V8 Miata Cooling upgrade and other little stuff.

The flare sculpting is progressing slooooowly. Like all new things it is one step forward and 2 back as I keep trying to get things looking good and symmetrical 

Or in this case wipe on, sand off, wipe on, sand off, repeat....  I've used about 2 gallons of fiberglass so far and as you can see about half of it has been turned into dust!  I have a short video update I made a couple of weeks ago if you want to see it HERE 

 

More on that to come but this post is to update on the cooling system and other stuff I am doing to get ready for summer.

 

I decided to do a cam swap because for about a 100 bucks the new cam will give me 35 more HP, put less stress on the valve train, and well OK I'll be honest and it has a much more wicked idle!

Surprise the cam won't come out because it hit's the core support.
 

Yeah like that would stop me and out comes the saws all! :-)   I got it all back together and if you want to hear it check out the flare video update mentioned above.   

 

Also new this year I decided not to mess with the cooling issues anymore and went for broke on a HUGE radiator.  It's a beast at 5 inches taller and 2 inches wider than my old one!

It is an LS swap radiator for a 60s Chevelle and given that car probabaly weighs 4000 lbs I think I will be in good shape now. 

 It looks low but dosn't not hang down any farther than the AC condenser did.

I had to cut the radiator support quite a bit to push it upwards in the car. It clears the hood by just a hair.  I think it is the biggest possible radiator you could put in an NA miata.

 

This is the new cooling fan to go with the bigger radiator.  It is a 16" and the old one was 11".  It makes an absolute hurricane!

 

I set it off the radiator using a piece of fuel line because a little space between the blade and the fins moves more air. 

 

I finally put horns back in and these are the Camaro horns.  No cute beep beep in this muscle car!

 

The other thing I did under the hood was made a brake pedal support at the end of the master cylinder. 

 

The firewall flexes when you mash down hard on the brakes in these cars and this anchor at the end of the master cylinder is the fix for it.

 

 

I found a great deal on a metal strap mount fire extinguisher so I welded up a proper mount and put my old plastic strap wood mount extinguisher to use elsewhere.



 

I whipped up a couple luggage racks using the wing mounts for them. This one is a tire rack and I also made one to fit my bass drum so I can gig with the car.

 

That about brings you up to speed on the mechanical stuff. I have more body work to show you but will wait till next time so this doesn’t get too long.

 

I hope you had a wonderful Easter season. I always ponder which I enjoy more Easter or Christmas but always decide either would be useless without the other!