There are no good tires for V8 Miatas!

Yet another set of wheels arrived this week. Number 4 if you are counting. Blah. You’d think I would be excited but really I am pretty crabby about the situation.  Let me explain.

There are no good tires for V8 Miatas. Period that’s it. I don’t care what size wheel or what offset you pick there are no good street tires available that are wide enough for a V8, and short enough to run on a Miata.

Most guys run 225/45-15s which is the biggest streetable size there is but still a very wimpy tire for 400+ hp. And all the tires in that size are expensive track orientated tires with only 7/32nds tread and a wear rating of 200.  So good luck getting even 10,000 miles out of them.  At the rate mine are wearing I think 3 track days would completely consume a brand new set of them.

Well why are there no better street tires? The problem is there are no factory production cars that use wide 15” tires to support wider sizes. For example the Corvette has used wide low profile tires for that last couple decades so the guys in Camaro and Mustang world have lots of great tires available to them. But our little Miatas have no such benefactor.

The choice is to spend $800 to $1000 a year on the available wimpy tires or doing lots of surgery to fit bigger, cheaper longer lasting street tires in it. Anyone will tell you the disadvantages in height and weight out weigh the advantages in width but for me I just can't spend that much on tires every year. 

OK but why exactly are you crabby? Because I am digging into a major project that won't even give me half of what I want out of it. Sure it will be cheaper in the long run but for all this work I'd like at least 3 more inches of rubber on the ground and I can't even get half that because THERE ARE NO GOOD TIRES FOR V8 MIATAS!  Humph. So here we go.

The new tires are 255/40-17s and this is what they look like.

Yeah I know 5 spoke chrome are not what JDM Miatas are suppose to have but I don't care what the tuner kids say. I am an old muscle car guy so Jenna gets stripes, scoopes and chrome wheels and Charlie can fix her next time around. :-)  Anyway as bad as the fit looks with the fender sitting right on the tire the real problem is behind the scenes.  In a turn the tire hits the firewall where the frame rail gusset is.  That is a major support structure I don’t take modifying lightly.  So no cutting for sure... lets just say I induced a tolerance.... 

Obviously the fenders need lots of cutting too.  I love owning a Sawzall!

The rear inner fender is a structural piece so it will get rolled around and welded back together. 

The holes are to plug weld it clean as a factory spot weld! 

OK now that you have cut half the poor car away... yeah I said it is major surgery! 

You  may recall I bought a set of flairs with the first set of wheels last summer and sold them both. Thing is I really don’t like the look of bolt on flares like that. 

Even painted they look like an after thought.  I want something that looks like it is part of the car and belongs there.  Such flairs and wide body kits exist but they are over $1500 so there is no chance I can do that.  But I can do 100 bucks worth of sheet metal, fiberglass and body putty to make my own.  

Of course I need a pattern and vision of what to make them look like and this is mine.

I thought about working up a foam mock up to take a mold off of the way most folks do it.

  

But you end up making 3 parts (plug, mold and flair) and only use one.  Seemed like a waste so I decided to just do it in one pass by making a metal frame to support the shape I want the fiberglass matte to be. That is a all a mold really does and this way I gain support by having a metal frame inside the flare.  

All those hours playing erector set finally pay off!  I'll have to weld the frame to the car to really be able to work it to the shape I want but overall I think this will be a better way to go.  Mind you I have never done either method and never seen anyone do this frame idea, but that is hardly a reason not to try it.  What could go wrong?  LOL!

Still no decision on the paint color but the poll was overwhelming blue and silver.  My latest thought is hot rod matte black with gloss black stripes like so

Chrome looks good against it but my wheels are not this bright.  They are a black chrome and I think would really pop off the satin black. 

Something kind of different but I don't know.  I'll see if I get any reaction to the idea here and keep looking. Forever forward!

Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.  
Have a GREAT week!!

DIY exhaust cut out - the nut and the welder strike again!

Hi and happy anniversary!!  Well hey it's been a year but I am by no means done!  I have been working on the cooling system, building a luggage / tire rack and several other things.  I will post when they are ready to show you. 

Yep this is the one year anniversary of this project and blog.  Well actually the research and dreaming started years ago but the work on the cars started one year ago this weekend. WOW!  My dad, who passed in July, would have had is birthday this weekend too and I'm sure would have been reading this today.  

For today I have to show you the crazy exhaust cut out I made and why it ended up like it is.  They say there is a fine line between insanity and genius and I’m pretty sure I know which side this one falls on…

The saga begins with a random 3 ½” exhaust elbow laying on the counter at NAPA.

I picked it up and thought hey this would make a much better cut out than the 2 ½” pipe I have now that doesn’t flow very well.

But if I am going to fix that I have to fix the other problem too that it is it's really hard to spin wing nuts off fast at a stop light!

So with the bigger pipe in hand I started hunting for at least a 3” throttle body.

I felt like I hit the lottery when I found this LS1 throttle body for 21 bucks shipped. Wow!

 

Then out comes the welder to put them together.

 

With a header flange I attached this monster to the muffler just like I did the old one.  It’s hard to see here but on the back of the flange in there I put a little scoop to direct exhaust toward the cut out.

I tried to tuck it up so it won’t show.  Mostly because another chrome tip is a low budget priority but I will probably do that at some point. 

 

To make it move I just happen to have an old control cable laying around thanks to my "I'm sure I will find a use for that someday" motto.  I ran the cable up by the drivers seat.

However this did not work at all like I thought it would.  The spring on the throttle body is so stiff it took both hands to pull the cable out and when you let go it just snaped back in.  I tried backing off the spring but then it would not seal shut when closed.  So I needed something that would pull really hard but not let go.

Well now I just happen to have 2 complete Camaro doors that have not been able to sell.... insert mad scientist laugh here MAW HAHA!

So I cut apart one of them to get the motor and controls out.

Then I welded a piece of cable to the gear and welded the motor into the trunk.

 

I ran the cable through a handy hole that was there, through a pulley and to the throttle – a, no make that to the exhaust cut out.

 

Last but not least I wired it up through a limit switch and relay to the Camaro power window switch.

And voila an electric cut out for 34 bucks!  Crank up your speakers and click HERE to hear how well it works. Yeah I was shocked too…

Body work starts this weekend and I promise it will blow your mind!

Thanks so much for reading, without you this blog would be worthless!!