What have you done to your Miata today?

[princess peach]

If I was a woman, I'd be in a lot of trouble... (I cave in easily)



and a shot from Saturday when I took her to the dyno

 

[chiefmg]

Rigged up a compressed air blast and coolant mist on my router. Made it a lot easier to cut aluminum. Designed and made a block-off plate for the coolant reroute effort.
Fits the gasket quite well.
Cut a port for the front sensor, going to weld a bung onto the plate once I know what size tap I need to get.

That looks great! Very nice job. I didn't realize you could cut metal with a router.

 

[Perro del Sol]

We won't discuss my tire and wheel warehouse.........

 

[aMaff]

Rigged up a compressed air blast and coolant mist on my router. Made it a lot easier to cut aluminum. Designed and made a block-off plate for the coolant reroute effort.

Any chance you'd mind making another 1, but without the hole? In my instance, the switch now takes way too long to trigger the fan (got up to 220 degrees before triggering the fan, whereas the coolant used to get up to 210 maximum, around 190-195 at idle). So, I'm going to relocate it to the water pump outlet where the heater hose used to be... but now I need to block off that hole. I figure on doing a full block off plate, instead of rigging up another bung and possible failure point... plus I wasn't super happy at the threads that Begi cut in that plate, honestly)

 

[JamesCH]

That looks great! Very nice job. I didn't realize you could cut metal with a router.

Thanks!

Any chance you'd mind making another 1, but without the hole? In my instance, the switch now takes way too long to trigger the fan (got up to 220 degrees before triggering the fan, whereas the coolant used to get up to 210 maximum, around 190-195 at idle). So, I'm going to relocate it to the water pump outlet where the heater hose used to be... but now I need to block off that hole. I figure on doing a full block off plate, instead of rigging up another bung and possible failure point... plus I wasn't super happy at the threads that Begi cut in that plate, honestly)

Sure thing. Just shoot me a PM with your address and such.

I did order the tap for the fan switch threads (the bung I planned on welding on shattered x.x) so I am planning on making one for myself with the fan switch... but now, I dunno. Any idea why the Begi plate didn't work well?

Apropos of that, if anyone wants some custom parts made - I'm sure we can work something out, just PM me. I am trying to grow a little side business in fabrication.

 

[aMaff]

I did order the tap for the fan switch threads (the bung I planned on welding on shattered x.x) so I am planning on making one for myself with the fan switch... but now, I dunno. Any idea why the Begi plate didn't work well?

I imagine because the thermostat housing with the now single tube of coolant coming in isn't getting a whole lot of the hot coolant, what with me deleting a bunch of ancillary stuff. It's not anything wrong with the part, but my implementation of it on my end. I'll shoot you a PM with what I'm planning on doing to fix it. Off hand: what's the threading of the fan switch? 1/8" NPT?

 

[JamesCH]

I imagine because the thermostat housing with the now single tube of coolant coming in isn't getting a whole lot of the hot coolant, what with me deleting a bunch of ancillary stuff. It's not anything wrong with the part, but my implementation of it on my end. I'll shoot you a PM with what I'm planning on doing to fix it. Off hand: what's the threading of the fan switch? 1/8" NPT?

M16x1.5 is what I measured, confirmed in this thread: http://www.mx5nutz.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=89997

Makes sense... it'll be seeing the coldest coolant simply coming up from the radiator return around cylinder 1, not the warmer coolant going out by cylinder 4. Interesting.

 

[thejeans]

I bought one Saturday. Not today but still close enough
Pics will come soon!!

 

[aMaff]

M16x1.5 is what I measured, confirmed in this thread: http://www.mx5nutz.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=89997

Damn it, so it's a metric thread. Well, that shot my idea to s***.

Makes sense... it'll be seeing the coldest coolant simply coming up from the radiator return around cylinder 1, not the warmer coolant going out by cylinder 4. Interesting.

Exactly. That plus the vastly reduced coolant filtering through that housing means it ain't seeing crap for temp.

 

[JamesCH]

Everything is metric of BSPT (british standard pipe thread) as far as I know. the BSPT is super dangerous since it's 1/8-28 BPST vs 1/8-27 NPT, which means that NPT fits great, until all the threads explode.

Also, welcome to the club, jeans! Pics or GTFO.

 

[chiefmg]

Bought a MSM front sway bar. Plan is to get a stock rear sway and put those two on, according to what I'm reading the JR set that was on her when I bought her is too much for the suspension I now have.

 

[Reitrof]

Brought her back to Canada

 

[thejeans]

https://m.flickr.com/#/photos/thejeans19/13853057835/

Hopefully that links works!

 

[JamesCH]

^Purty

 

[princess peach]

too bad my paint doesn't shine like that

 

[JamesCH]

Drove it to work the day after we got 3in of snow. I'm in full denial of the weather right now.

 

[Reitrof]

Congrats Levi, hopefully it will get the love Phen never gave it!!!

 

[thejeans]

Thanks guys. And Bruce I' plan too!

 

[THE Phen]

Congrats Levi, hopefully it will get the love Phen never gave it!!!

That's why he's the perfect buyer!

 

[JamesCH]

The steering was one of the few systems on my Miata that I hadn't torn into until this weekend, and I'm really glad I did. The passenger side steering rack mount was only finger tight! Not so good, definitely contributing to steering sloppiness, and it could have made life REALLY suck if it ever came loose.

So, here is the whole steering rack assembly out of the car and ready for surgery.

I cut the lines out and crimped them, took everything apart and greased the rack up, readjusted the rack preload tension, took out all of the power steering valving, and cut off the power steering seal. I notched it on two sides with a cutoff wheel, and then split it with a chisel. No damage to the steering rack!

Then I welded up the steering pinion shaft. As one might expect, ductility of this weld is paramount. It's unlikely that strength will be an issue (as the only torque it will see will be from the steering wheel) so I braze-welded it with silicon bronze filler. Turned out pretty well I think.

And here is the whole assembly ready to go back into the car. I didn't have extra wire to re-tie the inner tie-rod boots back on, so I used 1/16th aluminum welding rod. Worked like a charm.

You can see all the lines are gone (hooray!) and after a bunch of futzing around I got it back in and re-aligned the car. I think I'm going to have to fine-tune the alignment a little bit more, I don't think the rack is as centered in its travel as I would like.

All-in-all a ridiculous amount of improvement in steering drag, feel, and responsiveness compared to a simple by-pass de-powered steering.