'90 Mazdaspeed Miata Rallycross Project

I am starting a new thread for my project. Mainly because I have a hard time finding the old one when it has been months since my last update .

1990 Miata
2004 Mazdaspeed engine and shocks/springs.
Fatcat Motorsports tophats and bumpstops.

I am in the process of pulling the 1.6L engine to get the MSM engine mounted in. Hopefully by the end of the week I can have it in place and get started on the wiring and plumbing.

The Car:

The Engine:

Squirrels seem to think my engine bay is a nice place to hang out when it is cold outside.

I was stunned when I found out you were rallycrossing a Miata. Now I am even more stunned that you are swapping to the MSM engine.

Well done!

yes

/thread

Funny, I'm partway through an MSM swap on my 1990. Partway, meaning "I took the old engine out yesterday". I'm not keeping the factory turbo, though.

Dear EvanB,

I hate you. Your sweet project is making me miss my Miata.

Good luck.

• Carkid

Keith wrote: Funny, I'm partway through an MSM swap on my 1990. Partway, meaning "I took the old engine out yesterday". I'm not keeping the factory turbo, though.

Well you are further along than me. I may have some more questions as I get deeper into the swap.

CarKid1989 wrote: Dear EvanB, I hate you. Your sweet project is making me miss my Miata. Good luck. - Carkid

Once you get done with the Saturn you can come and make this project look all clean and nice .

I buddy of mine is putting his 1994 Miata up for sale. I've been debating setting it up for rallycross just to be different, but I'm kind of stuck on what springs to use.

Are the NB springs good for a little bit more ground clearence? To illustrate why this is important, I bottom out over some of the ruts in my stock Forester XT.

NB springs have an open coil on one end, so they're not going to be a great choice on NA shocks. If you paired NB springs and shocks with NA upper mounts (the opposite of the usual setup), that would lift the car. Or, get yourself a set of stock 1996/97 springs, they're quite tall.

Keith wrote: NB springs have an open coil on one end, so they're not going to be a great choice on NA shocks. If you paired NB springs and shocks with NA upper mounts (the opposite of the usual setup), that would lift the car. Or, get yourself a set of stock 1996/97 springs, they're quite tall.

This.

My buddy has a stock 96, and the thing is a monster truck.

EvanB wrote:

CarKid1989 wrote: Dear EvanB, I hate you. Your sweet project is making me miss my Miata. Good luck. - Carkid

Once you get done with the Saturn you can come and make this project look all clean and nice .

I might take you up on this

Brett_Murphy wrote: I buddy of mine is putting his 1994 Miata up for sale. I've been debating setting it up for rallycross just to be different, but I'm kind of stuck on what springs to use. Are the NB springs good for a little bit more ground clearence? To illustrate why this is important, I bottom out over some of the ruts in my stock Forester XT.

The NB shocks/springs with NB mounts didn't lift the car very much over the stock setup, an inch at the most. However, I didn't have any problems bottoming out even with the blown stock suspension. Riding on the bumpstops did happen quite often though.

The mazdaspeed bilsteins and springs paired with the NB mounts and FCM 36/46 bumpstops is a great improvement over stock.

Hey Evan

You've probably got this covered...but I was just looking at the sport motor mounts I still have lying around (new in the bags) that I bought before my old Miata got totalled (twice). Make an offer and I'll throw 'em in a flatrate box to you.

Unfortunately, I don't have the same job so won't be able to deliver them at a local (to you) brew pub.

Clem (Alex)

Are those the mazda competition mounts? I was considering going with new mounts since the ones I have are slightly torn but the budget is pretty tight right now so I was just going to change them out later.

I'd be really tempted to either get or fabricate copies of the mounts that goodwin racing sells, it's basically a poly suspension bushing that mounts to the front subframe, then a small bracket that bolts to the engine, and boom, engine mount that won't let the engine move too far even if the bushing becomes no more

Not a good street car solution. We tried a set of the AWR mounts on our NC. Extreme NVH.

"Try it and see". The NVH with my VW's solid poly mounts is basically unchanged. (B2/B3 chassis VWAG: Use Fox-body Mustang transmission mounts instead of failure-prone OE motor mounts. They do not move much at all)

I've driven plenty of V8s that had solid steel motor mounts and they were fine. I tried that with a 13B and it sucked. Chaining the engine down, however, is perfectly fine.

EvanB wrote: However, I didn't have any problems bottoming out even with the blown stock suspension. Riding on the bumpstops did happen quite often though.

I recently realized that people have two different ideas of what constitutes "bottoming out."

I've always taken it to mean 'using the full compression travel of the suspension and hitting the hard stops' while others take it to mean that some part of the undercarriage is hitting the ground.

EvanB wrote: The mazdaspeed bilsteins and springs paired with the NB mounts and FCM 36/46 bumpstops is a great improvement over stock.

Amen.

With the new suspension, this car was already just a good LSD away from total awesomeness. Hopefully all the pieces come together well in 2012.

I'm surprised this is legal for rally cross. My rally cross group doesn't allow convertibles at all. Even with a hard top.

EvanB wrote: Are those the mazda competition mounts? I was considering going with new mounts since the ones I have are slightly torn but the budget is pretty tight right now so I was just going to change them out later.

Yeah...I forget the right name...but they're the competition mounts that mazda makes. I bought them to replace, eventually, on my old miata (engine hit the hood in the first totalling)...but it got whacked hard and parted. I still have the mounts in the plastic bags. I'll get numbers off of them one of the evenings this week so you can research or whatever.

Clem

I've come to use the terms "bottoming out" (running out of suspension travel) and "grounding out" (layin' frame, baby!) to distinguish between the two.

As I was writing that response I was wondering which meaning of bottoming out was being referred too. For some reason I automatically think of the frame/bottom of the car hitting the ground. After thinking about it more it makes more sense to use it for running out of suspension travel.

What Keith said

The lovely garage:

Of course the last nut to remove the hood is frozen and the bolt is spinning...there is no way to access to other side of the bolt to hold it. I tried to dremel a slot in the end of the bolt to hold with a screwdriver while I turned the nut but that didn't work out so well. I'll deal with that later.

The current teardown progress...not much to look at:

Engine is out. It went a bit easier when I realized that I forgot to unhook the fuel lines .