1990 Miata Build by switched | mazda | mx-5-miata | builds

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1990 Miata Build by switched

By stevegolf

( 4 )

8 minute(s) of a 297 minute read

7-19-2008

I finally have an update! Got a lot done the past few weekends, even though I haven't had as much time to work on the car as I would have liked.

Installed my new front tow hook so when it's back on all 4s we have something to pull from so we can get it back on the trailer

Willwood big brake kit- 11" rotors, Flyin' Miata stainless lines front/rear (not shown in the pic), Porterfield R4S pads front/rear. I didn't take a pic of the rears, as they aren't on at this time...

another shot of the motor, it's slowly coming together, although I really haven't spent much time up here...

On to the rear end!

test fitting of the TII diff. I installed Mazdaspeed diff mounts, but didn't take a pic of them (we all know what diff mounts look like )

clearances are tight

diff more or less level

shot from under the tranny looking back

From here, I took the entire rear end out of the car, wire-brushed every piece of it, primed it with rustoleum rusty metal primer, and then hit all the control arms and the sub frame with rustoleum gloss black.

Finished product drying

I made a mixture of black and gray to get this nice dark gray color, and I painted the axles, diff, diff mounts, and the rear sway bar and end links gray- finished product came out perfect.

diff

control arms, rear swap bar, the hard coolant lines, and the hard line coming off the brake booster

Here's a shot of the old control arms before paint- they needed it!

shot of the subframe:

rear RX7 axles

I found a guy over on roadster drift (forum name is Dhaark for those interested- great guy) who was offering his services for custom miata/RX7 hubs, so I took him up on his offer. What he did was machine down RX7 hubs to fit onto a miata spindle, which allows me to use stock RX7 axles.

Here's the old crappy, rusty, wimpy miata hubs

and another off the car:

new hubs as I received them:

well now I have these awesome hubs, but they look like crap, so I wirebrushed them and painted them with the same black/grey paint scheme. I also cut slots in the curved portion of the dust shield and bent it all out flat so it would clear the 11" rotors out back:

finished product ready for install

Here are the diff mounts all painted up and my Flyin miata intake elbow, with an adapter I made out of some scrap 3/16" steel welded to it. This will serve as a mounting point for my apexi bov. I drilled a bunch of holes in it as I want the option on mounting it, plus I think it looks neat, and it saves oh about 2 ounces

I cut up my rear bumper and the rear bumper support so i can run a left exit exhaust. I followed the contour of the original exhaust cutout and transfered it to the opposite side.

sorry for the crappy pics

rear bumper support

I also lopped off the tow point on the left (driver's) side so that it doesn't interfere with the exhaust at all.

bumper

I also painted the interior with primer and will be hitting it with a coat or 2 of the same black at some point.

I took out the access panels in the rear deck, and the center console mount and primed and painted them, but never took a pic. Oops.

Sorry for jumping around, but now on to the meat and potatoes of getting the rear end into the miata- making the bracket.

We used a piece of 5/16" steel and bent it to follow the contour of the diff, and then butt-welded another piece of 5/16" to the bottom portion of it and drilled out the 3 holes

next, I cut out a section of the subframe so that the bracket can sit flush with the top of the subframe, which allowed us to weld the bracket on 3 sides

pic of the cut I made:

here's a shot of the bracket all burned in, waiting for paint. I also cut off the backside edge of the bracket to match the same angle on the front. Not only does it look much better, but it saves some weight. 5/16" sure is heavy, but I'm not taking any chances.