Hella FF50 Driving Lights

This may be the worst installation write-up ever, as I pretty much didn't get any pictures of how I did the installation. It's quite straightforward, though. You just need to know how to crimp end connectors on wire and build a basic harness, as the kit doesn't come with a complete harness. It just comes with about 25 feet of wire, a relay, and a bunch of end connectors. To the kit I added an in-line fuse holder so I don't burn the car down, but most of what I needed was included with the kit. I cannibalized some nice wire loom from a harness that came with an old light set I had but never used.

I mounted the Hella FF50 lights in the mouth of the Miata, using existing holes in the bumper cover. Wiring involved installing a relay which is energized by a 12V source in the engine compartment that is hot when the ignition is on. In turn, the lights are powered by a feed directly from the main power feed at the fuse box, with a 30-amp fuse in-line (which was not included in the kit). The relay is mounted just outside the main fuse box to keep the wire runs short. I spent a lot of time tucking wires and running them through wire loom to protect from abrasion. As a result, there is very little wiring visible from the engine compartment. That's why I'm not showing a picture of it.

They come on with the ignition and are aimed very low so as not to blind other drivers. The right one is angled to the right to light side of the road.

The headlights are Cibie H4 e-code lights. The Hella driving lights are a nice compliment. I've decided I need to be able to turn them off, though, and raise the aim so they extend farther down the road. Right now they light the foreground too much, which actually hurts your ability to see farther. My main reason for installing them is to have them on during the day as daytime running lights.

Here's the light pattern from the driving lights with the headlights off. They are basically spot lights, so you can aim them exactly where you want them. There's a bit more scatter than the e-codes but as long as they aren't pointing into oncoming traffic they should be ok. Once I get the switch installed I won't use them at night unless I'm not in traffic.

Photo update.

Just a pic of the car as it sits right now. I'll be painting the hardtop soon but it won't look much different. It is going to be flat black, which should look interesting. The other outstanding tasks are installing the new Hella driving lights, the Flyin' Miata frame rail reinforcements, and rewiring the horn so it works. When I ripped out the airbag wiring, I forgot that the horn wire runs through the same harness. I'll need to locate the horn relay and run a new wire to the clockspring connector at the steering column.

Camshaft Fix and Finished Paint.

This weekend I swapped out the incorrect BP06 exhaust camshaft for the BP4W. The engine runs SO much quieter now. It virtually purrs. I'm very glad to get this sorted out because I thought for a short time that the engine overhaul had been a failure.

I can't express how good it makes me feel to not have those noisy hydraulic lifters anymore. They are a real scourge upon the owners of '90-'97 Miatas. Some cars never have a problem with them, but mine were noisy and getting worse for years.

I finished wet sanding with 1500 and 2000 grit paper, and then cut with Griot's Garage #1 polish, followed by their #2 polish and show car wax.

There are flaws in the paint, but it's still 99% better than it was and I only spent about $500 on the paint job. I like the color better than the original Mazda Classic Red. As long as it stands up over time, this is a win.

New Steering Wheel

MOMO Tuner wheel. I really like it.

Here it is in the car. The previous wheel lasted 12 years but it was time for a new one.

One of the next projects - Hella FF50 driving lights. I'll do a blog post on the installation.

'99 Miata Camshaft Confusion!

With the help of a couple friends, I figured out why my new '99 head was making such a racket. It's got the wrong exhaust cam in it. I got the '99 head from a friend of mine. It's been in storage for over 10 years and its exact history is a little fuzzy. It came completely assembled but the cams were just loosely held in the journals with the bearing cap bolts finger tight. As seen much earlier in this blog, I took it apart and lapped the valves, checked the bottom surface for straightness, and put it back together.

What I've been hearing since I first started it up was what sounded like excessive valve lash. It was quite loud so I knew something wasn't right. I had checked all the clearances when I installed the head and they were pretty good. If anything a couple of them were on the tight side, not loose. Nevertheless, I figured I had screwed something up so this morning I popped the valve cover off and measured the clearances. None were above the maximum spec, but a couple were below the minimum, so I fired up my spreadsheet and plugged in all the numbers and identified 4 shims I could swap with each other that would bring everything within the factory specs. I was able to get the shims out without completely taking out the cams or having to re-do the timing. If you loosen the bearing caps and rotate the engine you can sneak the shims out from under the cam without removing the timing belt.

I was very glad to get the clearances better adjusted. Most of the valves are in the bottom half of the range. Alas, the noise was unchanged, so I put out a mayday to some gearhead buddies. One of them asked if I was sure I was using the right cams because the cams for NA and NBs have a different profile due to (or at least coincident with) the change to solid lifters in '99. I just used the cams that came with the head, but I realized that I took it on faith that they were the right cams.

From Solomiata.com:

Note the NB cam on the left has a more rounded profile, while the cam on the right from an NA is more pointy.

So, I pulled the valve cover off again and held a cam from a '96 next to the cam installed in my '99 head. They look the same to me. It was starting to make sense.

Next to the intake cam in my '99 head: The known '96 cam looks a little more pointy compared to the intake cam in my '99 head, as would be expected.

To seal the deal, I spotted the marking on the intake cam, BP4W, which is indeed the correct intake cam for the head. On the exhaust cam is BP06, which is an NA cam. Bzzt. Wrong cam. So I'll be ordering up an NB exhaust cam and I'm debating whether to also order the BP5A (aka Mazdaspeed cam) for the intake side. Would be easy to swap it out as long as I'm in there swappin'. Hope this helps save someone some trouble sometime. Never assume!

Refurb Results!

The car is pretty much done! I'm just taking care of details at this point. I still have to wet sand and polish the whole car to correct some flaws in the paint. I'll try to document that as I go. I'm also going to revisit the valve adjustment. The car runs like a scalded cat, but the valves are noisier than I think they should be. I just want to check it again and try to get the clearances down to the bottom half of the specs. This is the downside of getting rid of the Hydraulic Lash Adjusters from the '94 head.
 

Here's the car on its first outing! The hood is still unpolished after wet sanding but you can't see it too much in this picture. The Reptile Red paint really pops in the sunlight. It's insanely red!

The engine money-shot.

This shot shows the color in more normal lighting.

I replaced the instrument lighting with LEDs. This doesn't make a huge difference except the needles are now white instead of green.

This came in the brown truck the other day.

It replaced the 12 year old MOMO Champion that was getting quite ratty. I love the red stitching and will probably mimic that on the seat upholstery when I do that.

Painting Miata, Part 4

So here's the end of the first day of painting. I got three coats on the car. The first coat looked like crap because I hadn't got my technique down yet. The second coat made things a lot better and the paint was starting to flow out better and look glossy. After the second coat I sanded down some small nibs with 600 grit wet sandpaper and cleaned the gun before spraying a third coat. I didn't get the sprayer adjusted just right after I put it back together and it was putting down a lot more paint than before. I got greedy, because it was flowing out so nicely and looking really good, and I ended up with a few small sags that I will have to go back and fix.
 

The hood is really hard because it's difficult to reach all the way to the middle and keep the gun at a constant angle and velocity.

This is the paint. It's called Reptile Red and it's a bit brighter than the Mazda Classic Red, but definitely in the same family. It's a 3:1 mix so they sell you 3/4 of a gallon and then you add 1/4 of the activator. If you were going to spray the whole gallon all at once you could just dump the activator in the can with the paint and go. Once you do that, though, you only have about 2 hours until it starts to gel.

Next I have to fix the sags and then I can spray clear. It still looks kinda "raw" and probably won't all come together until the clear is on and cured and I can really give it a good buffing with the random orbit polisher.

Painting Miata, Part 3

This weekend I started spraying paint. Since the car is mostly stripped down, the job of masking is pretty minimal. This photo shows the car more or less ready to shoot with primer.

Safety first! Painting involves some pretty nasty solvents and particulates in the air. Proper protection of lungs and skin is essential.

This is as far as I got the first day. I was having trouble with my HVLP spray gun and decided to stop and make a couple improvements to my air system. I installed a bigger air regulator and a new inline filter. It seemed to do the trick once I learned how to set the gun up right and I got much better results.

Primer before sanding.

Parts.

So this is where I left off tonight. The primer is all sprayed and I've gone over the whole car with 400 grit dry paper. Before next weekend I have to wet sand the whole car with 600 grit and then I'll be ready to spray color and clear.

Painting a Miata, part 2

The paint prep continues. The entire car has been sanded with 400-grit and some small dings on the passenger side filled. I also filled the hole in the trunk from the spoiler mount, and the two holes in the nose from the emblem. I plan to leave the emblem off.

Next weekend I'm going to give it another going-over just to make sure the surface is fully scuffed and everything is smooth, and then I'll be ready to spray the urethane primer. I figure a whole day to mask it and spray the first coat of primer. I'll be doing the door sills as well.

This dent was very wavy and very hard to fill in. It had low spots as well as high spots. It will probably be visible once the paint is on but I don't think anyone will notice it unless I point it out. It feels pretty smooth when you run your hand over it, but it is detectable.

Painting a Miata, part 1

I started sanding the body today. I'm using sanding pads with 400 grit dry sandpaper. Once I hit the paint with sandpaper I passed the point of no return. I have to paint this car now!
I do plan to remove the door handles, by the way.

This panel has two real nice little dents in it. They happened years ago and I've neglected to do anything about it. I'm very happy to get these fixed. Here they are after I sanded them down to bare metal so the body filler will stick.

I got this stuff from Eastwood. It comes with a tube of hardener. You mix the hardener in at a 2% proportion. After that you have about 3 minutes to get it in place. Forget about making it pretty and smooth. Just get it on there and 15 minutes later you can sand it down smooth.

It took 3 applications to build the material up high enough that I could sand it down level. Interesting how each dent had high spots surrounding it. It's level now as I can't feel any deviation at all when I run my hand over the filler. The primer-filler and paint coats should make it disappear completely.

This was as far as I got today. I did the driver door, left rear quarter, and the trunk lid. Next weekend I'll continue around the rest of the car, then probably go over it again completely before I spray primer-filler. I'm wiping down between sanding passes with a product called Pre to keep the dust down and hopefully avoid any contamination that would create fisheyes or pinholes. We shall see if it works.