I got a lot of useful information from this website, Nathans website and Jim Stainer's Site so I figure I should pay back some of the info. I am a pharmacist not an auto mechanic. I live in Tyler TX and I love my wife, kids, house and showing off my car.

I know there are probably better ways of putting a car together but I did it with a 4 inch grinder, a cracker box welder, a $79 (with coupon) harbor freight welder and hundreds of trips to my home computer to search for answers. If I build another one (which I probably will when my son gets home from the Navy) the project will be cheaper and faster to complete. Cheaper because I bought some parts that were later upgraded and faster because I would not have to do some of it 2 or 3 times before getting it right. I don't necessarily think the end product would be much different from with I ended up with.

I will try to post all of my mistakes and how I corrected them so you won't repeat the same mistakes. It will take me a month or so to get all of the info up here because the car is still a work in progress and the fish have been biting lately.

I have not posted anything on this site before so be patient with me....

I searched craigslist for a couple of years hoping to find a miata with a blown
motor and a wrecked fbody with a motor and tranny at the same time. Finally a car came along so I bit the bullet and bought it.

 

The car cost me $2000. It is a 99 model. It had an automatic tranny in it and the motor was not working. The guy I bought if from said he was sure it needed a motor because it was running fine and made a sound "like the wind" and quit. I took the motor and tranny out and found the motor only had about a pint of motor oil in it. The interior was in very good condition and the body didn't have any rust. If you are looking for a NB miata, I suggest a 2001 or newer because they have cooler headlights and front bumper covers (which I have upgraded to) They also have useable cup holders. Also look for one with little/no rust and a good interior because it is cheaper to get all of that upfront than it is to upgrade later.

 

I work monday thru friday and missed several opportunites to purchase
different drivetrains because they would be sold by the time the weekend came around. Finally this 98 z28 came along for $3500 and I took a day off and got it. The guy said he had over a hundred people call and ask about it and
several say they were on the way with the money. I think he was shocked when I showed up with the cash but not as shocked as I was to find this "deal" 2 hours away from my home. The transmission had been rebuilt and the motor seemed really strong. It was a really beatiful car and a lot of people asked my why I would even consider whacking it up. My mind was made up and I have no regrets. I sold the car minus the motor, tranny, computer and wiring harness for $1200.
If you are looking for a donor car, the 98 and 99 have an inferior computer. I got lucky and this one had been switched out for a 2000 model computer!

 

Next we removed the goodies from the camaro. It took 4 hours with a lot of help from one of my friends. The old guy in the picture is my dad and the young guy is my sons best friend who helped a lot. THANKS!!!! We watched this youtube video on my phone

LS1 Engine Removal in an F-Body - YouTube

. We would play about 5 seconds of it then do a little bit of work then repeat. It wasn't that hard. The trusses in my shop held the weight of the car just fine. I wouldn't want to try lifting the car with the motor and subframe in it that way!

FYI...that is Caleb in the picture. He helped me a lot on this project..THANKS.
The old guy with the funny hat is my father. I live on a good fishing lake and he came over to go fishing. It was a sunny day and he wanted protection from the sun so he wore the funny hat. I took the pic.

 

I have a good friend that is an auto mechanic. Rebuilding transmissions is his specialty but he can fix anything. We took the motor to him to do a compression check. It passed the test. He found that it leaked on all cylinders when it was a top dead center but was ok a little before or after top dead center. He concluded that it had a cam in it that caused one of the valves either the intake or exhaust valve to not be closed at that point. Anyway we went with it since the tranny was "rebuilt" and the compression was good.
I got about 2000 miles on the car and the transmission started slipping and the radiator was puking antifreeze because the compression was leaking into the water system thru a bad head gasket. I think the head gasket issue was due to an overheating situation caused by a radiator hose issue. Anyway... if you have lots of money and don't want issues down the road, there is never an easier time to check out a motor and tranny than when it is out of the car the first time.
I wasn't too sad about it cause it gave me an excuse to put a 2400 stall vigilante converter in it and a g5x1 cam from LG Motorsports which woke it up quite a bit.

 

Next I removed the portions of the frame that everybody else says must be removed. I got some thin metal to fill in the holes. I did not remove my dash....that would be no fun at all. Remember when you weld up these spots that the other side of the firewall will get red hot. I just pulled the carpet back inside the car and welded about a half inch at a time then let it cool. I think I even sprayed water on it. Nothing caught on fire.

I just looked at the car and the frame removal on the driver side was totally unnecessary and the removal on the passenger side was not needed either. The passsenger side could have been fixed with a sledge hammer on the innermost part of it. The fuel line would need to be at a different place or perhaps drill a half inch hole thru the frame brace and put some rubber grommets to protect the line. I have an AUTOMATIC transmission and Sanderson Shorty headers.

 

It's funny, I feel exactly the opposite. My father just picked up a blown MSM to use as a 2.0 test mule and the only thing I can't stand about it is the front bumper. IMHO, the coolest looking NA/NB is the 1999 AE. I think the 2001 front is just too angular looking. To each his own, right?

Good buy though at $2000! Best of luck with your build,

-Jason

 

great idea on the tips. Hindsight is always 20/20. I anticipated wanting more when I put mine together so I'm building the engine and doing everything I can imagine from the get go.

 

what color is that front bumper
i'll find him one in the same color and trade lol

 

Next I took out that piece of metal that goes across the front of the car and connects both halves of the frame together. A friend of mind showed me how to drill out all of the spot welds to get the pieces out (otherwise I would have made a big mess and bent up a bunch of it)

 

Next I whacked out the parts of the subframe that were in the way. I pretty much did what others have done. I used a 4 inch grinder and eyeballed it. Then I welded 1/4 inch thick plates to the sides. The front at this point was still in tact. I highly suggest a bar connecting both sides and don't even think about taking it off until you are done. Also....do a whole bunch of tack welds otherwise the molten metal cools then draws up and the thing won't bolt back into the car. I learned the hard way and had to get a winch on it, ungrind some welds and re-weld parts of it.

 

Here are those tacked on braces that I removed too quickly. Tack those suckers on before you do any welding and leave them on until all welding is
done and you are ready to clean up and paint it.

 

Here's what I did before I put the steel plate in. I think it is 1 1/2 square tubing.

 

You can see where the square tubing is and the 1/4 inch steel plate above it. Originally I just put the steel plate in there but I think the square tubing adds some lateral strength. You can see the cheap Harbor Freight sandblaster I used. I put a tarp in the back of my trailer seen in a previous picture to serve as my sandblasting booth. It allowed me to reuse the sand over and over. By the way...I found that sandbox sand worked just as well as the expensive black blasting material. Just make sure it is dry. Once it gets moist, it doesn't flow out of the pot very well.

 

I later replaced that weak looking stock piece of metal across the front frame with square tubing. I think it is much stronger and looks a lot better. Notice that the mounting brackets for the steering rack are welding on the square tubing. They are at the exact location they were before......I later moved them a little toward the drivers side so that my steering shaft would clear my headers. I didn't want to "dimple" the header and decrease flow. That made the car turn very sharp to the left and not so well to the right so I lengthened the right tie rod end and shortened the left one. That was fun. Shortening the left one required me to grind some metal off it to get it the right diameter then running a die on it to get more threads and cutting off about 3/4 inch that needed to be gone. I cut the right tie rod in half and welded a 3/4 piece of material into the void. I cut a groove into all pieces so I would get good weld penetration after welding all of the pieces together I clamped a 1/2 inch piece of angle iron across it and welded it up like a splint. If you do this, don't forget to put the rubber boot on first because it won't go over angle iron after the fact and keep some water there to cool the parts and weld in short segments otherwise your rubber boot will melt.

 

Be sure you're EXTREMELY careful when using playground sand. It is silica, and when using it as a blasting media can cause silicosis, which is deadly. You need to be using the proper PPE including a hood and good quality respirator (not a little white breather mask)

 

Good advice I used one of those respirators with the canisters on each side. Those respirators seal up around you face much better than the paper kind which seem to be a waste of time and money to me.

 

Too bad I didn't know how you felt about bumpers sooner. That could have saved me a lot of money in my attempt to make it look a little more like a
honda 2000. Here's a pic so anybody reading this can compare to the earlier picture of the car before I changed out the front. BTW...the stripes are plastidip paint. I just put them on there to see if I liked them. I will eventually paint the same scheme with a color that matches my boss frog double hoop rollbar a little better. I got the headlights on ebay. They have halo lights on them and cost about $250 for the pair.

 

We sandblasted and painted the front and rear subframes and control arms while they were out of the car. I used black glossy engine paint. I didn't want heat to be an issue and a paint and body guy told me that it was a better grade paint vs the other rattle cans.
We also installed Prothane polyurethane bushings. Here is a good write up on how to do that with grease fittings. Mission Purple Part 2: Powerflex Poly Bushings Miata Installation The Prothane bushings have grooves on the inside of the polyurethane that allow the grease to flow from the middle of the joint where the grease fitting is installed to the ends of the bushing where it prevents squeaking. The "Energy" brand ones that I installed on my z28 did not have these grooves and it looks like the purple ones in the writeup also don't have the grooves based solely on the photos in the article. The grease may get there by moving between the sleeve and the polyurethane but I can't say because I didn't install grease fittings on the z28 and I have not actually seen the purple bushings in person. If I were to do it again, I would get the Prothane brand and not worry about it. By the way...my miata has ZERO wheel hop or slack in the suspension and it goes around corners like it is a rollercoaster on a track.

 

I read a lot about problems that occur with LS1 motor mounts. First they can come unglued. Second they can melt from the header heat. I didn't want either problem so I came up with something different. My dad suggested that I just build a solid motor mount but this was going to be my daily driver so I didn't go that route. First I cut out some 1/4 inch steel plate and drilled 4 holes in it so it would bolt up to the block. Then I ordered a couple of 1 1/2 inch bushings from a offroad vehicle website. See picture..

Here's a piece of advice if you are going to build one of these....
Get a 3 ring binder with a lot of dividers. Keep all of your receipts and notes in it. You will forget where you bought some items. Some things may break and you will need to return them. The wiring diagrams for the PCM show wire colors, the wiring diagrams for the miata show wire colors but... what color are the wires you use to connect all of the things together and where are those connections? Where are all of the relays you will install located? Believe me when I say... you will spend a lot of time looking up stuff, get the car going and wish you had made notes on those things so that later if something malfunctions...you would have a manual for your car.

 

Next I cut some pieces of 1 1/2 tubing and some pieces of 2 inch tubing. I removed the polyuretane bushing and did some welding. The 1 1/2 inch tubing at this point slid inside the 2 inch tubing. I did it this way so I could jack the motor up or lower it down to get it just right.

 

This picture of the subframe shows the ears I welded on it to accept the bushing end of the motor mount. Keep in mind my car has been on the road for several months now and I am going back and telling the story. There were many revisions and I bet I painted that sucker 3 different times. I am omitting many revisions to the project and just including the parts that ended up in the finished project. Anyway.....This allowed the polyurethane to be as far away from the headers/exhaust pipe as possible and they type of bushings I used are not glued to a metal plate so I should not have either failure. Yes I am aware that the one on the passenger side is a couple of inches more forward but I think the header dictated that plus I have more room to get the starter in/out.

 

I put the engine/tranny in the car as far back as possible and put it on some blocks. I made sure the hood would close. It wouldn't. I removed the sway bar, lowered the motor a little more and it would close with about 1/8 inch between the top of the MAF and the bottom of the hood. Keep in mind I am still using the Z28 oil pan on the engine. I just couldn't bring myself to spend several hundred bucks for an oil pan when I had one that worked just fine.
My first plan was to have a hole thru both pieces of square tubing and put a bolt thru it. That seemed a little wobbly so I trashed that idea and welded up the holes. That route probably ended up giving me a better product since it now has a giant spot weld where the holes were. LOL

 

Here you can see the motor mounts in the subframe waiting to bolt up to the block. There you have it... a pair of motor mounts that won't melt or come unglued. I think the bushings were about 20 bucks and the metal was probably around $50 with lots of metal left over. I found it cheaper to go to the steel yard and purchase full lengths of metal vs going to a welding shop and buying cut lengths.

 

I made these brackets out of angle iron so I could lower my stabilizer bar and still use my stock camaro ls1 oil pan. The ears sticking out bolt to the frame and the apex is where the stabilizer bar mounts.

The ones on the left are the stock ones. The ones on the right are the ones I made. Which ones do you think would "stabilize" better. And yes...the new ones weigh more...probably a pound each. I bet it and my motor mounts slow down my 1/4 mile ET by one millionth of a second.

I also attached a picture of the bracket installed.