Member's other Modded rides

dont do a mustang, my friend has a 240sx that is real easy to work on, when i help him out, i think to myself, why cant my bmw be this easy. *sigh* idc, its worth it. me and my family are BMW fan boys and cant beat how they drive! for 5-6 grand. i would get an e30 or a 318ti. so much fun. thats just my .2
 
So I went through exactly this search before settling on the Miata.

I started searching for a 300ZX, then went to a 280, then switched over to Miata. The other cars were just a little higher than I wanted to pay. It's hard to find the better prices on other models as compared to the Miata because there were just so many of them made and sold. The Miata is a cheaper entrance price point and then cheaper to mod as well. Not sure you can do better. Mine was $1700. After spending another $3200 on parts and upgrades I have way more car than my $5000 would show - I think.

What kills me is how bad I want wheels on the FX and $5000 is about what it will take to get what I want. A set of wheels... or a whole freakin car? Notice I don't have wheels on my FX yet?
 
jumbosrule said:
So I went through exactly this search before settling on the Miata.

I started searching for a 300ZX, then went to a 280, then switched over to Miata. The other cars were just a little higher than I wanted to pay. It's hard to find the better prices on other models as compared to the Miata because there were just so many of them made and sold. The Miata is a cheaper entrance price point and then cheaper to mod as well. Not sure you can do better. Mine was $1700. After spending another $3200 on parts and upgrades I have way more car than my $5000 would show - I think.

What kills me is how bad I want wheels on the FX and $5000 is about what it will take to get what I want. A set of wheels... or a whole freakin car? Notice I don't have wheels on my FX yet?
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same way i felt when i was thinkin of a project car.... 240sx for 1k + 5K into it is way more than 6k into the fx (unless I can find a nice SC and install it for free and tune it for free haha)
 
So I stopped by Powerfab yesterday to check on my FX, but also to finish out my exhaust. They fabbed up a straight test pipe that connects my OEM header to the Magnaflow exhaust. It is freakin sweet now. Sound is awesome and it smoothed out power response on the low end. I feel like I got myself a racecar now that I can hear the exhaust instead of the intake. Need to record a video or something.
 
Got a few materials from Home Depot and made a DIY heat shield for my intake. One piece of ducting repair metal, 12 inches of L stock aluminum and 12 inches of bar stock for making brackets. Some trimming, a few metal bends, some rivets and some paint (and about 6 hours) later - I hope to be running cooler.

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jumbosrule said:
Got a few materials from Home Depot and made a DIY heat shield for my intake. One piece of ducting repair metal, 12 inches of L stock aluminum and 12 inches of bar stock for making brackets. Some trimming, a few metal bends, some rivets and some paint (and about 6 hours) later - I hope to be running cooler.

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Damn that's clean


Sent from my iPhone
 

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theMerchant said:
Brad, nice mod, but where is the cold air coming in from? maybe you will have to go with 1 headlight :wink:
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Ahhh - so you know Miatae? I deleted the air dam under the headlight when I installed the aftermarket front bumper. Here's the semantic difference. It's not a cold air intake. It's a high flow intake, lol!

The cone filter is actually located about six inches from where the stock air box intake was located before the mod. I've run for a couple tanks of gas without the heat shield and there was really no change in mpgs from before to after the intake mod. As for where the air is coming from, there are small vents in the tire well and along with the deleted air dam under the headlight, outside air is making it in through the bumper openings (1 large, 2 small). Hopefully with the shield in place I'll see a blip in mpgs. I'll be thrilled if I get even 1mpg more - something I did get with the FX CAI system.

---------- Post added at 10:59 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:03 PM ----------

I spent a couple hours working on the passenger side headlight today. The PO had installed a junk yard headlight bracket from a white model Miata, along with the white headlight cover. The second day I had the car I rattle canned the cover to black. Also the hood prop retainer clip attached to the bracket was partially broken and the headlight cover hasn't really been centered in the hood/fender/bumper joint. Bad angle on the shot - but you can see the white frame:

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I pulled out the headlight and cleaned out the area under the assembly. I installed new wire loom on all the harness I could reach and zip tied the harness down more neatly than it was before. Then I rattle canned the bracket with a flat black high temp ceramic (used the same thing on the heat shield so it was convenient). Got rid of the hood prop clip since I deleted the hood prop in favor of the gas shock.

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Just for kicks I installed the air dam I removed from under the driver's side headlight and installed it on the passenger side. The passenger side dam was already missing and I figured it would be better top open up the driver side since that is where the intake is.

Today's engine bay:

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Had fun doing this stuff today.
 

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myl168 said:
i'm still hunting around for one. do you plan on taking your's to a track?
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Absolutely yes - that's the inspiration for the build so far. Want to keep a stock suspension till I learn to drive the car at its limits, then step up to some adjustable coilovers and some decent rubber. The plan is actually to get good track rubber on the stock Miata wheels - they are actually lighter than the aftermarket ones I have on the car now. This way I can limit the wear on the track tires for the days when I'm actually on the track.
 
jumbosrule said:
...
Had fun doing this stuff today.
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What do you think about replacing that squashed plastic intake tract with a mandrel bent aluminum tube like you had/have on the FX? Is there room? I bet with another sweet heat shield you could achieve the same IATs, if not improve upon them...

EDIT: Something like this, but aluminum and with a heat shield:
MonsterflowIntakeNA.jpg
 

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Tchuck - they are available but they don't seem to be very popular. Fact is that the OEM intake material seems to resist heat pretty well. The generation of Miata I have is very limited in space for the intake. The second generation has more options due to the permanent mount headlights. (My pop-ups take up more space).

If money were no option, I'd custom route the intake into the passenger side front bumper. Since I have an aftermarket bumper, I have all kinds of room the OEM bumpers do not. It would be shorter and pretty much out of the engine bay entirely. As you discovered with experimenting on ground breaking CAI for the FX, the practicality sort of cancels out the value. Most off the shelf intakes for the Miata are around $200 - which I think is expensive for such a small car. Mine was around $40. I have no doubt I could do it even better with more time and money.

ARC makes a crazy intake pipe for like 500 bones. Baller. This is just the tube you were talking about - without any kind of heat shield. Gotta admit, I might sell a kidney for one of these.

http://www.rev9autosport.com/na/arc-intake-chamber-na8c-nb8c.html
 
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500$ for just a chamber! and i thought some of my ARC pieces on my prelude were expensive...
seems like your having loads of fun with this miata, i wish i had the time to do that with a little beater, keep it up!
 
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