Satisaii

I am out. Done. Burn it to the ground and salt the earth.

More progress. My welding is still bad, but I am seeing improvements. I will be going back and welding everything up after I get the engine bay packaging done. Upper radiator mounts done. Welded a bolt inside the head light bucket to create the mounting stud. I really wish I had not cut that much out of the buckets. When I first went to fit the radiator, I set it on top of the buckets, marked for my cuts, and then went to town. I then realized that the radiator is way wider at the bottom than it is at the top. I had to replace most of what I cut out, and those buckets are like tissue paper. I just keep blowing through them. There is lots of hole filling to be done. Lower radiator mounts. I am not planning on doing any body work (beyond fender flares to fit the tires.) Inner fender template. Worked on both sides with little modifications. A couple of shots under the inner fenders. I will be welding these in fully. Some more pictures from above. An interior shot. I will be redoing all of this when I create the toe box. And you can see some of the problems I will have with the steering. I bought a cheap intercooler on Temu. I am not impressed with the mounting kit. That is about it for now. The sway bar is clamped in and waiting for install. I have a bunch of parts coming in next week to start putting in charge pipes, intercooler, transmission cooler, move the oil filter, and an expansion tank. Steering is going to be interesting. I might have to use 2 offset steering adapters (https://wizardsteerclear.com/) to get it to work. Or steer by wire, but I have not seen anything that I would trust.

I am looking for a second bed for parts. I have found several close to me, but they are all Cali emissions and have the "extended" wheel well. I want the federal version. Are they the same, but with the added cover?

Hey. How's it going? Long time, no see. So I took some time off of this, ostensibly to save up some money such that I could pay a guy to do the things I am not so good at. Like all the welding that needs to be done. Stuck the truck on the 4 post lift and then proceeded to store a bunch of stuff under the truck. Saved up a lot of money, and then gave it to the government. Decided I was going to have to do a lot of the welding myself. Borrowed a welder, practiced a small bit, ran out of gas. Bought a new big tank of gas, practiced a small bit, discovered I bought the wrong gas. Got the small tank refilled, practiced a small bit, ran out of wire. Finally got everything lined up and got enough practice to feel reasonably confident in my work. Then I made the motor mounts. My welds look like ass. I may have to go back, grind them out, and redo them. Once I get some more practice. You tube videos make it look easy. Here are some pictures of the motor mounts. I also cut out the inner fenders so that I can redo them to tie in the shock towers. I also made some room up front for the Ford radiator. Next week I will start on the inner fenders. I will be paying a friend to build the cage. That requires more skills than I will ever have.

It has been a while. Many printed revisions of the motor mounts to get it to this point. Ditched the idea of using the Ford EPS. There was not enough room between the frame and the engine to fit it in. Going with the manual Miata rack and will consider doing an EPS conversion kit in the cab (if there is room.) I like to start my CAD with manila folder material. It is easy to cut and manipulate to get the contours correct. A Contour Gauge Tool is helpful to get the profiles close to start. I then transfer the designs to balsa wood. I like balsa over cardboard since it is easy to cut and you can sand it down for a more precise fit. You can get it McMaster Carr. Next I will scan the parts to get them into Solidworks before sending them off to be made out of steel. I will also epoxy the parts together to help get it all just right in my model. The driver's side is a pain. It will probably take 3 supports to get it strong enough while avoiding the steering stuff.

We had one of those VW diesel pickups. My father insists that it was the worst vehicle he ever owned. Would not do 55 into a headwind in top gear. I just remember riding in the back... seems like most of my memories of cars from my childhood are things that are not legal today. How about sleeping on the package shelf?

Went to a friend's shop to drop off a car for some work, and saw this: I knew he had been working on it for the last couple of years, and it is starting to look good. It is a 240Z body dropped onto a NC Miata shell and powered by a LM4 V8.

Well, it fits. I was worried that I was going to have to delete the high pressure fuel pump (since It is the highest point on the engine) to get it to fit under the cowl. But it cleared with more than an inch to spare. So happy happy, joy joy. Lots of problems in my future. But I will worry about those later. Next up: engine / transmission mounts, driveshaft / diff, and the EPS.

For sure. I could run 35" Gumbo Monster Mudders on it... But I want it to handle like my old NA Miata, so it will get some super 200 TW tires which tend to have short sidewalls.

Probably going with the 17's. For gearing and RPM/MPH reasons. A couple of weeks ago I went ahead and parted out the Mustang. Stripped it out, kicked it out of the shop space, and hopefully have it sold. Last week I went to a car show with my parents. Not much in the way of Datsun content... or any other Japanese manufacturer for that matter. Pretty much a US hot rod event. But there were some cool cars. And a couple of Z cars. (And the reason I am not allowed to take pictures) One horribly ugly Corvette. And then I am back on my project this weekend. The goal: get the engine sitting in the truck and the cab back on (I have paying projects that need the lift, so this has to happen this weekend.) I did an initial engine placement to find out where to cut the crossmember and the subframe. And then made some cuts. I put the engine back in and then made some more cuts. It ended up close to where I want it. It needs to move about an inch to the driver's side, but it is up against the steering rack mounts so it will have to be "close enough" until I can get in there and make some more room. The plan is to use the Ford power steering rack anyways, so I am not too worried about it for time being. It was fun to watch the shock mounts bend in as I set some weight on it. Going to have to address that... The goal is to get the cab back on tomorrow. I think there is going to be some major cutting going on.

We have an Einstar. Also had an Einscan Pro. The software was written by software engineers for other software engineers to admire. Not very intuitive to use. And not well documented. Luckily there are some YouTube videos that help explain it. Also gives me the wonderful feeling of sending reports back to China. It has a hard time with small parts. It works brilliantly on large stuff... until you fill all the memory on your computer. It keeps everything in RAM until it runs out and then it bogs down. Make sure your hardware exceeds the recommended specs. By a lot if possible. It fails hard on parts with repetitive features. Plan on lots of "tracking lost" errors. I find it easier to do multiple scans and manually align them instead of relying on the software. But other than that... I prefer the Einstar over the Pro. Really like the texture stuff. I just takes lots of practice to get the results you may be looking for.

Would you mind sharing your offset on those wheels? Not that it would totally apply to my case. I am pretty sure that the Miata hubs are further outboard than OEM. I did keep those cut-off pieces of fender just in case I want to weld them back in. Your vehicles are awesome. I am on a more DIY budget.

I work for 949 Racing / Supermiata, doing the part design / engineering. Which explains my current wheel choices for the pictures. I can get custom wheels made, but there are some issues with doing so. Billet wheels are cut from a large chunk of aluminum and are not as strong as cast / forged wheels. The grain structure is not optimized for wheels. You can get wheels made from a cast "puck" where you have the spokes machined out and then the barrel is rotary forged. The problem is finding a pre made puck that can get you the offset and width you want. It is hard to find these in less than an 18" diameter since the big money in wheels is in the larger diameters. I have had custom 18" wheels made for destructive testing and model verification.

Here are some pictures with 17" wheels. First, OEM ND Miata: 949 Racing 6UL 17x9 +45 Finding a 4x100 with the right offset on a 9" to 10" wheel may be challenging. Hope I don't have to make a set.

I had a set of wheels done. It was more than $1000, and that was about 6 years ago. That more than doubled the cost of those wheels. But I still have them.