We are back in business. 
Mr. J successfully rebuilt the megasquirt, while I've been doing body work (on a non-running car). The car has not left the trailer in 2 weeks.
But today, he shipped me the rebuilt MS, and we fired up again! Mr. J- you rock!
So, I am going to do a few quick things tonight and tomorrow evening, then off to FL for a weekend of racing. Should be fun!
Last night I did the brakes and remounted the driver's seat (which was screwed up by a poor install by yours truly). Tonight, I will shed a little weight, try to improve air intake flow, install a proportioning valve, and calm the underhood temps a bit.
Great news! When and where is the event this weekend?
The Firm on Saturday, and Gainesville Motor Speedway on Sunday (but if everything goes well on Sat, we won't do Sunday).
Think you can make it?
SVreX wrote: The Firm on Saturday, and Gainesville Motor Speedway on Sunday (but if everything goes well on Sat, we won't do Sunday). Think you can make it?
Wohoo!
Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu berk! If Saturday is the hard test.... Damn... You guys know you make it really hard to have a life right? Between a truck, paintball team, a move, and a challenge car. Screw time for myself... Geez. Let me check with the paintball crew to see if anyone is working Sunday instead of Saturday.
In reply to Spinout007:
We will be wrenching Saturday night and will need help if that's easier. Sat day is just watching other people drive to see if we did previous wrenching right.
It's like letting your teen drive all on their own for the first time. You want to be there in case anything goes out of wack. Sadly it's not even my car, maybe I've put too much time into it over the years
Spinout007 wrote: It's like letting your teen drive all on their own for the first time. You want to be there in case anything goes out of wack. Sadly it's not even my car, maybe I've put too much time into it over the years
Yeah, it's a big weekend-time to see if that orange abomination can really do what we think it can.
It's tough to make progress after I put the kids to bed... I'm a morning person.
I swapped the proportioning valve from a '96- should increase our rear braking pressure. A bit more of a pain than it should have been (rusty fittings, working in the dark...).
Opened up the air intake and doubled the intake area.
AND shed a few pounds- 71.2 lbs. to be precise. Pulled the passenger seat and harness, swapped the battery for a lawn mower battery, and did a little cutting.
That's enough for one night- gotta go to work at 5:15. Good night! 
So what SCCA class would you guys say this car is? I'm trying to register for a MSCC event at the FIRM on Saturday and they want my SCCA classification.
The car known as the Mumpkin:
-91 Miata
-stock 1.6
-poly bushings
-Torsen
-no interior
-Turbo
-Megasquirt
-cut doors
-Aftermarket shocks and springs
-13x8" steel wheels
-Bias Ply hoosiers
-Roll bar
-lots of etc... but I don't think much else gets us moved.
Thanks in advance!
I just saw on face space that the FIRM autocross is postponed.
Lof8 wrote: I just saw on face space that the FIRM autocross is postponed.
Crap.
In reply to MrJoshua:
Looks like were Goin to Gainesville on Sunday-maybe they can make a really bad reality show about us!
I think the bias plys and lack of interior send you straight into prepared. I'd probably just run it as XP
If our target is FTD in raw time, then it doesn't matter what class we are running.
Saturday is a no-go for me. Sunday might work.
Only made a little progress last night. It rained, and there is no room in my shop for this car, but I did get a 2nd cooling fan wired in.
Poco a poco.
For a test by fire for the newly repaired MegaSquirt the Mumpkin went to Gainesville Sunday to compete on the road course in a Buccaneer region SCCA event. It was a giant mud pit but fortunately (as a sign of things to come) the Mumpkin was feeling a little Hulked Out for the occasion:
The Megasquirt is Fixed! The tune isn't perfect and we still have some backfiring and popping 
but jacking the boost up to 16 psi seemed to help. 
Over 5 runs and worked our way down from a mid 67 second time to a mid 63 second time which probably put us in the top 10. We were still trounced by a very well prepped FTD Elise with more power, more driver experience with the car, more aero, more $, etc... that ran a mid 60 second run. I'm semi delusional, so I think we can catch him.
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?
MrJoshua wrote: So what SCCA class would you guys say this car is? I'm trying to register for a MSCC event at the FIRM on Saturday and they want my SCCA classification. The car known as the Mumpkin: -91 Miata -stock 1.6 -poly bushings -Torsen -no interior -Turbo -Megasquirt -cut doors -Aftermarket shocks and springs -13x8" steel wheels -Bias Ply hoosiers -Roll bar -lots of etc... but I don't think much else gets us moved. Thanks in advance!
I'm going with X Prepared.
In reply to Harvey:
Thank you. They put us in SSM but that was also for scheduling purposes (our driver was competing in ES in his car so he couldn't get "practice runs" in our car). The Mumpkin runs were classed as "instructor runs" so we wouldn't disrupt the normal SSM standings.
Backing up a bit...
I mentioned earlier that our idea to break out of the boredom of Miatadom was to build a Miata Fastback. While the car spent a lot of the last 2 months in FL with Mr Joshua and spinout007, I was building the fastback.
It all started with a measuring tape, a trip to the junkyard, and a small dose of alcohol or insanity (I don't remember which)...
I stumbled across this:
After careful consideration, a few test patterns, and more alcohol, our poor little victim looked more like this:
and THIS was in my driveway:
There is something supremely satisfying about hacking the crap out of a Mustang:
Any boy can enjoy it! :
And, our first test fit on the parts car looked like this:
Of course, my son and I BOTH had to test fit the car, and take pictures of each other. I had a great pic of my son with a big ear-to-ear grin (which I lost), but here is his pic of me seated at the wheel of our Fastback Miata:
More to come...
The initial effort showed the curves at the windscreen were nearly perfect:
Of course, its a little wide, but I will deal with that later.
At the rear, the width is more obvious. I will need to cut about 5" off each side at the front, and 8" off each side at the rear:
My idea was to use the Mustang roof as a pattern for the overall curves, make a mold, trim it to fit, then narrow the sides to fit the Miata, and build plugs for the sides. The final piece will be a 1 piece part, but the mold will be a 3 piece mold for easier removal.
The first thing I did was remove the trim, then Bondo the seam at the top of the rear window. I wanted 1 smooth sweeping curve, and the Mustang window wasn't going to work anyway- too wide. I could cut a window in of any shape at the end if I wanted. I cleaned it well, waxed it 5 coats, and sprayed it with release agent.
I cut fiberglass fabric to fit:
Then started covering with resin:
It was a bit of a family affair, in spite of the smell! (My wife is a definite keeper- if for no better reason than for putting up with me all these years!):
I built it up with 4 layers of glass, and added hose ribs so the mold would hold it's shape spanning the width of the car:
I should pause for a second... I've never done this before. I read about it on the Internet, and everything looks easy on the Internet. The lesson, of course, is don't believe that E36 M3 you read on the Internet!
Anyone with extensive fiberglass experience will quickly see all the things I did wrong. Don't bother to tell me- I'm too hard headed to listen anyway!
The final step in the roof panel was to drive some wedges in and pop the mold free from the Mustang roof:
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