Rust_Bucket's FlyW8 1.8L Miata Based Build

[junior]

What great news! Glad I could help with the injector cleaning method, but I will admit, I stole it! It works great though and they clean up great that way. Once you go for a spin you will be hooked and kick it into OVERDRIVE on finishing so get that thesis done first before you drive the car.

J. R.

[ivai]

Congratulations man, that's great! I can't wait to hear how she drives!

[erioshi]

Grats! I'll bet we'll be seeing that first drive clip soon, lol.

[sevenesqueron]

Never doubted it for a second

Strangely enough I just got home from trying to help a friend start a BMW that's been sitting for 3 years. The engine's been started a few times but not for a while. So I was looking at your situation and thinking "is there anything I can learn from this?" Don't think so as the engines and injector situation is so different. So now it's my turn to see an engine flipping over but staying dead as a doornail.

Now you have some real motivation to get it to the first test drive stage.

Ron

[rust_bucket]

So I was looking at your situation and thinking "is there anything I can learn from this?"
Ron

A succesful businessman once told me his motto. At the time it didn't make any sense to me. But I get it now, and I like it

"- To get ahead, sometimes you have to get in over your head. "

If you learn anything from me, let it be the above, rather than something else that comes to mind: "Never underestimate the power of stupidity."

[rust_bucket]

Fabbed a set of fuel tank hold downs straps last night. 1.5" wide aluminum fit to the grooves in the tank. It looks pretty slick and holds the tank nice and solid.

Worked on stuffing the wiring harness back into the loom I yanked off in frustration trying to find my non-existent wiring gremlins...

Did some sketching/pondering and I think I figured out how to fab up my scuttle and run my "firewall" to close in the toe-kick areas and over the tranny. I think I'm going to have a 'box' that extends forward over the driver area to capture all the pedal linkages/computer/cruise module etc. I still have plenty of Aluminum left...

Also worked on bolting things together better. Many of my connections just have a bolt slid through the hole. If I'm gonna drive it I gotta tighten it all up.
- Which brings up a question I have: Are Nyloc nuts sufficient for suspension connections, or do I need to go to holes w/safety wire and/or castleated nuts? I know I want one or the other. I'm thinking Nylocs to start at any rate, because they're EASY. Once I sort out the chassis and want to step up to racing or long distance hauling I think it makes sense to switch over to saftey wire.

[Blackbird]

Nyloc means less metal threads on the bolt than a similar thickness all metal nut .

IMHO the way to go about it is to follow OEM standards in the appropriate applications -
Ball joints normally have a castle nut with a cotter pin, so there's a good start.
You won't find any nyloc nuts on OEM suspension bolt, but you will find healthy size bolts and nuts torqued to 50-90 ft/lbs (normally the numbers will go up with thickness).
If you really want to add a sense of security - a drop of loctite should keep things as tight as you had them.

Moti

[rx7locost]

Nylocs and MANY other locknut designs are designed for one-time use only. Some people do reuse them. They are not recommended for reuse by the mfgr. There must be a reason. There are some deformed-thread type locknuts that use the full thread depth. Some of these are equivalent to a grade 8 nut.

There are a few types of locknuts that are specifically designed to be reused. Take a look at mcmaster.com for a reference. If you need to remove the nuts during your alignment process, I'd recommend using something that is designed for reuse, either castle nuts/cotter pin or the special locknuts mentioned.

[rust_bucket]

Catching up the pics... In this edition:
Fuel tank straps... not much else to say. I used some scrap Al I had left over from the floor. It bent up real nice with the MAPP gas torch my dad left here the other night. (thanks dad!)

They're sized such that I can get a couple strips of rubber under each to keep the vibrations to a miminum.

[rust_bucket]

Pics O the radiator fan. Like I said it's a little on the LARGE side. - It should get the job done eh?

The clearance is pretty tight. I am running the ubiquitous Civic 'race' radiator under a stock nose cone so I'm pushing it a little. The bottom mounts weren't quite so slim but the top ones had to be huggers. I'll paint them up once it warms up a little and I can do it outside. I'm not prepared to cover my cars in overspray (again).

[rust_bucket]

Here's a shot of the final fuel line with P-clips now installed. This one is techinically the evap line. Yah, it's a sung fit. Note to self "If you ever do this again (yeah right) make the tunnel a little wider. You won't miss the passenger room, but you will miss a straight through, clean route to run your fuel/brake and power lines. - It's going to work and the Pclips are close enough together that with steel lines things aren't going to be bouncing around in there.

[rust_bucket]

This is how I bypassed the radiator to get her fired up. Ugly but effective.

I also picked up the replacement aluminum I need to fab a new thermostat housing and move the out-neck to the in-neck on the bottom.

Moti, I'm still undecided as to whether I'm going to do the right thing and reroute the coolant like you suggest or if I'm going to do the lazy thing and just use at as is.... Decisions decisions.

I have a buddy with a nice 3-axis CNC Bridgeport (Hi, Joe) I may call in a favor and have him cut a custome rear housing for me. I'm retaining the stock EGR line so I would need a housing that was asymmetrical. I'm not sure if I could get enough flow by just using a round outlet, I'm thinking I'll have to start with a half circle and transition to round for a neck. (That probably doesn't make sense in just words, but I can see it in my head. I'll take a picture later if I remember.)

- One question for ya, if I re route, can I just take a T off the OUT at the rear and run it through my heater core and T back into the same line just before the radiator? I'm thinking it would flow through there but would I get enough to melt the "greatest snow on earth?" (State slogan for about 20 years for those of you non-skiers out there...)

Counterintuitive as it is, you can obviously T off right before it goes into the block and return it down stream with enough flow to heat the car, but I don't like the messy stock routing and it kind of defeats the purpose of the reroute in the first place.
Anyone have experince with rerouting PLUS keeping a heater?

[dhempy]

I did the re-route and it was no big deal. I think Moti linked to it above. I did not have to do any machining for the thermo housing in the rear. I forget exactly what parts I cobbled together, but it was all stock Mazda stuff...maybe even from the removed thermo housing from the front of the engine? I don't remember. I mighta bought a 323 cover for a few bucks.



I did machine a block-off plate for the front of the head. You could do that with a hand drill, though. I tried to preserve as much of the stock plumbing as possible, mostly out of ignorance of what each circuit was really for. In particular, the little lines from the intake manifold down to the water pump made a pit-stop at the thermostat. I retained that with the re-route...probably needlessly.

More details here: viewtopic.php?f=27&t=4078&p=40123 and (somewhere) in my build log.

[rust_bucket]

On the 1.8L engine the EGR tube crosses right over the bottom part of the housing. The fit is so tight that on the $300 commercial version (M-Tuned) the thermostat is actually placed downstream in a custom built housing that is hose clamped on both sides.
Here is a bad picture, but you get the jist of it.
I just need to put my mind to it and decide which direction I want to go. - Right now I've got bigger fish to fry.

[rust_bucket]

Baby steps this week, Seems like EVERYONE has been sick, including me. El-Sucko.

Fabbed the aluminum panel that will go above the battery (and passenger's feet) I will need to put a small door in it to be able to reach the battery. It can be put in place through the passenger foot-well, but there won't be good enough access through there to bolt it in and hook up the leads without hiring a gorilla.

- I started fab on the scuttle structure. I got the cart before the horse a little and painted the frame before really sorting out the scuttle. Because I have a custome width and taper to my frame commerical versions will not work.
I did have the foresight to weld in a bunch of stiff tabs with nuts so I can build the scuttle in-place but still be able to remove it when needed.

- Finished bolting in the rear Diff nose - my stock hardware wasn't long enough for my mounting method so I had to find some longer Grade 8 stuff.

- Finished the rear tranny bolts. - Hempy, I wish I would have read the transmission mounting portion of your build log before I locked myself into my method. Mine mounts from below and isn't quite as elegant as yours. Oh well, it works.

- Bought jamb nuts for all but the odd 14mm Rod Ends.

- Painted the newly fabbed fan mounts and installed them

- Painted the tapered washers for the suspension pick up points and installed the two front upper Arms -FOR THE LAST TIME... (he said in delusion...)

- AND sold the last of the Miata goods on ebay. I put starting bids @$10 an item because if I don't get at least that, it's not worth my time. So misc stuff that didn't sell will be going in the round-file. I need to de-junk my workspace! (oh I didn't sell the suspension arms yet, I figure I'll wait till the spec miata season starts up again and the weekend warriors are bending them up before I list those.)

Little by little.

Next a trip to Bolt and Nut Supply, Need:
tap/die for steering tie rod extensions,
10mm bolts for top of rear uprights,
14mm jamb nuts for lower rear uprights,
16mm jamb nuts for front upper ball joints (already bought them ONCE but cant find them, argh),
16mm steering wheel mounting nut (again an item lost in abyss)
and HOPEFULLY they have some 14mm long bolts for the lower rear uprights too (plus nuts) - could be an expensive trip.