Well then, party on Garth.
Well then, party on Garth.
It's lonely out here. Any updates?
The update is that this fellow should be going home very soon and I can get back on the Molvo.
I have spent the last two months going over this Healey after it was dragged out of a 23 year slumber. Entire fuel system, entire brake system and all fluids needed to be changed out. Yesterday I paid someone to drive it around for an hour just to make sure that it is fit for the drive home.
Once the Healey leaves, I will be in a position to purchase the coil-overs for the Molvo. It currently sits on the stock Miata suspension and while it looks good hugging the ground, it would not be very practical.
Had hoped to plate the car this year and drive it around a bit to see what shook, rattled or fell off. The Healey pretty much ate that schedule so it will be next spring before it does it's first real drive. The expterior bodywork and the dash should be pretty much figured out by that stage also.
So stay tuned, unless the Healey owner decides to hit the project scope creep button and ask for a full restoration, then the Molvo will be back on page one. Since restoring cars can be rewarding, I am of two mind$ on that scenario.
Looks like the Healey is going to be round for a few more weeks. More beer fund but Molvo pushed back.
It is suspension buying time. Sadly I could not find enough wrong with the Healey to cover a set of Fox coil-overs no matter how much I lust over the on-line propaganda. So, as my "Settle for" suspension I am planning to order this package.
I suppose FM might be the direct one to ask but since Keith has a clue as to what I am doing and cruises by on a regular basis,I will ask: Are springs for this kit available in different rates? I was going to just crib the 550/375 lb rate that FM quotes for the fox coil overs as a starting point. Figure it would keep the rocker panels off the road.
Feedback from anyone who is running this package would be welcome.
Vmaxx isn't really anything special. VW guys ran em for years and most people ended up replacing them with H&R or KWs after a year or so.
The biggest disappointing thing about them though, is the lack of separate shock height adjustment. These require you to change the spring preload to adjust the height of the car, which means that you're effectively changing the travel of the shock in the process.
The FM VMAXX setups are decently good and are well reviewed, but the lack of height adjustment and the lack of rebuildability could be a limiting factor if you need that sort of thing.
If you want similar performance with more adjustment and better rebuildability, check out the Tein Street Advance lineup for the NA.
Otherwise the Vmaxx should be fine. I think the FM guys are actually on this forum too. I've seen them pipe up in other threads about these coilovers.
What is the "Fox" reference?
I can tell you -- for a traditional MacPherson strut front set up (if that's what the Miata has) -- 550 lb/in is extremely stiff for a street car....
Since the Molvo will be a fair bit heavier than a normal Miata, the extra spring rating will probably be welcome.
You can make educated guesses, but in reality you probably won't know until the car is finished and at full running weight.
MichaelYount said:for a traditional MacPherson strut front set up (if that's what the Miata has) ...
Nope, nopety nope nope, nope nope.
Good old fashioned double A arm.
What's typical for suspension upgrades when FM does V8 swaps?
Looks like the V8 Roadster DSD coil-overs solve the ride height adjustment issue as the ride height can be adjusted independently of pre-load. Have a e-mail in to see what spring rates they can supply since I expect the Molvo to end up about 200 lbs heavier than the typical LS Miata conversion.
It Lives!!!!!! yea!!!
759NRNG said:It Lives!!!!!! yea!!!
It most certainly does. Stills drives even!
What I dont have yet is the order of events that I am going to follow for the winter.
The immediate action item is getting the front sheet-metal re-attached to the rest of the car. Not very photogenic, but a huge milestone when it is done.
I'm going to suggest that you won't need spring rates as high as the FM kit has. If this is going to be SWMBO's cruising car softer will work fine. Stock NB Miata front springs range from 180 to 210 (I think) and you'll be heavier by some amount. Bilstein HDs that come on Miatas can handle a significant spring rate increase. I'd look at something like 250/300 fronts and 2/3 of that for the rear. It will depend on your final weight and how sporty you would like the ride quality.
I'm curious to see if Keith has any input.
Interesting what you say about the Bilsteins. It just so happens that I have a set of those in inventory.
Monster Miata's instructions cal for moving the front springs to the rear, and then buying new springs for the front from Monster Miata for about $100. Maybe I will start there.
Thanks for the info.
Since I declared this project to be back on the front burner, figured I should post something to back it up.
So, while one of the three Petes labours on getting the front sheet-metal ready to be welded back on, ( Big milestone to me) I am starting to address one of the things I have been dreading. Windshield wipers.
As those of you who have done this know, the firewall merge on a chassis swap can be the tricky part, what with merging the technologies and dimensional realities of the two cars. While this might look underwhelming as a picture, it represents a big step forward in my battle to get wipers on this car. A wiper mechanism has been located. A Volvo wiper mechanism using the Volvo mounting hardware! Success!!!!
The only thing missing is a method to drive said mechanism.
From this point, I am trying to contrive a way to drive the wipers with the Miata wiper motor. The benefit is that it will plug into the Miata harness that I want to use, and hence speak directly to the stalk controls, avec multiple speed options, as per the Miata factory intentions.
I know that I will know how to do this in the future, but right at this moment I don't have a clue! Failing the Miata motor, wonder if a linear drive of some sort might be out there? Maybe a servo that I can control speed and stroke-lenght?
What does the Miata motor look like? Size? I think you have a better 3d visual of that space than the rest of us do. I'm trying to imaging the space between the two layers of sheet metal.
mazdeuce - Seth said:What does the Miata motor look like? Size? I think you have a better 3d visual of that space than the rest of us do. I'm trying to imaging the space between the two layers of sheet metal.
going to have to be offset and driven via a link of some sort. This is going to be harder to do than it looks because the Volvo wiper had a back and forth stroke while the Miata is a rotary motion. I see some fabrication in the works.
That was my next question. Does the volvo turn rotary motion into back and forth within the case, or does it literally flop the motor direction back and forth? If you have a long enough arm then rotary motion becomes back and forth. We all love steam engines. 
In reply to mazdeuce - Seth :
It's been a while since I yanked the wiper assembly from my ES, but I am 99% sure the Volvo motor only turns in one direction and there is a mechanism that converts the rotating motion into a back-and-forth motion.
There has to be a way to get the Miata motor to mate with the Volvo mechanism.
More cardboard and tea oughta do it........ 
Ian:
Just spent the last 15 minutes having the same thought and looked at a few P 1800 wiper motors on line. I can pull out one of my other wiper assemblies for the 1800 and fire it up to make sure. Probably should have fired this one up to watch the movement before I cut it up!
Regardless, the activation is going to have to come from an offset location due to no room for a motor in the shown location.
Good news is this should keep me entertained for a while. Minion accuses me of being more interested in the problem than the solution anyway.
I was just in the car rider line at school behind a minivan. The rear wiper arm was off because the motor was stuck on. It occurs to me that rear wiper assemblies are pretty tiny because they only have to move one arm. Eniugh for two Volvo arms? Testing?
Most every wiper motor i have ever eorked with has a rotary motion. I have never seen a directional switching electric wiper setup.
Easy button here is use the factory miata arm. Drill hole. Make flat steel link from miata wiper motor to volvo piece. Bolt it all together. It will turn things directionally appropriate due to geometry.
Looking at pictures of the two assemblies (yay for eBay!), it doesn't look like it'll be too hard to remote-mount the Miata motor. From what I can see, the Miata mechanism is a motor spinning a bell-crank which moves a longish arm to one of the wiper posts. Looks ready-made to be adapted to what you want to do. Since you removed the Volvo motor and how it attaches to the linkage, you may need to add some bracing to replace the locating function the Volvo motor assembly provided.
Although really looking at the Miata assembly, modifying that to fit the Volvo spacing might be easier. Holy crap that system is simple: $30 assembly on eBay If anything else, it would give you Miata arms and wipers, which have GOT to be better than the Volvo wipers, which I can say from experience are marginally more effective than the wipers on your BGT. Maybe. I've driven an 1800ES in the rain quite a bit. The wipers kinda suck and replacement blades are kinda hard to get.
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