So, I have a set of Epsilon wheels for my build. They're pretty dirty, and I found that the PO had spray painted white paint close enough to the car to get paint on the wheels. I spent a few hours today getting the centers clean(er). Attached is the effort so far on one of the centers.

 

Those are soooooo sexy!

 

One more photo of a center fully cleaned.

 

Nice! my Epsilons need a makeover but still look great on the car.

Cant wait to see yours on your car.

 

I am really excited for, and to some degree, dreading, polishing the barrels. They're pretty dull right now, and I really just want a full mirror finish on them. It's going to be a fair amount of work for sure. Not that cleaning the centers for 4 hours each isn't a lot of work, but its just different.

 

Stoked for the build! Posting so i'm subscribed.

Whens the engine dropping in?

I dont know if 15x7 is going to be wide enough to fill the front fenders unless you've got some insayne 0 or -8 offset (i dont know what the Eps are). 15x7 will just fill up stock fenders.

Personally I feel that most widebody FB's dont go wide enough on the wheels and it ends up looking like a skinny dood in huge football pads.

Are you sticking with the Wolf3D? Do you tune by yourself on the street or do you dyno or have someone do it?

 

Engine wont' go in until after the engine bay is stripped, and painted. Probably a month out for dropping in the motor. Going to wire tuck a bunch as well. I'm going to put some spacers in the front & rear. I'm not going for the football pads look, it's dumb.

Yes, still doing the Wolf, but going to get dyno tuned this time around. I had a decent street tune, but it wasn't tuned for max power and my newer turbo. So, will dyno tune this time.

 

Excellent. Tuck is up next for me as well. I'm thinking of cutting through upper quarter panels and routing through fenders, fix some fender dents while I'm in there, and mounting everything up in front if the radiator.

Glad to hear on the spacers.

 

Rethanol has been doing work towards wire tuck. Actually it appears not nearly as hard as one might think. I think it gets hard when you want to see NO wires (minus something like plug wires and throttle cable). The fender based routing seems pretty straightforward for much of the wires, and actually routing through the frame rails may be another possibility for some of the engine sensor wires.

 

Spent some time - ok a couple hours - cleaning, stripping the clearcoat and polishing one of my rims. Lotta work! But, they're looking sweet.

 

looks sick =]

 

A few updates.

I pulled the power steering unit. Plan to de-power it. Unfortunately, the flyin' miata information isn't sufficient - the designs are different. I'll see how it goes. Nasty smelling goo in there though, that's for sure!

Spent better part of the day today cleaning out the remaining tidbits in the engine bay - to prep for paint. Photos below. Decided that it's going to be a black engine bay - painted with Por 15. That'll take care of both the rust as well as a nice hard temperature resistant paint.

 

My personal recommendation would be to either swap out the entire steer column with a manual setup, swap out for rack and pinion, or keep the ps hooked up. There is a lot of slop on a de-powered PS setup. I've had two now, and my next project will be hooking the PS back up!

 

Thanks iotTus. I haven't heard much on 1st Gen PS being depowered. Major goal is to clean up engine bay more - and doing a gilmer drive setup. So, a manual rack is probably the right option. R&P would work too.

 

Yup. Even with the de-powered steering, you've got a huge PS box sitting in there with a bunch of caps and loops. Not shui at all.

Re: gilmer drive - which kit you going with? I was totally sold on the gilmers until I saw videos of how loud they are. Holy **** you cant hear the engine OR exhaust over it - and rotary exhaust is loud! I've heard that you can greatly reduce the noise by "drilling out the channels" in the gear pulleys - now what that means is beyond me and I've heard many people say this with no video proof, evidence, or pictures of what this actually entails.

Basically whats going on is the air is trapped btwn the belt and the pulleys causing a "pop" each time the tooth engages. the hole would be to allow air out.

One thing I was thinking was shaping the teeth so that instead of coming down to a square channel:
|_|

Slot the bottom so it comes down at a taper:
| |
\-/

 

Finished cleaning the engine bay and got a coat of black on it. Went with POR-15 sprayed on via HVLP. Came out great, minus a few grease spots that I must have missed. I'll get them with coat #2.

 

Painted up the front steering parts and control arms. Look new!

 

Good work man!

Love this build!

 

Hey man just wanted to update something i mentioned earlier - my buddy took a look at my steering box and turns out there's a slop adjustment on the PS box just as there is on the manual box. We were able to get rid of 97% of the play I was experiencing.

I will play around with hooking the PS box back up and taking it off, see what HP / drivability difference there is.

With a 15" steering wheel the PS box is do-able, though still very difficult to steer below 20 mph.

 

Suspension & steering back together after a full soda scrub and paint.

 

I'd be interested to know what the difference is if one hose is just routed around on the top of the box, or if they are just plugged with fluid inside the housing.

 

More engine bay work. Got the wiring harness back in, brake and steering hooked up.

 

Looking great! Did you clean the brake and clutch fluid reservoirs, or are those new?

I see a nice shiney manual steering column in there now I hooked up my PS pump last night, stoked to get that back up and running.

If ONLY re-speed still existed - we could just do the rack and pinion swap for years and years, when i was FB-less, I DREAMED of the R&P conversion! I finally get back into one and the dood turns into a bozo and destroys his business

Do you still have your A/C pump? I may take that off your hands for ya...

 

No, still have the PS - but just don't have the power assembly in there. Still debating whether to leave PS connected or not.

Either way, I have at least 2 or 3 AC pumps. All yours. PM me for contact info.

 

I'll be plugging my PS back in tonight. I'll let you know what I think, having driven it the last 7 months without.

Do you have the stock 15" wheel or a 13" aftermarket?