Not a miata....what to do with it.

Now that I'm looking at them too, how similar are they to a '90s Escort?

Wally wrote: Now that I'm looking at them too, how similar are they to a '90s Escort?

I'm not real familiar with escorts but the mechanical bits are essentially the same as a Mazda 323.

Sometimes you get the bear, sometimes the bear gets you...today I got the bear. The PO might cry if he knew it took me less than 10 minutes and $0 to fix the running issues.

After spending the day out for Easter festivities with the family I had a 1/2 hour to tinker tonite and was looking for something quick to try and just "knock off the list" so I could move on to other tests later.

I also neglected to mention that the car was having trouble restarting, turn the key and everything went dead. That was pretty obvious to me, bad battery connections. So I pulled the connectors and cleaned them. Then I moved on to clean the fuel pump grounds under the rear seat and the grounds near the thermostat as recommended in some threads on teamcapri.com.

Took a 10 minute test drive and no miss, no stumble, just happy driving. It felt great! I'll need more seat/test time to feel confident in it but its the first time its never missed on me. The miss was pretty consistent, not intermittent so it should have been there.

So, wife is out of town. Im working from home today. What to do with my lunch break....

Waiting on parts for any repairs right now...let's have some fun instead.

I think we know where this is going

Always try to have fun with your cars ;)

Where did it go?

And the unwrapping and spoiler installed

MitchellC wrote: Where did it go?

LOL...yeah I told my wife now the neighbors wont see it and complain.

Wow, in low-res, it looks like a really good paint job.

armed and ready

wheels need to be black now...

Looks good though. When those cars first came out, I was working for a radio station and we were working with one of the Casinos in AC to give out 12 of the things. One a week for the summer. We got the to keep one as a station/promotional vehicle. It was the last one given away.

It was a blast to drive... at least to somebody with no boost experience before.

Black ya think? I agree the wheels need something I just haven't figured out what. I thought about doing them in the same color as the lower body but I think that probably moves away from the fighter look and into the 80s monochrome look.

And it has been suggested that I fab up a faux 50 cal chaingun like an A-10 in the nose....thinking on that one still

Can you paint the wheels to look like airplane wheels? Maybe in red!

could have done the car in all gray with teeth like that a10

Thought about doing the whole shark tooth front but it always looks wrong on these short overhang cars because it goes into the wheel arch and cuts off the graphic.

I'll admit the Capri club guys are much more accepting of this type of shenanigans than the average (not GRM) miata person. They all love what I did to it and one guy said his wife now wants her's painted the same way.

JThw8 wrote: I'll admit the Capri club guys are much more accepting of this type of shenanigans than the average (not GRM) miata person. They all love what I did to it and one guy said his wife now wants her's painted the same way.

As long as its not a rarish/cool Miata (93LE, 10AE, etc.) I'm down for anything EVERY Car could benefit from a retractable chain-gun option.

Thanks a lot! Now more than ever I wanna do winter camo with vinyl on the Fit!

Loving it, keep up the good work.

I love it. I agree with having fun with your cars. I drove my Miata with a halfway polished hood to work today and noone could understand why I did it. They couldn't comprehend why I had a spare hood for it and decided to polish it because I was bored.

EvanB wrote: I love it. I agree with having fun with your cars. I drove my Miata with a halfway polished hood to work today and noone could understand why I did it. They couldn't comprehend why I had a spare hood for it and decided to polish it because I was bored.

Yeah, part of the fun with this one is it will give me a temporary driver so I can pull my smart off the road and go nuts with its paintjob. Still not entirely sure what Im gonna do with it but the wife did get me the "real fire" airbrush instructional videos for christmas so it may be time to whip out the airbrush.

So the PO for unknown reasons capped of the factory BPV. Without a BPV/BOV the turbo will be toast in short order so enter a $18 Ebay knockoff of an HKS SSQV.

The mounting is cheesy, I know, but this is BABE rally, quick functional fix is all thats needed. If I play with it post rally I'll get an FMIC and plumb the BOV into the piping.

I kinda want it. I desire that engine for a Festiva.

mndsm wrote: I kinda want it. I desire that engine for a Festiva.

I desire a Festiva for this engine. I have discussed with the gent I bought it from (not the PO) and we are informally seeking a festiva to pop this drivetrain in, and then give it the widebody treatment like my old Yugo had and make a killer Lemons car.

I agree the wheels need something, at first I thought black, the more I look, the less I like that idea. Sand color like the bottom of your car might be interesting...

You know you can get a manual boost controller usually for $10-20 on ebay, otherwise homedepot and some springs and experimentation and voila, you're good to go for $5

Raze wrote: I agree the wheels need something, at first I thought black, the more I look, the less I like that idea. Sand color like the bottom of your car might be interesting... You know you can get a manual boost controller usually for $10-20 on ebay, otherwise homedepot and some springs and experimentation and voila, you're good to go for $5

Yeah, still mulling over the wheels. They are actually in good shape under the dirt so Im not sure about painting them just yet. Maybe I'll viny wrap them for now to try some ideas.

I do know about the cheap MBC's and its on the list but first I need to fix some things (like no blowoff/bypass valve) The factory boost guage is inop so if Im going to be messing with boost I should probably have a gauge first too.

The PO also removed the factory FMIC and although its small and not very useful its better than nothing. I dont want to stress the system too much until it comes back from BABE. Then I'll start to see what I can get out of her.