Texas A&M's 2010 Challenge Nismospeed Miata

Cool stuff, I've been wondering how things have been going with the car. Glad to see things are coming along nicely.

Finally back working on it again, just a few small updates:

-heads are being cleaned and re-assembled.

-short block is for the most part done, just need to clean the oil pan and bolt it back up.

-cleaning up the stitch welds a bit to make it look "more appealing" haha.

should have the motor all buttoned up this coming weekend and plan on mounting the alternator and everything that will be on the car so we can get a feel for manifold routing, turbo and radiator location ect..

Nothing like finishing the day off with a mazda party. Jake doing an alignment for a friend on his NB.

Nice piston

The driveway looks like a mazda playground too.

Yeah, that blue one just won't leave.

Mini update.

We've been working on the car (and mostly our organization) over the past few months, and are about ready to devote all our time to the car. I'm confident we'll be at the Challenge this year.

I'm sorry for the bad phone picture, but we painted our engine bay in anticipation for the sexy motor that's about to go in there. Should be dropping that in soon.

Oh, any chance a mod could change the title to "2011" instead of "2010?"

unevolved wrote: Oh, any chance a mod could change the title to "2011" instead of "2010?"

That's cheating! In reflection of this extended time allowance, I suggest that you are required to keep the budget to $2010 instead of $2011. It only seems fair.

Bryce

According to my projections, I think we'll still be legal for the $1945 Challenge.

I'm glad we started pinching pennies early in the planning process, it's nice to have a little financial breathing room now that things are wrapping up and unplanned purchases are appearing.

Got some more work done today.

We put in the subframe...

...and then dropped in the motor.

It looks quite comfortable in its final resting place.

Then we started ballparking some component placement again.

We made quite a pivotal discovery. Stock 350Z exhaust manifolds are like a gift from above. No more making sketchy tubular manifolds out of fence pipe, I was able to get this set cheap enough we are actually coming out ahead over the previous idea, financially speaking. The ports don't match up exactly, shape-wise, but that's hardly a concern at this point. We just have to oval out a few bolt holes, and we'll be set.

Our previous plan was to make a semi-custom upper plenum, but in the interest of time, we're going to ditch that idea. We're going to notch the firewall right behind the motor and run a stock setup. We'll have to reroute some brake lines, but that's not a big deal.

Now that finals are over we're able to make some serious headway on this car.

Keith wrote: Love it. You can get in trouble for heat-treating your header in the oven too. Weird.

That's the wierdest looking meatloaf I've ever seen...

Looks awesome btw

Finished up the half-dash tonight and painted the valve covers. So excited to see this thing finally start shaping up.

get a 85-88 maxima intake mani from a junkyard, its a front throtte body setup when you put it on a rwd VG.

What are you guys doing for tuning? I forgot I'm sure iread it before.

I just picked up a Z31T so I'm loving my VG. I can only imagine it in a miata!. I may bring mine down for the challenge if i can keep it under the $2000-3000 budget cap.

Also the maxima plenum gutted is suppose to help out in top end power, and you might want to look at retarding your cam timing, seems to help even out the torque happy VG and make some more top end power.

And have you been looking around at http://www.z31performance.com/forum/index.php and http://www.vg30et.com/members.html lots of good info there.

~Alex

We're considering the Maxima manifold, or maybe the Pathfinder manifold, which would work even better for our packaging.

We got a partial sponsorship by NisTUNE, which will allow us to tune the car with a daughterboard/emulator combo device, then remove the chip and burn the tune to a 28-pin EPROM so it doesn't have to be included in the budget.

We have, redz31.net also has a ton of great info as well.

we hung out with the dude that started redz31 years ago...my brother and he are friends. nice guy.

his z is fast. real fast. jason was his name i think? we drag racing with him a few times in a previous life.

looks really good man. i never have found a useable flywheel for you..

hit me up if you need anything else. we just got a few more VGs here, as were doing a 240z swap with one. both are autos though. going with fidanza flywheels.

-adam

redzcstandardhatch wrote: we hung out with the dude that started redz31 years ago...my brother and he are friends. nice guy. his z is fast. real fast. jason was his name i think? we drag racing with him a few times in a previous life. looks really good man. i never have found a useable flywheel for you.. hit me up if you need anything else. we just got a few more VGs here, as were doing a 240z swap with one. both are autos though. going with fidanza flywheels. -adam

One of our guys managed to find one in a junkyard. Lets hope this one holds up because I dont think we will find another for cheap. Thanks for looking though, we appreciate it.

Red- I'm 90% sure I know your brother. Jeremey right? Stoopid turbo maxima? I haven't talked to him in forever....ygpm

Corby, I wonder if a VG-manual maxima flywheel/clutch would work as well? It maybe an option later if you need it.

~Alex

If I remember right, the 300ZX and Maxima transmissions have different spline counts on the input shaft. I may be making that up, though. Hm.

Regardless, we got a great deal on a nice ACT clutch that will work with this transmission we're going to go with.

Rustspecs13 wrote: Red- I'm 90% sure I know your brother. Jeremey right? Stoopid turbo maxima? I haven't talked to him in forever....ygpm Corby, I wonder if a VG-manual maxima flywheel/clutch would work as well? It maybe an option later if you need it. ~Alex

yeah, thats my brother. he took the car to the challenge a few years ago (just for the transportation, not to compete obviously). hes crisscrossed the country with that 400+HP beast over and over.

Unevolved- I'm not so sure about that. I know like,at least 75% of rwd nissan clutches use the same spline. Might be all of them, or just the cars. Not sure about the trucks.

Ok adam add me on FB already! Hint I have a white Z31 as my profile pic. I knew he wasn't afraid to drive it any where, I have the same philosophy, if you can't drive it any where you want, whats the point??

~Alex

You're probably right. We just already had a DETT clutch when we learned the E is a 6-bolt flywheel, while the DE/DETT is an 8-bolt.

Here are a few pictures from the past week. Not a whole ton done, a few of us have been out of town on family stuff.

Got our turbo mounted.

Ship it!

"Feed me a small child."

All we've got left is charge piping, bodywork, and wiring.

Oh, tire tip: Many old 911s run 225/45/15 and 275/35/15s, so if you need some Challenge tires, find some vintage road racing. Then throw them on some cheap 15x8s from a drift kiddy off his 240 (universal bolt pattern FTW) and you've got yerself some grip.