Dusterbd13 said:I had a $125 otd set of 440tw falkens on the stock 14s on my nb. I swear it felt like it accelerated, stopped, and handled better the worse the weather. The ultimate threshold of grip was FAR lower than stock, but it was way more fun.
Im half tempted to find another set of cheap, hard, crappy no seasons for the challenge car if i can make it pass inspection......
Before I can register the car in Texas it needs an inspection. Luckily it's 24.95 years old and emissions goes away at 25, so if it doesn't pass I can just do a bare title transfer, wait until January 1, and it'll pass then. I'm a curious guy though, and I like driving it, so on to the rollers!
It appears that I've purchased the worlds best crappy Miata.
Wow... doubly impressed, 1...that it passed and 2... that you actually found a station with a dyno...
In reply to spacecadet :
I know a guy.....who does legit inspections, but is really cool.
Now that I have plates and I'm legal and all I need to make the car better. First off is seating position. With the stock seat my hair brushes the hard top. I can't rallycross it like this.
I have an Ultrashield halo seat sitting around, so I decided to put that on the floor. I like it a LOT. But the shoulder support means I can't really close the door, the halo means I can't get out, and if I bolt it to the floor then I'm the only one who can drive. Not cool.
So the question is, how low can I get with stock seat rails? Hmmmmm........probably not a lot lower than the bottom of the stock seat pan. Maybe a little lower, but not a lot. Time for a full radical foamectomy.
Use an old towel for "padding" and took it for a drive. Just about perfect. With a helmet I can just fit my hand between it and the hardtop. Visibility is great. Shifting is great. A little lumpy on my right cheek, but I can deal with it for now. It's actually grippier than the stock seat bottom was. I just need to sort out a little sliver of padding and I'll be good for rallycross.
The other thing is tells me is that mounting any seat on the stock rails isn't going to work. The seat pan dips below the rails where my butt goes. I either need to find a seat that dips down like that, or I need to remove the humps and mount sliders directly to the floor. And yes, I feel that I need sliders so that a variety of people can drive. It's the right thing for this car.
those look like some pretty caustic farts some PO was having? (obviously not moxnix)
I'd say that's a pretty good reason to switch over to composite seat, imho
I know your trying to be cheap on this one but the Elise seats fit right on the floor and will give you all the room you need and they are only 400-500$ for a single. Used sparco sprints work as well with a full cage but you got to have like a 34 inseam and be sub 5 11' to get them to work.
You should be able to adapt the stock rails to that Ultra-Shield seat. I did that with some Sparco seats in my old 93, and it worked out fine. Make adaptor plates with a couple pieces of 1/4" x 2" flat bar.
That would certainly be lower than the stock seat.
In reply to wearymicrobe :
It has less to do with being cheap and more to do with figuring out what I need. Where do I need to sit and how do I get there. Today I figured out that I need to sit right about where the bare pan sits. That's super useful and worth my time taking the seat apart. Now I need to figure out how to get there with a proper seat.
I'm happy to take some pictures of my Elise seats if you want. I have mounts made by a guy called ryokurob, they are adjustable but not on sliders so it's not easy enough for dual driving during rallycross.
And, if you find yourself out this way, you're welcome to take my car for a spin and see what you think.
Can you get away with a non airbagged steering wheel & quick release? A smaller removable wheel will free up ingress/egress space if you end up installing the Ultrashield.
what about the 914 seats that Kieth put in that one miata that one time?
In reply to sleepyhead :
I actually have a set of those too. They're not quite as supportive as the Elise seats and the headrests aren't quite as tall, but they are very thin with the bottom cushion removed. They have a flat bottom and are bottom mount, so they're probably easier to adapt to stock sliders, though they'll sit on top of the sliders and not between them. I have those boxed up to ship to a friend at the moment, but I can take some pictures of those too if you're interested in details.
Sorry for hijacking your thread Seth but I went through this whole exercise fairly recently and have lots of opinions!
You have good timing - there's a set of Elise seats that just popped up in the $2000 classifieds.
Unless, of course, you buy that FM built RF and give up on this idea entirely.
About the seats: you can drop a little if you amputate the rear seat mounts and bolt the back of the sliders to the floor. A nice side effect is that the seat rises as you slide it forward. If you're going to try to run the stock seats with minimal padding, I'd recommend 1" of the blue Confor foam. Taking some foam out of the seat back helps as well.
Keith Tanner said:About the seats: you can drop a little if you amputate the rear seat mounts and bolt the back of the sliders to the floor. A nice side effect is that the seat rises as you slide it forward.
The only problem with this approach, is if/when you (or the next owner) then decides to go to a fixed seat #becauseracecar. Then the fixed mounts end up somewhere else, and now the usual "mount a seat in a miata mount" needs a custom front to mount to the front mount, and you've got 4-8 holes in the rear part of the pan... and it tends to get "flexy" back there if you don't add some metal back in between the sil and the tunnel.
ymmv
In reply to Keith Tanner :
I sit fairly far forward which is part of my problem. Playing around, the stock sliders have something like 7 inches of travel? (It's early, coffee is just starting to work) and I'm only three inches from full front. Dropping the rear of the rails will have less positive benefit, but it's on my radar for consideration.
For now, minimal padding gets my head where it needs to be for rallycross and street driving which is what I wanted to know. I think I'm going to order a Hard Dog M1 hardtop bar sometime in the near future and at that point I'll evaluate my current seating in relation to the roll bar and work from there.
sleepyhead said:Keith Tanner said:About the seats: you can drop a little if you amputate the rear seat mounts and bolt the back of the sliders to the floor. A nice side effect is that the seat rises as you slide it forward.
The only problem with this approach, is if/when you (or the next owner) then decides to go to a fixed seat #becauseracecar. Then the fixed mounts end up somewhere else, and now the usual "mount a seat in a miata mount" needs a custom front to mount to the front mount, and you've got 4-8 holes in the rear part of the pan... and it tends to get "flexy" back there if you don't add some metal back in between the sil and the tunnel.
ymmv
Not a problem. The fixed mounts can handle a range of seat angles, which means you adjust to suit. And usually you want the fixed seat as low as possible so losing the rear mounts is a plus. Besides, those rear mounts are just track-welded in so replacing them would be simple.
If you have Swiss cheesed the pan to the point where it’s becoming structurally unsound, this isn’t a big problem. You can just bolt in a big plate to reinforce it.
On the lift! I love the lift. The Miata barely fits on the lift with the post spacing I chose. I got lucky.
The plan today was to look things over and attack the clunks, rear first because it's easier. I pulled the sway bar and greased and checked everything, and then pulled the shocks. I suspect the noise comes from the bare springs on the bare upper perches. I just fixed the same noise on the Traccord using these same Energy Suspension parts.
The front appears to be more of the same but all four ball joint boots are cracked. It looks like I have to drop an arm to get the front shocks off (is this true?) And if I have to do that I might as well replace the ball joints. Any suggestions for sturdy parts?
I pull the bolts from the ball joint and lever the lca down for front strut removal theres probably a better solution though.
I thought it was easiest to pull the inner bolt(s) from the upper A arms to pull the shocks and springs in the front. So you don’t have to touch any ball joints if you don’t want to.
Well, I'll play with it but I need to pull the ball joints anyway. At least I can experiment for next time when I won't have to pull them.
Speaking of levering things, is every bushing on the car the captive sleeve stuck to rubber type? Ideally, would you want to lower the car to it's resting height and then tighten all of the suspension bolts?
Yes. Easier is to just Jack up under the control arm until that corner is at ride height and then tighten. Repeat 4x.
For my rallycross one I tightened everything at full drop though. Figured maybe it would pick up a little ride height (but possibly wear out the bushings sooner?)
Awesome. I actually have a set of Paco hub stands that are on the delivery truck to be delivered today. Should be easy to relax and retighten everything with those. 
In reply to mazdeuce - Seth :
FYI the upper ball joints are only replaceable with the a-arm. Also, the upper boots on mine were cracked, but the joints were fine. Advance had a pack of generic Dorman boots that actually worked fine, though you need 1-pack per side.
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