6strngs's project drift miata Options

[6strngs]

So, somebody suggested I should make a build thread for my miata in the off-topic section, so, here goes.



I got it from a speed shop in santa clara, basically what happened was someone brought their car to this shop, the shop pulled the cylinder head to see what was wrong, found a chipped valve, the customer couldn't afford the bill so he sold the car to the shop and the shop sold it to me with a rebuilt cylinder head for $1900. It needed a few things, but was mostly sound. The only bad thing is the car was totaled on the passenger rear quarter panel, the damage is cosmetic only and the car is a drift car now, so it really doesn't matter. Anyway here's the first round of "fixes" I did:

rewired the stereo (it was staying on even with the car off, haha)
painted the license plate panel black (it was silver which clashed terribly with the red)
reconnected the left side speaker
broke off the wheel locks since I didn't get a key with the car
Made my own battery tie down, it didn't have one before, and I really needed one...
removed the stock antenna
added a new convertible top, the window was pretty much ripped out of the old one


New top being tested out in the rain


And a pic of the "before" ride height:


Next was a set of coilovers of course! Here's a pic of the megan racing EZ street coilovers that I got for it


slammed... my buddy josh in the car, he was visiting from hawaii where he is stationed, and told me this car would still be considered needing "moar low" if it were there


And just to say that I could... I had about a 1/4" clearance,


I drove it like that for a few days before deciding it was just too low to be practical, so I raised it about 3/4 of an inch which gave me this:

[6strngs]

Next I put on a ebay maf adaptor and filter, and then went down to lowe's and got some sheet metal and made myself a custom heat sheild. I honestly didn't think it was going to work well but I figured why not for less than $5, but after driving around for a while if you put your hand on one side of it and then the other you can feel a noticable difference in temperature. It might just be a placebo from the car sounding better, but it feels like it pulls a little harder in the high rpms too. Overall I think it's a worthwhile mod for less than $25 altogether.



Next I decided to install the calipers off of a 94+ miata, which allow you to run the larger diameter rotors from the 94+. I put on 4 new rotors but I'm using the pads that cam with the calipers that had about 40-50% life left. It's only temporary until I can afford some hawk pads though. Here's some pics from the days work:


Difference in rotors:



Next up was a new ebay shift knob that's actually pretty nice. It's nice to have a shift knob that actually threads on, the previous owner attempted to JB weld a universal knob on which, needless to say, did not work... Also in this pic is my new stereo, I needed something with USB input so the cd didn't skip over every bump, also since it's a "digital media reciever" (doesn't play cd's, it has USB and AUX inputs only) it's actually way lighter than a traditional cd player. Yes I know my dash trim is chopped up, that's the way I got it. It honestly doesn't really bother me that much though.


Next I removed the carpet, which required removal of the dashboard. Parked in my garage like this because I could




Me!



What are those bolts in the floor you might ask? Why, just my flyin miata frame rail braces, which stiffened the chassis of the car up immensely!