Florida Dime

[cleanone]

SpenOne, I saw your PM before I saw this post.  If you are a good friend of Rob's, then I know you must be a good person.  Rob is a great guy.  I look forward to meeting you.

[cleanone]

Ok, it has been a bit since I have been able to update this thread.  Where was I......

 

 

 

The fuel tank.

 

 

 

 Not practical for filling since I had to undo a bolt and pivot the tank out from under the rear parcel shelf just to get the fuel filler nozzle in. And since this 12a is a thirsty little bugger getting about 13mpg, I would need to fill this tank a lot!  I also did not like having a fuel tank that was not very well secured bouncing around in my trunk.  If I wanted to drive this car I needed a better solution.

 

So I made a mounting bracket if you will for the fuel tank.

 

 

 

I drilled 4 holes in the floor of the trunk and mounted the bracket with four 3/8" bolts.

 

 

 

 

Now the tank is nice and cozy in a secure location that is easy to fill.

 

 

[Z chopper]

might be an idea to track down an actual 510 tank

[cleanone]

So now that I could drive the car another set of issues popped up.  Most notably a bunch of backlash in the drive line.  Wow!  It was pretty bad.  

 

The first thing I did was to flip the rear sub-frame bushing washers.  I was not ready to cut them up into a set of "Savage Washers" just yet.  This helped a little bit, but not much.

 

So while I was under the car I could tell that the drive shaft was not fully seated in the back of the transmission.  I know that some amount of plunge is required but this looked to be too much.  I was able to grab the front U-joint and wiggle it up and down.  With the car in gear, I loaded the the drive line  by turning the drive shaft at the rear end.  As torque was applied, I could see the front u-joint move off axis.  At this point I knew that the front yoke did not have enough engagement with the splines on the output shaft of the transmission.  So I unbolted the drive shaft from the rear end and slid it forward as far as I could. Almost TWO INCHES!!!

 

 

 

This would not do.  So I had two options.  1, take the drive shaft out and have it lengthened at a drive line shop.  2, relocate the engine.

 

 

 

Before I go any further, I have a confession to make.  From the day I bought this car, I never intended on keeping the rotary engine in it.  I just wanted experience the 12a for a little while since I have never owned a rotary powered vehicle before.  Because I would be swapping the engine out in the near future, I did not want to spend money on modifying the drive shaft only to take it out and have it done all over again in a month.

 

So I chose option 2.

 

This started inside the car with more center tunnel modification.

 

 

 

 

At first I tried to just add some new holes to the front engine mount.

 

 

 

 

 

But that did not move the engine back far enough.  So I ended up making a new front mount.  This mount lowered the front of the engine a bit as well as push it back in the chassis.  I needed to do this because the front u-joint had a bad angle on top of everything else.

 

 

 

The transmission mount was next.

 

 

 

 

As you can see, making a new transmission mount would be a good thing.  The new mount raised the back of the transmission to help with the angle of the front u-joint.  And yes, I used part of one of the coils I cut from the Mitsubishi Mighty Max springs!

 

 

 

 

 

Unfortunately all of this engine repositioining meant that I had to cut up the front cross member that I rebuilt earlier.

 

Before,

 

 

After,

 

 

 

Before, 

 

 

After,

 

 

 

I left the cross member like this.  I know it is not optimal by any means but I also knew that I will be rebuilding it again when the new engine goes in.

 

 

 

So did all of this help with the back lash in the drive line?  Well, yes......and no.  It made a significant improvement, no doubt about it.  Unfortunately I believe the damage to the front u-joint was already done.  There is play in that joint and it is a Mazda joint that they do not sell replacement parts for.  The joint can be replaced by a shop, but since I will be removing the engine, I have no need for that font U-joint and do not want to spend money on a part that I will be removing from service anyway.

 

So I have been driving the car around a bit more and taking it easy on the drive line.  I enjoy driving the 510 tremendously, but I am getting tired of having to baby an ailing drive line.  An engine swap is imminent.

[cleanone]

Here is a pic that someone took when I was driving around the V2lab Orlando "Mystery Meat 2" (yes, that is how it was spelled by the organizers).

 

[cleanone]

might be an idea to track down an actual 510 tank

 

 

Don't worry,  a new tank will be part of the engine swap.  It will have an in tank pump and fuel level sender and everything!

['70dime]

Don't worry,  a new tank will be part of the engine swap.  It will have an in tank pump and fuel level sender and everything!

 

What the worry is is that there really isn't any strength in the spare tire well. if you were to get rear ended with the cell in that location there is a greater risk of fuel spillage/firery death. 510's crush flat to the rear diff when rear ended.

[cleanone]

What the worry is is that there really isn't any strength in the spare tire well. if you were to get rear ended with the cell in that location there is a greater risk of fuel spillage/firery death. 510's crush flat to the rear diff when rear ended.

 

 

10-4 on that one!  The plan is to put the new tank in between the wheel wells like the factory tank was.  I am not a fan of having a tank full of fuel hanging out behind the rear axle, but I had to do something for now.  I will probably be starting the engine swap this week.  So you can stop worrying now.   :)

[cleanone]

The time has come!  Out with the old!

 

 

 

 

I know that some folks have a thing for magical spinning Doritos, but this thing was just not working for me!  The motor itself seems strong and in really good condition, but the carb is so screwed up that drive ability just was not there.  It was very frustrating.  Never mind the 13mpg!

 

 

So now the new.....

 

 

 

 

 

This drive train is from a 1996 Miata that I bought for $1000 as a non running parts car a couple of years ago.  The only reason it did not run was because the PO messed with the spark plug wires and put them back on in the wrong order.  I straightened them out and vroom!  It fired right up. Score!  I was able to trim down the wiring harness to only what was required to run the engine.  Then I fired it up on the modified harness before removing it from the car.  It has been sitting on a carpet dolly in my garage ever since.  Just waiting for the right project car to throw it in.

 

Now I know that this is not a popular swap unless your name is Bob and you have an unhealthy obsession with racing Miatas and wicked street/track Datsuns!  Other than Bob's creations I could not find much out there on a Miata swapped 510.  The only reason I am choosing to use this engine is because i have it at my disposal.  If I just so happened to have a KA from a 240sx that I parted out, then that would be going in.  But the Miata mill is what I have so in it goes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I was not sure if it was going to fit in through the top, but it did.  No problem.  It is a pretty good fit too.  In the pictures it is not mounted, it is only sitting in the engine bay with a jack stand under the transmission.  It was actually sitting on the steering tie bar.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The plan is to redo the cross member in a way that will resemble the stock configuration and remove the lower square tubes that I added previously.  Currently I have spaced the engine up about 3/4" so that it clears the steering tie bar.  I started working on the mounts this evening.

 

 

 

Brand new Miata rubber mounts with fabricated mount tabs that will be part of the revised cross member.

 

 

 

More to come as I get more done!

[cleanone]

So I have been a bit distracted with a fresh engine build for my 1992 Sentra SE-R race car.  I have been working on completing the engine and installing it into the car before the SE-R convention in Atlanta GA next week.  But I took a brake from that to do some more work on the 510.  Namely the front cross member modifications.

 

So with the engine barely sitting in the engine bay I made a cardboard template for how I wanted to join the two sides of the front cross member.  I then transferred that template to a couple of pieces of 16ga steel.  The first piece of steel was then tacked in place along with the engine mount pieces from the previous post.  Here is the result;

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then I added the second piece of 16ga steel to the bottom of the cross member and joined them with a strip of 16ga steel joining each side of what was left of the original cross member pieces like an " I " beam.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now I had to box it all in starting with the front side.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then the back side

 

 

 

 

And this is the result

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here is a nice example of what they call the "heat affected zone"

 

 

 

 

After some time with the flap disc on the grinder, the corners look much better

 

 

 

 

 

 

And then a date with a can of Rustoleum

 

 

 

 

 

 

I just installed it this evening

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wow!  It actually looks like a proper cross member now instead of a homesick abortion!

[cleanone]

While I was doing the work in my driveway yesterday, a man dropped by with a set of 14" Enkei 92s he was trying to sell on craigslist.  He wanted to test fit them on my car and take a picture for someone so I said sure.  After a bit of discussion I found out that he was very eager to get rid of the wheels so I asked if he would like to trade the "Baby Supras" for the Enkeis.  Well today he took me up on the trade.  Needless to say I am very happy with the outcome.

 

[cleanone]

Wow, 3 months since my last post.  I had to build a new engine for my 1992 Nissan Sentra SE-R SCCA ITA car that I took to the SE-R convention in Atlanta the second weekend in June.  After that I was back to work on the 510.  My next project after the new front subframe was to build a new transmission mount for the Miata gearbox.  The thing about the Miata gearbox is that it does not mount to the Miata like a normal transmission does because the engineers at Mazda decided to use a truss that they call the power plant frame (ppf) to connect the transmission to the differential.  It is a good design but not practical in my application.  Since my budget for all of this is pretty thin, I decided to use parts that I already had lying around such as a bent Miata front upper control arm.

 

 

I used one of the busing ends of the control arm  welded to a piece of angle for the transmission part of the mount.

 

 

And like my previous transmission mount for the 12a, I used a section of coil spring for the chassis part of the mount.

 

 

[cleanone]

Next up on the list was a bit of wiring.  Miatas place the battery in the passenger side of the trunk.  There is a wiring harness that attaches to the ppf and runs to the back of the car, through a grommet and into the trunk.  I saw no need to change this configuration on the 510.

 

 

There was already a perfect hole to pass this harness through and the Mazda grommet worked in that hole without modification!

 

 

 

I ended up drilling two more holes just behind that harness for the two fuel lines.  I do not have any pictures of that.

[cleanone]

Speaking of fuel, I had a fuel tank that I needed to wedge into the back of this car.  I know it has been suggested to me to find a proper 510 fuel tank, unfortunately I just don't have the budget for such things.  So in goes the tank from the Miata.  I probably could have packaged it better if I turned it around but I did not know if there were some baffles inside that would not function correctly in a different orientation.  So I kept the tank in the oriented the way Mazda intended.

 

I used the factory 510 tank mounts for the front of the Miata tank

 

 

 

Then I fabricated a frame to mount the rear of the tank to.

 

 

I shortened the fuel fill neck so it would fit under the trunk lid.

 

 

 

 

A bit nicer than that busted aluminum tank that came with the car.  Hopefully a bit safer too as it is not sitting so deep in what I understand to be a crush zone.  And it has a properly working fuel sending unit!!!

[cleanone]

Now that all of the mechanical bits and pieces were in, I had a bit of wiring to add.  Here are some pics of the dash area as it currently sits.

 

 

 

 

 

This is definitely a work in progress!

 

 

So I had a roommate back in the day that had a 240Z.  Well he left and the original steering wheel from the Z stayed behind for whatever reason. Since I am a Nissan enthusiast, it has always made for a great decoration on the wall of my garage.  I never figured I would ever use it.  That is until I started driving this 510 around with an old Grant GT wheel that was falling apart.  So in goes the 240Z wheel!

 

 

[cleanone]

So here is a picture as it sits now.  I have been driving it around and it is running well.  I will get some pics of the engine bay soon.

 

[cleanone]

As promised, here are some pictures of the (mostly) completed installation of the Miata engine.  I had to do the Miata "coolant reroute" to fit the radiator in the engine bay.  The stock water outlet/thermostat housing sticks out over 3 inches from the front of the timing cover!  I used a thermostat housing off of a 1997 Kia Sephia which bolts onto the back of the cylinder head.  That is where the Miata runs one of its heater hoses.  Supposedly the engine runs cooler with the reroute because the water flows better from front to back rather than front to front.  From what I understand people have had issues with stagnant water around the #4 cylinder and thus a lean condition and overheating of that cylinder.  Whatever, it helped me fit the damn thing in the 510!

 

 

 

 

 

 

You can see the factory water outlet in this picture:

 

[cleanone]

At the urging of a good friend of mine who has owned a couple of Miatas in the past, I rotated the tachometer.  It is fairly easy on the factory Miata cluster.  Remove the face, add a couple of holes in a position that clocks it to where you want it and your're done.

 

Stock tach position:

 

 

My new clocked position that puts the redline right at the top of the cluster where it is easy to see:

 

 

And here it is in the car.  I have not figured out how I want to integrate the Miata cluster with the 510 dash yet.

 

[cleanone]

So I have been driving around with a gaping hole in the transmission tunnel.

 

 

 

With the windows open I would get quite the breeze of hot air coming up through this hole.  When it was 96+ degrees outside this hot breeze did not bother me because really didn't make that much difference.  Now that the ambient temps have come down a bit and it is starting to get pleasant I have found that the hot breeze is very annoying!

 

On a side note I have been very impressed at how nice it can be inside the car with the windows up and the vents open.  The first day I drove it home from work in a rain storm I thought for sure it would be hot and muggy inside the car and that the windows would fog up.  Boy was I wrong!  The only time that was a little bit of an issue was when I was sitting at a stoplight.  When the car was moving it was very nice and no updraft from the hole in the transmission tunnel either. Those Nissan engineers did their homework on the ventilation of the 510!

 

 

But back to doing something about the hole in the tunnel.  Here is my down and dirty quick and easy remedy for the issue.  I started with a scrap piece from a steel desk that we got rid of at work.

 

 

 

After taking some quick measurements I decided where I wanted to place the hole for the shifter

 

 

 

Then I bent the sides of the piece down flat

 

 

 

After some more measurements and some careful consideration I made some marks and made some cuts

 

 

 

Then I set up my sheet metal brake to make some bends

 

 

[cleanone]

Here is the result after bending it up

 

 

 

Next I fired up the welder and tacked the end together and then cut off the excess material

 

 

 

 

And here it is installed in the car with a couple of screws.

 

 

 

 

I screwed it in place because I am not sure I want to weld it in just yet.  The screws will allow me to test it and tweak it a bit if needed.  Hopefully the drive to work tomorrow will be nice without the hot air blowing on my leg and arm and generally annoying the shit out of me!

[cleanone]

Somewhere along the line this datto was given an extra large rear valance that I never liked the look of.  Now that the car is running pretty well I decided to work on some of the cosmetic stuff.  The ugly rear valance had to be the first thing to go!

 

Here are the before pics;

 

 

 

 

And after removal;

 

 

 

 

Would you believe the damn thing was made from 1/8" sheet!  Holy crap was it heavy!

[cleanone]

I have done some searching but I have not come across a 510 with bumpers other than the stock ones.  My budget does not allow me to purchase a set of stock bumpers right now so I decided to make my own rear bumper.  I will probably make a front bumper in the future but the back is where I needed to start.

 

 

 

 

 

I also re-made the exhaust because the one I had been running was below the rear I-beam instead of through it.  That configuration caused quite a bit of scraping when the rear suspension squatted.  I also decided to add a glass pack to see if I could remove some of the flatulent sound from the exhaust.  Here is what I came up with;

 

 

You can see the tail pipe in the pictures of the completed bumper above.  I ran it with just the glass pack and no muffler for about a week.  I was loud and harsh!  Very sharp sounding but in a good way.  Just too loud.  I was going to add the muffler that I had on the previous system but then I found a smaller muffler that I forgot I had.  This little muffler is actually for a sport bike.  It is a carbon can with a steel inlet and aluminum outlet.  I decided to give it a go since it did not require too much fabrication to install.

 

 

 

 

 

The little muffler made a big difference in the exhaust note.  It is way more quiet and much more mellow.  No harshness, raspyness or flatulence.  All good traits in an exhaust note.  And it no longer sounds like a typical Spec Miata!

 

Let me know what you think.

['70dime]

I sorta wish you had started with a stock 510 crossmember. I'd like to see what kind of mods it would need. I've thought about this swap for a while but mostly just bench racing in a terribly slow fashoin.

[cleanone]

I sorta wish you had started with a stock 510 crossmember. I'd like to see what kind of mods it would need. I've thought about this swap for a while but mostly just bench racing in a terribly slow fashoin.

 

 

I wish I had started with a stock cross member too.  I am contemplating re-doing the cross member again so I can lower the engine and maybe raise the control arm pickup points.  I may even look into a rack and pinion.  But I have not done any research on that yet.

[toyota1515]

This is a very interesting buildup right here, i love the engine swap from rotary to Miata engine, and the crossmember fabrication was just awesome nice technic there, you can do the same for the rear bumper. just saying!