Pictures from roughly a year ago.
October 2013 finally sorted out the rear end just in time for the hood latch to break the same day the radiator cracked.
February 2014
Drove out to about 7 miles past the edge of Civilization today to pick up this. Its a bumper off a 92 Loyale, Im kind of digging the facelift idea. It should clean up well. Color matched bumpers?
Still, for the grille Im not sure, Im thinking I'm gonna make a custom fiberglass piece. Like a replica of the chargespeed grille for this or something like an R31 Skyline grille.
MAY 2014 Got the turbo off on Sunday, didn't have time to upload pictures until now.
As you can see the turbo was still good, absolutely no oil consumption issues. I don't even know why I took it off...
I'm gonna get a custom downpipe made for it too by the fab guys at work, Look at that fantastic wastegate dump! No wonder these EA82T engine go through Turbos in ~40K miles, There's no boost gauges on them but I feel like boost creep and overboosting is a regular occurrence. I really hope the person at Subaru that designed these engines was fired and bludgeoned by their coworkers for this design.
I struggled with this bolt forever, it seems like, because they had a team of contortionists piece this engine together originally. Then decided to place every gasket around it so it could get caked with oil until it was 2mm larger. This engine is the single reason for rising fuel prices from drinking the world's supply of fossil fuels and wearing it like some sadistic badge of honor.
The near future will entail:
-Downpipe fabbed up at work, here at MAPerformance, then I am going to look into designing a mount for a TMIC.
-Miata rear struts, Ebay coilover sleeves with flipped strut mounts (-3 to -5" drop)
-15x7", 0 Offset Diamond Racing SC Wheels with chrome rims and cherry blossom red (hot pink) faces
-Side exit or Takeyari pipe exhaust
July 2014 Hella productive weekend, got my blast horns in, new Loyale bumper, wired everything up, Turbo nearly ready to go in, and going to put on my miata coilovers tomorrow. I'll update with pics during lunch break or when I get home tonight.
Started out removing that old crooked bumper that got annihilated by some hipster on a fixie, which I hope annihilated said hipster as well.
Once I yanked it out I found a spare key that popped out from under the headlight, I presume that this hasn't been used since the mid to late 80s.
Got rid of that awful rusted bumper filler piece, which I will be replacing with a rust free one! Then after removing the filler piece of the bumper, I put in my Sickspeed Neochrome horns, which are just generic Hella horns basically. These are in Neochrome though which is pretty cool.
Then I finished wiring them up to the stock Horn wiring. Soldered them in, used 12 gauge wire because I didn't want to worry about going too small and smoking the wire.
I also pulled out my AC Condenser that was cracked by said hipster. That will be replaced as well, and worryingly the o-rings on the connectors were pretty nackered as well, I assume some vacuum nipples over the open lines will be sufficient protection from the elements.
Got my Mishimoto 10" Electric fan mounted up to my radiator, forgot to use the mounting tabs because I didn't see them in the box but it seems to be working fine at the moment. Apparently aftermarket radiator caps for STi and WRXs work on this radiator so I will be using one of those, the operating temp on these engines run too damn high!
Got a lot to do still but here is how it sits now, haven't bolted up the bumper but it is mocked up, It is looking better by the day...
August 2014
Had a come up at a the junkyard a little while ago. Got actually crack free corner lights, fresh oil cap, for free.
Then I paid for the bumper filler to replace my dented rusty turd status one oh and this:
A Subaru XT6 steering wheel, Im gonna try to nab the hubs and seats out of it this weekend if I got time.
but I got this ALL FOR $20!
sorry for the digital noise, thats a terrible photo.
September 2014 Got my spoiler properly stripped, this gross rubberized coating came off in a sort of primordial sludge...
I got it off though, I thought about keeping it polished but I found a dent in it which would be a hell of a lot more apparent if it was polished. So on came the primer for paint.
After some good polishing with my 150 grid pad, a 300 grit piece of paper and finally some 1000 grit, I laid down paint. Going to try to get the clear coat done tonight then a wet sand.
Turbo is bolted back in as well, might get a custom oil feed line made because this rubber one is binding and worrying me so the next update might involve that, I also am in the market for some Miata coilover sleeves that'll fit over OEM struts if anyone has some.
Sept 15 (this morning's update)
So here is an update, car should be running in about a week and a half, hopefully...
Anyway, here is what I got done...
Got a proper Coolant Feed line made from braided teflon coated hose from Pirtek, installing it into the car was WAY easier.
I can seperate it into 2 pieces too, here is how it looks installed.
Also modified a spare grille I had, need it to fit the horns into it so it needed to be cut. Plus, It does look cooler, going for an AE86 look.
before:
after:
Still gotta finish up the grille, I am going to clean up the melted plastic, basically cut out everything that isn't red, then going to fill in the sides so it looks a bit cleaner. Finally I will color match it to the car.