jmack

Today was the first official day of starting the long awaited work to my car. I have spent the winter buying up parts and slowly the basement was filling up. I brought the car out of storage a couple weeks ago, and have not done much except wash it a couple times - until now!



Here is a pic of my car taken last summer, pretty much stock, with a black hardtop courtesy of Rev9.

This saga really starts here - my US postal drop where I have been sending all my parts for the last month or so, in addition to what I had stockpiled in the basement. Long story short, they are really nice folks down there but they were getting irritated with the amount of parcels I had accumulated, so I had to go down on Friday, even before my coilovers and rims arrived.

I saved a ton on duties (still had to pay, but whatever) and delivery costs by doing it this way. I claimed $2200 at Customs. I was super organized, but not organized enough to bring the second page of my bill from Crutchfield, so my $500 stereo components were only put down as $170 - whoo! Customs didn't seem to concerned.



Since I obviously wasn't taking the Miata, I had to rent a vehicle - I got the largest non-truck I could:



Was great for the drive down (in the rain, yay) and held every thing I had down there.





Yup, got some cheap shoes for $72 a piece from Vulcan Tire.



Everything unloaded on the porch. OEM lip, stereo, Energy Suspension bushing set, Flyin Miata frame rails and high-flow cat, new Hella headlights, Hard Dog Rollbar (which I already wrecked by with my box cutter, hella noob move), some spare parts from Rosenthal Mazda, etc etc. Enkei RPF1's and Tein Flex will be ready for pickup next week, so I will be going down there again.

OK, on to the build. Today's objective was to rip out the stock exhaust, cat and header. All going to the dump, to replaced with these bits:



Topping the list of stupid things I have done lately - leaving my brand new jack out for the whole winter, under alot of snow and crud. But it still works great, and I gave it a shot of PB Blaster in some areas:



Here's the work area, my back yard. Enough space for the Miata, not much else.



(continued in next post)

jmack

First order of business, disconnect the battery before doing any work. I hadn't really done this before on the car, since I didn't really care for it. However, I want to do things 'right', so I am rewarded with this:



And this:



Ugh, there goes another afternoon. I'll have to clean it up, seal up the bad spots and get a new connector for the battery, as this one is cleary toasted.



A look at the stock header before taking anything apart. The nuts all came off very easily, after some PB Blaster was applied. Some of the bolts came out of the block, but that is not a huge deal.






Old header removed, glad I won't be seeing it again.



The heater hose was really getting in the way, so like a noob I decided to remove it. Much to my disappointment, coolant started leaking everywhere, duh. I dicked around with it for a bit, taking it out for a second, watching the coolant flow out, fill up a plastic bottle, then I just said screw it - I drained the coolant so I could work without it in the way.



The 5Zigen header would not go in without this bracket being removed. Some PB Blaster, a PVC extension pipe and a busted elbow was all it took to get the bolts out.



Test fit of the header. I finally got it on, after some wiggling. There was some speculation that this header would not fit since it appears to be a JDM one, and the steering colum would get in the way. I hemmed and hawwed, came back a couple minutes later and put it right into place with no modifications after some more wiggling.



Lots of space between the header and steering linkage, so it should work fine. I didn't completely install the header because I had some heat wrap to put on as well. Another noob move, I only got 50 feet of 1" tape, so it's gonna be tight. I got frustrated with the wrapping, which was surprising since I have been doing it to road bicycles since I was 13, so I gave up and left it for tommorow.

jmack

Comparo of stock and elite header.



I went back to the other stuff, since I was glad the header would fit, and proceeded to remove the rest of the stock system from the car. Seeya!



Hopefully I can get rid of this somewhere.



New RSR fitted, very nicely



Under side shot.



With the car right up on the jacks I poked around the chassis a bit more. This is the state it's in now, which is not terrible for a 18 year old Canadian car. The control arms and bits have some faint rusting, which I will take care of when I do the bushing install later in the season. They will get cleaned up and painted a fresh coat of black.



Also noticed this - looks like the slave cylinder is leaking. The clutch feels fine, but I'm no expert, so I plan on servicing or replacing the part before too long.

That's it for today. Tommorow I will finish up, and maybe put on the OEM front lip and the Rev9 rear lip, and some other minor tidbits.

Thanks for reading. I still have a ton of things to do, good thing I am unemployed, there is nothing like wrenching on the car on a Monday during a fine spring day

jmack

Damn these images are too big

XCLR8TN

I think they're fine, I can see what's in them clearly, lol. Nice build so far and VERY clean car! =D>

__________________
_Jess_
1991 White Mazda Miata DD
1991 BRG Mazda Miata

LS6 swap coming soon (getting close!)
http://clubroadster.net/vb_forum/89-roadster-projects/33687-91-brg-ls6-build.html

jmack

Thanks, yeah there is a little stretching of the forum but oh well

iRoadster

Good lord man! How much did you drop in that picture of all the boxes?! That's a lot of hooch!

jmack

LOL, I'd been saving up for a while... but yeah, quite a bit. So far as Canadian Customs knows, $2200. More pain to come next week with the wheels and coilovers. I did it all in one shot so I could save on UPS delivering to Canada and killing me with brokerage fees.

Still cost a bit to get it up here, including going to the Keg in Niagara Falls with the girlfriend - great view BTW of the Falls from the restaurant, it sure as hell beat giving that money and more to UPS.

Link

Awesome project! =D>

Excellent choice of parts. Looks like you went with the best all around. I really like the look of the black hard top.

I love installing a bunch of new parts at the same time, I would have had a hard time waiting though, once I get something I need to install it right away.

In for more pics!

__________________
1995 Miata
2001 Honda Odyssey

stormin'norman

wow looks fun good luck!

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"I think I'll go buy one of those large foam hands you see at sporting events and zip tie it to my left mirror in a permanent point-by position." -Rich Cohn Lee

invert

Awesome! Can't wait to see it finished

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Contact me for any JDM part. New or Used, I can get them all.

slutz4

those are some nice ass parts!

Trent

looks good! although, from what i can see of the clutch cylinder, looks like you might need a CAS o-ring more than anything else. If you look at the picture, you can see that it is covered in oil that dripped from above. If you haven't replaced the CAS o-ring in this car before, that's probably it.

__________________
'91 Miata, BEGi s2 turbo kit (GT2560r), 3" exhaust, AEM WBO2, 460cc injectors, MegasquirtPNP, Tein flex, Hyperflex bushings, 15x8 949Racing 6UL's, 225/45/15 Hankook RS2's, HDHCDDHT rollbar.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]

jmack

Thanks! I'll definitely look into this more tommorow when it's light out. As far as I know it hasn't been replaced, and I doubt it was replaced when Mazda did a service after I bought the car last year.

jmack

Day 2 of my build. Long story short the new header/cat/exhaust is down right evil sounding! Not only that, it pulls alot better, seems much faster. Sorry, butt dyno only, but in comparison to stock this thing just comes alive now. At first it was quite loud in the car and with the hardtop on but seems to have quieted down a bit, but damn when you hit the throttle it snarls. Not ricey sounding either, but hell, I'm sure alot of people who don't know better will shake their heads.

I want to get a video for you guys so you can check it out. I'm sure it's comparable to most of the other RSR setups up there but I'm not sure if there is one with this cat and header rolling around.

OK, back to business this morning with the header wrap. I finally got things going my way, but it still wasn't perfect at the end. Given all the bends and obsructions with this header, I wasn't really surprised and if you look at it the right way (see photos) you can't see the spots I couldn't get. There are only about 2 nickel and quarter sized spots on the #4 pipe that didn't get wrapped. No big deal, I made up for it in other places.



Frontside



Backside

I ended up have to shorten up one of the 2-1 wraps since it interfered with the steering colum, there is not alot of clearance there when getting the header in. The oxygen sensor also sits down further, but is actually easier to get to with the wrench now and there is enough cable.



All in!!! Only ran into one wrinkle, there was a half-assed bolt used in place of the real nuts and bolts going into the head and I ended up stripping the head by wrenching this little 'orphan' too tight. Oh well, not much to be done and I was not concerned since the other 8-9 bolts are good a tight. I pray for no leaks!



Clearance shot with header wrap and clamp.



Cat. Nothing very exciting here, it all bolted together really well, and no leakage.



Final shot of the bay with the air box and bits back in. After warming up the header wrapped got a bit darker. Had only some mild smoking as it idled for about 10 minutes. No exhaust leaks either, nice.



I also added the OEM front lip today. Didn't bother painting it, got too impatient!!!

I'll be back in a couple days as I do more of the build, I'm off to NY to get some more parts on Thursday.

Bryan

Don't paint the front lip...unless it's going to be black!

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Originator of OEM Plus™

jmack

Yeah it will be black

levnubhin

Nice build man. You need to adjust your headlight covers. Open the hood and just pull up on them a bit.

jmack

Yeah that has been bugging me for a while now. Thanks.

stormin'norman

this thread gives me "pas" (parts acquisition syndrome) - stolen and modified from guitar forums "gas" post more pics !!

__________________

"I think I'll go buy one of those large foam hands you see at sporting events and zip tie it to my left mirror in a permanent point-by position." -Rich Cohn Lee

reckless_abandon

damn, that makes me miss my rsr

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jmack

Time for another update. I've been driving the car around with the new exhaust setup and it's working quite well - increased acceleration and it winds out so much quicker than the stock setup. Plus the sound is bad ass for a little car like this. I'm still trying to get some videos together so you can get a better idear of what I'm talking about.

Anyways, on with the build progress...



Another trip to Niagara Falls to get the Tein Flex coilovers and wheels.



Yup, factory black RPF-1s. They are damn sexy in black. There are some red Enkei stickers that need to go on, but I will wait until the tires are mounted before putting on that finishing touch.



Thank you Y. SUZUKI for your inspection efforts!!



Backside. These are 35ET, although the 41 there is somewhat confusing.



Tein goodness.



A very unexciting shot of my battery area. I bought some sandpaper and rust paint to fix this up, as well as a new battery tray from Mazda since the old one was toast. The water seems to be coming from an unplugged tube, which the battery uses as well. I plugged it up and it rained all weekend, so far so good, nice and dry. I also installed some new connectors since the old ones were quite corroded.



Mazdaspeed steering wheel, courtesy of Rev9. It uses a Rev9 hub as well.

I also attempted to install my Mazdaspeed strut bar which I have had since last October, and finally got around to installing a USDM washer bottle so it would fit. However, the stock upper shock bolts were not long enough to install it, so I had to postpone. Thankfully the Tein bolts are much longer so it should not be an issues.

jmack

Today was the start of the coilover install. I got the majority of the work done in a couple hours, and will likely finish on Thursday. 3 of 4 shocks are in, I'm saving the right rear until last after I do my paint touch up in the battery area.

Overall, removing the stock equipment was not too painful, just needed some PB Blaster on the bolts and some hemming and hawing. I followed the directions in Keith Tanners book, basically remove the upper control arm bolt and drop the assembly so the shock can be removed. It's easy.



The undertray needs to be removed so you have the necessary clearances.



Old shock.



This is what happens with no shock in. Make sure you keep it elevated, or all the weight ends up on your brake line.



New shock fitted. Much better!! I left all the bolts loose since I am going to do the final tie down later on.



On the rear, you need to use a long bar to push the suspension assembly down to remove the shock. I just used the extra long bar that came with my jack.



Another noob moment. Since there was still tension on the rear sway bar, it ended grinding down the thread a bit. A little is OK, but you don't want too much since you won't be able to get the bolt back in or it may end up stripping the thread in the nut. I cleaned up my mess with a little file before putting it back.



Since the rear Flex shocks are shorter than stock, you need to push the assembly up in order to have the pillow mounts go into the body properly to be bolted down. I used a couple of bricks and the OEM wheel jack to make this happen easily.



Stock upper mount. Ugh. There was a small plastic gasket included, but I didn't use that on the new shocks. Shouldn't be a problem.

jmack

Teaser shot of the new wheels, sans tires. I am hoping to get them mounted up to the Azenis on Thursday.





The growing pile of OEM equipment removed from the car. The stock sway bars will soon join that pile, to be replaced with a set of FM sways, front and rear.



Pic of today's mess.

So, I still need to finalize the shock setup with the new wheels on.. For now, to keep things simple, I will be following the recommendations in the Flex manual for installation and go from there.

XCLR8TN

I really really like those wheels in black. I has no funds to buy them tho lol!

Lookin good so far

__________________
_Jess_
1991 White Mazda Miata DD
1991 BRG Mazda Miata

LS6 swap coming soon (getting close!)
http://clubroadster.net/vb_forum/showthread.php?t=33687

slutz4

wow. I really wouldnt mind picking up a set in black for track wheels. Very nice parts man.

sonique128

Choice parts! This is an awesome build so far.

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red90miata

I can't wait to see those wheels mounted! VERY NICE.

G-Lude

damn........wat a build...nice

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-alvin

DPEXP

I suffer from guitar acquisiton syndrome also.