KP's Build - Final Assembly

[Kevin Patrick]

Seats and Harnesses arrived:


Test fit driver's seat:


Test fit passenger's seat:


The seats fit well. They need to be at a very slight angle so they slide back and forth. I purchased sliders from Corbeau, but I'll need to create some custom mounts as they are too short to fit on the chassis. Time to fire up the welder.

[Kevin Patrick]

Purchased final piece of fuel injection line and finished running it from the tank to the fuel filter.


Installed the throttle cable


Installed new slim radiator fans


Mounted the radiator and installed new Mishimoto silicone radiator hoses. Decided against the original mounts I built and ran long bolts through the front part of the frame through the side mount on the radiator. Seems more secure now.

[Kevin Patrick]

Trimmed and riveted driver's side foot bulkhead


Trimmed and riveted passenger's side foot bulkhead


Trimmed and riveted center bottom bulkhead


Trimmed and riveted center top bulkhead




Made a cardboard template for the rear panel

[Kevin Patrick]

Drilled holes, installed rivnuts and mounted the parking brake. Adjusted the cable tension and attached the plastic covers


Installed a new Mazda (M514-17-480A) lower shift boot and installed the shift lever.

Added a top support bolt for the clutch assembly.


Started wiring. Started going through the harness and removing plastic mounting pieces and old tape. I have been re-wrapping with new electrical tape. For now, I'll leave the factory harness as is and not make any cuts. Minimizing the harness might be on the list for next winter. Making good progress so far - just trying to figure out the best place to fit everything.






Also tried test fitting the gauges - I'm interested to see how others have mounted theirs.

[christof]

looking good, look forward to seeing it finished

[Kevin Patrick]

SHE LIVES!

[nigel]

;D ;D ;D Congratulations ;D ;D ;D

nigel

[sspogman]

It's a great feeling when you get her re-started isn't it Kevin?

Got mine going last week, getting very excited now - have to drive her the whole 3 yards out of the garage each time I want to do any work instead of just pushing her out now

[Kevin Patrick]

Thanks Nigel and sspogman - it was a great weekend as you can imagine. Not many more milestones to go. Here is an update on progress made over the weekend.

After going back and forth on deciding what to do for the fuel filler, I decided to initially go with Stuart's original recommendation and using a cut down stock filler/neck. I understand this means less fuel capacity for now, but I may change my mind after the build is finished.



More wiring fun. Basically a game of "where will this fit?" - I have not modified the stock harness in any way. It is bulky, but with enough mounts/zip ties it should all be hidden out of sight under the bonnet. If you made good notes/labels when you removed the harness from your donor, you should be fine.







Due to my use of an aftermarket header with a different mounting location for the oxygen sensor, I had to extend the oxygen sensor wire. I did this on the harness side as the wire used on the O2 sensor itself is quite difficult to solder to from reading miata.net.


Created a new mounting bracket for the hard radiator line.


Cut the grill mesh with tin snips and shaped by hand.

[christof]

very nice, look forward to seeing it in its dress

[Kevin Patrick]

Apologies for the lack of posts over the last few weeks. I have been in and out of town and not a whole lot has been accomplished. A few new parts have arrived and I hope to spend lots of time in the garage this weekend.

As riding motorcycles around Atlanta has taught me, there are massive amounts of cell phone-talking drivers who don't seem to pay attention to what is going on around them. With the Exocet's low height, I'm sure I'll have plenty of SUVs try to take me out on the road. The Miata's stock horn is a little anemic, so I have decided to add a 118db 530/680 Hz dual tone Wolo air horn to scare the bejesus out of people. We'll see if this will be loud enough...



Sounds clip: www.wolo-mfg.com/419-519-stereo.wav

The Odyssey PC545 battery has arrived and I also purchased an aluminum hold down box for it along with some SAE battery terminals.




Also picked up some LED license plate lights from superbrightleds.com. Georgia kit car law is not nearly as stringent as the UK rules but they are very adament about having license plate lights.


A few more items on the way:
-polished aluminum coolant overflow tank to replace the stock one
-black aluminum hood pins
-90 degree bracket for mounting the headlights/turn signals
-another hardware order from McMaster-Carr

Bring on the weekend!

[ecowindman]

Hi KevinPatrick

I have watching your posts and keep the good work up I bought a mx5 a couple of weeks ago and I am hoping to buck it up next Monday it a crashed 99 with not a straight panel but the engine is sound the plan is to strip it and have it ready for the chassis witch i hope to get it shipped to Ireland cheaper than getting the ferry van hire ect around September / October and work on it over the winter as this time of the year We are busy with work

Keep up the good work I keep watching for up dates and ideas

Regards

[Kevin Patrick]

More progress over the weekend led to the Exocet being moved out of the garage under it's own power! I had a few more items to finish up in the engine bay:

Added a cap to the intake manifold where the old hose went to the charcoal filter


Replaced the valve cover vent hose as the one on the donor engine had a hole in it.


Added a new vacuum line from the intake manifold to the brake booster.


Ran a new ground wire from the gauge cluster wiring.


I modified the original bracket/ground point for the "TR Power Unit" to remove some of the tabs and reshape it. For now, I mounted it on the front right side shock tower. At some point in the future I may want to clean this up… it works but is not very pretty.
Original:


Cut/Shaped:


Mounted:


Using some spacers and 75mm long M6 bolts, I mounted the engine bay fuse box and a used the bolts as additional ground locations for the wiring harness.



(As an afterthought, I may need to wrap the bottom connections up with electrical tape since this is an area that could potentially get wet if I am caught out in the rain. I notice most of the UK cars are mounting these on the interior side of the bulkhead but the LHD wiring harness does not really lend itself to that option in my case.)

[Kevin Patrick]

Next up was to get the grill mesh painted and mounted. I used gloss black spray paint so we'll see how long it lasts.

Painted the grill mesh and mounted them on the hood and nose with PU.



The camera tripod worked well to keep some positive pressure on the hood grill as it was being bonded with PU.

[Kevin Patrick]

Moving to the rear of the Exocet, I added two p-clips to secure the left side parking brake cable.


Swapped out the rear subframe bolts with slightly longer versions. This was done because after powder coating the included bolts were not quite long enough to fully penetrate the nylock nuts.


The new seat sliders I purchased from Corbeau are not long enough to span across the seat mount bars on the floor, so I am using some 1/4" thick steel to enlarge them.





Then my wife helped me bleed the brake and clutch lines.




That was the only thing holding me back from getting the Exocet moving under it's own power! Unfortunately a huge storm was rolling in, so I only had time to move it out and back into the garage. Still, exciting for me!

Video:
(Quite possibly the most boring "first drive" video… in the world.)