I want to talk to all the married guys out there for a minute

Guys we all know how important it is to maintain the illusion that your car is NOT the most important thing in your life.  So don’t be a knucklehead and have boxes arrive with Ford Racing logos on them 2 days before your wife’s birthday.  She just doesn’t need that kind of help from you to know where she stands.  And if a well built crate with your super coupe rear end in it arrives ON your wife’s birthday… well let’s just say the ship has completely sailed on your illusion and you better have your man cave ready for an extended stay.

Remember I’m pulling for you, we’re all in this together.  Now I have to go buy some; er no, make that A LOT of flowers…

 

Today’s lesson: How to name an engine Humpty Dumpty

Even though taking apart the Camaro is an essential part of my build, I decided not to post much on it since the real story here is building the Miata. But some happenings are just too good not to share!
 

Before I fell gravely ill I switched the cars and put the Miata in the shed and the Camaro in the garage for the, ah, harvest... It was truly a surreal feeling firing it up knowing it would be the last journey the car would make. But I held my guilt and I didn't say a word about it. Thankfully there was no indication she knew this mile was her last.

With a number of parts already sold from the aforementioned disastrous Craigslist ad it was time to dig in and the parts started flying. I am being careful to label all the wiring and keep things separated so I have a hope of getting things right in the Miata. For the most part the tear down has gone quick and smooth. Partly because I know the car so well and partly because I know the car will never run again so I keep the saws all handy. :D

After much consideration and for a number of reasons I decided to drop the engine and trans out the bottom as a unit rather than separating them and taking the engine out the top. So I plopped it onto a dolly and rolled it out sub frame and all.

I pulled the sub frame and was pleased at how stable the engine sat on its large flat bottomed oil pan. What I failed to notice is said oil pan is a rear sump pan so there was nothing supporting the front half of the engine. Yeah you see where this is going right?

When I pulled the trans off the back the balance of the assembly shifted way forward and the engine tipped right off the front of the cart onto the floor. (no photo of that cuz I wanted to get him off his nose and back on the pan right away) Now you might imagine my first word after Humpty took his little tumble would have been “Oh” followed by a colorful string of expletives. But due to God’s grace, good law enforcement training and raising teens I rarely get riled and the best I could manage was an emotionless “bummer”.

The only damage I can see is the power steering pulley is busted. I was considering removing it and having manual steering anyway so this will certainly factor into that decision. I am concerned that the crank pulley is also damaged but won’t know till I fire it up in the Miata. Actually considering it fell from 9 inches off the floor it is quite possible the crank itself is damaged too. All I know for sure is God has no problem protecting His engine if He wants to so it’s pointless for me to worry about it.

Even though for the most part the tear down is going well it’s really not much fun. I am very much looking forward to getting the Camaro shell out and the Miata back in. And hopefully I am done dropping large expensive things!!

Confessions From the Death Bed

A few days before my last post I was getting a bit of a sore throat but didn't fret much confident it would be like my last several colds and amount to nothing. Thus far it has cost me 5 vacation days and $230 in Dr bills and I am fretting about it plenty now!

I just don’t understand it. My tried and proven remedy of one to two full days of vicks vapo rub, chicken soup and old war movies has never failed me before. I think the mistake was substituting Crimson Tide for Das Boat. Both are excellent submarine movies but obviously Das Boat has much more healing power to bad chest colds. What was I thinking?

Well as we enter week 3 of no energy, no voice and no sleep I managed to spend the better part of a day reading Miata V8 build threads. I started noticing dates on people’s posts. As in several posts were months or at times years apart. You know that sick feeling I had of when the Camaro hood left? It came back with a vengeance after reading a guy took – wait for it – FIVE YEARS to convert his Miata! Oh no. OH NO what have I done??

What kind of a nut case would put in writing his plan to turn the key in 3 months, 21 days and 19 hours? Who am I kidding to think I can pull this off? I haven’t touched one bolt on either engine yet! The light is growing dim and the world is fading from view…

I’m sure it’s just the fever talking but there are days I feel like this little guy who I discovered behind the bumper on the Camaro. I’m sure he had no idea what he was getting himself into either!!

Todays adventure - welding upside down on tin foil

The Miata has lovely frame rails that go all the way from front to back which is very unusual in a unibody car. Problem is those frame rails are made out of tin foil. It would appear that poor Jenna has been in a ditch or 2 because both her rails have areas where they are caved in.

The good news is with no effort at all a screwdriver and hammer bends them back in to place. The bad news is clearly they were never designed to hold back dumping the clutch on 400 foot pounds of torque.

Now there is a number of companies out there that offer a solution to this with a cap that covers the frame rails with either manly US steel or blingly aluminum. The problem is those solutions cost well over 100 bucks. So I took another approach and simply added an entire new box steel frame rail right next to the existing one. Hey if 2 heads are better than 1 on the engine it stands to reason 4 frame rails are better than 2 for the body right?

Now when I dreamed up this little scheme it was suppose to have a skilled Navy welder to weld them in.But since that boat sailed I figured I would just burn holes all over the floor of the car. It’s unbelievable how delicate welding upside down on very thin metal is. Thankfully I ran out of wire before I could do any serious damage and headed for the bolt bin and bolted them in.
This will give me a good foundation to mount the transmission crossmember to and when that is in I will fill them and the factory frame rails with foam sealant to keep the crud out. The total investment was 10 bucks and 1 burn hole in my coveralls. :-)
 

The next bit of adventure necessitated a trip to my buddy Dales shop to play with his pipe bender. Word from the forums says door bars help stiffen Miatas even more then frame rails so I for sure wanted to build a set. They are a hunk of 1 1/4 tubing that go from the base of the roll bar to the front of the newly added frame rails. Like so:

 I could have left the bars straight and they would have just squished the seat a little but with the bender it clears it fine.

Cost to build 6 bucks, 1 burn hole in the carpet and 1 burn hole in an oil bottle on my work bench. See a pattern here? Thankfully the carpet hole will be under the seat.

One final photo for the day. This is a shot of my beautiful Camaro hood leaving in a mini van.

I felt quite uneasy about as we were taking it off until the buyer asked me why I was parting out the car. The astonished look of bewilderment on his face was absolutely priceless. It took him a full minute to even grasp the concept and the poor guy never did come to terms with scrapping a perfectly good Camaro to build a Miata. It was an unforgettable moment and never in all this process have I been so validated that I am absolutely doing the right thing!

Weekend 1 the journey begins.

Before the story begins I must thank Dale, Matt, Bailey and especially my wife Lori for helping me through the most difficult decision I have made in several decades. Your insight, guidance and support has been most valuable to me.

I dedicate this project to my son Charlie whom without this would have never happened. I commit the very best I am capable of on the build knowing it is very likely going to be parked in your garage someday. :-)

The back story on this build is I ended up with a Miata named Jenna with a bad motor in it. (long sad story)

I also own a 02 Camaro SS that, though I love the car, has been one problem after another since the day I bought it. So after a month of research and soul searching for the best way to make good on both cars I have decided to part out the Camaro and put the drive train in the Miata.

Yes you read that right, I'm going to junk a perfectly good Camaro then take this little unsuspecting Miata and yank her 130 horse engine and replace it with the 425 horse muscle car V8 out of the Camaro.

It is with absolutely no idea how hard this will be or how long it will take that I set my goal of starting the converted Miata on my birthday June 15th.
Note I omitted the year and did not say drive the car...
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Weekend 1, the journey begins

I listed the Camaro on Craigslist as a full part out in 4 cities with hopes of selling the hood pretty quick as I don't have a way to transport or store it safely. In the first 12 hours I had the ad up I got over 100 inquires most of which skipped over the line that said I would not be able to ship most parts until late March. Opps.... So I pulled the ad and culled it down to just what I can ship now and only posted it in 2 cities.

Tuesday I have a guy coming for the hood, Wednesday for brake parts I had from the last Camaro and the inquires continue to pour in.

I have to admit I did feel sick to my stomach for a few minutes when the guy committed to the hood and we set a time for him to pick it up. No turning back now....

Over the weekend I welded up the roll bar kit Charlie had that was part of his plans for the car. Of course the intention was for him to do the work but since he is off using his fine skills welding in the Navy now I did it. Suffice to say I stink at welding around a pipe.
I'll be using some bondo to make things look decent before the paint goes on it...
I'm happy with how it came out except that I messed up on the diagonals. For some dumb reason I fitted them with 3 inches in-between them on the main hoop but welded them up with 4. Cold meds I'm on maybe?

Oh well a great first 3 days of the project over all. I think the best part was I had lots of time to pray as I ground away at lousy welds. LOL!

12/10/13 edit I've had folks ask where I got the roll bar kit so I'm adding a link HERE.  If you have questions about it send me a message.