Final work on the engine bay after much stripping of seam sealer goo and paint removal – stitch welded the shock towers, frame rails and firewall.
Some might also remember that I had triangular shock tower gussets, those were something I made almost a decade ago, with my first welder when I had very little idea what I was doing…
It was time for those to go, but for primarily nostalgic reasons I made new versions of those gussets, this time with dimpled holes for more strength and some much improved welding.
Sprayed all the welds with primer for the moment, will be painting the whole bay once all the test fits of the engine and other parts is done.
The existing cross-brace between the frame rails in the front was another area that I originally did many years ago and needed an update. That brace also had brackets for the now gone V-mounted intercooler, so a new version will be needed. Once the stitch welds had cooled I cut the old cross brace out, which has the added benefit of making ingress/egress for the engine test fitting nice and easy:
Rocky (Resident Miata Yoda and shop owner) wants the car to be running already:
Engine bay is ready to rock and roll for test-fitting the engine!
Note: in this photo, one thing was left to do before the engine could fit; the firewall area around the holes for the heater hoses needs to be massaged with a mallet to clear the high pressure fuel pump protrusion on the back of the LFX’s left head. I did that after taking this pic, and it’s not a very pretty sight for now, but once test fitting is done I’ll come up with a clean way to finish that area.