Oops I Did It Again... A driving instructor's track day beater.

Oops... 

I bought another Miata. yeah yeah yeah ... if you are sick of miata posts I get it. Stop reading. I'm sure there is something far more worth your time! Go read up on w/e crazy thing BenModfied is building. I assure you its much cooler than this! 

Ok, still there? Here we go... I honestly thought I was out of the Miata Phase. I sold my budget beater NA miata about 2 months ago with the plans of focusing my efforts on some other projects. Specifically the 240z and my overlanding rig ( a 2.5 gen Montero) Ill post threads on those late. 

A few things you need to know before continuing. I start way more projects than I finish. Mostly because I am broker and busier than I care to embrace. Im a nissan/datsun guy at heart but they have broken them too many times. I have overcomplicated many projects which have usually left me without a car to drive and man do I love to drive. Im a driving instructor (side job) at Rally and racing school here in Florida and that means I often do far more passenger seat driving than I do driving my own vehicles. 

Truth be told. I needed an easy button. This miata was an easy button. This build thread will be less build and more adventure. Loads of track days, AutoX and even... the $2019 challenge. So, Follow along. 

Here is what we have... A $1500 NB 2000 Miata That I purchased from a GRM member who lived in my town and knew a lot of the same people I knew but we had never met! 

Car Has:
117,xxx miles
PO had a minor front end event so the front quarter panels, bumper and hood are green (I think we will call the car Santa for now) 
Racing Beat intake
OBX header
K-Sport coilovers
FM clutch with 2500 miles
Lightweight flywheel
Carbotech Xp10 (fronts) Xp8 (rear) with rotors. 3k miles
Stainless steel brake lines
4.3 LSD
BFG G-Force Sport Comp 2 - 205/45/16 nearly new

The car came with loads of extra parts, a sweet vented hood for future Turbo plans and an extra set of wheels (I paid separately for those items)

Here we go! 

You did great on that buy.  People up here seem to think their dime a dozen 100k mile NBs are all worth 6 grand plus. And then they say "don't lowball me".

Good luck and have fun with the project!

Looks like a great project.  If you ever make it to the great white north (Michigan), I might be interested in the wheels and tires it came with if you're looking to make room in your challenge budget.  

In reply to kazoospec :

First! I love your build! I have always wanted to swap a VQ in a Sentra. Second, the other wheels are already sold.

In reply to B13Birk :

Thanks, but it was never VQ swapped.  It was basically just the QR with bolt ons.  It was still a pretty quick car.  It classed out as STX and, at the time at least, no one else was really running STX around here, so we switched over to Miatas.  I still miss it sometimes.  

I like it.  We gave about 285 days or so to the challenge I hope to see you there.  I keep buying and selling Miata’s too.  I’m about to sell my 94 and ask way too much to be a challenge car.

Great to meet you and I look forward to following along. Evidently we're going to see each other this Saturday at the track!

That's a pretty solid deal! I didn't see it mentioned, but how was the coolant reroute done on this car? The radiator end tank color makes it appear the radiator's on borrowed time.

I thought you got a good deal.  Too far for me with my current obligations.   Enjoy it Pastor Bro.

I'm glad you got it, and for a good price too. It's about time it sold.

It kept coming up in my search results, but I need an ES legal NB1. 

In reply to RKTFiST :

I’m honestly not sure how it was done. I can take more pictures for you if that is helpful. 

New radiator going in this week! 

Update! 

Took the Miata to its first track day and she did great! I LOVE this car. 

The Miata is a shared effort between my dad and I. It stays at my place and such but we are splitting costs on the car and build together which is great for both of us!

That being said. We knew we needed to do one Major Update on the Miata before her maiden voyage to the track... She needed some new shoes. Our plan was to get some lightweight 15x8s and wrap them in what ever of our favorite track day tires options we could get our hands on. Being an instructor I have driven all types of cars on all types of tire... I have some strong opinions. 

The plan was simple: Advanti Storm S1's from ebay for about $550 and then snag some 225/45/15 Kuhmo V720 for about $550 shipped. Then add mount and ballance for $150ish = $1250 or so...

These would be our track day wheels and tires. Obviously they would need to come off for the challenge but remember, this car is a track car first... Challenge car second... maybe third. 

I always try to avoid buying new.... So I checked my good friend.. Facebook Market Place. 

To my surprise I found some of my most favorite wheels of all time. Rays Gram Lights 57Transcend  the right size, bolt pattern and hub bore about 45min from my house. They were wrapped in brand new Kuhmo V720's and of course they were the right size. I noticed that the listing had been up for a long time and told the seller that I knew these were worth way more than what I could offer but that I felt like I would try my luck since they had been posted for so long. He accepted my offer of $1000! The wheels alone retail for around $1300 add the wheels in for another $550 and the Rays gramlight lug nuts he through in $100 You might say I got an incredible deal. 

She looks... SO GOOD. 

I checked the fluids and a full safety check, swapped out the green hood for the vented hood that I bought from the PO and we went to the track. This car still needs suspension tuning... (Well probably just new suspension at some point) and for me to get over it being "new to me" and drive it way harder. 

But, all that being said... driving the car at about 85% - 90% it was more than 2 seconds faster than my NA 1.6 miata which had similar mods. The car has plenty of room to improve but I had an awesome day hanging with my track days buds. That's is what it's all about after all. 

More to come! Upgraded front sway bar needs to happen asap as well as a new radiator. There will also be some weight reduction done in the coming weeks. But I must say... I haven't been this excited about a car in a while. Until next time friends. 

So...

I blew up the miata. I got some great track time out of her but unfortunately, it threw a rod.  The car has been down for a while now. A long while. There have been a bunch of other projects I have been focused on. Mainly buying a house and getting my overlanding business off the ground. Still pastoring full time but trying to create some additional income... 

The original plan was to just put another engine in it and get back to it. But my dad came along and kicked the idea of him paying for a turbo motor for the car as long as we now "shared" the car for track days etc....

I wasn't going to decline! So that is where we are at now. The engine has been fully built. Not so much for big power but for big reliability. It's truly overbuilt for the amount of power we plan to make but that's what we wanted. Obviously, this means its no longer a car we can run at the GRM challenge. BUT we are looking for our next challenge build as we speak. 

Here are just a few quick photos off my phone. I'll get some more in-depth info here shortly. 

--- BOOST

After a very long wait, I canceled my order with Summit for the Skunk2 Intake manifold after one one BNIB on Ebay! This supply chain stuff has really made all of our projects at the Birk Family shop interesting. Anyways...

Everything is Mocked up on the old motor and is coming along nicely. 

My dad surprised me the other day by sending some pictures of the car getting re-painted. He has been trying to keep his mobile paint/body guy busy lately and put him onto the miata. That was super kind. I really wasn't expecting the car to ever get painted as I really didn't car and really didn't want to spend money on it. Having the car all one color will be nice. 

Engine management items are ordered and on the way. I'm hoping that the car can be done by summer. 

You might want to think about some kind of support brace for the turbo if you don't have one already.  Welded/fabricated turbo manifolds like that are often prone to cracking when put through track use.

Following. Enjoying this already. 

codrus (Forum Supporter) said:

You might want to think about some kind of support brace for the turbo if you don't have one already.  Welded/fabricated turbo manifolds like that are often prone to cracking when put through track use.

 

Absolutely. That's the plan. We just haven't engineered one yet. I have seen that happen a few times on other cars. This is a BEGI manifold. From what I have heard they tend to hold up well but under the abuse we plan to throw at this thing I want to overbuild everything. Do you have a support on yours? Or have pictures of one that you feel is engineered well. 

OH! Finally replaced that radiator I mentioned needed to be replaced in a previous post. This one should be much better. 

Its been a while since I updated this thread. Unfortunately all of this has taken WAY longer than we ever planned. Some of it was our fault. Some of it was others peoples fault. But more on that later. As a brief refresher. I got this car for a crazy deal about 4 years ago from a Forum Member who is local to and used it as a track day car. It was perfect. But, after a few track days I hurt the motor and my dad offered to make it a joint venture. He wanted to have a motor built for it, throw a small turbo at it (something I never could have afforded on my own) and pump some track days together.  

Long story short. All but one part of that came true. We now have a turbo miata ready for track days. But unfortunately my dad passed away unexpectedly in December and we never got the chance to do a track day together in this car in its final form. We had big plans. God had different ones I guess. We built this one right. All the off the shelf stuff that should make this car extremely reliable as a track day/ fun weekend car. Im finishing up some final details on the car and getting it tuned AGAIN because the last tuner didn't get it right and then she will be for sale. The funds from the sale of the car will go towards taking care of my dad's car collection. We will be fixing, selling and keeping many of the vehicles in his collection. I plan to create a separate thread just for documenting that process.

I'll do an additional post outlining all that has been done to the car. In the meantime here are some pictures from the past few days of working on it. This weekend I got an Air Filter solution figured out and put the new roll bar in. 

I have a small corner of my home garage dedicated to a small fraction of my dad's automotive career. One day when I build my shop at the house I look forward to having more stuff displayed. In the mean time its nice to have this. Its a small way I feel like we are still in this together. 

I came back to this thread to see what was happening with the car, but it's more important to share my sympathy. I'm sorry for the loss of your dad. I wish you could have gotten that track day together.  

In reply to B13Birk :

Cool Miata. 

I remember we had a thread about your dad passing. I remember saying how his greatness had an impact on me.  I don't remember hearing of his car collection. 

I look forward to more on that topic and celebrating his greatness again. 

In reply to John Welsh :

I appreciate your kind words. Im really glad that you got to own one of his cars for a while. In fact, im working on the first post for the Thread I started for telling stories about my dads automotive legacy. The first post is all about the Green Q45. 

In other news I started a thread just about his collection and documenting my process of preparing some of them for sale and some of them to be kept. Here is the Thread

Hope you are well my friend. I hope to see you again soon. 

Following to see the outcome c:

Progress Update. 

As I mentioned before I was very disappointed in the tuning job done by a "well known tuner" recommended to me by a friend. The guy had all kids of excuses for why the car didn't run right and why it didn't make the power it should have made. AND then had the audacity to try and charge me top shelf tuning prices and gave me a car with a transmission he broke... a bad tune and a bunch of punch list stuff not completed. I sold the RAYS wheels off the car to a buddy of mine who has been begging my for them for the past few years. So im currently rocking some cheap wheels I had laying around from a challenge build. I plan to put a good set of wheels on the car before I sell it. OR offer these at a lesser price in the event someone wants them. 

Shoutout to Enterprise Truck rental for actually being a pretty darn good deal! 

I have spent the past month or so getting the car ready to go down to a tuner in Orlando that was highly recommended. He got the job done in about 2 hours... said the other guy shouldn't call himself a tuner with how messed up the tune was and.... instead of making 215hp at 15 psi the car made 281 at 15psi on 93 octane.

Here is the video below 

https://youtu.be/m0oxZc6yhLQ

The car still has a stock fuel rail and a CX racing T28 turbo that are the two main limiting factors. This motor could easily make 350+ with a fuel rail and better turbo. But, 281hp is AWESOME for a track day car and it spools really fast. Very pleased with that. 

The best part of the trip was the SHOP! I was surrounded by great people and TONS of big HP rotarys! 

Well... She is finished. And...

Is now for sale. 

With my Dad passing away there are just too many projects that need attention and $$ to finish. The Miata has fallen way off the priority list. But I'm proud of where she sits today. 

CAR:

1999 Miata 

Zero Rust

No AC/PS

119859 miles 

 (E-Z on auto top) in Great Shape

Car made 285 Hp on pump gas 

Limiting Factor is turbo and fuel rail. 

With a different Turbo and Fuel Rail this setup easily will make 350hp. 

Engine: (20 miles on the build)

Fresh Build by C.W Pence in Orlando

Full Teardown and Re-build with all new parts, Balanced, polished etc. 

Eagle Rods, Arias Pistons, Supertech Springs ACL Rache Bearings

Cometic Head Gasket, ARP Studs

Boundary Oil Pump

Bronze Valve Guides

Mishimoto radiator and fans 

Mishimoto oil cooler

Induction: 

Skunk 2 Intake Manifold and Throttle Body (64mm)

KPower V2 3” mandrill bent exhaust. 

Beji Turbo Manifold 

CX Racing T-28 turbo .42 A/R

CX Racing Intercooler

Custom Fabbed Intercooler piping and down pipe by RemTune

K&N Filter

Engine Management:

AEM wideband

Autometer water +oil gauges

MegaSquirt PNO Gen2 ECU

1000cc Fuel Injector Clinic Injectors 

Tuned By Carlos Rivera (Magma Tuning) 

Driveline: 

4.3 LSD

Flying Miata level 2 clutch (20 miles on it) 

FM 10.3 lb lightweight flywheel (20 miles on it)

Cobalt Short shifter (Goodwin racing) 

1.8 5spd with fresh rebuild (seals syncs etc + harder case studs) + Reinforced HD clutch fork. 

Handling: 

K-Sport coilovers

Carbotech Xp10 (fronts) Xp8 (rear) with rotors. 3k ish miles

Goodwin racing Stainless steel brake lines

15x9 TRM Wheels wrapped w/ 225/45/15 595RS RR tires (Got a track day or two left in them) 

Racing Beat/ Super Miata Sway bar kit w/ reinforcement blocks 

Super Miata adjustable end links

Other: 

Driver seat with Foamectomy 

Hard Dog M2 Roll bar with harness bar

Comes with 2 UltaSheild  Harnesses (factory seatbelts in currently) 

Singular Motorsports Hood Louvers

Nardi Torino Steering wheel

Racing beat Pedals W/ Heel Toe Extension

Anyways... I guess this is the end of this thread. Thanks for following along.