Impulse Buy: Drift Miata

[hinrichs]

I **** trying to find those odd noises and such. With my old jeep I had a sound like that, happened over bumps sometimes. I looked over everything, a few friends and shops while getting other work done...ended up being a driveshaft washer thing that was loosed and wasnt needed.

[bwwaaaa]

Still Not Sure What I'm Doing

I keep saying I'm going to sell this car, but for whatever reason I keep pressing on with improving it. We'll gloss over that for now, because I have no idea what my plans are for this car anymore. In the mean time, I've made some more adjustments.

For reference, this was the toe when the steering wheel was dead center

I set the car on the ground and rolled it outside for the first time in months. The toe was hilariously bad, pointed straight forward both wheels were facing completely outward. Granted, I didn't even attempt to align the front, but it did make for a ridiculous look. So I called a local mobile alignment guy to come straighten things out.

In a spot of bad luck, we went to charge my new AC system, and ran into some major issues. First we discovered one plug had been ruined, and had to splice a new wire in. We had hoped that would get my compressor to finally engage, but no such luck. We then checked every other wire and fuse through the system, swapping them one by one with known good units from my friend's Miata. Still no luck. Compressor would not engage. After hours of troubleshooting, we were left to conclude that the new compressor I had purchased was no good. Which means discharging the system, removing it, and getting a new one. It's a major, MAJOR pain in the ass. But necessary in Arizona.

I tend not to take photos while working on my own, because I'm already roasting to death in my garage. I grabbed this one shitty photo of rolling the fenders to express my frustration with the airbag harness getting in the way over and over. The main point is though, I rolled my fenders. They came out ok, no bacon or buckling which is nice. However I did lose some paint on the front two fenders, despite my best heat gun efforts. I did eventually zip tie that harness out of the way. It's not necessary anymore, however removing it entirely is a pain in the ass I didn't want to deal with right now.

Just for fun I took a few photos of the Miata during an extended test drive. It looks fantastic, and the non-bent subframe, steering rack risers, and poly rack bushings really have made a noticeable difference. The coilovers are meh, but a step above the blown out stock suspension for sure. The alignment is dead on, and overall I'm pretty happy with the car. There is a small list of things that need to be taken care of though. Namely:

• Replace alternator (current unit is making horrible noises)
• Fix driver's door latch (hard to close door)
• Adjust intake (hot air intake is right on the headers...)
• Exhaust leak post-cat (new gasket needed)

Plus there are small pieces I've yet to install yet. I'm on month two of waiting on my roll bar, and about two seconds away from filing a PayPal claim. If that's the case, I'll have to order another one from someone else. This chassis definitely needs some more rigidity. So hopefully that's resolved soon.

[DawsonLiri]

Why not both? You can go for a good grip setup and still go slide the car around. You can run drift knuckles for daily/ canyon/ grip driving, thats just my $.02. I dig the valve cover, oddball parts are always interesting

I agree to the first part, but for me you can keep stock knuckles and keep drifting anyway.
The valve cover came out fire btw.

[bwwaaaa]

Why not both? You can go for a good grip setup and still go slide the car around. You can run drift knuckles for daily/ canyon/ grip driving, thats just my $.02. I dig the valve cover, oddball parts are always interesting

I always second grip>drift, and the mx5 is certainly perfect at backroad blasting. I just don't think the whole seat ordeal would be forgotten just because you don't drift it anymore, good driving position is super important anyways.
As cody says you can drift a grip setup or build sort of a grip/drift hybrid, just stay away from zero ackerman super quick steering knuckles that feel like crap anywhere but drifting

I’ll still probably take the car to a few more drift events, though in my experience the few cars I’ve driven with modified angle all hand some funky grip characteristics. They were both 240sxs and maybe it was just the way they were setup, but I’d prefer to just play with stock angle. I remember doing media for Danny George’s Pikes Peak Miata, and they took all of the FD spec angle kits and suspension bits off, and basically put the car back to stock for that event. Fortunately since this whole car is just for fun, I have the luxury of just playing with setups until I find something I like, so maybe it’ll be possible to balance the two.

On the seat, I realize my last post made it seem like I was done with the seat issue entirely. I blame the Arizona heat and frustration with the subframe this weekend on that one haha. I’m still going to put seats in the car, but not until I’ve found a setup that I can verify absolutely will work. I’m going to find some Miata guys locally who track their cars, and ask to see if I can sit in their setup and test it for myself. Just in the mean time I can gain some support for free by gutting the stock seat.

[Fruttolo]

I always second grip>drift, and the mx5 is certainly perfect at backroad blasting. I just don't think the whole seat ordeal would be forgotten just because you don't drift it anymore, good driving position is super important anyways.
As cody says you can drift a grip setup or build sort of a grip/drift hybrid, just stay away from zero ackerman super quick steering knuckles that feel like crap anywhere but drifting

[xxcody2130xx]

Why not both? You can go for a good grip setup and still go slide the car around. You can run drift knuckles for daily/ canyon/ grip driving, thats just my $.02. I dig the valve cover, oddball parts are always interesting

[bwwaaaa]

Valve Cover

Small detail, thought I’d share. We found a Mercury Capri valve cover in a junkyard a while back. This isn’t strictly needed for this car, but I like odd ball parts. For whatever reason I didn’t take many before photos, fortunately my friend got one when he tapped the new fitting for vacuum lines.

Before. Here you can see the new fitting tapped for vacuum lines. Necessary mod for Capri valve covers.


Blasted, and the raised portions sanded


Final product. Misty midnight blue, white lettering.

Also, starting to rethink the whole drifting thing. I ended up selling the OMP seat and I’m frustrated with fitting in the chassis in a track capacity. Buuuut... I’m looking at selling my daily driver Fiesta ST by the end of the year to replace it with a truck. I’ll lose my backroads canyon carver, but happen to have this little Miata sitting around. Maybe setting the Miata up for grip and throwing a little boost at it isn’t such a bad idea. Just tossing around ideas, I don’t want to get rid of this Miata, I like it too much. We’ll see how things go.

[samulis]

Great!

Mazdaspeed engine mounts have been best option, if not enough, then have exhaust side bit harder, depends how hard you treath your car. Any good fiberglass/carbon etc seat that is made for humans is way to go, I had seat that all the pillows were interchangeable to fit my liking, I found my seat that had runned out of date from racing forum/FB cheaply. If you take the seat out and sit on the floor you'll see how low you can go, that floor mounted isn't much more than 1-2" higher/away from rear when you get it right.
Before you enter the WOTang and turbo, I highly suggest to install and get familiar your stand alone ECU and wide band. Mistake margin with NA is much greater.
Links don't seem to stand out from the text so I'll drop them here again, just in case, to make sure they don't get missed.

https://www.miataturbo.net/race-prep-75/race-seat-thread-91760/-8/

https://www.miataturbo.net/useful-saved-diy-faq-all-your-answers-one-big-post-10821/

https://www.miataturbo.net/race-prep-75/turbo-reliability-track-52179/

Good basic how to tune MS, just turn the subtitles on.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlyywPM0TCM

Oh ninja edit. Best upgrade to make car chassis stiffer, specially with out hardtop, better than frame rails or frog braces and way cheaper are stiffer door bushings. I could not believe how much it made difference. Driving over bumps or rail road tracks etc the car didn't shake like shoe box with out the cover. Just leave windows open at start, you need to worn them a bit in, their stiff.

[Fruttolo]

I love kirkeys look wise but they don't look that comfortable for anything else than drag racing, but then again I never sat in one. I sat in some tube frame seats tho and those are the worst stuff I've ever laid my ass on, sparco sprints are so uncomfortable I'd rather sit on the floor with a rope holding me down

[bwwaaaa]

what he said!

Bummer for the subframe, at least you didn't find any rust... for now.

If I find any rust, I'm driving this car in a lake and leaving it there
I have enough of that on the 2002 to last a life time haha.

With the seat rail, just throw it away/sell it. I'm 6'2", long legged and I had JDM roll bar that had leg's behind the seat, lost 2-3" on movement. I bought similar rails and my head hit the top and I didn't get the seat to move enough and even that it was "super low" it didn't help because if you look the original seat, it sits between the rails, so it goes lower than the lowered special. To make it up just I bolted the seat straight into floor. There is some bracket making and griding involved but its well worth it and it helps alot. I could fit in with the helmet no problem and I had more room in lenght wise and less problem with knees hitting the steering wheel.
I didnt and still don't like the Elise S1 seat (least of Elise's problems), my bum is too slim so it felt like sitting on church bench and there is not enough support sideways, biggest problem was that it wasn't meant for track driving so there wasn't holes for 4 point belts (in worst case, deadly on crash) and no room for helmet like race seats have, it pushed head forward when sitting up right.
If you can afford Tillett seat, I highly suggest them, they fit like Italian shoes, but I bet you can find similar ones locally.
Have you check'd Flyin'Miata's seat list of what fits in Miata? They have picture that gives you seat measurements what to look and also old list of know seats. There is also a good thread about seats in Miataturbo.

With suspension best of all I've tried by miles is 949Racing's XIDA's. Öhlins are great, but are too general to suit, rear runs out of shock lenght and bottoms out "all the time", it can be helped with NB rear top mounts. MeisterR and BC Racing bound and rebound seemed to be bit out of balance. XIDA's have been ones that make you forget the suspension, in good way, like in good Porsche's. They just work.

Can't remember was it Flyin'Miata or 949Racing that had list of good alignment for track, road etc.
If you havent changed polybushes all around, I would suggest it too, before, on our second track whore, while braking it moved around that stopped with poly bushes. With Engine mounts don't go too hard, we had ice puck hards (also we took all the interior off to make it lighter, biggest, stupidest mistake) and it just made the whole car feel like your sit inside big loud drum, undrivable to the level that you can't hear your thoughts. But nice, harder ones make shifting easier, when in our local track I had S bend with braking and down shifting, engine/gearbox moved/tilted so much sideways that I often found 4th instead of 2nd.

I bet you have read miataturbo.net about all you need to know about boosting Miata, if not, read, don't ask, they love frying lazy asses. They also have good thread about what it takes to build turbo miata for real track use so that it lasts more than one stint. From my experience of 10 or so different turbo Miatas ranging from 180whp to +400whp I would suggest to go with smallest that gets you to the number you want and gives you the flattest torque curve.

Sorry for the long rant (and bad'ish English), I bet I'm repeating things you already know but it all comes back and I love sharing.

Thank you for all this info! I was familiar with some of this information, but you shed a lot of light on the seat that just doesn't seem to be available online in this detail. I ended up upgrading to Mazdaspeed engine mounts, which I have heard gives the best balance between comfort and firmness. XIDAs seem to be the way to go suspension wise, though I'll give the KSport a fair shake for now and adjust once I get more comfortable with the chassis. In retrospect I wish I went that way initially.

I had been planning on just giving up on the seat front, but I think a floor mount solution may be the only option at this point. I've heard of Tillett, but haven't had a chance to test one out before. I'm going to need to explore that option, if it fixes this seat headache once and for all, I'll be a happy camper. The problem is, most people recommend tube frame seats, which I find to be horribly uncomfortable. I prefer something like the OMP or Corns I bought, with a fiberglass shell. Locally it seems like most people just slap a Kirkey in the car and call it a day. If I have to, I guess I will, but it doesn't really fit my needs. Plus, I just think they look ugly...

Definitely appreciate all the info, every bit helps at this point!

[Miroteknik]

kind of sad to see the Elise S1 seat go, looked hella cool, but I know that is meaningless if they aren't comfortable or safe. Curious to see the new Tillett seat.

[samulis]

With the seat rail, just throw it away/sell it. I'm 6'2", long legged and I had JDM roll bar that had leg's behind the seat, lost 2-3" on movement. I bought similar rails and my head hit the top and I didn't get the seat to move enough and even that it was "super low" it didn't help because if you look the original seat, it sits between the rails, so it goes lower than the lowered special. To make it up just I bolted the seat straight into floor. There is some bracket making and griding involved but its well worth it and it helps alot. I could fit in with the helmet no problem and I had more room in lenght wise and less problem with knees hitting the steering wheel.
I didnt and still don't like the Elise S1 seat (least of Elise's problems), my bum is too slim so it felt like sitting on church bench and there is not enough support sideways, biggest problem was that it wasn't meant for track driving so there wasn't holes for 4 point belts (in worst case, deadly on crash) and no room for helmet like race seats have, it pushed head forward when sitting up right.
If you can afford Tillett seat, I highly suggest them, they fit like Italian shoes, but I bet you can find similar ones locally.
Have you check'd Flyin'Miata's seat list of what fits in Miata? They have picture that gives you seat measurements what to look and also old list of know seats. There is also a good thread about seats in Miataturbo.

With suspension best of all I've tried by miles is 949Racing's XIDA's. Öhlins are great, but are too general to suit, rear runs out of shock lenght and bottoms out "all the time", it can be helped with NB rear top mounts. MeisterR and BC Racing bound and rebound seemed to be bit out of balance. XIDA's have been ones that make you forget the suspension, in good way, like in good Porsche's. They just work.

Can't remember was it Flyin'Miata or 949Racing that had list of good alignment for track, road etc.
If you havent changed polybushes all around, I would suggest it too, before, on our second track whore, while braking it moved around that stopped with poly bushes. With Engine mounts don't go too hard, we had ice puck hards (also we took all the interior off to make it lighter, biggest, stupidest mistake) and it just made the whole car feel like your sit inside big loud drum, undrivable to the level that you can't hear your thoughts. But nice, harder ones make shifting easier, when in our local track I had S bend with braking and down shifting, engine/gearbox moved/tilted so much sideways that I often found 4th instead of 2nd.

I bet you have read miataturbo.net about all you need to know about boosting Miata, if not, read, don't ask, they love frying lazy asses. They also have good thread about what it takes to build turbo miata for real track use so that it lasts more than one stint. From my experience of 10 or so different turbo Miatas ranging from 180whp to +400whp I would suggest to go with smallest that gets you to the number you want and gives you the flattest torque curve.

Sorry for the long rant (and bad'ish English), I bet I'm repeating things you already know but it all comes back and I love sharing.

[DawsonLiri]

Hope you know you now need to paint as many parts as possible in that ninja turtle paint

what he said!

Bummer for the subframe, at least you didn't find any rust... for now.

[Fruttolo]

Hope you know you now need to paint as many parts as possible in that ninja turtle paint

Fitment looking good, coilovers always make things cool

[bwwaaaa]

Cleaning Up

Small updates, because I'm not actually finished with this project. But I haven't posted much in a hot minute, and I just felt like sharing what's going on. Basically, I went in to add AC into the car, and discovered some more damage. One thing led to another and here we are. This isn't quite 2002 territory, because I'm not trying to make the car perfect or do a lot of custom things. I've just been severely delayed by parts and my own spare time.

First thing is first, the photos are just plain shitty. I know it, you know it. Motivation to capture things as I go along has been low, so I apologize. I'm due to break out my DSLR anytime now I guess. That said, I made some small interior improvements. I got rid of the Nardi shift knob, as cool as it was it didn't really fit my needs. I found a taller shift knob via 5x racing, so I went with that. I sourced a new-to-me tombstone, since mine fell apart when I removed it. It's rough, but better than having nothing at all.

I added a new radio as well, using the DDMworks surround. This isn't strictly necessary for the track, but the car will be driven on the street and I need my tunes. Turns out half the speakers are fried in this Miata, but still this works as intended. You'll also note the three gauges below the radio. Those are actually blank fillers. I specifically ordered the 3 gauge radio surround for future application. I figure if I ever boost the car, I'll need a place for gauges. But since I have no need for them now, I simply popped in 3 blanks from Glowshift. They look fine, and give me the option to change things later.

Then came the bummer. I have to AC in my street cars, this is Arizona and it has to happen. When we lifted the car in the air, I took a really close look at the front subframe for the first time. The car had clearly been punted into a curb at some point in it's life, and the steering rack tab was taco'd. This probably explains some of the funny steering feel I was getting out of the car, so I just opted to replace the whole subframe. I needed new rack bushings, steering rack risers, and motor mounts anyways. Plus the oil pan gasket was leaking, and it's so much easier to do with the subframe entirely out of the way. So out it all came.

New subframe I picked up


I cleaned it and repainted it. Had some ridiculous color shift clear sitting around from an old art project, so I sprayed that on for fun.


You can compare the extent of the damage to the old subframe. Steering rack mounting point is crunched in.

You'll also spot that I did in fact purchase coilovers for this car. I just got some cheap K Sports. They're really not ideal, and frankly I'm not a huge fan of the company, but they are local to me so I figure if I crash and need parts, they can supply them pretty quick. Long term, if I keep this car, they'll be swapped out for something a little higher quality. While I had it all apart, I put in polyurethane steering rack bushings, 5x steering rack risers, and NB camber bolts up front. The hope is all these changes will allow me to fine tune the alignment and get the car feeling planted and consistent.

Here's a before and after on the drop. Obviously I'm in need of a good fender rolling, I haven't driven on this setup yet, but frankly that's not even leaving the driveway with that little room.

Another small, but important, change I made for the track is swapping on 949 racing lug nuts. You'll see in the first image, the lugs I had before required a key to remove. This is a hassle at the track, and just gives me one more tool to potentially lose. The 949 lugs are super light, but more importantly accept a simple 19mm socket. No more key needed to remove drift spares at the track. A cheap change that will make a noticeable difference.

Currently I'm waiting for the oil pan seals to arrive, and then I'll be putting the subframe back in the car. I'll just need to adjust the coilovers a bit, get an alignment and roll the fenders to be back on the road. At which point I'll have fully functional AC, a refreshed steering system, and new suspension all the way around. Not a bad improvement between events. I'm also currently waiting on my rollbar to be made at Zerekfab. That should wrap up about 90% of what I want out of the car right now. So here's hoping I have another update in the next couple of weeks.