Moon Patrol

I'm turning into an old man...for now

One of the reasons of starting fresh with a new car was to do right from the get go or at least taking it through the correct stages and using quality parts this time. No Chinese made cheapo junk. I fell short in only one major area with this so far. Suspension. I bought super cheap Chinese coilovers and received super cheap Chinese quality. I decided I'd rather be at a fixed old man ride height than deal with shocks that have no idea of what valving is. The new setup is bilstein b6 hd shocks, fm gen two springs, stock mounts(for now)and ohlins bump stops. I didn't feel the need to spend $100 on fatcat bumps so I did a little digging. Seems to me that ohlins 36mm and 46mm bumps are the same exact thing as the fcm ones. They were half the price including shipping.

The Ohlins bump stops I order from Resuspension.com

Onward with pictures.

 Out with the old.

 Assembled new setup.

 Bilstein HD's are probably my favorite shock.

 Used fm gen two springs I got on the cheap.

Eventually I'll do a ground control kit on these but just with my drive home I think this may be the best all around suspension I've had. Perfect for a street car. I'll be doing some extended top hats in the near future and that'll bring the car down about half an inch. Its currently at 12.5" and 13" hub to fender. Exactly what Flyin' miata advertises them to. A little high for my taste. I forgot to take a picture of final ride height but when the top hats are made I'll make another post and show the difference extended, flat top hats make compared to the stock NA top hats.

Level Up: Function and Style

In the ever on going debate of function vs. form there always seems to be one or the other. I choose both. I'll start this post with the ap1 helical diff install and how that goes on a 1.6 car. So most of this kinda fell into my lap so I can't really tell you how much this'll cost. I was given an ap1 helical diff and a 1.8 miata housing. Step 1 and 2 down. You're required to use mazdaspeed axles which I purchased on the cheap through a friend. You also need a 1.8 driveshaft as usual, which a picked up from a local junk yard. I went ahead and decided that I would replace the old worn out stock bushings with some Garagestar delrin diff mounts.

 You can see the new housing on the right loaded up with the ap1 diff and Garagestar diff mounts.

 This is the mazdaspeed outer joint that goes into the hub. If you look at the picture below you can see the difference in the flat section that inserts into the hub is shaped much different than the 1.6 axle.

 In order to make the mazdaspeed axles work with the 1.6 spindles/hubs I had to remove a pretty good amount of material to allow the axle to seat into the spindle/hub.

After playing with a precision cnc tool(grinder) for a bit I was able to make everything fit properly. A picture of the diff mounted up and axles in.

Next I installed some Garagestar rack risers. I was getting some really bad bump steer and figured I would give these a shot. Much cheaper and easier than a a legit bump steer kit.

 Very easy install. Just unbolt the rack, slip in the risers and use the new, longer hardware supplied.

 After install it was time to align it. Since the risers bring the rack up it causes some serious toe out.

A friend of mine here has managed to come up with some pretty rad things to do with sheet aluminum. He built me a wing and we also installed that. We used rivnuts to install the wing and the supports.

 Alex doing his thing. Also decided to test fit his Borbet Type a's on the car for funs. They're 16x9 +15 with 10mm spacers.

More to come for the exterior of this thing. Something thats crucial in building a car for me is to not have an overall plan. What happens as an outcome, I consider to be, organic. It just happens. Building a car can be an art form. You just have to let it be.

Stay original. 

NASA at Texas World 2015

Weekend was rough but good times and good racing were had. Seeing that Texas World Speedway won't be around too much longer it was a must to make this event. All gopro images. 

 This e36 Piloted by Rich Bosco not only won the overall points this year but his third in a row for NASA GTS-2. Congrats my man. 

NA IRTB>everything

"BUT FIRST, LET ME TAKE A SELFIE"

A few recent snaps

This one is from the local Wednesday maita meet.

 Stopped by this cool grave yard and got a few decent shots. I really need an editing program.

 My buddies z3 on the way to the Wednesday miata meet.

These Images kinda turned out like crap

The lens I used didn't work so well. Couldn't tell on the camera screen. Oh well. I plan on going back to this spot and get some proper pictures.