V8 Miata Autox *VIDEOS* ..last page

[Miatadam]

Well I've been on here for a while now, and I just realized I never posted one of these "This is how I built my car" threads. So I'm going to try to round up pictures from the past year since I started building this car and post them up here in some sort of sequential order with somewhat of a commentary. The project is still going, so this will give me a place to post updates. Enjoy!

Well, this is where it all began..

I bought the car back in July of 06'. It was a bone stock 1996 M Edition Automatic. I called myself getting out of the "car thing" to live a normal life after this happened to my last car..



Here is what she looked like the week I got her..

[Miatadam]

Well of course, the height wasn't working for me, so I went ahead and did koni adjustables with Tein S-Tech springs and Racing Beat solid sway bars w/ adjustable endlinks. And picked up a set of Nitto tires because they were on sale. I also tried my skills with painting valve covers.











Everything was going swell w/ the car until I started hearing this noise...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMWwk47s0ak

It turned out that the guy I purchased the car from in Louisiana (probably miazda's dad) had the rod bearings replaced in the motor. Apparently his machinist wasn't that great of a machinist. Either way, he wouldnt answer phone or refer me to his machinist/mechanic.

[Miatadam]

Well in a strange turn of events, I just decided that I've always wanted to build a V8 miata, and why not? I'm just a 21 year old poor starving college student, now is the perfect time!! So THE PROJECT BEGAN!!! First step was the tear down... in Noah's grandmother's carport.









That's all for now, I'll keep adding more to the thread with every bit of spare time I can fester up.

[slutz4]

dam you, if you bring the beast I might have to go down for sure, nothing I like more than riding in a v8 miata, well maybe if you lemme drive it

[JDMAflac]

There you go asking to drive the car again LOL

[Wowak]

I'm kinda curious.. why did you disassemble the engine instead of just yanking it out?

[Stealth97]

I love threads like this. A poor college student manageing to get a v-8 into his miata is even better. Keep it coming!

[PYTHON]

Originally Posted by Wowak @ Sun Aug 19, 2007 9:12 pm

I'm kinda curious.. why did you disassemble the engine instead of just yanking it out?

we pulled the head to see if we could see if we could find what the problem was... we were hoping that the problem was in the head but turned out to be the rod bearings #-o


once we relized that the guy adam bought the car from was not going to fix the engine we sat there over the car trying to figure out what to do then made the call on doing a V8 swap

[Miatadam]

The next step was to clean up the bay, and remove uneeded parts and wiring (sorry no pics). Next was to get an engine. I chose a 5.0 Explorer engine because I was told it had good flowing heads and intake. Next, I got on the phone with Martin at Monster Miata to talk about the kit. First, he wanted to send me a manual for 80 bucks and let me read over it and make sure I wanted to do it. I told him Oh, I'm doing it, I want it all. So he went ahead and sent the little 40 page manual before anything and I read it through and through in class. For $3995 plus shipping, this is what you get...



You send him a stock 5.0 (mustang) oil pan that he keeps and he sends you a modified one in return. You also send him your k-frame out of the car of which he also modifies by adding pedestals for the motor mounts and removing part of it to clear the bellhousing and starter. He's not the biggest car genius, but he's an excellent welder. He also offers for an additional $1000 the 7.5" IRS rear end with fresh internals in a custom hanger, custom shortened axles, and modified stock hubs (you send these to him also). Here's a closer pic of a modified k frame.



The next step was to ready the engine bay for the new setup. I didn't take any pictures in this step but but I found one that will demonstrate what I'm saying. I removed all a/c and p/s lines, cut out all of the brackets that held the stock radiator, had to uncurl the front radiator support and hammer it flat so the new radiator can slide under it. There are sections in the firewall that also must be cut to clear the width of the engine (picture below). The transmission tunnel must also be widened with several blows of a sledge hammer, so that the bellhousing and slave cylinder will fit.



After plenty of cutting, sanding, priming, and painting, it looks satisfactory. While I waited for the engine, transmission, and all kit parts I had ordered to come in, I decided I would go ahead and beef up my suspension a little more and get some Ground Control coilovers, FCM top hats, linear bumpstops, and dust boots, and a new set of wheels.




Here's a silly MS Paint demonstration of what had to be removed..



Skip ahead a couple months and I have the majority of my kit parts in and the engine which I tore down to the small block, painted it and put new gaskets and sealant on everything. Next thing I needed to figure out was how to mount the radiator. The kit was designed to mount the radiator beneath the front radiator support, with the fans on the front. Something like this..



That wasn't working for me at all. I would take a long lip to even cover the bottom of the radiator and you risk the chance of hit hitting the ground all the time. Also, by choosing the explorer engine, the pulley setup places the belt a good 2-3 inches closer to the motor than does the mustang pulley setup, leaving room for the fans to go on the inside of the radiator. In order to accomplish this, I redrilled the radiator mounts fabbed up by martin to place the radiator a little higher and massaged the upper radiator support with a nice hammer and some cutting. It turned out a little something like this..

[Bryan]

Nice work

[webba1]

Keep it comin man, great stuff!!!

[Miatadam]

After the new modified k frame was installed with quarter inch shims between it and the body, the next task was to test fit the motor. The modified oil pan from Martin has a section cut out of the front sump because the oil pick up tube is in the rear sump. It also had to be modified slightly to clear the new cut out. The easiest way to install this setup is motor first, then transmission, unlike the stock engine. Mainly because its bulky and the motor and transmission just weigh more than I'd want to drop on my car. The first try was unsuccessful as you can tell from the pictures below. The oil pan was resting on the steering rack and not allowing the motor to go down any more too connect the right side mount. To fix this problem, I was able to shim the motor plates downward a little which raises the motor up the width of the shim. I also pulled out the grinder and ground a little off of the aluminum area of the steering rack to gain some additional clearance. The goal of the project is to keep it under the stock hood, so every inch counts. Also, the motor needed to be placed as far back as possible against the firewall for weight distribution and fan clearance in the front. Here are a few pictures..







I also forgot to mention that the headers had to be placed into the engine bay and tied up before the motor went in because it's nearly impossible to install them afterwards. If you look close in the first picture above, you can see that the steering rack passes through the driver's side header (PITA). The headers exit between the k frame and the body. NEXT TO THE FUEL LINES on the passenger side. I put some fiberglass heat wrap on them, and I'll most likely go back and add some more and a heat shield to battle the radiant heat produced by the header. Also, since I removed the a/c I used freeze plugs to plug the holes in the firewall.

[Miatadam]

*Updated* Adding more as the night goes on!

[Bryan]

Links aren't working on your latest pics

[PYTHON]

they work for me

[Bryan]

Originally Posted by noah @ Mon Aug 20, 2007 10:44 pm

they work for me

Bummer...I must be on Planet Doofus...they're still not workin

[Miatadam]

The next step was installing the rear differential, modified hubs, and axles. There is a torque brace that must be welded onto the front of the rear subframe to support the front of the differential. After this is welded in, the differential is basically a bolt-in with the differential mount in the kit. It utilizes your stock mounting hardware. I went ahead and installed Mazda Motorsports polyurethane differential mounts while I was in there. The pinion angle had to be set later after the transmission and driveshaft was installed. Next step was installing the axles. I got the right side axle in NO PROBLEM, but the left was an entirely different story. I had several people come over that night and try their luck with the axle, and it just wouldn't slide into the differential. I went home feeling like a failure that night. I went back the next day after thinking about all possibilities and finally looked at the end of the axle in the daylight, and found that the splines after the C-ring didn't line up with those on the end of the axle. HOLY CRAP! Well, needless to say, it was a manufacturing error and had to be returned to Martin, and he exchanged it for another one.







The next thing to do was install the clutch, flywheel, clutch fork, bellhousing, a larger master cylinder, a new stock slave cylinder, a braided line, and the transmission using the custom transmission brace and mount provided in the kit. The larger master cylinder is there to create a higher amount of pressure needed to compress the larger pressure plate. I went with an 11 lb. 2 piece flywheel from fidanza and an Exedy stage 1 clutch. The transmission I chose was a rebuilt T5 with steel input and output shaft bearings to support a little more hp. The frame rails had to be drilled to and straightened to mount the transmission brace.

[LostSoulMiata]

Originally Posted by Bryan @ Mon Aug 20, 2007 11:16 pm

Bummer...I must be on Planet Doofus...they're still not workin

IE7 or Firefox? Works fine for me as well.

[Link]

Looks like a lot of work! I'm sure it will be worth it. Keep it up!

[JonBodon]

Kick ass. Great work, killer project.

[Bryan]

Originally Posted by LostSoulMiata @ Mon Aug 20, 2007 11:48 pm

IE7 or Firefox? Works fine for me as well.

IE7. I think it was a problem with my ISP, because they're working now

Dude...this is great work! I'm really enjoying the picture walk through =D>

[ultimateforce]

Using IE is your first mistake, man.

[Stealth97]

Wow, this is a fricken awesome project. Loving the write up.

[P90Puma]

Nice writeup, The boot for the balljoint on the upper control arm in the picture showing the new GCC's looks like it has split. You should replace that, if you haven't already.

[Miatadam]

Yea, it needs balljoints on both sides, just haven't fit that in the budget quite yet, but its definitely on the list! Ok, back to this write-up thing...


Next is the wiring portion AAH. Its really not that bad, unless your not to good at reading and crossing referencing wiring diagrams. I just had to acquire a 89-93 Mustang wiring diagram and 1996 Miata diagram and just figure out which parts of the Mustang harness needed a constant hot, keyed hot, sensor ground, and chassis ground and tap the Miata harness for those supply points. It would have made it easier had my ECU been located in the passenger floorboard like the earlier miatas. Unfortunately mine was located BEHIND the passenger seat so it was more fun unwrapping the 5 foot long harness and tracing wires up to the passenger floorboard where the new ECU was to be installed. What looks like phone line in the pics is a data line for my twEECer engine management that leads to a switch on the drivers side that allows me to switch between 3 different tunes. You also may be able to see the serial cable that connects to the laptop for tuning. The duct tape is the best adhesive material I could find to hold the plug into the data port on the ecu. I also had to created some heater hoses and start figuring out some place to put the alternator since I ditched the heavy stock brackets. The alternators placement isn't permanent, just a starting point. Fuel lines were also another issue I was working on at the time. But don't worry, it all got worked out in the end.












Also, a new hole had to be cut into the firewall for the harness to pass through using the stock Ford grommet.

[Miatadam]

Then I did a little trial fan and radiator fitting action. A shroud was in the near future. I also got to work on some custom radiator hosing and a little trial fitment of an intake setup. I stabbed the distributor on TDC, then I installed my new Rats Back CF lip to give a little "flava" on the front side. Next, me and noah pushed her outside for the first time in months for a little fresh air, and snapped some pics while she did a little sunbathing. Thats not dust, thats sunscreen.

[Bill-B]

S-E-X-Y

[Bryan]

Is that a turnbuckle I see you're using as a torque damper?

[Miatadam]

Originally Posted by Bryan @ Fri Aug 24, 2007 7:46 am

Is that a turnbuckle I see you're using as a torque damper?

The alternators placement isn't permanent, just a starting point.

It was a part I had laying around that I used for a little design engineering of a tensioner setup and a custom bracket. Of course it can't work attatched the chassis like that, but placement of the alternator was the main issue. Stock setup is on the opposite side (wires had to be extended etc.).

[Bryan]

Originally Posted by Miatadam @ Fri Aug 24, 2007 10:06 am

The alternators placement isn't permanent, just a starting point.

It was a part I had laying around that I used for a little design engineering of a tensioner setup and a custom bracket. Of course it can't work attatched the chassis like that, but placement of the alternator was the main issue. Stock setup is on the opposite side (wires had to be extended etc.).

Oops...got too distracted by the pritty pics =D>





...OOO! SHINY OBJECT!


(runs away)