Chasis 138 checking in from Alberta, Canada.

[Trenon]

Picked up my chassis and bodywork a few weeks back and have been tearing down the miata since. 

This is where I'm at so far. 

[Trenon]

Hmm....my insert image isn't working. Fixed it. 

[jmills]

I spy an intercooler in the background. You sir, are in for a fast machine. Look into rad and intercooler fitting before you start mounting those. I had to raise the rad quite a bit (aftermarket) as many others have as well. The FM piping can be made to fit, I just posted the mods I had to make to get mine mounted without cutting the bodywork.

Enjoy the journey!

[Trenon]

jmills did you take some pics of all the mods you needed to do to make it fit?

[jmills]

not yet. I'll try to do that this weekend. Had to make new upper rad mounts, did some creative tube flipping and cutting, and had to modify the lower rad mounts. Once I get pics I'll update my thread on the install.

[jmills]

I also had to do a very easy fab of new intercooler mounting brackets but that was pretty straightforward. The Flyin Miata ones are pretty tall and bend at an inconvenient point.

[Trenon]

If you could take some detailed pics with a measurement or two I'd appreciate it.

[jmills]

I'll get some next time I'm at the car. I haven't had time to work on it the last two weeks. New project at work, weddings and a race consumed my weekends.

[Trenon]

So trying to mount the chasis and already having issues. I bought the shock spacers thinking they would be built to work with the exocet...I was wrong. The back spacers have the shock studs lined up with the bolts so they physically won't fit and the front ones have gussets or fillet welds in the way....there's a wasted $125. 






I have been trying to get the hood to fit over the engine with no luck. I haven't seen a guide on how to mount the new hood over a 1.8L anyone have any guidance? As far as I can tell the radiator mounts were for the old bodywork as the lower rad mounts won't clear the bottom of the hood.

And I can't get the top of the hood to clear the valve cover. Any guidance on how to mount this thing?

[einy]

All of the 'issues' that you note have been figured out and documented in this forum by other builders. Look back at Steadfast's build, Greg in PA's build as just two of the many well detailed walk thru's on overcoming the items you're noting above.

[Trenon]

Full disclosure have a 2 week old baby and I was running on very little sleep when I wrote that.

I've seen what steadfast did to get the spacers to work after I bought them. I'm just a bit disappointed that they would ship them out like this. A very small design change would make it so they were a simple bolt in product...not a cut your suspension product and grind away part of their clamp.

As for the hood mount steadfast's build it looks like it sits almost flush on the frame rails. Where as I cannot get mine to sit that close. It hits the valve cover. I'll try fitting a few things a bit better and see how high it'll have to sit.

Thanks for pointing me at those builds.

[jwagner]

The only cutting to mount the spacers on my NA8 was to trim the rear top hat bolts a bit. Aside from that the spacers fit.

Yeah, the hood fit seems to be a best-fit compromise. We're working through that now too. Don't mount your hood until you have the throttle body and intake, etc. on the car. The idle screw on top of the throttle body seems to be the worst point of interference on ours.

[steadfast]

What engine mounts did you use? I've read that the competition ones raise the engine a few mm's. That doesn't sound like a lot but ever mm counts.

As for possibly fitting it over what you have. First you will have to cut your lower rad mounts. I'll see if I can get a few pictures for you later today. I also cut a U shaped hole on the underpart of the nose cone. I'll take pictures of that today too.

[Trenon]

I just have the stock motor mounts.

The pictures would really help thanks!

[steadfast]

Don't mind how dirty everything is.

Here is the bottom bracket:


Here is the top bracket (which is modified to fit the raised radiator):


Here is the cut I mad on the bottom part of the nose cone:


And here is the gap that I have: