Been slacking quite a bit on Miata work lately, it’s been running good enough that I haven’t been motivated to mess with it since all the work I did over the Christmas holiday.
Well, every year there is a giant Miata meetup in California at Laguna Seca, and I signed up. That means I have 4 months and counting to get my car ready for a 2000 mile road trip with a track day half way. Right now it’s burning about a quart of oil every 1000 miles on the unknown mileage junkyard 1.6, so I’m fairly sure it wouldn’t make it through the trip.
Basically, here is the list of things I need to get done
1. Swap known good 1.8 into the car
-Things needed to make that happen
- 1a Timing belt on the 1.8
- 1b rear main seal
2. Tires (probably good to have matching on all corners)
3. Alignment (it’s definitely taken some hits, probably best to throw it on a rack and see where it lies)
4. Brakes, no idea what’s even on there, I reused pads when i changed the calipers
5. Diff fluid, left whatever was already in there when i did the swap
Stretch goals
1. Fix the rust holes
2. Put in real shocks, currently on racelands
3. swap to a standalone ECU, 1.6 stock ecu will run the 1.8 but I’d rather to be able to tune it.
4. Cooling mods, hood ventilation and a larger radiator.
Lol, not going to happen but fun to think about
1. Turbocharge
2. Cruise Control
I’m also hoping to get it done about a month in advance of the event to give me a chance to properly shake everything down and weed out any potential issues.