its in person with q&a and live dyno tuning sessions.... The beginner/intermediate class is good for tuning a bolt on car but lacks the depth you would need for an engine swap. I haven't done their advance course yet. ERM performance has a course that has lots of depth. Unfortunately ED passed away recently but I think his son is still selling the course material. There is also tons of great material scattered on the forums.

Dan_W

Finished the design for the shroud, I'll get it cut early next week.

stng_96

Looks like you do some first class work sir, very nice looking.

One thing I wanted to note. I have dealt with many many NB cars, I do not think they have a fuel drain. I could be wrong, but I'm guessing what David stated was based on is NA tank. If you find it, please teach me something new by showing us where it is!

Flavaquero

Yep I'm an NA.

Dan_W

I didnt look yet... bummer...

Pulled the trans crossmember and finished welding it, also welded up the backing plates for it.

ToySnakePMC

Dan_W

Got my shroud back today from water jet. Always exciting to see parts I design come to life.