Curly - Miataforumz.com February '12 Feature
01-30-2012 | 08:01 PM
#1
Curly - Miataforumz.com February '12 Feature
The Life of my Miata and me
by Curly
My story starts in high school, when my dad had a mid life crisis and bought a 1952 Chevy pickup. I wish I had pictures of it, unfortunately they're minimal and all on his computer. We treated this as a father/son project and restored it in our free time. We cleaned the carburetor, replaced the wood in the bed, replaced the wiring harness, painted the grill, and made everything slowly come to life. Loved that truck, and it was actually my daily driver to school and back since my dad's commute included some free way miles and the truck didn't like anything over 55mph.
He replaced it with another Saab, and decided to keep the comfort to himself, and give me the Miata. I broke it too. Apparently, as rev happy as the 1.6 motors are, they still don't like repetitive 7500rpms. A rebuild followed, and helped me learn some essential lessons of engine maintenance. Out came the engine for the first time.
At this point, after some forced driving of the Miata, I grew to like it a bit, but it still wasn't my first choice of car. As a senior graduation present, my dad said he was going to pay for an autocross day. My friend Mike heard about this, and suggested instead a track day at Portland International Raceway. So my very first outing was 06/03/05. I went with Mike in his Firebird and our girlfriends at the time.
Now the username makes sense!
Even after that first track day, I wasn't sold. I ventured into Nissans for about a month, when I bought a $500 280z, put $100 into it, and sold it for $800. The timing belt broke on the freeway as the guy drove it home, and had to return the money and take it back. Ended up donating it just to get it off my folk's street, and lost my hard earned $600. That's when I bought the Miata off my dad, for $3000. I don't think the interior, airbags, or power steering survived the night. It was all ripped out in search of lightness, and more track days ensued.
The next HPDE was 05/05/06, and at this point I had new wheels and FM sways.
Then 09/08/06, not much was done since the last one, although I was starting to cook the tires.
On 11/15/06 I rebuilt the motor, including a new clutch to handle more power and an oil drain was added and plugged for my future turbo plans. Out came the engine for the 2nd time. I don't have any pictures, but I didn't resurface the flywheel and the throwout bearing exploded.
Two weeks after this picture the engine was removed for the third time.
2007 seems a bit uneventful, as I finally made my turbo purchase.
$800 bought me a used Greddy kit, complete with a custom 2.5” downpipe, Vortech fuel regulator, and a leaking oil line I replaced. It was a bit of a rip off, but I didn't know better.
My next track day was 09/15/08. The turbo setup worked okay; but didn't seem much faster than before. I didn't push it too hard, as it was overheating when I did. I believe at this point I was also on my first suspension setup, which consisted KYB AGX shocks and 2nd generation FM springs on custom spring spacers keeping the wheels out of the fenders.
Next track day was 02/22/09. I had affiliated myself with a shop who gave me amazing prices on junk yard parts, lent me the use of their shop, and were generally just nice guys that I had worked with previously. I let them throw some free decals on:
I had already had a bit of a sticker phase anyways, mainly because of my want to get a photo in GRM, that I still haven't submitted.
This was the day my 1.6 differential finally decided to give up the ghost. Thankfully it was 15 minutes into my final session, so I didn't loose much time. I borrowed my dad's truck, the shop owner's dolly, and towed it back to the shop. To those of you interested in ever using a dolly, never face the car backwards. I had too since the diff was destroyed, and the engine acted as a pendulum, slowly swaying back and forth trying to kill me at anything over 35mph. It was the one time in my life I was thankful for traffic. Previously mentioned junk yard contacts yielded me a '99 open swap for $200.
I won't dive into the evolution story of my interior here, as it's another story altogether. Needless it to say, it's grown more and more sparse in there over the years.
Next was 05/16/09, not too much to see beyond a nice MR2 chump car. Everyone, meet Cueball1 from miataturbo.net. Over heating problems continued to plague my running, even with a new Mishimoto 55mm radiator.
My next HPDE event was 07/27/09, which is a track day I will remember for a long time. It was my first at the amazing Oregon Raceway Park, 3 hours away.
I scrambled the few days before to install an eBay oil cooler, add a NACA duct in my triangle windows, and a few other modifications to attempt to beat the heat.
I used the previously mentioned dolly, now with the car facing the correct way, and towed the car 150 miles one way in my dad's beat up 1988 Chevy 1500. At least it had air conditioning, as it ended up being in the middle of a heat wave. Temperatures pegged around 105 degrees in the air, 250+ degrees in the engine, and 375 degrees in the car. It was an oven to say the least.
The car barely survived, and it was on this day that I decided not to return until I had done things correctly engine wise. Due the extreme heat, my Bipes ACU was pulling around 15 degrees of timing--making it barely powerful enough to get up a small incline in pit out. As the icing on the cake, the truck's air conditioning broke five miles into my drive home. It was clear it was time for a bit of rebuild, as I needed to fix a couple cobbled together setups of my reroute, oil cooler, and other projects. So out came the engine for the forth time on 08/01/09.
Unfortunately something went wrong during the previous rebuild and the head gasket failed on 12/5/09. I probably forgot to clean out my head bolt threads.
Thankfully I was able to get away with just removing the head this time.The end of 2009 and all of 2010 was void of track days, as I made a few purchases starting with Koni Shocks w/ QA1 springs:
Yes, those are installed correctly, just very poorly adjusted.
The list was frighteningly long, and include:
- MegaSquirt
- Cleaned 460 injectors
- COPs
- Aforementioned "new” suspension
- Wheels
- Tires
- 11” Wilwood brakes
- DIY brake ducting
- Revised oil cooler
- DIY radiator ducting
- and a lot of blood, sweat, and tears.
The day to test all this finally came on 06/10/11, when I made it back to the track and everything seemed to work...perfectly.
I had no idea what to do. I had no idea there was so much time between sessions. I had even forgot they scheduled an hour for lunch.
Curly poses for a picture having no idea what else to do when his car runs correctly.
The only thing that broke seemed to be my DIY ducting, which was partly sealed with foil tape. I had an absolute blast chasing down my dad's friend's E46 M3, and my moment of triumph came when he was forced by his instructor to lift and let me by, as he had over cooked his brakes and tires trying to keep me behind him. We talked later about upgrades, as we both needed track dedicated wheels, tires, and brakes to go much faster. I said those upgrades would cost me $189 for 6uls, $160 for NT-01s, and $50 for track pads. He said it would cost him $600 per wheel, $400 per tire, and $5000 for a brake upgrade. That's part of why I love my car. (BMW pictured is obviously not his)
Lastly, I made it back to Oregon Raceway Park in September of last year 09/11. What a difference two years and some hard work can make. The car didn't overheat, nor did the driver.
My plans for the future are slightly undecided. I'll have the marvel of moving pictures to share with the help of my new GoPro, and hopefully my reliability streak will continue. I hope to find a track set of 15” wheels to mount some R-comps, as I still enjoy the occasional commute with the Miata.
The Greddy manifold, turbo, and downpipe have served me well over the years, but they're started to show signs of the abuse. There might be a crack in the downpipe, and the manifold is stuck on the head studs from the relief cuts warping together, no doubt from the multiple times it over heated. As much work as I've put into my turbo setup, I'd hate to go back to a naturally aspirated state, however the simple reliability of it is tempting.
I'm also considering a DIY route to make a bottom mount log manifold, although my budget barely allows two or three track days a summer, so we'll see if I can afford the cost of a replacement setup before returning to the track.
Summer 2012 is fast approaching...
01-31-2012 | 12:52 PM
#7
MFz Regular
Joined: Aug 2011
Posts: 200
From: Oregon City, OR
Edit: Lol at avatar. curly CURLY!
01-31-2012 | 01:06 PM
#9
MFz Regular
Joined: Aug 2011
Posts: 200
From: Oregon City, OR
Keith has good pictures in his 2008 Targa build, I was the one that gave him the idea. Although instead of fabbing a new line from booster to valve, and valve to rear T, I cut the stock line in half and flared it. I have a pic somewhere...
01-31-2012 | 02:04 PM
#10