[rusEfi] 1995 Chalkboard... err Miata yeah the answer to Life, the Universe and Everyhing

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Somebody
Posts: 6
Joined: Wed Sep 14, 2016 10:47 pm

1995 Chalkboard... err Miata yeah the answer to Life, the Universe and Everyhing

Post by Somebody »

Hello RUSEFI users, my name is Alex :-). Yeah I know I use silly old school smilies on forums still.

I do not know where to start with this, so please bare with my babbling a bit here.

I was born into the world of driving Honda cars. I probably have way too much knowledge in the theory of running, racing and modifying Honda cars then one should even think about that has never come to fruition in real life. It was all theory based and let us just say I only had 1 successful project car that I put together that actually worked. We will file that under "Negatives" of the endeavour I have decided to undertake.

What should any Honda guy do when given the green light from SWMBO? Buy a Miata, what could possibly go wrong in this situation? Well hopefully as time goes by and the car develops we could all see what terrible decisions one can make with this new found freedom.

The car, it was sold to me from a friend of a friend for maybe more then I should have bought it for, but well within a reasonable price. The goal of this build is to make an endurance track car that will likely end up battered and bruised before the end of its first day on track. However (gotta stop starting sentences this way), I had the luck in August of 2016 meeting a crazy Russian that decided my unethical choices in life would be a perfect fit into the cockpit of a certain green Miata with yellow numbers on the side labeled '101'.

Meeting Andrey really changed what I thought was possible. Then meeting Ethan along with Stefan reinforced the fact that I had finally found friends that share the same passion that I do. Well, up front, friends that actually have the know how versus whatever theory of butterflies and unicorn farts I have.

After witnessing first hand what RUSEFI had accomplished on track I was already sold. I was seeing things that I knew ECUs could accomplish, but watching it done and being part of developing it as a driver really concreted my beliefs beyond a shadow of doubt. I already had my mind set on what would need to be done.

The 95 Miata was sold to me under the guise of being an M edition which would have all the goodies like power windows an such along with the needed torsen LSD. I have not cracked the differential open yet due to my laziness in the time I have had the car. One would think I would immediately start tearing down the car inspecting all the little things. I justify not doing that because I was more budget minded in the build of this car. I knew I had a ton of research to do, along with points where I was working 6 or 7 days a week to bring in extra money in order to get this project off the ground and started in the right direction. The car has been in the driveway for 3 months and finally I am able to pull the trigger because with the planning I did, I am actually in a position where I am ahead of where I thought I would be.

My target is in August at Thompson, Connecticut for a 14.5 hour endurance race that is named after a citrus I use daily at work behind my bar. It is practically February and there is so much to do to the car I decided what does a car not running need the most? A stand alone ECU I mean why would I start with the braking system that is not fully functional or the power steering rack that now has leaked into the water table... or the bent rear lower control arm... Ok that is a slightly fake news, the engine does start and run. Well, if it had a good battery that was charged.

The Plan: first and foremost getting the car running using RUSEFI, this is not negotiable for me. I have witnessed the benefits of it on track, in the garage and seen how far it has come since August of 2016. I have said time and time again to Andrey that once I had a car, ok a Miata I wanted his ECU running it period. I do not have any Voodoo Unicorn Engineering knowledge to really help out or know what I can bring to the table to help. It is a decision that I have made a long time ago and will not go the easy route by buying some other Stand Alone from a company that has everything figured out at a price that is almost quadruple what I paid for the "Chalkboard"...

Chalkboard you say, well yes I bought an overpriced mobile chalkboard. Hilarity will ensue over the coming years I hope to keep this car on track. Let me show some pictures...
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As everyone can see the previous owner placed a lot of faith on the factory parts for his safety... especially that new seat belt mounting point :-(. That could have ended up real bad had something every gone wrong. This leads me to say, well I might have told a fib... the first thing I did when I got the car home waa tear out that belt because how safe I viewed it.

I hope to bring good news over the next couple of months and truly hope to share some video of the car in action along with all the problems and solutions that RUSEFI will hand us. Like I said, I believe in this; my decision was made. :-)
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kb1gtt
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Joined: Tue Sep 10, 2013 1:42 am
Location: ME of USA

Re: 1995 Chalkboard... err Miata yeah the answer to Life, the Universe and Everyhing

Post by kb1gtt »

Welcome along, and good to hear from you. Looks like a sweet project, and I agree it has to go before you need brakes :) Keep us posted and feel free to ask questions. Never mind the long winded posts, all to often people simply don't put in content. Keeping in mind that we don't have your eyes or ears and adding some extra nouns and verbs and an occasional adjective helps greatly.
Welcome to the friendlier side of internet crazy :)
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