We’ve made lots of progress on our track miata build since our last Part 2 update, so let’s talk about what we’ve been up to with the car. After getting our Laguna Seca Blue paint, we had to wrap up some of the looks by installing our front lights and blinkers. We decided to add a little touch by taping “X’s” over our lights – you know… to keep the glass from shattering in all directions in the case of a track mishap. Totally functional, but also looks pretty cool and simple to do.
Beyond lights and blinkers, we had a custom Enthusiast-Owned decal made for the side / doors of the car, which we applied wet over the weekend – using a water and soap mix, with just a touch of soap. We also added our Flyin’ Miata windshield banner sticker to let everyone know this thing flies. The car came out great with the decals, can’t wait to get our numbers on.
Next up are the brakes: we went with the Wilwood big brake kit which features bigger 4 piston calipers – very nice piece with four bleed screws, and bigger slotted rotors. We added stainless lines and flushed the whole system with Motul 600 fluid. The rear brakes are stock, but have fresh rotors and Hawk pads. The front big brake kit feels phenomenal – one of the best upgrades out there – and it looks freakin’ awesome behind the black 15″ wheels. Can’t wait to put this set up to the test on the track.
And lastly, we picked up a Fab9 coil on plug plug and play kit to convert the car over to a coil on plug set up. The install was ridiculously simple, and we took it a step further and removed the OEM coils from behind the valve cover. The megasquirt ECU tune needs to be updated to run with the new coils and plugs, so we scheduled a full tuning session for early May. Our plan is to run the car on E85 so we can get more aggressive with our timing maps and squeeze more power at current boost levels. The coil on plug set up should give us consistently strong spark at sustained high-rpm’s, something we’ll see a lot on the track.
Stay tuned as we install some cooling solutions for our oil, wire in our oil temp sensor, get the car tuned for E85, and wrap up on the looks department. We’ll be hitting the track shortly for a test and tune session… can’t wait!