The Miata comes home
Yo, dawg, we heard you like tiny convertibles, so... you went out and bought a second tiny convertible. Totally reasonable.
Interior shot
The interior is in great shape for a 15-year-old car. It was always garage-kept, and it shows
Engine bay
So clean! It will be nice to work in here
Odometer
Palindrome!
Step 1: Install subwoofer
Much easier with seat removed
Power cable routing to battery in trunk
I love when cars leave me openings to route wires without having to drill holes
Nice and easy power cable run
Subwoofer mounted behind passenger seat
Passenger seat reinstalled
The passenger seat only loses one click of front-to-back adjustment, not bad at all
Subwoofer invisible when seats are back
And the tiny subwoofer provides plenty of volume to fill in the bottom end, which is all I wanted
Wheels installed
Fortunately, Miatas have the same bolt pattern as Minis, so I was able to move my wheels right over from the old car
Double Trouble
...But not before replacing the tires, eek
Driver's side tear
The top has a tear on each side. I practically never drive with the top up, but I'd like the car to be watertight if I get caught in the rain
Passenger's side tear
This one's bigger
Driver's side outside patch applied
After some Goo Gone and some elbow grease to get rid of the gunk left behind by the previous owner's duct tape, I apply vinyl patches on the outside of each tear
Passenger's side outside patch applied
The instructions called for 1" of contact area on all sides of the tear, but that wasn't possible here, so I just tried to give the patch as much contact as possible
Driver's side inside patch applied
To help reinforce the patches, I also applied cloth patches on the inside of each tear, extending it up higher to cover spots that looked like they were about to tear soon
Passenger's side inside patch applied
Ditto here. This didn't work very well -- the patches get stuck on the metal bows when I retract the top, and peel away from the cloth
A shot of the oil pan
A little bit of oil is leaking from somewhere, possibly the rear main seal or cam position sensor. Pretty minor, though
Installing wideband oxygen sensor
I haven't gotten my hands dirty in the innards of a car for 10 years or so, so I'm limbering muscles I had forgotten I had (both figuratively and literally)
Downpipe flange
Man, I sure love wrestling with exhaust bolts. Finally after hours of struggling, I get the downpipe nuts free and the oxygen sensor off
Catalytic converter flange
This one was way easier -- lots of room for a breaker bar
Separated midpipe
After four hours or so, the midpipe is finally free! Time's up for the day, so welding will have to be tomorrow
Cutting out a section of the heat shield
Drilling the hole for the bung
Test fitting bung
Welding the bung
Ooh, glowy
Finished product
Test fitting the sensor
Midpipe reinstalled with wideband sensor mounted
Pulling the cable through the firewall
Check out my mad tyte gauge mounting
Injector Dynamics ID1000 injectors arrive
such matched. many flow. wow
So pretty
These 1000cc injectors are more than I'll ever need, but Injector Dynamics does such precise flow matching at low duty cycles that they can idle just as well as stock. This way I'll be covered no matter what I do in the future, even if I want to switch to E85 down the road (which requires about 30% more fuel)
Bosch wiring connectors
They come with connectors to splice onto the factory wiring, but I'd rather use adapter pigtails to leave my factory wiring harness intact
Yess, stickers, that's what's really important
Oh no, wrong pigtails!
I ordered adapter pigtails to avoid cutting my wiring harness, but I accidentally ordered them backwards -- I needed female EV6 to male Denso, but I ordered male EV6 to female Denso. Swing and a miss
Here we go, these are the correct adapters
