We had a nice day today in mid 60s in mid Missouri, so I pulled the Se7en out for one last drive, but she is now tucked away for the winter.
Now the winter projects can start.
Last winter, I rewired the car and fixed a brake balance issue. This winter I have a few more projects to work on.
1) Last year, I built a megasquirt but didnt get around to wiring the car for the megasquirt. I want to get the car running on the megasquirt. Going to keep the car fully stock otherwise, but the long term plan is a mild turbo. I am still collecting the parts for this though.
2) Fenders - I keep saying I am going to put fenders on the car, but never seem to get around to it.
3) parking brake - the car originally had a parking brake but my cable splice to extend the miata cables snapped. I prefer having a parking brake so I want to fix it.
4) Radiator Shroud - I am running the ubiquitous civic half radiator, but I never put a shroud around it. When I do eventually put the turbo on, I am sure the cooling system will be taxed more and I wont get away without the shroud. So I want to get the shroud out. Its good practice even without the turbo.
5) Coolant piping - I did the coolant reroute common to NA Miatas. To get the coolant from the rear of the engine to the radiator, I have a steel 1 1/4" hard pipe. I want to swap this out to a piece of aluminum or copper.
6) Coolant swirl tank - to bleed the coolant system, I have a ss bend at the rear of the engine with a bleed port at the high point. I wan to remove this and install a swirl tank at the rear passenger side of the engine. This will give me a better way to bleed the air out of the coolant as well as a better way to check and top off the coolant. Right now the cap is under the nose cone and its a long drawn out process to pull the nose cone due to the front splitter I now have on the car. It should also give me a little extra coolant volume to help with the previously mentioned turbo. There are a few premade swirl tanks, but I am going to try my hand at fabricating one as the hole I have is tight.
7) One of my rod ends is starting to get loose on the front left upper A Arm and needs replaced. I got about 5500 miles out of this first set. I will order a few and do a good check on them as I do my bolt check to make sure I don't have any others wearing out already.
Roll bar - i have a new roll bar main hoop. that I want finish into a second bolt on bar that is shorter than my current one. My current bar is built to meet SCCA specs for size and height. I am tall and with a helmet to meet the broomstick test, it has to be very tall. without a windshield it looks a little odd. The second hoop I have is bent to match the angles of the kirkey seats I have so I want the height to follow the kirkey seats as close as I can. What are your winter projects?
Chris