anavrinIV builds an Exocet

[anavrinIV]

Some of you may have seen my thread in the NATOR NC section, I bought a miata, but for the majority that hasn't I'm starting a new thread here to really detail this project.

I'm building an Exocet. My donor is a 94 miata that has lived a pretty rough life so far, I bought it for myself as a birthday present and I've set a 1 year deadline to get this finished. This is all made trickier by the fact that I haven't ordered the new chassis yet, but that's coming soon. I've done plenty of research and have a general idea of where I'm going both short term and long term, and I want to keep this forum up to date as this place feels like home.

For those of you unfamiliar with the Exocet, the basic premise is the Lotus philosophy: simplify, and add lightness. For more information check out the Exomotive site, they're the US manufacturers of the chassis.

So to get it all up to speed, here's where we started:

9/29
TL;DR I bought a miater. Here's some pics.

The long story:

Been looking for a miata for a while now, finally found one that met my criteria. I drove 5 hours round trip Thursday after work to take a look and drive it and all seemed in order so I made an offer. Gave the seller a few ducats to hold it for me until Saturday when I was able to actually pick it up, paid the balance and was on my way.

About the car:
1994, Black with tan soft top.
1.8L 5 speed (the only way to have a miata)
168k miles
Came with a hard dog roll bar and jackson racing plug wires, otherwise stock as far as I can tell.
All electrics work (the ones left in the car anyway), power mirrors included.


On to the pics!

Just paid, here's where it sat waiting for me







Me in my new toy:



I couldn't drive the car away because the guy needed the plate off of it and I couldn't register the thing on a Saturday, so on the trailer it went for the trip.



Got it from Salisbury to Garner, unloaded, and snapped a few more pics before putting the car in the garage.







The engine bay is dirty, but clean. Engine has a bit of valve tick when cold but otherwise runs great



Interior:





Some wear on the driver's seat




I knew going in this wasn't going to be a perfect car. The radio is obviously missing, and the front passenger fender and front bumper were both repaired (pretty badly). Couple more little things shown here...rust on the rear rocker panels and a cracked/slightly melted rear bumper.





But no big deal, again, I wasn't expecting perfection. Only other issues are the driver's window won't roll up or down (broken cable) and a check engine light for IGL signal...I still need to research this one but supposedly the car sometimes won't start until you jiggle something under the hood. It started perfectly the half dozen or so times I tried so who knows.

We'll notice in the above pictures that there is a bit of a problem, namely that I don't exactly "fit" in the car. The roll bar is great if it's above your head. At 6'3 with a long torso, however, it doesn't quite make the cut. In a roll over situation my noggin would be the first thing on the ground. Not good. I'll also note that driving is interesting with a steering wheel lodged firmly in my femur, but that's just picking nits, isn't it?

Anyway, enough of that. With procurement complete the car went into the garage and work began.

First, the trunk was cleaned out. Original spare was still in the car as well as the jack and all accessories. Also in the trunk was the completely unsupported battery, some very dirty carpet and padding, and a lot of rust.

This looks safe enough...



Deck removed, carpet and padding removed and trashed, spare parts removed, fuel line cover removed:



Moving on to the interior the seats, soft top, roll bar, center console, seat belts, more nasty carpeting and padding, and (for safe measure) the ecu were taken out as well. One of the seat bolts decided to just snap instead of being removed, but admittedly snapping it was easier than removing the mirrored bolt on the other side. After performing all of this it's safe to say my biggest accomplishment so far is avoiding tetanus as we'll see in some of the pics. In case anyone is curious, the roll bar is a bitch to remove.

With the carpet and padding removed from behind the seats I found this nice pile of infection waiting for me



The rear bulkhead panel was pretty bad, but not nearly as bad as the access panel for the fuel pump. Yep, it's completely rusted through in a few spots.



Found the source of the old basement smell in this small pool that had congregated



And a good bit of deceased wildlife in the other side



And here it is all nekkid



With that completed (as well as the innards removed from the driver's door, no pics though) it was time to move onto the front of the car

Hood, fenders, bumper, fogs, and side markers removed:



This reavealed some damage I didn't know about, I guess this little guy kissed something at some point and had some damage to show for it.





No matter, the teardown must commence.

headlights, hood hinges, and wipers removed



And that's where it ended for the day. So far the car has been in my possession for just under 36 hours and this is where it's at.

9/30
Finally got around to installing a new light in the garage so I can work in the dark without bringing something out from the apartment. How convenient.

Only a little was accomplished on the car; tail lights, license plate lights, and rear side markers removed, license plate trim removed, trunk latch and key release removed, rear bumper cover removed (one corner cut off due to a stubborn screw), plastic bumper removed.

Also finally got a #3 phillips to remove the side mirrors and those are gone, passenger door being taken apart as well. I've successfully broken both manual window winders so I guess I have no idea how to properly remove those, but never mind that now.

Ass end removed:



Drivers door gutted, ready for removal:



Passenger door in progress:



That's really all for now, taking the back end bits out was a bit tedious but I'm trying to break as little as possible (that isn't already broken). Over the rest of the week I hope to have the rest of the interior cleaned out and some more hard bits removed.

10/3
Is it time for an update again? I think so.

TL;DR took more parts off

Tuesday night I began working more on the interior, step 1 of this is to remove the air bag. Unfortunately I started by trying to remove the gauge cluster hood and managed to break it. Damn. of the 2 screws and 3 clips that are designed to hold it in only 1 screw was even doing anything...all 3 clips were broken and one screw mount was broken. So in the trash that piece will go.

After that I got the column cover off, then went back and took out the air bag. Since I was on the right track I went ahead and unbolted the steering wheel and pounded on it until it broke free, then nearly hit myself in the face with it pulling it off. No noses were broken and a lesson was learned so I generally deem this a success.

From there I pulled the cluster and popped out random screws and bits until things started to move and when I couldn't get it all out I gave up and went inside.

How it finished tuesday:



Took last night off, went to dinner and watched a movie with the girl. Got back on it tonight though and put in a few good hours worth of work.

Read up on removing the dash so I wouldn't break anything just pulling and tearing until it all came free and was finally successful. I dropped the steering column (actually a requirement, who knew?), unplugged lots of things that are uselessly unlabeled, pulled and tugged some more and managed to break something small from I don't know where. Oh well, keep pushing.

Dash removed



Carpet removed next. This revealed some disturbing grossness...the padding was soaked. The car has been in the garage for 5 days and it hasn't rained in this state in a month so I'm not sure what went on here but it was moldy and nasty and smelly and I'm glad to be rid of it.

Nice shiny floors





Next went to work on that cluster of shit at the firewall. Heater core housing/vent block removed, blower housing removed, wiring harness dropped from the firewall.



Ecu to engine wiring harness removed, main cabin and trunk wiring harness removed. Lots of painters tape labels created so I hopefully won't lose anything in the mess.



Not sure that I'm going to able to do any work until Sunday from here, still lots to remove. The a/c box needs to come out (unhooked), harness needs to be dropped on the drivers side, battery cables need to be pulled out of the tub via the underside....lots to do. I think I mostly met my goal for the week but I'll be ready to get back on it this Sunday afternoon.

10/5
TL;DR More pictures

Didn't expect any time to work on the day but ended up with a few hours this evening and got to it.

First step was (for better or worse) to disconnect the a/c lines on the chiller box in the engine bay so I could remove it from the cabin. I wasn't sure if there was any charge in the system (a/c didn't work when I got the car) but figured I'd go for it anyway; got lucky and when I cracked the line nothing came out. Having avoided a misdemeanor charge I undid the second line and pulled the box.

Cabin cleaning up nicely here...



Pulled the hood latch as well. Ended up getting pissed at the cable and snipped it. Oh well, whatever.



Pulled the intake as well, figured I'd open up some room in the engine bay





In the interior I found something I didn't expect...not even sure how someone did this



Spent plenty of time slowly disconnecting electrical bits and carefully labeling them so I can put it all back later. Removed the airbag sensors in the front center and driver side, pulled the brackets holding the fuse boxes and relays, finished unclipping everything from the steering column, and pulled the engine harness from the driver's side. This is much less fun that I would have liked and it's going to be worse on the passenger side.

Wires all piled up



Firewall being cleaned up nicely



So that's that. I guess the next step is to finish pulling the wiring harness. Then start draining fluids...that heater core isn't going to drain itself.

10/6
Everything is moving along rather quickly, at the beginning I didn't know how fast this whole project would move along but so far there have really been no hurdles and it just keeps trucking.

kept going on the wiring harness but ran into the issue that I didn't exactly know what a few connections were. Some internet searching told me how to label a few and I just made shit up for the rest...how hard can it be? Took a bit but managed to get the engine harness out completely today.

Just the engine harness



Now if anyone can answer this for me I'd genuinely like to know how it takes so much wiring to control such a small car. I understand a luxury car with tons of speakers, seat heaters and controls, and other general tomfoolery but this is a miata and the only semblance of luxury is the power mirrors. Literally, the wiring fills the trunk and this doesn't include the charging system or the bits still attached to the dash



All those blue tags tell me where things go...or are supposed to go anyway. I'd like to not screw up when I have to put it back together but I'm sure that will be inevitable.

Anyway all looking pretty clean now. Other notable points window cowl removed, wiper motor and linkage removed, passenger door gutted minus latches.