As sometimes happens with long term projects, personal life stuff has kept me from the car for a little while. Getting back into it now, but there were still a few updates from the past few weeks:
Got a fresh windshield! Should be able to see things again which will be a nice change.
Made some shock reservoir brackets and had those powdercoated:
Front reservoirs are now cozy:
Also treated the car to a new seat! The Cobra Evolution is probably my all-time favorite seat, been wanting one for a long time:
Every time I put a seat in a Miata I am reminded just how much work it is to get a seat fitting just right. This seat is replacing an old Sparco Circuit and just because every seat has its own dimensions, layback, etc. fitting the Cobra took some cutting and welding to tweak things for this new setup. Finally happy with it after three days of after-work time spent, it’s super low, reclined a bit more than the old seat, and pushed as far back up against the cage as possible – you can barely slide a piece of paper between the seat and main hoop. I’ll be adding a steering wheel spacer to adjust for this seat being further back than the one it replaced:
With the engine running now I get to find all the little details that need to be sorted out.
One of the things I was spinning my wheels on for a while was a power steering leak. Turned out it was the pump itself leaking. Got a new pump, tapped for fittings, ready to go back in:
The next thing I’m working on solving is with the Racepack. Currently not getting any PIDs through the OBDII plug, not sure if it’s stuck looking for the other rental Camaro I tested this dash on or what, but right now it tries to pull the PIDs and says there are none. We can plug in a scan tool and communicate just fine, so not sure what the issue is yet.
Second dash related thing going on at the moment is reading the oil pressure gauge. Wiring is all good and I’m getting voltage input from the signal wire and that’s fluctuating appropriately with changes in RPMs but I cannot figure out what the voltage scaling is for this factory GM sensor. All research so far says it should be approximately 0.5V=0psi and 4.5V=120psi but that must be off because with that scaling it’s only outputting 3psi at idle while a mechanical gauge confirms it’s idling at 10-15 psi.