Leaderboard

Got the right rear billet knuckle finished. I made a couple of legit trailing arms using sleeves Z turned up. Sleeves are about 50% thicker than OEM and made out of chromoly so hopefully they will stay round unlike the used one in the background. So I think we can now fully mock up the rear suspension. I finally got brackets and bolts for the AC compressor so B got the accessories and belt on. We wanted to shorten the primary tubes on the headers for more ground clearance. They slide in bores in the flange and are welded inside. First step B cut them off about 1" from the flange. Then I bored them out on the Bridgeport. After that it was easy to knock the rest of the tube off and B ground the welds a bit. Then we were able to pry/hammer the tubes back in the flanges and tack welded them on. Passenger side one was pretty good but we wound up angling the drivers side tubes toward the center of the car for more clearance to the crossmember. We'll probably cut off the flange on that one and extend it for more clearance but they're about as far up as I feel comfortable with. I want some clearance to the crossmember and rack boots. B also removed the auto shifter and put in the STI shifter but we need a rear pivot bushing. On the plus side it looks like we should have a decent amount of room for the hi/low and lock/unlock shifters in front of the stock shifter and room for a steering brake (two handle?) next to the parking brake. It appears that a 99-2005 Miata radiator should fit beside the passenger side cam phasers so I plan on getting one of those. One nice thing is that there are at least a half dozen companies making thicker core all aluminum radiators for those Miatas. I think I'm going to go with the CSR. Main reason for wanting aluminum tanks is then I can get a second inlet welded in the top tank.