Waukesha Wisconsin Build

[jwagner]

Greetings -
I've been building for a while, lurking on this board and occasionally posting questionable advice to help out other builders.  Now that we are getting into the more interesting stuff actually assembling the car I figured I'd take George's advice and put up a thread here.  I've also been running a thread over on miata.net from the start and the help I got there in stripping out and rebuilding the PPF was invaluable.  I'll keep a build thread up on the Miata board too for continuity. 
forum.miata.net/vb/showthread.php?t=521997

I'm a long time track rat and autocrosser and have had NAs, a NB, and a NC MS-R.  This car is the "next step" and is being built for autocross and track use, and if I can keep it licensed for occasional street use that 's a huge bonus.  My son has been helping, so I've got a co-driver when this thing is done.  The original plan was to be up and running this year, but we ended up rebuilding way more than planned and life got in the way of camping in the garage for long hours.  We should be in good shape for the season opening next year.  As you can see, the PPF rebuild is done, and we dropped the Exocet frame on last weekend. 



Now we're moving from cleaning up and rebuliding to plumbing, electrical, and all the other stuff needed to make a complete running car.  The car currently has a stock 1.8L from the '96 donor.  I also have a '94R with a FM turbo and the turbo will move to the Exocet once we have it up and running.  The '94 will get restored to near stock as a daily driver.  And after the Exocet is on the track we'll start thinking about suspension, aero, and other go-fast mods.

[greg]

Ah where in Wisconsin do you live? I was born and raised near Madison.

[jwagner]

Nov 1, 2014 19:46:35 GMT greg said:

Ah where in Wisconsin do you live? I was born and raised near Madison.

Just added the city to the title.  I'm just west of Milwaukee, and spend a fair amount of time in MadTown.

[montgom]

Jwagner, I sent you a PM.

[jwagner]

Now that the weather has turned to winter, I'll probably be posting infrequently since we're not going to fight the cold.  The car needs to be ready to go next April, so we've got plenty of time to build when we're feeling like it.

That said, we spent some time today trying to get the steering and pedals installed.  The Raceland header hits the steering shaft (circled):


and the end of the shaft doesn't want to go back into the steering rack flex joint (arrow).  Tomorrow I think I'll introduce the header to a 4lb hammer, perhaps with some heat from a torch, and I suspect that judicious use of that hammer might facilitate getting the shaft reattached to the rack.

[jwagner]

Time for an update.  The weather has been cooperating and the heater has kept it above forty degrees in the garage.

The steering shaft now clears the header.  It took some coaxing with a 4lb hammer and a torch, and we had an extra set of hands since Montgom stopped by to check out the build.  We've got about a quarter inch of clearance and didn't have to dent the header much at all.



We haven't really made much forward progress on the plumbing.  The cheap Advance Auto flare tool mangled the cunifer lines pretty badly, so as much as I hate to invest a bunch of money into a good flare tool (haven't needed one in 30 years), it's probably time to add that to the christmas list.  Been thinking about where to mount the prop valve, and it looks like the best place will be above the brake booster to leave space for the turbo.  We'll mount the booster vacuum line first so there's no interference.  The prop valve is just lying on top of the booster here while we think about it.




We got the steering and pedals mounted (about five times before we got it right) and checked out the seating position with the stock seat.  There's not a whole lot of elbow room, and the driving position is a little awkward.  It will be worse with racing seats and we're planning on a lot of tweaking to get it optimized.  My knee hits the steering wheel on heel and toe, and the pedals might want to move left a couple of inches.



The footwell is pretty tight and the gas pedal hits the trans tunnel.



Getting in and out of the car with a racing seat is probably going to require a steering wheel quick disconnect.

We put everything away and moved the Exocet tight to the side of the garage since between work travel and vacation we won't see the inside of the garage again until after christmas.  Hopefully the El Nino finally takes hold and we have a tolerable winter so we can get back out in January.

[montgom]

I had a wonderful time watching the work you did.
Robert

[gwnwar]

Why not put the prop valve inside the cockpit were you can reach it..

[jwagner]

 time to break the long posting drought - We have bodywork!!

[einy]

Gee, Jim ... They sure packed that bodywork in a nice fluffy white foam blanket! Wait a minute, that blanket looks suspiciously cold ...!

[JIDiesel]

What color blue is that?

[jwagner]

I think it's Pearl Night Blue but I'll check. I need to pickup some touch up paint anyway.

I like the color scheme of the C4 Grand Sport (my frame is black) and hope that will work well for track and autocross without showing dirt.

edit:  confirmed -  Pearl Night Blue RAL 5026  Kevin suggests "http://www.lowvolumepowder.com/RAL-Powders-and-Paints sells some touch up paint that could work well"

[jwagner]

Plumbing was a much bigger pain in the butt than I figured.  The braided clutch line from Exomotive eliminates the clutch hardlines and should make bleeding easier.



After messing with three flaring tools, including a Cal Van which looks like a pretty nice tool but wouldn't grip Cunifer line, I bought a sixteen dollar cheapie at Harbor Freight that makes good flares if you're careful with it and make sure everything is totally square.



As others have noted, the rear tee block is too close to the rear bulkhead, so we rotated it 90 degrees.


For the tabs in front to connect the hard line to the flex line, we bought tabs from Jegs, unbent them, and riveted them to the subframe.  Not elegant, but it seems to work.  Now we need to make sure the flex line stays clear of the tires.



Here's the plumbing near the master cylinders.  Still need to sort out the booster tube and hoses, tighten everything up, and throw a few more p-mounts on the hardlines, but the BRAKE PLUMBING IS DONE!

[jwagner]

My wife heard me cursing the Craftsman impact - a year and a half old and all three batteries are junk - and I got a new toy for my birthday.  This thing is ultra light and compact, has a trigger that starts gently enough that I don't worry about starting lug nuts with it, and is supposed to have 138ft-lbs, which is enough for most of what I do.  Cool.



The gas tank is in and the fuel lines plumbed.  We'll cut down the studs and put in permanent spacers when the bodywork is on so we can figure out how high we can elevate the rear of the tank.   Rather than leave the RR corner of the tank hang, I put a 1 1/2" x 1/8" bracket to help support it.



The front fuel line connnections.  Barbs into high pressure FI rated hose.

[jwagner]

We're trying to figure out whether we can use the racing beat exhaust that came with the car.  It's pretty tight with the cat so I'm thinking about getting a test pipe, and the rear O2 sensor hits the tunnel. 

Is the exit of the midpipe too far back to mount a muffler?  I'm wondering if the header has shoved everything back.