Impulse Buy: Drift Miata

[Fruttolo]

Dunno about how skinny yo ass is, since those are really narrow, but here's an (expensive af) example of an elise seat with really high sides

https://www.sportseats4u.co.uk/shop/racing-seat-harness-roll-cages-brands/corbeau-seats-road-and-race/corbeau-lotus-racing-seats/corbeau-le-x-1-lotus-racing-seat/

Only thing they all lack is shoulder support, for obvious reasons, but I don't think there is much room for that in a miata either

[bwwaaaa]

Glad to see it was an easy fix for the oil issue. Sucks about the seat situation.

Thanks! And I'll figure the seat out one way or another. Considering the Spec Miata seat drop at the moment. Requires some aggressive cutting and welding of the floor, but might solve the issue for good.

Seat situation is classic for tall people in miatas...the only thing I've seen successfully working are Lotus Elise seats on fixed brackets (stock or racing-er aftermarket ones if you need more side support), and those are actually comfy too even with near to no padding. Dunno about availability on that side of the big salty waters tho

Fun story actually, I had another NA Miata about 6 years ago. One of my only modifications to it before the engine imploded was putting a Lotus Elise seat in. I had to dig around, and this was the only photo I could find of that.

They're expensive, and definitely make you sit far back in a Miata. However, they're not very supportive laterally. For drifting, I need that lateral support to keep me upright while going sideways. That said, they might be my only option.

[Fruttolo]

Seat situation is classic for tall people in miatas...the only thing I've seen successfully working are Lotus Elise seats on fixed brackets (stock or racing-er aftermarket ones if you need more side support), and those are actually comfy too even with near to no padding. Dunno about availability on that side of the big salty waters tho

[hinrichs]

Glad to see it was an easy fix for the oil issue. Sucks about the seat situation.

[bwwaaaa]

Big Fail

Right, so a lot to unpack in this post, and very few photos. I've been swamped lately, so what little time I've had to work on the car is always kind of a thrash. That basically means no photos.

I ended up going to my first track day with the Miata, and it was a bit of a disaster. To rewind a little bit, since my last update, I gave up on the Car Make Corn's seats. The Garage Star seat bracket I purchased for them doesn't work with the XL version of the Corn's seat. GS swore up and down that this seat rail would in fact get me to fit well in the Miata. I ended up picking an OMP Champ R, something a local distributor said they had installed in a Miata, with a GS rail, and it would fit me well. Sure enough, no luck. The GS rail kind of sucks, simply because it sacrifices reward mobility for a fairly useless adjustment system.

The problem is my legs are so long that I have to bend them substantially to place them on the pedals. This puts my knees into the steering wheel. I ended up getting an NRG hub and quick release, but even that didn't put the steering wheel far enough away from my knees. So I borrowed a deep dish steering wheel, and while that finally cleared my knees, the steering wheel was now practically in my face.

This about made me give up on the car entirely. I was now two seat setups in with no results, and getting frustrated with bad information from companies. But, I had already swapped in the welded differential.

This last weekend I decided to sign up for a local drift clinic and evening drifting event. I figured I may as well get some seat time out of the car before I get rid of it. Two things happened.

1. I almost blew the whole thing up.
2. I absolutely fell in love with the car.

I'll address the second point first. As it turns out, just doing some dumb donuts around a cone in a Miata is absurdly fun. Took me a bit to get a hang of it, being on blown stock suspension and fighting a short wheel base wasn't ideal. But towards the end of the time I did get, I was starting to get the hang of it.

To the first point, about 1.5 hours in, the instructor sitting in the Miata with me looked out the window and asked me if the car leaked. It hadn't up until that point, I just redid most of the seals on the engine. But sure enough there was a ring of oil spots where I had been going around the cone. I went into the pits, tightened the valve cover, and went back out. Worse this time, puking oil, and I finally shut it off when I lost all oil pressure. Back to the pits, the engine bay is COVERED in oil.

Some more poking around, and sure enough it looks like my brand new front main had failed and vomited oil onto the timing belt, which in turn flung it everywhere. I was at the track alone, drove the Miata there, and didn't really see myself successfully repairing it track side, so what was supposed to be a ~11 hour day at the track, ended at about 2 hours. Bummer, but it happens. I then had to uber to the nearest AutoZone to pick up oil, uber back and pack up my things. Fortunately with the oil topped off, and not under heavy load, it didn't spew oil and seemed to hold oil pressure. So I limped it home, stopping every few miles just to make sure things hadn't gotten worse.

That evening, someone suggested that it wasn't the seal that failed by itself, but rather I had a faulty PCV valve that was building up too much crankcase pressure. This would cause the oil to push past the seal, and result in that failure. A friend had a new one on his shelf, so I picked it up and plopped it in the Miata in about 30 seconds. Sure enough, full oil pressure and no more spewing under heavy load. Annoying that such a simple part ruined my first go at a track day.

You live and you learn, now that I know what caused the problem, I'll clean the engine back up and make sure there wasn't any damage to the seals. I'm going to make a couple of changes to the engine bay to make it easier to monitor leaks and spills, and get a seat in. Hopefully I'll have coilovers in soon, and I'll get this thing a little more dialed. This weekend was a learning experience, and I came super under prepared for such a long event. Now that my schedules are a little more normal, and I'm not traveling so much, I'll take more photos and update more often.

If you read through that wall of text, thank you for bearing with me

[samulis]

Oh yeah, I'm still moving forward with tracking this car. But I can't help but feel a bit of guilt the cleaner this car gets. Regardless this is what I bought it for, and for the money I wouldn't get anything better.

I've put out a feeler for a 1.8 diff, several people have warned me that the 1.6 will shatter sooner or later. So hopefully I can find a setup locally and get that swapped over. I want as much seat time as possible with this car, so any weak spots will need to be taken care of to prevent down time.

NB 1.6 has same "big" diff too. BNFL has so called "super fuji" diff that isn't all that sturdy, but should be ok as long as you dont turbo it. Friend had super rare JDM special 4.88 with torsen, that was fun, hitting the rev limiter at 180km/h 110mph, but it pulled quite nicely. You can swap 4.7 ration ring and pinion from Kia Sportage front diff into 1.8 diff.
Also you can remove the crash bumbers that are hidden under the bumber covers, nice weight reduction.

[bwwaaaa]

Nice project. Don't feel bad, I had super rare JDM import, numbered Mazdaspeed build NA, showroom mint with low mileage, AC, leather interior and fully build Mazdaspeed engine, exhaust, roll bar, suspension, KAAZ LSD etc and it became crash'd and trash'd track whore. Trash it.
But have to say a good luck with 1.6 diff. I've broken one (and I'm not alone), standard N/A power, ring and pinion will shat them selfs. I would start searching 1.8 diff with axles to go with it asap.

Oh yeah, I'm still moving forward with tracking this car. But I can't help but feel a bit of guilt the cleaner this car gets. Regardless this is what I bought it for, and for the money I wouldn't get anything better.

I've put out a feeler for a 1.8 diff, several people have warned me that the 1.6 will shatter sooner or later. So hopefully I can find a setup locally and get that swapped over. I want as much seat time as possible with this car, so any weak spots will need to be taken care of to prevent down time.

[samulis]

Nice project. Don't feel bad, I had super rare JDM import, numbered Mazdaspeed build NA, showroom mint with low mileage, AC, leather interior and fully build Mazdaspeed engine, exhaust, roll bar, suspension, KAAZ LSD etc and it became crash'd and trash'd track whore. Trash it.
But have to say a good luck with 1.6 diff. I've broken one (and I'm not alone), standard N/A power, ring and pinion will shat them selfs. I would start searching 1.8 diff with axles to go with it asap.

[bwwaaaa]

I'm jealous and now I want one too

Haha they do seem to be going through a cheap streak right now. I’ve seen quite a few good deals for Miatas lately. So now is the time to buy I suppose!

Too Nice to Drift?

When I picked up this Miata, we commented on the fact that the paint might be savable. Looking at the previous photos in this thread, it might seem unlikely but that’s the beauty of single stage paint. With no clear coat pealing, you just need to knock off the oxidation on the paint and you can get a decent shine going again.

So, with the car running and driving, I decided to spend an afternoon cutting and buffing the car. I borrowed a good buffer, spent $80 on some cutting supplies, and setup shop in the driveway. I’ve never actually properly buffed a car myself to this extent, so I made some rookie mistakes.

Also I apologize for the massive oil stain in the driveway you see in some shots. There was an incident, I’m going to clean it .

My setup for the next 4 hours


Before


Before

So it’s in pretty rough shape. Not photographed are the in between steps, because it was a subtle transformation in between each pass. But here’s what I did.

• Strip wash (to remove grease an oils)
• Clay bar
• Three passes of cutting (finer cut each time)
• Sealed with carnuba wax

This is a very time consuming process honestly, and I started around 10am, and was cleaning up around 3pm. That said, the results kind of speak for themselves. I put a few before and afters, which I think demonstrate the difference best.

The faded paint has gone from disgusting, to presentable. To be clear, the car is far from perfect. For example the hard top simply wouldn’t buff out well no matter what I did. I think it was resprayed with some other paint at some point, and it just powdered up. I also took the lazy route and didn’t remove tail lights, mirrors, handles etc. I just wanted a broad cut and buff to make the car look a little nicer.

Horrible oil stain aside, the car looks better!


Post deep waxing.

I’m starting to feel a little guilty for planning on drifting this Miata. It’s rust free, crash free, 90% stock. That said, I rather work with a car like this, clean and trouble free, than waste seat time on a basket case. Maybe I shouldn’t have made it so pretty, but I’m happy with the results all the same.

Up next, I need to figure out some interior bits. I absolutely have to get a steering wheel in the car, the stock one is disgusting and too big for my knees. I also want to get my bucket seats in, and I think I have zeroed in on a solution for this. I’ll be dropping off the spare diff for some gear melting this week, and next weekend plan to get it in the car. Also a few coolant lines that I didn’t replace started weeping. Best to fix them now before they explode. Then, minus coilovers, the car will pretty much be track ready.

[DawsonLiri]

I'm jealous and now I want one too

[bwwaaaa]

It Runs

So buying this car was always a little bit of a gamble. That's how I bought it, pictured above. Like I said before, the previous owner started the timing belt process, got stuck, bought a new Mustang, and dumped the car on Craigslist. Though his story seemed to check out, you never really know if it's accurate until you actually get it running. The good news is, it's a healthy 1.6!

Last night we went from bare engine to running and driving. Interestingly enough the car came with an HKS intake, which is kind of cool for the JDM scene points. But otherwise serves to be nothing other than a pain in the ass to put on. I have some fresh Mishimoto silicone hoses, new water pump, new timing belt, new cam seals, new front crank seal etc. etc. It's just all fresh. My front timing covers had a small issue where the lower plate was rubbing on the water pump pulley. We just let that "self clearance" for a bit and it was fine.

Took my first drive last night after getting it mostly timed up. It made it to the gas station just fine. A couple of things I learned on the way there:

• The trans is probably very low on fluid, it's unhappy with fast shifts
• It needs an alignment pretty bad.
• Miatas are slow as hell. My 2002 has spoiled me.

Mentioned prior, but worth mentioning again, my friend @nhammon has been an immense help in getting this going between parts and knowledge. If you like Miatas at all, go look at his build because it's way cooler than this one. I'm just farting around until my 2002 is 100% again . This weekend I'll be tying up some loose ends, cleaning the car up and making a final parts list to get ready for it's first drift event. Seeing the power I'm working with, this is going to be an steep learning curve.

[bwwaaaa]

I love Miatas. What part of AZ you in? I am in Mesa. I have a 89 Nissan Laurel RB25DET swap. Just moved down here looking for like minded JDM lovers.

I'm in Gilbert, so not too far from you. Welcome to the neighborhood!
I can suggest a few different meets and events if you're interested, shoot me a PM! The car scene in the east valley is a little hit or miss, it'll go through periods of high activity and then kind of disappear for a while.

Extra Bling

Last night was a bit of a fail working on the car. While working on the seats, I came to the conclusion that I couldn't make the Sparco brackets bolt to the stock sliders. After some research, I have to buy Sparco bases, which is nearly another $300 in parts, so for now... we leave the stock seats in. While putting the stock seats back in, I turned on a flash light and watched a scorpion crawl under my dashboard. The next two hours were spent tearing apart the dash to try and get it out, but that bitch is in there now.

During the process of tearing apart the dash, about 90% of the plastics crumbled to pieces in my hand. They were already worse for wear, but now my tombstone is in two pieces and my gauge hood in about fifty more. Granted this was bound to happen eventually, but it's a shame it had to happen before I even got the car started. All thanks to a scorpion...

Ah the joys of living in Arizona.

I did manage to mount the wheels last night. Picked up some lugs, again courtesy of @nhammon. I wasn't motivated to take any good pictures last night, on account of the scorpion incident, so... This horrible photo will have to do for now. It truly is awful and I apologize. But that's the best I had energy for at that point. The car sits like a monster truck, it's disgusting at stock ride height. But, that'll be resolved soon enough.

He also gave me the Circuit Sports overflow tank. It's a little extra for a dedicated drift car, but my stock plastic tank was cracked and showed signs of leaking. He happened to have this on the shelf from his build, and threw it my way. So now I have a very shiny piece in a very crusty car. I pulled the charcoal canister as well, as it's big, heavy and in the way.

I'm itching to clean this car too. We're convinced this paint will buff out pretty well. It'll never be perfect but I think I can kill a lot of the oxidation with a good buff. So maybe I'll get that taken care of this weekend as well.

[Frisbygolf]

I love Miatas. What part of AZ you in? I am in Mesa. I have a 89 Nissan Laurel RB25DET swap. Just moved down here looking for like minded JDM lovers.

[bwwaaaa]

I can't wait to see this!

I love NA Miatas so, but their size scares the ever loving crap out of me. Some day, I'd love to own one! Looks like you got one in pretty good shape body wise. The nice thing is, they don't seem to expensive to fix up!

It's surprisingly straight. No rust, no damage, almost a shame it's getting turned into a track rat.

"Crusty engine" to "somewhat clean engine" shots always make me happy
I'm following for sure as always, only thing I feel is not a good idea is using your expensive&cool seats on a "beater" car, my experience is they will quickly age with all the entering/exiting the car in a non very careful use

I thought about that, but ultimately seats are for being used. If I have to reupholster them, that's alright. I rather use these seats and enjoy them, than spend on another set to abuse.

Love that video, I am planning on doing a Miata drift car soon so I will be keeping an eye on how this goes. Looks like a great start!

Thanks, it's going to be a fun project!

[xxcody2130xx]

Love that video, I am planning on doing a Miata drift car soon so I will be keeping an eye on how this goes. Looks like a great start!