In for sound clips as well.

Re: the catch can, did you cross shop any other brands? Seems like a nice kit, but I'd be at $270 for one with the separator and other bits.

Looks like you didn't go with the "clean side separator" ?

Nope, didn't shop around once I saw one of these on another LSx. It's a nice piece, but I wouldn't have minded one about an inch or 2 shorter, more compact.

I had to go back and look to see what I paid, and it was around $190.00. Clean side separator is cool, but a bit beyond what I was looking for I guess.

A few Spring 2017 updates & a small leak repair ------

I’ve had a few things with the car that I wanted to address before MATG that’s approaching in early August. With life and stuff happening, the V8M hasn’t had much attention – just sitting around on the battery tender and going out for a few early Saturday morning drives or Cars n’ Coffee.

But one small, irritating concern that I’d spot from time to time was what looked like water on the garage floor under the driver side footwell after sitting for a week or a month at a time. Weird… The spot of water would be small and clear – as best as I could tell. And then this Spring, I backed it out, and as it was idling on the slightly sloped driveway, engine coolant was dripping out of the REAR of the V8Roadsters LH frame rail stiffener! Well, I think I know knew what was going on -- My heater core must be leaking somehow, dripping down the LH side of the tranny tunnel and finding a way out through one of the bolts securing the frame rail stiffener.

Drove the car into the shop, put the front wheels on heavy wooden blocks for increased angle, and my hidden reservoir of coolant was now exiting the car – just in front of the rear wheel well.

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So, my original heater core plumbing consisted of cutting the copper pipes short of the firewall and used hose clamps with short rubber hose “nipples” sticking through the firewall. That afternoon, I took a small flashlight and folded myself up to get a peak under the dash to discover that one of the hose clamps was just beyond hand tight and the other one wasn’t much better! I guess this situation has been going on for 2+ years now. Tightened things up and after checking for leaks the first 5 or 6 heat cycles, problem is solved.

Next job was removing the front fenders on a Friday night in preparation for V8R chassis braces. I got these in January and took them out of the box on an early Saturday morning to learn that some necessary V8R hardware would be quite useful for bolting them in place. Emailed Shandelle at V8R to let him know but quickly decided that one trip to a small Ace Hardware store would solve the problem.

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I used a band saw and cut two 1”x2”x1/2” piece out of the stockpile of metal in the family’s shop, drilled two holes and painted them rattle can black for the backer plates up in the frame horn. Then I cut down aluminum spacers for the center bolts that properly offset the “V8R” triangle when you bolt everything together… Installation is relatively easy. You just have to adjust the door hinges to get everything properly aligned again.

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And lastly, I ordered these hi-rise Holley valve covers from Summit to clean up the appearance a bit more. These came with the longer center bolts and I added pair of new valve cover gaskets. I’m quite pleased with these. And yes, I did replace both sides. Just didn’t take the additional pics for some reason!

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Clean looking engine bay

So how many miles do you have on the swap now?

Currently, there is a whopping 4,600 or so. And you'll be proud to know that 450 of those went on in the past two weeks. Car has become ALMOST as fun to drive as it was to build!

Here's a new concern of mine that has me scratching my head... My what appears to be simple Catch Can is really catching a LOT of oil. Recent 350 mile trip dumped in about 3-4 oz of oil into the removable lower body. That's the 2nd time I've checked it and subsequently emptied it since original installation. The plumbing of the unit was simple. I just haven't had enough time as of yet to figure out why.

Sounds to me like your motor is trashed.
Time to sell the whole project.
I will give you $100 cash up front and $1 per week for the next year.:rofl:
Sound like a deal?

Seriously, you should check on the Camaro forums and see what they have to say about it. My other car is a new Mustang and some people put the same catch can on their car. Seems to be hit and miss. Some get almost nothing and some get what they consider to be a lot. If it was me, I would just put the oil back into the engine, presuming it is still nice and clean. At least you know it is not burning out the tailpipe and clogging the catalytic converter.

Looks like you have the same catch can I have. I don't have many miles on my swap yet, but with that much oil a few things could be happening.

1. You have alot of blowby past the pistons creating crankcase pressure, pushing out into the catch can. Compression test might tell the tale.
2. It's normal and the catch can is "catching" all the oil that would normally go into the intake and get burned.
3. The catch can might be setup wrong

I'd be curious if what you're getting is oil, or is it oil and condensation. If you pour it into a jar and let it settle, what does it look like? I had a boosted 4 cylinder VW engine and it was pretty tight compression wise, and I didn't get that much oil in the catch can.

Forget about the oil in the catch can and just drive the wheels off her!!!! :)

holy shit!! Its Jim!! I thought you had some troubles with this username? great to hear you back on here!

Yes! Glad to see Jim on here as well. The MN snow must have all melted and his WiFi connection is back to 5 bars!

LOL issue is partly my job takes more time, to much fun with the camera and IB admin log in on my laptop isn't set up. LOL yeah I know all 3 are lame but I do miss hanging out here!

I am so jealous of the color of your V8R mounting hardware. I just ordered my LFX mounting kit a few days ago, and having read through your build log before ordering, I requested the same (or similar) color.
Unfortunately, I was told they quit doing that. Apparently it is too difficult for them to keep up with. I thought that color would go great with my 10AE.

Alas, I'm settling for Grey.

Wanna swap cradles? :)

ZB, I'm with you. I just wanted something different under there. So.., way back in 2012, I didn't know what they would be willing to do. Shandalle said he thought they could accommodate a special color request; he just needed to know what I wanted and a photo. So I thought it may increase my chances if I let him pick... My 3 choices were (sort of) Subaru rally blue, Kawasaki green, and school bus yellow. I guess you know which one picked... And I wanted the lime green! But thanks. Hope your VA build goes well. I'll keep an eye on it. Wonder how far away you are from Raleigh..?

I'm in Christiansburg, VA (Near Blacksburg - Virginia Tech). It's about 3.5 hours to Raleigh.

Hoping we'll get to meet at Miatas at the Gap 2018 (if not at a meetup sooner)

I'm running one of these too, surprised how quickly it failed. keep us updated on what you find .

HAHA, hard to believe that I was logging on to post the same thing in my thread, only I used the Walbro 255....probably got 6k on mine, 2.5 years. I'm probably just going back with the same one, unless I find something else that jumps at me. For the money its hard to argue with.

Just checked back on my build thread and turns out I'm running a DW200, which should be plenty of fuel for a stock LS1 like mine. Not to mention it's half the price of the DW300.

One site says the DW300 is designed to reduce stress on OE wiring https://www.good-win-racing.com/Mazd.../61-12873.html

While another says it might stress OE wiring Deatschwerks Fuel Pumps (DW100/200/300)

Any chance the fuel pump failure(s) has anything to do with using the factory Miata fuel pump wiring?

The factory wiring routes from the rear battery to the engine compartment main fuse box to under the dash near the steering column then back to the fuel pump behind the driver seat.
I did not like the long and convoluted routing and also saw a couple of things online about upgraded fuel pumps pulling more current and causing wiring under the dash to get hot.

On my build the factory wiring was deleted from the relay that is under the dash to the fuel tank and I ran an entirely new power line directly from the battery to the fuel tank (approx. 36" total length) in order to keep the routing as short as possible.
It was real simple and has been working great so far.
Not sure what fuel pump was utilized but it was the Flyin Miata fuel kit that included AN fittings and braided hose.

Good write up and pictures.

Where did you mount the actual inline fuse in the loop in the picture?
I looked but am not absolutely sure.
Is it in the lower right of the last picture?

Good stuff. Curious if you still have the old pump and did any resistance checks on it, to see if it was indeed a motor that went bad, and not just the pump eating itself.