What have you done to your Miata today?

Nice work Maff....too bad you weren't further up North. I'd hire you. lol

Probably won't be digging into it this weekend since I work all weekend but got the speaker level converter from Crutchfield. So next week I'll be pulling the hu out so I can re-wire the speaker wires through it. According to Crutchfield my car didn't need it even though it had the OEM Bose unit. So I didn't question them and installed it as-is, now I can't turn the volume up past six and when driving through town with the top down I have it on one or two. Plus I'm getting a lot of hissing. Tech at Crutchfield was nice enough to send it for free and asked for my feedback so he could update their records as necessary.
 
After sealing up the seams with silicone and redoing the door frame on the shop for the same reason, it was time to get to the real work.

Cam gears and timing plate off, so I could get to the coolant neck. The red is a ring of RTV:

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New VC gasket while I was there and had one laying around, and put in new exhaust studs. Finally found a home for the Unorthodox Racing pulley I've had kicking around the shop for several years. I really do like how clean the motor looks without the stock coolant neck. It's a stupid thing, but it cleans it up a ton.

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Alternator, lower intake manifold, injectors, oil pressure switch, cam & crank sensors, alternator and several other odds and ends installed. The NB2 motor (or, at least, this 03) uses all manifold studs instead of a mix of bolts and studs, which makes hanging the manifold so much easier.

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Fitted up the EGR blockoffs.

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Massive pic dump. Today was a huge day, we got a TON done. Found a bunch of undocumented issues that we had to work around, but in the end, we were triumphant.
A lot more detail here, if you're interested.

Fitment issues on the 99 fuel rail. Simply had to bend it gently outward on the vise.

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Fitment issue (already corrected in the pic) to get the reroute BeGi spacer to fit. Had to cut the bottom half of the retainer for the plug at the back of the exhaust cam to make it fit.

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Fitment issue (already corrected in the pic) of the 1.6L FPR. Had to gently bend the output tube because it was interfering directly with the air-space that the upper intake manifold wanted to be in:

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Fitment issue (already corrected) where the upper intake manifold was interfering with the feed tube on the 99 fuel rail. Ground the manifold down with a sanding wheel a little at a time until we could see daylight.

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Finally done with the issues and putting things to right. Vac line from the FPR, routed and with some loom cover to protect it from chafing on the bottom of the throttle body mount.

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Clutch pron.

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Fuel and coolant hoses run while its out of the car for convenience's sake, but otherwise ready to slide tab A into slot B.

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Finally in! No pics of the process because that's an all-hands-on-deck affair. But I had to re-learn tricks on how to do the mounts, as the tricks I know for the NA mounts don't work for the wider / longer NB mounts. Took some time, but we got it done :D

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More loom over the fuel hoses to prevent chaffing of those. Because that would be bad.

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Jackson racing header and my custom intake installed. The JR header actually doesn't look too bad here, but it's a real POS, barely a step above eBay specials IMO. The welds are awful, the flanges are a bit crap... I'm so happy I got it used for very little money. EGR deleted by cutting & welding.

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And some go faster parts from JamesCH. I didn't think I'd actually like it, but it feels SO right in the hand, so it's staying, and the Nardi Touch of Class wood-grain knob is going up for sale.

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Still a few big jobs to do. Wiring modifications, a new throttle cable, different ECU, tuning, etc, but the heavy lifting has been completed.
 
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Nice work!! Looks great! Glad to hear the fitment issues were minor


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Nice work!! Looks great! Glad to hear the fitment issues were minor

They were minor if you have a can-do attitude and know your way around power tools. I know that's not universal. A buddy of mine is doing a very similar swap to mine and came to help. He's not nearly as into fab & modifying parts as I am (which isn't to say I'm some master fabricator. I'm not.), and it was great experience for him to see a) what he'd have to do, and b) that it's ok to give a shiny new intake manifold some love with a sanding wheel :)
 
How old is your radiator? Because it looks iffy and you're putting a lot of work into this...

Already addressed that on another site, but yeah, I know. I'm trying to find an Aluminum one for cheap. If I can't, I'll grab a better stocker to swap in.
 
Great progress!

Already addressed that on another site, but yeah, I know. I'm trying to find an Aluminum one for cheap. If I can't, I'll grab a better stocker to swap in.

I've had great luck with my aluminum Godspeed radiator for the last four years. Replaced the drain plug o-ring on it this year since the original o-ring was starting to look sad. Still, for less than $200 brand new it's real hard to go wrong.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/ (commissions earned)

Also, glad you're still liking the parts! If anyone else wants custom parts made, let me know; I've got a lot of free time on my hands these days.
 
Maff, you've been a busy bee. Can't wait to hear how you do with the new engine.

Also, glad you're still liking the parts! If anyone else wants custom parts made, let me know; I've got a lot of free time on my hands these days.

I may take you up on this, some parts for my rack and pinion setup for my RX-7 went missing in shipping and I don't have the ability to make them as pretty as I would like for them to be. Won't be until I get home in a couple of months though.
 
Maff, you've been a busy bee. Can't wait to hear how you do with the new engine.

You and me both. The VVT engine harness has been dropped off with my Master of All Things ECU to get modified to mate up to the ECU harness from the megasquirt. In the mean time, the next really big job I have lined up is to do the exhaust. I have a welder that's capable of doing it, however up until today it was only set up to use flux core wire. From what I understand, you *really* don't want to try and weld anything that you want to be air-tight with flux core. Like, ever. So, given that this machine is capable of proper MIG work, I picked up a bottle of 75/25 mix welding gas, threw on the regulator that I've had sitting on a shelf, and grabbed a spool of mig wire.

The only issue remained the plug for the welder... the cord it came with is like, maybe 3 feet long, which means I can pretty much only weld right up against the wall. Suboptimal. So I snagged a regular 10 gauge extension cord and picked up some 240v / 30 amp connectors for it. Now I can actually bring the welder to where I'm working, and not vice versa. It wasn't too bad of an issue before, but now that I want to do some exhaust work, bringing the whole car into the corner would not work well lol

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I may take you up on this, some parts for my rack and pinion setup for my RX-7 went missing in shipping and I don't have the ability to make them as pretty as I would like for them to be. Won't be until I get home in a couple of months though.

Sounds good! Just shoot me a PM.

You and me both. The VVT engine harness has been dropped off with my Master of All Things ECU to get modified to mate up to the ECU harness from the megasquirt. In the mean time, the next really big job I have lined up is to do the exhaust. I have a welder that's capable of doing it, however up until today it was only set up to use flux core wire. From what I understand, you *really* don't want to try and weld anything that you want to be air-tight with flux core. Like, ever. So, given that this machine is capable of proper MIG work, I picked up a bottle of 75/25 mix welding gas, threw on the regulator that I've had sitting on a shelf, and grabbed a spool of mig wire.

The only issue remained the plug for the welder... the cord it came with is like, maybe 3 feet long, which means I can pretty much only weld right up against the wall. Suboptimal. So I snagged a regular 10 gauge extension cord and picked up some 240v / 30 amp connectors for it. Now I can actually bring the welder to where I'm working, and not vice versa. It wasn't too bad of an issue before, but now that I want to do some exhaust work, bringing the whole car into the corner would not work well lol

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Welder extension cords FTW. I've got 20ft and 50ft 8awg extensions and have setup every 220V piece of equipment I use with the same 50A plugs, making everything interchangeable.

How are you planning on forming the exhaust bends? Slicing and dicing pre-bent sections?
 
How are you planning on forming the exhaust bends? Slicing and dicing pre-bent sections?

Really, the only change, as far as I know, is to the flange angle between the header and the cat (or, in my case, mid-pipe). So all I really need to do is cut the flange off the mid-pipe, cut the mid-pipe to the correct angle, and then tack the new flange on. Normally I might find myself with the pipe too short doing just that, but the Jackson racing header uses a donut flange, so the flange itself is going to be a good bit "thicker" dimensionally, so that should fill in any gap. If not, I'll add a small section of 2.25" pipe and call it good.
 
Really, the only change, as far as I know, is to the flange angle between the header and the cat (or, in my case, mid-pipe). So all I really need to do is cut the flange off the mid-pipe, cut the mid-pipe to the correct angle, and then tack the new flange on. Normally I might find myself with the pipe too short doing just that, but the Jackson racing header uses a donut flange, so the flange itself is going to be a good bit "thicker" dimensionally, so that should fill in any gap. If not, I'll add a small section of 2.25" pipe and call it good.

Not bad, that should be pretty easy. When I've had the need to change the angle on a flange I've cut most of the way through the tube, but left the end attached with a bit of pipe wall, about 1/2 or so of diametral distance. This method maintains the flange orientation nicely and you can bend it to the right angle in-situ. Make sense?
 
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