199x Mialvo LeMons/Challenge/something

buzzboy wrote:

Man, you are brave doing all this work outside in the yard...

btw, Love the build ! Keep up the good work.

Not my yard ;)

My lease says I can't have a non-running or non-licensed vehicle in my driveway. Also, my driveway has a 10%+ slope.

Not a whole lot done today. Grabbed some 1" box and hardware to make seat mounts and bought a Horrible Freight SMAW. Then when I tried to use the welder I found it couldn't handle 1" box being welded to sheet metal. So I took it back and got the flux only MIG which I've got experience with. The extra 25$ is way worth it. Driver's side seat is in. All that's left on the driver's seat mount is to dress the welds and paint. Now I have somewhere to sit and make racecar noises!

Also, sadly I might need a quick release for this car. I don't like them, or want one, but getting out may be difficult. I'll know for sure after caging, which is a ways out, but I'm worried.

I gutted the gauges thinking I was going to mount my sparse instruments in the stock cluster. I'm kinda digging the look of the blacked out gauges though. I may need to find a new place for the gauges.

You know what racecars need? Extra sway bars.

Also had a friend drop off a sticker he got me today

I'm at a weird point where I'm starting to need to buy things before I continue. Need a kill switch before I can start wiring, need rotors before I can do brakes, need my engine back from the machine shop before I can do engine stuff. Maybe I'll con a friend into helping me move my scrap block around so I can work on engine mounts

The seatbelt towers look to be right where the main hoop will be going. Took me about 2 hours to hack out one. Gotta pull the driver's seat to do the other.

I foolishly thought the second tower would be easier to remove because I knew what I was dealing with. Nope. One of the previous owners boxed the things in with 20ga steel. Now there's nice spot to put a spreader plate for the main hoop of the cage.

Not sure what I can do to the car tomorrow but I'll figure something out. Brake rotors and hoses will be here Wednesday so that will be fun.

19+19=23

Hoodpins-hood+trunk=racecar

Miata-steeringwheel=ricetastic

The guy I bought the car from is a fabricator at a performance shop so I stopped by to pick up the key(which he finally found 4 months after purchase) and got him to drill some 2.125 holes in my new 2-gauge cluster.

My rockauto rotors and hoses also showed up today as well as my second Kirkey so I've got a lot of work I can do tomorrow.

New rotors and hoses for the brakes took me 3 hours

Look at all that passenger legroom!

Two seats!

That's coming along pretty nicely. I bet you didn't even strip out the rear adjuster screws.

Rear adjuster screws? Should I be worried that I don't know what those are?

It is more difficult than I imagined trying to locate an object in space and weld it there. I'm pretty happy what 3 hours did for me though. My killswitch is installed finally.

However, I went to reinstall the gauge cluster hood and I dropped it. It immediately shattered into 6.02x10^23 pieces.

Brackets again. Wideband and tacho required mounting points and I got the oil pressure gauge in place.

Also managed to destroy my crappy HF welding shield. Guess I'll be trolling for a used welding hood.

I'm mocking up the bumper cut and deciding what I want to cut it with. Turns out a cutoff wheel will cut it, but not in a pretty curve. My dad is a professional tape bender and I really wish he wasn't 5.5 hours away to help me get this thing symmetrical and pretty. Needless to say he'll be taping or at least helping tape the car up when I go for paint.

Parachute removed. Just need to sand the edges a bit and it will be perfect

Going to crush that drag coefficient with my sweet aero mods

That looks MUCH better. Well Done, Nice mod !

Battery is contained and cables are run. I bought 10' of cable and accidentally got the exact right amount

ssswitch wrote: That's coming along pretty nicely. I bet you didn't even strip out the rear adjuster screws.

Found out about the adjuster screws. F that S. I can do brakes on all corners of my Mercedes in the time it took to do one of the corners of the Miata.

Got the gauge cluster wired up today now that my bus block showed up.

When I went over to Advance Auto today I ordered my brake pads under my race team's(Idle Clatter) account. When they called to tell me my parts arrived the guy asked "Is this Idle." Got a little laugh from me.

Saw you busted your hf welding shield, i did too. If you havent found a replacement and If you have a tractor supply local check them out, i found a hobart helmet for $17 there. Oh and if i didnt already know i can tell you come from volvo world because dual swaybars haha

I wish my tractor supply wasn't 22 miles away. I realize that's only a few dollars in fuel to save a lot more. Maybe a welding helmet will make it worth my drive.

I've been toying with doing double sways on my w116 300SD for Lemons but I've not found a suitable second sway. I figured doing it on the miata would be a good test. 20$ for a junkyard sway equivalent to 23mm which sounds better than 200$ from FM.

Productive day for sure.

Deleted the antenna. Looks rough but will clean right up with bondo when I start the body work.

The battery that came in the car looks solid. I'm sure it puts out at least a cranking amp

Started wiring the engine bay terminal block and quickly grew tired of it. Got the kill switch related wires all installed though so at least there was progress.

The internet give me two ways of removing the dust shields. Either take off the hub or cut. After 15 minutes trying to remove the dust cover on the hub I resorted to cutting.

Look at all that unsprung weight I saved.

I'd rather do my own wiring than splice into stock so I opened up the fuse box to run a fan power wire. There is even an unused fuse. Too bad the connector that would go onto it isn't one I can find/buy but a Mazda piece. Oh well, I'll use an inline. Four whole gauges and ignition. Just need the engine half to finish this up. Zip ties every 6 inches is enough right?

You're making steady progress. What color/paint scheme are you going with?

I've had a LOT of ideas for theme. For a while I was thinking Mazda factory IMSA or Group B livery but... Keith's car changed my mind.

I'm planning Martini over silver though, not over white.