Project #4. "tiny giant" na miata journal

[1badg35]

thanks all. heres the rest of the current projects for the upcoming months

seat brackets
coils
wheels/tires
utility storage - going to discuss a little now


so, utility storage... this car as we all know has zero utility. I usually remove the passenger seat to be able to put anything in it.. getting a bit annoying to say the least. Since this car is the work truck daily, the need for some utility is needed. I carry a lot of automotive parts, wheels, wheel halves and faces back and forth to the shop and thus something needs to be done

so heres the project thoughts

miatas as well as other convertibles used to come with small aesthetic luggage racks on the trunk. mostly aesthetic, not structural at all but a good base for an idea.



since i have the factory hardtop but don't want to drill holes into it to put any type of roof rack on it, I'm going to take cues from that factory trunk luggage rack and build the following "safari trunk basket" as I've labeled it

just imagine this 49 x 36 x 6" yakima suv roof basket



only scaled down to be 36" wide x 20" deep x 6" tall....

since i had a second miata for a brief time as a parts car, clearly i own a second oem trunk lid. going to be beefing up the structure of the trunk lid, welding support to the trunk lid, fabricating the basket, and bolting the basket to this trunk permanently. bolt that on the car, add the roof basket mesh hold down and no more need to load up the interior with car parts.

all while not touching the existing trunk lid. so when i go to sell the car, unbolt the safari trunk lid and pop the stock one back on. like it didnt happen.

more details on this to come in a few days once the donor basket arrives from yakima. should be fun hacking up and stripping brand new parts.

[DER E30]

You basically gonna cut it in half both ways and weld back together? Seems like a hell of an idea for hauling stuff!

[1badg35]

yep, for the basket itself, exactly the plan. the 39" works fine for me, basically going to be taking the middle 20 or so inches out of it and tigging it back together. tiny for an suv, but perfect for a miata, and should be more than big enough for a pile of lips, and some wheel faces without issue..

haven't yet decided if I'm going to powder coat the entire thing including the trunk textured matte black or just dropping off the trunk to my friend after I reinforce it to match the white of the car. probably matching the car, and then just shooting the basket afterwords in textured black. i don't want the thing to look out of place at all


i cant stand the idea of permanently modifying a car that i don't plan on owning forever, so as you can tell all of the modifications to the car have the ability to come back off to turn the car back to stock if needed. not looking to back myself into a corner with selling a "modified car" with under 50k miles on it..

[DER E30]

Could always take the third option and bedliner the trunk white! I think they can do that nowadays, I've seen trucks with red spray in Bedliners so white shouldn't be bad to get.

[1badg35]

back from a crazed few weeks. haven't touched the forum for the past 3 weeks, business trips out of the country, getting the flu, 7 day work weeks... all at the same time of course...

updates shortly on the miata.

attempting to catch up on emails now too as there have been a few hundred to sift through haha



lot of random decisions have been made on the miata, and I think a few people are going to be surprised on whats been decided. its a go-kart, and is going to aim toward that.
-summer tires and wheels are in route (sounds weird as i have never bought a wheel before and just put it on a car) but simplicity and function is the name of the game here and it is after all a daily. a show set may or may not be in the works but i cant confirm this currently
-seats are almost ready to put in the car and are holding off on reupholstery for the time being.
-manual conversion on all the creature comforts is complete
-interior is complete for now
-coils are in, but are not getting cranked down a mile like the usual build.

[ineedmyls]

this thread is amazing.

[1badg35]

updates in about a week. just about everything is prepped and ready to drop into the car as soon as i get a chance.

oh and one of the wheel ideas is complete, but I've decided against using them in favor of something simpler and cheaper since the car gets beat up on new york streets daily. these rs are up for sale instead. to date the most understated finish combination combined with zero maintenance to keep clean.. damp rag and wipe

[hinrichs]

Love the finish on those rs, but then again I **** taking care of anything polished anymore.

[1badg35]

yeah every single piece is either triple chrome plated or radially brushed with hi gloss clear powder overtop. so needless to say, they look nicer and don't need anything other than water and a quick wipe to keep clean.

wouldn't have it any other way personally on a car that gets driven


* if anyone wants this very special 4x100 15" set of bbs rs, send over a message as they are all ready to go.

[hinrichs]

I wanted to get my supercups chromed for the longest time, but never sent them out for a refinish. I did have a friend with chrome lips always bust my ass at meets and would get out windex and a rag to clean his wheels just to piss me off.

Deff will keep that in mind if I ever get another set of 3 piece wheels again since my cars are always daily drivers.

[1badg35]

cool, yeah certainly there are many options for things that don't require polishing daily, just have to think up what that is and try to make it happen. pretty much half of my saturdays are spent shooting powder and trying different formulations and mixes to try to get finishes that i haven't seen before. too many guys with translucent gold and copper these days....

I sat in one of the new seats on the completed bracket (still not in the car yet) and while i love the seat, I'm not sure its right for my body. 6'3" 178lbs, i just feel like I'm sitting in the seat in a weird way, sort of hard to explain. I will confirm once they are bolted in the car and i get some seat time, but i have a feeling they may go up for sale with the fabricated brackets.. someone may get an opportunity for super easy drop in pair of super hard to find seats that were never sold here in the states..

[1badg35]

well, haven't had a single second to update much of anything recently as things have been just crazy around here, and to say I am exhausted would be an understatement.
I have though, out of necessity, been putting in some late night hours on the miata though to get it summer worthy. quick phone pictures of the mostly complete summer look. aim was go kart, seems to be going pretty well thus far on that goal



the coils are in and adjusted to a height that might not impress much around here, but is able to be completely tossed around like it should with zero issue. Coupled that with some 8lb rpf1s and some oversized falken azenis rt615k and its getting there. the one thing i have noticed over the past few days of spirited driving is that the brakes are a bit lacking, so that might need to get some attention in the near future.. not entirely sure if the funds want to go toward this or not just yet, as the goal was to always keep things budget conscious. But it may just happen because it can

and the almost completed interior





the seats are a really random opportunity that turned into a pretty big project. The seats are Corbeau LE pro buckets which are optional seat on the lotus exige s in the UK. not here in the states at all from my knowledge as I've never seen them here before. They are of the right proportion to fit well in the car, so it took a little digging but I got a pair sent across the pond and here they are. The stock seat rails were disassembled and I custom made some seat specific brackets out of 3/16 steel that attached to the oem rail to give full function as if oem. allows for 5pt harnesses though which may come in handy.

the entire black interior was swapped over in a 3 day go nuts process, the eunos non airbag wheel was installed, the window tracks were swapped over to manual tracks and cranks, and we are almost there. long way from what it looked like a few months ago.

so far driving experience is far improved. much much more planted in these seats, steering wheel size is more proportionate than the big oem wheel the thing came with, everything feels more connected to me when driving. I did manage to get semi used to driving a jeep for a few weeks, so getting back into this thing daily has been a challenge to say the least. forgot how small it was, and how no one notices you on the road at all. But overall, this thing is a blast. hopefully i can work a bit less and get some time to enjoy it.

[1badg35]

alright, so past few weeks the car has gone back to the daily driver and so far so good.

The wheels and tires are awesome, super light (noticeable) and its much more noticeable when throwing the car around in the twists.

suspension so far is good, probably would rate it a 7.5-8. i wound up only lowering the car about 1.5" all around because i want to drive the car to its potential and roads from this past winter are way worse than before in NY. The car drives a little bit harsher than expected, but it stiffened the car up quite a bit from before. there was a ton of body roll before, now its mostly gone. Car stays planted in the corners, and sort of scoots through them far more than before. Sticky tires (azenis rt615-k) always help with this, drawback that they are stiff and road imperfections rattle up through the car more than before. I notice this even moreso at night, the pop up headlights are annoying as they rattle with the imperfections of the road and must annoy the hell out of the people in front of me on the road..

Seats and interior - switching to the black interior, first thing you notice is that the interior is way cleaner than before. The no airbag sunos steering wheel is far nicer and less bulky than before, and the seats are much much much more supportive. They do have their drawbacks though, one of which is that they are very small in the lower portion of the seat. I'm a 32" waist and i fit pretty snug in the seat. And although the seat is far less padded and sits far lower than stock, I sit a little higher than expected because of the shape and straight up feeling of the back of the seat. Oh and obviously, much hotter in there this summer with an all black interior, nothing shocking though. Oh and the roll up windows are good and bad. good that they are simpler and lighter, bad in that they are sort of a pain when getting in and out of the car to have to lean over the interior and roll up/lock doors. one thing that is sort of nice about having a newer car is that you can press a button to lock the car / lift windows, but ill still take manual everything over it. Not sure the girlfriend would agree


Last thing noticed since i have been driving the car harder is that the stock brakes absolutely suck. Hoping some fluid and new rotors/pads fix this, otherwise going to have to upgrade to a wilwood little big brake kit to help fix this issue. Fade is noticeable, pedal feel is stiff but doesn't match actual stopping power when you actually need it. might be the last of the necessary upgrades on the car for now if I decide its necessary and the pads/rotors dont fix the issue
Unfortunately I cant get the larger rotor bbk upgrade because it doesn't physically fit under these wheels lol. Having similar issues to the fairlady, only big difference is the size of the "bbk". 10" rotor up front with 4 piston wilwood on the miata, 14.5" with 6 piston stoptech caliper on the z. Ill have to take a comparison picture off of the car to show the massive difference in size as its pretty hilarious.

[veedubbin]

I'll never forgive you for switching the interior. But the car is still cool.. I guess..

[1badg35]

it'll all make sense if i go through with the leather work that was planned. wouldnt have worked at all with the old interior color.

One thing I do need to do to finish the interior for now is figure out what to wrap the area behind the seats where the old soft top used to be. ill take a picture of what is there now..

oh and got my hands on an oem vinyl interior cover like this since i don't run the soft top and plan on not running the hard top all the time