Project Pipsqueak

[JCH13]

So, I lost my job. I went from the highest performance-based raise in the company 8 months ago to getting the ax last week because work has dried up, especially in my skill set. Sucks, but it opens up other options for me.

Like being able to work on Project Pipsqueak.

I met a local guy last year, Adam, just before the engine in my turbo Miata let go. He was getting ready to do a V8 swap in his 1991 and sold me the drivetrain. Since then he and I have talked a bit about his swap and I've done a little welding for him. Well, since I have a lot of free time these days, and he doesn't, Pipsqueak is coming to live with me for a little while.

Details so far:

1991 NA chassis, ~72k miles, FL car (hooray no rust!)
Modified LS1, ~440bhp, re-dressed with shorter engine accessories
Boss Frog front subframe and mounts
Boss frog chassis rails and transmission mount
Boss frog rear differential mount/rear sub-frame mods
Boss frog 4-1 headers
FM radiator
FM Vmaxx track suspension (shocks, springs, sway bars)
I'm not sure what the rear-end is...

I will be working on sorting out the fuel system, cooling system (including moutning the radiator), wiring harness, finishing the transmission mounting, cleaning up the engine bay, re-plumbing several brake lines, starting (and maybe finishing) the exhaust, and giving some general TLC to numerous little things as they arise.

The official to-do list to get it driving:

I started by pulling the dopey style bar, the PO had it installed and the CO doesn't want it. Style bars are useless, and probably dangerous, good call.

I then rolled around under the car for an hour or so inspecting everything that Adam had done so far. Pretty much all good work, especially for a guy who had only done oil changes up until this project (talk about going in head-first!). This is a big reason why I agreed to take this project on, I'm not patching up shoddy work, I'm continuing good, solid work.

The PO, however, was pretty bad in many ways. Virtually all of the carpeting is lined with this foil bubble wrap insulation crap. I assume the PO was too cheap to get dynamat, and opted for this instead. Makes sense given that Adam had already pulled pink fiberglass out of the trunk...

Since I need to install the radiator in a non-traditional manor, a side-effect of using an FM radiator with a non-FM sub-frame, I decided to pull the front bumper and fenders. This also paves the way for a fast Boss Frog Arm install later, a mod that I highly recommend.

Found a compost pile in each front fender, very typical of all NA Miatas. Very little rust underneath the fender, even with all the leaves and sand, I was quite impressed. You can see how Mazda cleverly designed the forward rain gutter to dump everything it caught right into the inside of the fender!

All stripped down and ready for some work!

I then switched focus to the transmission mount as I was quickly running out of time for the day. Initially Adam had some trouble getting this mount to work, and I can see why: it's really easy to install backwards! With that corrected, and a little massaging, it's now clamped in place and ready to be match-drilled.

The transmission mount needs four holes match-drilled in it, Boss Frog doesn't drill them because there is too much variance between cars (I assume). We had issues getting proper coverage of everything, but eventually got it all sorted out.

Well, I look forward to the challenge that this project will bring, and especially to helping Adam break it in on the track and autox course! Stay tuned ATG...

 

[jlee]

:awe:

 

[Zadamac]

The rear end is a Ford 8.8 from a Thunderbird with a 3.27 ratio.

Hi everyone - I'm Adam.

Here's a video of the Trans Am the engine and transmission came from.

 

[JCH13]

Progress today!

First I decided to knock out the transmission cross-brace. I marked all of the hole locations with everything clamped in place. Some center-punching, pilot drilling, and step-drilling later, voila!

This is the hole that wound up closest to the edge, but it's acceptable IMO. The friction from the bolts' clamping force will be what keeps everything in place, not the bearing strength of the side of the holes. I omitted the included split lock washers because they are garbage. I torqued the 4x cross member bolts to 50ft-lbs, because that seemed like a good number, and the transmission mount bolts to 60t-lbs because they were slightly larger.

Then I focused on getting the radiator mounted and plumbed.

Now, because the radiator is made by FM and the front subframe is made by Boos Frog, the radiator cannot be installed as intended. After some brainification I decided tomake two upper mounts with small pieces of aluminum and two lower mounts from some strips of aluminum.

After cutting out the old radiator brackets, cowling, and a few other things I test-fit the radiator, measured, sketched, and they fit first try!

I made one lower mounted, matched the second one to it, and they also worked out nicely.

The radiator is at a slight angle, making a triangle between the lower mounts, radiator, and front chassis. Thus the lower brackets are in tension/compression and not any bending. This is very good, structurally speaking.

I also fit up the radiator hoses. I needed to trim one and flip one of the housings on the LS1, but it all came together reasonably well. The top hose doesn't fit perfectly, but I assume that when the cooling system is pressurized that the slight kinks in it will go away or simply won't matter.

The lower hose fit perfectly, no trimming needed!

The radiator is just an inch or two higher than the chassis, but it fits well.

I tackled a few other minor things - pulled out some Miata ignition components, emissions hardware, test-fit the fuel filter/regulator, etc.

Decent progress for the first full day of work methinks.

 

[core2slow]

Impressive build!

 

[FuzzyDunlop]

I came, I saw, I came again.

sick sick sick. This is gonna end well.
subscribed!

Shitty deal on the job though bud.

 

[JCH13]

The last two days have been a little slow in terms of tangible progress, but I have been familiarizing myself with the car, the work that needs to be done, and I've spent a lot of time checking things over.

Got the fuel filter installed after taking way too long. Being the fueling system I was extra-careful about getting crud in various fittings, making sure all the o-rings were oiled before being assembled, etc. Routing the lines was a little difficult, I think the PO added a lot of seals, insulation, padding, etc. where it shouldn't be. Including around the fuel tank. But, the new filter-regulator is in!

The FM-supplied directions were vague, but Adam found a directory of old directions and V8 instructions that proved to be quite useful.

I ran the fuel line along the passenger side and up into the engine bay. It's just loose for now, but will be secured with the supplied riv-nuts and adel clamps. Now, the LS1 fuel feeds from the driver's side. There are two options - cross the fuel line through the transmission tunnel (gross, pre-made line is too short) or flip the fuel rail 180 degrees. I chose the later. The pre-made line cinches right down on the rail.

I have started going through the wiring harnesses on both the Miata and from the donor car. For the most part everything is labeled really well and most things appear to be in good shape. However, there are some issues and some damage, like nicked insulation.

And some of this...

If you do this (I know Adam didn't do this) I will jump through the internet and punch you in the face. Wire nuts go on house wiring and/or immobile, non-weathered, wiring only. Every time you put a wire nut on a car god kills a puppy with a kitten.

Now, a quick lesson:

I needed to make a shorter bolt for a grounding strap. There are a lot of ways to make bolts shorter, but this is the way I prefer.

Spin a nut on the bolt (this is very important), toss it in a vise. The nut gives you a great cutting guide and stops you from damaging any threads you might want to use. It also makes the bolt easier to hold in the vise.

Cut the excess length of with a hacksaw. Some people use a cut-off wheel. I find that bolts love to grab cut-off wheels, plus the heat can degrade the bolt and distort the threads. A good hacksaw blade (Lenox or GTFO, IMO) can go through bolts super-fast.

File off any burs with the nut still in place. Spin the nut off to knock any burrs out of the threads (especially important when threading into an aluminum block, where a burr with damage the threads). Then run a triangular file through the first turn or two to make sure everything is cleaned out.

This method may take a minute or two, but it gets you the length you need with threads that won't harm whatever the bolt is going into. Worth the peace of mind I think.

 

[michal1980]

Fyi on bolt torque, it's bolt size that makes a difference not length (generally)

 

[slugg]

That "cheap foil crap" weighs 1/20th as much as Dynamat. And, it being a Florida car and all, keeps the inside of the car considerably cooler. It's a not so uncommon mod down here. Just keep that in mind before you pass quick judgement.

 

[JCH13]

Fyi on bolt torque, it's bolt size that makes a difference not length (generally)

Okay... the reason I was shortening that bolt was because the hole it threads into bottoms out... not sure where torque came into the discussion. What am I missing?

That "cheap foil crap" weighs 1/20th as much as Dynamat. And, it being a Florida car and all, keeps the inside of the car considerably cooler. It's a not so uncommon mod down here. Just keep that in mind before you pass quick judgement.

Interesting. I never considered that. Don't you wind up with issues trapping water and moisture?

 

[slugg]

Interesting. I never considered that. Don't you wind up with issues trapping water and moisture?

Not really. I forgot the name of the good stuff (I want to say it's called "Reflect-X"), but it's actually directional. It lets vapor gas escape it, but not enter it. So I guess if you installed it upside down, you could have issues. Also, Dynamat can definitely keep the car cool, too, if you buy the right flavor. Basically, if you care about weight and heat, but don't care about sound deadening, people use this stuff instead.

 

[michal1980]

Okay... the reason I was shortening that bolt was because the hole it threads into bottoms out... not sure where torque came into the discussion. What am I missing

Back on your 4/28 post you mentioned torquing one bolt more because it was longer

 

[FuzzyDunlop]

Back on your 4/28 post you mentioned torquing one bolt more because it was longer

Slightly larger, not longer.

 

[JCH13]

Back on your 4/28 post you mentioned torquing one bolt more because it was longer

Slightly larger, not longer.

This.

Larger is ambiguous, apologies for that. The bolts I torqued more were 1/2in and the lower-torqued ones were 3/8in.

 

[JCH13]

More progress!

In trying to work out a grounding strap for the V8 I cut apart some of the original wiring...

Needless to say it was impossible to work with. After some searching I was pleasantly surprised by some 4AWG battery cable and terminals that I found at Walmart.

I also worked out a way to mount the Miata throttle cable to the LS1 bracket.

Match-drilled some holes in a new plate.

Drilled the holes out.

With a few stand-offs and a zip-tie as a back-up, we're in business.

I have also re-routed the 'main chassis wiring' and the fuel lines. They are anchored with Adel clamps that are bolted to riv-nuts I installed in the chassis.

Riv-nuts are a really good way to put threads into thin sheet metal, especially when using a normal nut is quite inconvenient. I started by drilling a hole through the floorpan, scraping off the underbodying coating, and painting over the bare metal with a chassis paint.

The riv-nut installs much like a pop rivet and sits just pround of the sheet metal. The nuts used are coated steel, though you can get aluminm and other materials as well.

I prefer to use bolts with un-threaded starts with riv nuts, like this one.

The un-threaded start helps to prevent cross-threading and other issues that can cause a riv-nut to fail.

I also bypassed the heater core. The plumbing is a bit round-about, but it should work fine.

Wiring is coming along in small steps, though frustratingly slow. Soldering wires together on a workbench is one thing, but soldering them together upside down underneath a car is something else entirely. A joint that should take me 2 minutes to make is taking 20, but we'll get there eventually.

 

[manimal]

Sorry about the job man. Sucks


Love the swap! Did you guys consider a plug and play harness? Made my ls swap much easier.

What clutch did you use as well? CTSV accessories or f body?

What did you do with the steam lines?


Welcome to the forums Zadamac!


What did you do to the engine? Did you do the ls2 timing chain and pump and what cam did you use? I went with the z06 cam and kinda wish I went a little bigger.

 

[SearchMaster]

My 14yo son really wants to learn more about cars (and especially engines). I would love to send him to JCH13 or manimal's summer camp, but only if I got to tag along

Keep us updated...cool project. I can't imagine how crazy those LSx Miatas are when finished.

 

[JCH13]

My 14yo son really wants to learn more about cars (and especially engines). I would love to send him to JCH13 or manimal's summer camp, but only if I got to tag along

Keep us updated...cool project. I can't imagine how crazy those LSx Miatas are when finished.

Anyone is welcome in my garage!

I can't imagine either. I just did a virtual dyno session on my car, which is fast, and saw 208whp. This thing will have almost twice that...

Sorry about the job man. Sucks


Love the swap! Did you guys consider a plug and play harness? Made my ls swap much easier.

What clutch did you use as well? CTSV accessories or f body?

What did you do with the steam lines?


Welcome to the forums Zadamac!


What did you do to the engine? Did you do the ls2 timing chain and pump and what cam did you use? I went with the z06 cam and kinda wish I went a little bigger.

Didn't consider a PnP harness that I'm aware of... how much do those run?

CTVS accessories, need dat shortness.

Not sure about the clutch or steam lines.

 

[JCH13]

Missed from yesterday: got the brake booster plumbed in with the help of a SS hose adapter from McMaster.

Spent most of today working on wiring and wiring related.

Trying to make sense of the donor harness and what needs to be in the car.

Keep on the left, toss on the right. Probably 3/4 of the harness by mass isn't needed! Phew.

How I'm dealing with cut wires that stay in the engine harness.

Some of these connections will be temporary, so I am leaving Adam enough space to cut off the terminal I'm adding and re-terminate with something else afterwards without any fuss. (Don't worry, it's electronics-safe flux!)

Some quick connection points (the barrier strip) for the engine harness. This is one of the only spots where the engine harness and the Miata wiring interact, and it's just +12V and switched +12V. I can see why people love swapping LS1 engines into everything.

And finally, my little corner of shame. I stripped the wires I needed from the various branches of the Miata harness, then re-taped and shoved everything I didn't need behind the main fuse box. We're in serious 'git r dun' mode, so cleaning up the Miata harness is going to wait.

A lot of my time in the last two days has been spent on sifting through various instructions on Miata LS swaps, general LS swap information, Miata wiring diagrams, etc so that I get things squared away the first time through and that I understand what everything is doing. It's a lot of information to absorb!

 

[Zadamac]

What clutch did you use as well?

Stock LS1 clutch. Why? Because I sincerely doubt the limiting factor in getting power to the ground is going to be the clutch. When the engine was alive and well in the Trans Am my brother (better driver than me) was able to light the tires up through 3rd gear and chirp them into 4th on 315 wide Nitto drag radials.

What did you do with the steam lines?

That question is alive and well, though not one that worries me much.

What did you do to the engine?

I bought it, abused it briefly, pulled it out of the Trans Am, replaced front and rear main seals, the oil pan gasket, valve cover gaskets and re-dressed it with CTS-V accessories.

Did you do the ls2 timing chain and pump and what cam did you use? I went with the z06 cam and kinda wish I went a little bigger.

The timing chain and cam were replaced by the previous owner, or he paid someone else to do it, rather. The specs on the cam are 231/235 112dur. I had figured out precisely what those numbers meant at one point but have since forgotten. Something about the opening/closing angle and duration, I imagine.

 

[JCH13]

I realize that I never posted a picture of what the back-side of the riv-nuts looks like:

Progress on a few little things that I want to square away before I go hog-wild with the wiring harness. Replaced all of the fuel injector o-rings and torqued the fuel rail down for real, done in steps because it anchors into metal inserts in the plastic manifold.

Ran two new brake lines that got mangled when the engine and transmission went in. I used a copper-nickle brake line, new steel nuts, and one brass union fitting.

I had a hell of a time finding good directions on how to double-flare, and then spent a lot of time practicing it, and killing one brake line, to do it reliably. What the copper-nickle lines gain in flexibility over steel lines, they lose in flaring stability. They are easier to crush and to flare off-center, one must be careful!

First, read the damn directions. Then practice. Then read the directions again.

Clean up the tube ends. Fresh-cut on the right, cleaned on the left.

Set the stick-out of the line in the clamp. The clamp has a nice leg to hold in a bench vise (makes life suck a whole lot less). Also, it is VERY IMPORTANT to tighten the wing-nut further away from the tube SECOND. This does the real clamping work, and it doesn't take much.

Triple-check that everything is square, turn the handle for the ram from both sides, evenly, and form the end of the tube.

It will look like this:

That's the first flare. To make it a double-flare you ram the tapered cone into the end and... voila!

Also, make sure the GODDAMN NUT IS ON THE GODDAMN LINE before the flare it. Holy crap is that frustrating. Also check that the brand-new nuts you bought are good. One of them had damage to the clamping lip and tore up the flare when I tightened it down. The flare was also a little off-center.

This is what happened when I tightened down the bad nut with the iffy flare: a huge burr lifted inside the fitting! I'm glad I took it apart when something felt amiss.

 

[JCH13]

In other progress I replaced the front lower ball joints and pulled the upper a-arms, both because the ball joint boots were torn and will need replacing and/or rebooting.

Pulling these guys is made infinitely easier by use of this tool, one of the best $20 I ever spent.

I also worked on relocating the power steering reservoir, which interferes with the hood. Unfortunately...

Adam... wat...

You have to pull the pump to take the reservoir off! One bolt can't be removed, the other is basically impossible to get a wrench or a ratchet on.

Then I found...

One of these things is not like the other... one of these things only threads a turn into the block! Need a longer bolt...

Then the real task - fitting the LS1 power steering pump to the Miata rack. Easy, right? Nope! FM's kit is out of stock, and pricey. And we learn why... the LS1 pressure output line is basically recessed inside of the pulley:

Went through three catalogs at two different stores, no dice. So we're proceeding with a basic power steering 'delete' that is fully reversible later on.

 

[manimal]

In other progress I replaced the front lower ball joints and pulled the upper a-arms, both because the ball joint boots were torn and will need replacing and/or rebooting.

Pulling these guys is made infinitely easier by use of this tool, one of the best $20 I ever spent.

I also worked on relocating the power steering reservoir, which interferes with the hood. Unfortunately...

Adam... wat...

You have to pull the pump to take the reservoir off! One bolt can't be removed, the other is basically impossible to get a wrench or a ratchet on.

Then I found...

One of these things is not like the other... one of these things only threads a turn into the block! Need a longer bolt...

Then the real task - fitting the LS1 power steering pump to the Miata rack. Easy, right? Nope! FM's kit is out of stock, and pricey. And we learn why... the LS1 pressure output line is basically recessed inside of the pulley:

Went through three catalogs at two different stores, no dice. So we're proceeding with a basic power steering 'delete' that is fully reversible later on.

Call earls in Indianapolis. He will make a fitting for you cheap.

http://www.earlsindy.com/home/

1800 331 indy

 

[manimal]

Stock LS1 clutch. Why? Because I sincerely doubt the limiting factor in getting power to the ground is going to be the clutch. When the engine was alive and well in the Trans Am my brother (better driver than me) was able to light the tires up through 3rd gear and chirp them into 4th on 315 wide Nitto drag radials.


That question is alive and well, though not one that worries me much.


I bought it, abused it briefly, pulled it out of the Trans Am, replaced front and rear main seals, the oil pan gasket, valve cover gaskets and re-dressed it with CTS-V accessories.


The timing chain and cam were replaced by the previous owner, or he paid someone else to do it, rather. The specs on the cam are 231/235 112dur. I had figured out precisely what those numbers meant at one point but have since forgotten. Something about the opening/closing angle and duration, I imagine.

Cool! Reason I asked about clutch and timing chain is some guys had issues above 500 horses so you should be fine at your power. The ls2/z06 Timing chain is a necessity above 600 horses. The Z06 clutch and flywheel weigh less and hold more if you ever have to replace it.
I used the stock LS1 clutch for a bit and swapped it out for the Z06 and really liked the feel of it. My buddies Diamond clutch felt like I was driving a 78 ford F700 lol

I am still looking for a solution to the steam lines as well.

 

[JCH13]

Call earls in Indianapolis. He will make a fitting for you cheap.

http://www.earlsindy.com/home/

1800 331 indy

Will do! Thanks!