Yeah, I am a bit smug

Anyone over six feet tall can tell you that their seating position is almost always compromised in a sports car. And, as you’ve heard me mention before, my biggest issue is always headroom. To solve the problem I tilt the seat back enough to get my noggin below the headliner, and then scoot the seat forward as much as my legs can take. This solves the height problem, but has the side effect of putting the steering wheel too far away.

There are many body types in the world. I’m 6? 3”, 220 lbs, with short legs, and an exceptionally long torso (my inseam is only about 32”). I’m probably one of the hardest bodies to fold into sports cars, let alone a Miata.

For the seat I ended up going with an Ultra Shield “Spec Miata” model. It’s a fully tig-welded aluminum bucket, with an almost-superficial layer of fabric. Perfect for my needs. It comes sans mounting bosses, so I was left to work out how to install it on my own. After some test fitting to find my desired seating position, I made a small bracket that bridges the front of the seat to the stock seat rail mounts. In the back I planned to bolt directly through the bottom of the seat and through the floor.

Two pieces of strap steel form the brackets. A bench vise and a ten-pound sledgehammer made quick work of the bending. Then, the tedious task of test fitting. The problem: the stock rear seat mounting bosses were right where the lowest part of the seat needed to be, and were adding an extra half-Inch to the height of the floor pan. I could have left them where they were, which would allow for a stock seat to be installed again someday…but that’s for sissies.

The two stock bosses are held in place with about a million spot-welds a piece. Simply find them (you’ll have to scrape away a bit of seam sealer and some nasty asphalt stuff) and drill them all out (they look like small round depressions, and yes, you missed one). Then pry each boss off with a crowbar. With the bosses removed, I took the liberty of “lowering” the floor using my new best friend, the sledgehammer. This gave me the extra half-inch of clearance that was desperately needed. With the front brackets attached I drilled through the seat and the floor in one pass, and then added a high quality fastener.

The bolt I used is a bit too long, so I’ll replace it with a shorter version soon. For now, it holds the seat in place nicely. You can also see my floor pan “modifications”.

So there’s half of the solution, my headroom and legroom issues are solved. I now have a half-Inch of clearance between my helmet and the hardtop as opposed to none. Now to get the steering wheel back within reach. This is an easy problem to solve as almost any quick release hub will move the wheel closer to the driver. In my case I needed to move the wheel around three or four inches closer to have it back within comfortable reach. The wheel and quick release I used are available in a package from Miata Cage. Install is simple, just remove the stock wheel and thread on the adapter spline. Then drill a couple of depressions for the set screws that hold everything in place. Viola!

In the interest of keeping the car street legal (enough), I made a few discreet modifications to the stock parts. As you can see, the wiring and associated plastic slider for the airbag and horn have been removed. The turn signal and windshield wiper assembly also needed slight modification in the form of my friend, the sledgehammer. The plastic collar that surrounds the steering shaft extents just far enough to interfere with the spline adapter. The solution? ‘Hammer it out! …gently. I got a bit to aggressive with mine. I suppose you could use a hole saw, but where’s the fun in that? Anyways, after the center section is cleared, the adapter should thread on fully. (Note: There is still plenty of slack in the wiring to remove the assembly, if it should ever be needed). You make a compromise with this setup as you will lose your auto-canceling turn signals…so sad,

In the interest of safety I had Chase Race tack weld the spline adapter in place. The last thing I need is to have the wheel come loose in my hand during a hard corner. This setup moves the wheel about two inches closer to the driver, not quite enough for my taste. So, in order to find that last inch I chose the MOMO Mod07 wheel. This wheel has a deep dish design that brings the wheel almost an inch and a quarter closer to the driver, just about right for my needs.

(Insert John here)

After driving with this setup for a few thousand miles I’m quite pleased. The wheel feels great (absolutely zero slop in the adapter), and the seat is, well I can’t say comfortable, but it’s certainly better than the way I used to cram myself into the car…

Yeah baby!

Tadaa! I feel like a normal person in a Miata!

Oooh, sparks!

Brakes do a lot of things on a racecar: they slow your speed, manage the weight, change the balance on corner entry, allow you to out-brake the local hot-shoe at the end of a long straight, or perhaps fade and leave you out to dry on the last lap of the race. Ahem… needless to say brakes have a very important job on a racecar, and if you want to be competitive they must be at their absolute best.

The existing brakes on my car were leaking badly and I was quite suspicious about their ability to stop me reliably. Given that this is going to be a dedicated race car, and will have to routinely brake from 130mph down to 30mph, I decided that replacement was the best route. Mazdaspeed has a pretty good deal on remanufactured calipers and SS brake lines, so I ordered up a set.

While we were in there replacing the calipers and brake lines we thought that a little bit of optional work would pay off. Here you can see Brent, my sponsor and owner of Autosport Labs, cutting off one of the front brake dust shields. Removing them allows better airflow across the rotor, which results in better cooling, and saves just enough weight that I’ll be able to wear socks and still meet the minimums. Normally these are pressed on and off, but as they aren’t reusable or even resalable we took the easy fun route.

Just a little cut with the die grinder and liberal application of brute force results in this:

Brent displays the evidence.

Those bits of metal are off to the big scrap heap in the sky. The rest of the project was pretty routine: hook up brake line, connect to caliper, insert pads, done! Here’s a look at the results, ooh shiny bits:

Sorry for the crappy photo...

To finish off the project we bled the entire system with ATE Super Blue, then called it a day. BBQ anyone?

This is the car I’ve picked up for the build:

The car is a 1990 model with 130,000 miles on the clock. It’s an early car, which means that it could potentially suffer from the fatal short nose crankshaft of doom. However, I’m not particularly concerned as it doesn’t show any of the telltale signs of failure. In fact it pulls as strongly as my 1999 miata, and that car has another 25 horseys. All in all it’s actually a pretty nice car, but not so nice that I’ll feel bad cutting it up. It was pretty messed up from the second owner, who was a heavy smoker, and evidently a heavy french fry eater.

A little History: I’m this cars third owner. The car looks to have been relatively well cared for in its past lives… Well, for most of its lives. From what I gather from owner number 2 (Hereafter referred to as smokey) it was a California car for about 18 years. It was then sold on ebay to smokey who really f*&@ed it up. Seriously, I think this guy bought stock in Marlboro… and McDonalds. When I removed the seats to vacuum the carpets I found not only desiccated french fries, but cigarette butts and toenail clippings! Yuck!! Combined with the horrible musty smells coming from everything not made of metal I knew I had a proper donor car.

Now to collect some parts and empty that bank account!