build diary

August 5, 2004:
The Seven is now a commuter vehicle.
Well, not exactly. But I did drive it to work! Much excitement. And naturally, it's raining lightly for the first time in weeks. That didn't stop me from having an absolute blast coming in to work though. The car does seem to get a little attention in a pickup truck town for some reason. I'm too busy paying attention to my driving but passengers report a fairly strong "whiplash effect". There's a coolant leak in the radiator at one of my new fittings but I'm very happy with the way the car behaves. Last night I installed a knock sensor and the passenger's seat so the car is essentially complete. From this point, it's debugging.
entry 564

At work on a gloomy day.
With two seats!
entry 565

August 6, 2004:
I have guests visiting for the next few days so there won't be any real work done on the Seven.
However, said guests also have a video camera! We shot a little footage yesterday evening. The car is not subtle when running at full throttle so we called it an evening when some neighbours started to object. Fair enough. Once Trevor (owner of the camera) gets home he'll send me a copy of the footage so that I can put it up on the site. My computer doesn't have the right connections to grab the footage here, sorry.

Yesterday was a most entertaining day. I took the car around to show to all the various folks who helped me with the build - the paint shop, the fabrication shop that supplied me with the materials for the hood, the muffler shop that helped me so much with the header. Everyone seems quite impressed. I became more and more comfortable with the car as the day went on. The combination of high compression, light vehicle weight and a very light flywheel does make the car difficult to drive smoothly at very light throttle positions. Some of this can be overcome with better tuning but I suspect it will never be completely eradicated. I probably should wait until I have the car idling at under 1500 rpm before making any final judgements though. The suspension is nicely compliant and the car rides much better than most people would expect. For those in the Miata world, it's better than most of the track-oriented suspensions out there! I am extremely happy about the steering as well. The Mountney wheel feels great (thanks, Eric) and the weighting is light. The Miata steering ratio probably has much to do with my comfort level with the car and there is lots of information coming through the wheel. There's no slop at all and the car seems to turn in almost as soon as I think about it. The view over the hood is quite entertaining as well.

Now that the car has run perhaps 15 miles on the road I'll pop it back up on the stands and check all the bolts. I'm particularly interested in the bolts holding the front of the diff in place!
entry 566

August 9, 2004:
In a brief moment of spare time over the weekend, I put the car up on jackstands so that I can check it over carefully.
Another small leak in one of the radiator fittings had me pull the radiator out so it could be fixed properly. That should be done this week sometime once I get caught up with everything else that's going on. I really should change the transmission as well. Maybe later this week - I'm trying to convince myself it will be a fairly quick job. It should be, but until I've done it I'm a little concerned. That lack of synchro really slows down shifts into 2nd. It also gives me the ability to make truly embarassing noises with the transmission.

Most common question shouted from other cars when the Seven is on the road: "Did you make that yourself?". Second most common: "How fast does it go?". Somehow, top speed never entered my mind. Maybe I'll just answer "200 mph". Guys in pickup trucks don't quite understand the whole nimble concept.
entry 567

August 11, 2004:
I've decided to change the transmission to another one we have at the shop.
This one has 140,000 miles instead of 50,000 - but it's known to work so in it goes! That will probably take place this weekend. The radiator will be fully welded tomorrow night so the car will be driveable again soon. The track day at the Open House is looming...
entry 568

August 13, 2004:
Well, maybe the radiator won't get welded.
A couple of non-professional attempts at welding haven't worked (not me, I know I can't weld aluminum!) and the professionals are concerned about the epoxy in the rad melting. A custom radiator might have been easier and cheaper in the long run. I'll use epoxy to glue the fitting into place - it's what I tried last time but I hadn't done a good enough job of preparing the surfaces. This time I'll do better.
entry 569

August 14, 2004:
Phew, a long day.
I popped the radiator in this morning, drove to Flyin' Miata to put the car on the lift for the transmission swap and immeditely had to remove the radiator again to get the engine out. I should have used velcro to attach this thing! No leaks on the way over, though. Two hours later the engine and transmission were on the floor and a surprising amount of the car was disassembled. The fact that I had to reach into the rear wheel wells to undo the seats was quite entertaining for the others in the shop! The new transmission was cleaned up and everything was reinstalled eventually with a few extra jobs thrown in along the way. Bill Cardell spotted the problem with my high idle - a misadjusted throttle stop - and hopefully that's fixed. But the radiator sprung a pinhole leak and so it was time to remove it again. The epoxy was obviously not the right choice and since welding was discouraged we decided to try a technique similar to brazing. This proved almost impossible to seal up so I'm using a combination of epoxy and the braze now. I'll let it dry for couple of days before installing it. If this doesn't work, it's off to the professionals to be welded and I'll just take my chances with the epoxy in the rad. The frustrating thing is that I obtained a set of dealer plates to drive and tune the car this weekend and it's spending the entire thing on the lift. Oh well, at least the new transmission should make it easier to drive. Now if only I could figure out the instruments...
entry 570

Draining the radiator.
I'm much better at this now. The rad has been on and off the car far too often.
entry 571
From underneath, the Seven looks like an airplane!
entry 572
The engine comes out for the transmission change.
It looks a lot bigger out of the car!
entry 573
Sigh.
I thought this part was over.
entry 574
The engine and transmission are back in but the radiator continues to give problems.
entry 575
After carrying this extinguisher around on test drives I decided it was time to install it permanently.
entry 576
My new, difficult to photograph coolant overflow tank.
It's a metal can that used to hold brake fluid. Light and cheap!
entry 577

August 16, 2004:
Much better.
The combination of the brazing and some epoxy (okay, JB Weld) with lots of curing time has fixed the radiator. The adjusted throttle has made the car far, far more drivable - it had a terrible light throttle snatch before that has gone away. With the new transmission with synchro on 2nd, it's now a well-mannered little car just like a Miata should be. The exhaust fit better when I reinstalled it (I have no idea why) so it's quieter now although it still makes highly entertaining noises. A less entertaining noise is the buzzing from where the #4 header tube hits the bodywork - a bit of trimming is required.

In terms of the instruments, some quick probing hasn't given me any clues. The speedo cable snapped about 10 miles after installation due to a nasty tight bend in the cable. That's going to be difficult to avoid given the packaging. The oil pressure gauge and tacho are the two that interest me more though. I'll try to work that out this week. I'm leaving the car at the Flyin' Miata shop because I won't have plates again until Wednesday night. Most of the work remaining is just fettling although it might be good to have a wind deflector of some sort - passengers seem to mention that a lot.

Eric has asked for more photos of the car. I'm constantly taking photos of it because I still can't believe it's out on the road - so if there's anything that you want to see in particular let me know either via email or the guestbook. One comment from Bill is that it's more orange in person than in the photos. I have a tendency to show the yellow highlight in the photos but most of the time it looks like the basic orange you see in photo 438.
entry 578

It looks like I'll have to do a little work on the exhaust tip - my rear fender is getting most of the heat and I'm sure the tire isn't appreciating it either.
entry 579
A shot of the car from further away with less distortion from a wide angle lens.
entry 580
If you were really tall, this is what the Seven would look like.

entry 581
I'm amazed at how different the colour looks in this photo when compared to the previous one.
It's also quite obvious how far back the seats are. The rear fender prevents me from leaning my elbow on the rear wheel!
entry 582

August 17, 2004:
The instruments are working now!
It turns out there was a badly corroded connection on the back of the instrument panel. Replacing the circuit board with a known good one solved the problem. Now I have a tach and an oil pressure gauge. Still no speedometer but that's not going to change any time soon and really isn't a great priority. I've packaged up the wiring in the engine bay to make everything look neater. I might even take advantage of the new giant 20,000+ CFM fan at Flyin' Miata to work out a decent little wind deflector. Am I just doing small things that will improve people's impressions of the car? Why, yes I am! There are a lot of folks who will be checking the Seven out this weekend at the Flyin' Miata Open House.

I also weighed the car last night. It's a little heavier than anticipated - I probably underestimated the exhaust system. Still, a full wet weight of 1257 lbs isn't bad at all. That's with a full tank of gas, water, all the body parts and even a fire extinguisher. The empty car is slightly tail heavy (52.7% on the rear) and almost perfectly balanced left to right. The cross weights are also very good. The moral? It'll handle best with a passenger. I don't think it will be a problem finding one this weekend.

Pulling into my garage last night, it looked odd. It was too big and too empty. It's the first time the Seven hasn't been there since January! All that's left is a bunch of debris.
entry 583

Bill does some investigation on the wiring.
It's quick and easy to remove the scuttle and it makes working on the car far, far easier.
entry 584
The circuit board looks better in this photo than it did in person.
The left two pins were all green and we weren't able to clean them up.
entry 585
Time to hit the scales!
entry 586
The final weight and balance.
Not too shabby, really!
entry 587
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