The Atomic Hairball -- Turbo Miata Re-Do

Last summer, after getting fed-up with Ohio rot, I tracked-down a rust-free '94 Miata for my track-car project.

Over the winter, I found the car in northern Virginia, well away from the coast. Took a couple months to get the car up here due to the severe winter down there, but it did eventually arrive. For what I would have paid up here for a car with no rockers left, I got a really solid car... Plus ALOT of really cool stuff that I would no longer have to budget for.

Some of the goodies included were a Hard-Dog Hardcore double-diagonal, Racing-Beat Type-2 nose, Flyin' Miata frame-rails, and a "Twin-Cooler" aluminum radiator/oil-cooler that FM used to sell. Oh, and an older version of the FMII turbo system, as well as the complete FM 3" turbo exhaust.

The Bad? Well, the car is in crappy white rattle-can primer, with a black primered hood. The previous owner, for some reason, decided to hack the muffler off the FM exhaust and tacked on the biggest fart-can I've ever seen. Also, the car appears to have been assembled as some sort of 3rd-grade class project. After poking around a bit, I knew I needed to start over.

On the lift, ready to start...

What I started with...<img src=""

Some pieces were easily removed... <img src="" />

Others... Not so much...<img src="" />

After about 4 hours of trying to separate the engine from the trans, we gave up for the night. We were getting pissed, as well as drunk, and didn't want to do any more damage tha necessary.

The next afternoon, we moved the car to shop #2...<img src="" />

With clear minds, we started again. Two hours later, we were back to swearing and throwing tools. Finally, my buddy Gary suggested that instead of throwing perfectly good ratchets and breaker-bars across the floor, we should put them back in the toolbox, and just grab the cut-off wheel.

Basically, the pilot bearing had popped off, and became wedged on the end of the input shaft of the trans. By cutting the clutch release arm, we were able to sneak a wrench in to unbolt the flywheel, and the engne was finally free!!!<img src="" />

Once the engine was out, we had to break the pilot bearing into about 6 pieces just toget it off of the shaft, due to a serious build-up of crud on the nose of the shaft.

Fortunately, the only thing we managed to destroy in this process was the clutch, which I was going o replace anyway...

<img src="" />

Anywho, as of today, we're at a standstill. The bottom-end is done, we're just waiting for stuff to come back from the machine shop, as well as FM to get clutch kits back in stock.

More pix to come this weekend.

<<< Jealous!

Nice! Looks like a good score.

That's be a nice car when you're done. It does need some love though. Is that an FM III? Looks like there might be an external wastegate hanging under the turbo.

If it's for track use, you're going to want a second fan at minimum, and ideally a good pair.

Wanna trade your mariner blue hardtop for my black one? I have family in Sandusky that i need an excuse to visit. :)

Keith wrote: That's be a nice car when you're done. It does need some love though. Is that an FM III? Looks like there might be an external wastegate hanging under the turbo. If it's for track use, you're going to want a second fan at minimum, and ideally a good pair.

The previous owner advertised it as an FMII, and the documentation that came with the car included the instructions for the II. But the wastegate is external, so I believe the turbo had been switched out at some point. Fortunately, there is pretty much zero shaft play, no nicks or other damage on the fins, and no scoring from wonky impellors.

All I know is, the car pulled really well when spooled, despite some pretty shaky compression #'s.

Definitely going to a dual-fan setup. Cooling issues were one of the reasons we started over. I'll post more pix of the progress when I get home from work.

MCarp22 wrote: Wanna trade your mariner blue hardtop for my black one? I have family in Sandusky that i need an excuse to visit. :)

Yes. Yes I do!!! Does it have defrost? I still use my '92 Smurf for my winter beater, so I swap the hardtop back and forth.

Let me know.

I would leave the paint exactly as it is so no one knows guesses what's coming. Besides, how long are you really going to be able to keep it shiny side up? :)

That thing is going to be so mean.

P.S. Roll bar is in. Gotta cut some carpet and trim panels, but the hard part is done.

grafmiata wrote:

MCarp22 wrote: Wanna trade your mariner blue hardtop for my black one? I have family in Sandusky that i need an excuse to visit. :)

Yes. Yes I do!!! Does it have defrost? I still use my '92 Smurf for my winter beater, so I swap the hardtop back and forth. Let me know.

Yep it's got defrost and headliner. Email me - neonmike22 at gmail.com and we'll work out the details. I'm at work now so i won't be able to check mail until this evening. :)

paanta wrote: I would leave the paint exactly as it is so no one knows guesses what's coming. Besides, how long are you really going to be able to keep it shiny side up? :)

I was thinking the same thing. Something about cars that are ratty on the outside and wicked on the inside.

paanta wrote: I would leave the paint exactly as it is so no one knows guesses what's coming. Besides, how long are you really going to be able to keep it shiny side up? :) That thing is going to be so mean. P.S. Roll bar is in. Gotta cut some carpet and trim panels, but the hard part is done.

Yeah, the rat look is starting to grow on me. It's kinda cool to look in the mirror, and see how Mr. Mustang's eyeballs grow at roughly the same rate that his car shrinks!!!

The look of the car is also how it became known as "The Hairball"... It kinda looks like something that my cat barfed-up, and is approximately the same size.

BTW Paanta, glad the bar worked out for you. Looks alot better in your car than it did sitting in my shed!!!

Anyway, a few more pix before bed...

Not real pretty at this point...

A bunch of things...

Bottom-end of the bottom-end...

Ummmm.... Eeeeeeewwwww!!!

Originally, I was going to paint the block Hemi-orange, just to piss off all the Mopar guys at work. However, the recurring theme of this project has been profuse bleeding, so we went with red.

Block cleaned, honed and painted...

At this point, we chilled... Left to right, me, trying to get a signal to order parts. Andy, recovering from another knee surgery after dumping his Aprillia at Mid-Ohio. And Gary, my Crew-Chief/Instigator of Really Bad Ideas...

This is Pita, Gary's barn-cat that apparently ignored the memo that she is now officially too old to still be alive. Enjoying the scraps from the meat-lover's pizza she knocked off the bench. The thrill of the kill...

Once energized with various pork products, Pita was able to get us to where we are now, despite the lack of opposable thumbs...

I'd have to see the downpipe to be sure, but that sure looks like an FM III. It's a fairly rare variant of the FM II with an external wastegate hung under the turbo. That doesn't look like the original turbo for an FM III, though - they had a normal integrated wastegate that was held shut with a bolt welded on to the downpipe from what I recall. This was over a decade ago.

If that's a Cartech wastegate, you might want to consider swapping it out as preventative maintenance.

I'm pretty sure that the turbo was changed-out at some point. I'll have to check to see if the wastegate is a Cartech.

I appreciate the input, Keith. One of the big reasons for this project was the fact that I really had no idea what I had.

Basically, the thing was a cobbled-up mess, with some shoddy work done to put it together. I just want to get it to a nice solid, known baseline, and then develop from there.

Great find! Coming along quite nicely as well, keep up the good work.

Cool build, and an entertaining write-up

Still not sure why you opted to struggle with trying to unbolt the tranny from the motor in the car.

It's easy enough to just yank the whole thing out as one unit than try to unbolt that stupid bolt pattern.

Keep up the write-up with more good pics for us miata gays ;)

-meaty

deadmeat wrote: Still not sure why you opted to struggle with trying to unbolt the tranny from the motor in the car. It's easy enough to just yank the whole thing out as one unit than try to unbolt that stupid bolt pattern. Keep up the write-up with more good pics for us miata gays ;) -meaty

We thought about pulling it as a unit, but ultimately it wouldn't have really helped much. Unbolting the eninge from the transmission wasn't the problem, it was the pilot bearing being jammed on the nose of the shaft. The bearing would not budge either way.

The process would have been pretty much the same whether we did it in the car, or on the floor.

Plus, it's more fun to get to cut E36 M3 up with a cut-off wheel!!!

deadmeat wrote: Keep up the write-up with more good pics *for us miata gays* ;)

and this is why I dont drink at the computer...

I've been tracking a turbo miata for about 3 years now.

What're you building this car to do?

Xceler8x wrote: I've been tracking a turbo miata for about 3 years now. What're you building this car to do?

Right now, we're simply building (re-building, actually) this car to run without overheating or exploding.

The car also has some bizarre electrical gremlins, so we've got some serious spaghetti-sorting to do. There's a guy in town that really wants to drive it, but he's a Brit-car tech. It would really suck to watch him walk back from my broken-down Mazda, throw the keys back at me, and say "Thank God I drive a TR-3... That's some berkeleyed-up E36 M3 right there!!!"

Also, after a compression check, we got these numbers, from cyl. 1 to 4 --- 180, 150, 130, 175. I'd like to close that gap a bit.

Unfortunately, I'm still at a stand-still right now. The machine-shop is pretty much doing my stuff as a side-job, i.e. not really charging me, but my things get put on the back burner when "customer" stuff comes in. Should be done by this weekend, though. Various new parts are being shipped as I type this, other stuff yet to be ordered.

Ultimately, I'm just hoping to end up with a car that will be a blast at track-days and local autocrosses. Also, no matter what other car I may drive for awhile, I always gravitate back to Miata's. Now I want one that goes to 11!!!

As soon as we get the mechanical aspects of the car sorted, it will be pulled inside for the winter so we can address the brakes and suspension... Maybe even lay down a fresh coat of primer on the body!!!

Best part is, while my expenses are well over the Challenge budget-cap, I'm confident that this thing will turn out to be a pretty bad-ass little car for the money spent... As it stands right now, there is way more than enough room under my price-cap for this project for a set of FM's Afco coil-overs...

More updates to come once I start getting bits-n-pieces in. Currently, The Hairball is disemboweled and scattered between five different locations.

Finally, a little progress!!! I sorta made the mistake of telling the guy at the machine shop "Hey, no big rush... We have alot of other stuff to do with this car before I need the head back..." Didn't think he'd take me so literally.

So, we finished the bottom-end, and installed new ARP head studs, which have been poking proudly out of the block for about a month. In the meantime, I went back to a six-day work week, and Gary, who lives out in the sticks, spent the time getting his compound ready for winter.

It was kinda nice having a couple weeks away from the project just to recharge and get other stuff done. By the time the third week of inaction rolled around, however, we had pretty much lost all motivation.

Over the last few days, though, I'm starting to get into the project again. The head finally was finished, and MCarp made it up from Tennessee to swap hardtops. I'm digging the black hardtop that replaced the Mariner Blue one, and the freshly-machined head got me excited about the engine again. I like shiny things, I guess.

Just for kicks, I dropped the bare head on the block, along with the not-yet-finished cam cover. It's a crappy cell-phone pic, but I'm getting stoked about my car again...

This week, the head will get reassembled, and I need to polish the lettering on the cam cover and clean a bunch of Vaseline out of the threads. Then, all the turbo goodies go back on, and the whole thing (hopefully) goes back together...

grafmiata wrote: and MCarp made it up from Tennessee to swap hardtops. I'm digging the black hardtop that replaced the Mariner Blue one

Just got home now in fact. Thanks again!

MCarp22 wrote:

grafmiata wrote: and MCarp made it up from Tennessee to swap hardtops. I'm digging the black hardtop that replaced the Mariner Blue one

Just got home now in fact. Thanks again!

I'm glad that you're happy with the top, and that you had a safe trip home.

The general consensus at work is that my '92 will break in half sometime around December 15th... If that happens, I'll have a trunk and hood for you!!!

If the car does make it thru the winter, it will still be parted-out in the spring, so if you still want the lids then, I'll give you first dibs.

Stopped by the machine-shop on my way to work today to check on the bits-n-pieces still there. This little coupler-type thingie that connects the bottom of the manifold to the external waste-gate had just come out of the blast cabinet. Cleaned up quite nicely...

BUT...

Now I need to call FM to see if whether this is an original part for the kit that's still available, or if it's something that was fabbed-up to cobble this car together.

Either way, I'll probably just have one of my machinist buddies at work fire up the Bridgeport and make me a new one.

More updates on The Hairball as soon as they come up...

Bringing the Hairball up again after a brief, 2-year hiatus... Hopefully can get this moved to the new forum, since progress is once again being made on the car.

Maybe post it as "'Atomic Hairball, Rebuilding a POS '94 Turbo Miata" or something?