Nick_R_23

I've been meaning to post this thread for a LONG time now, considering I picked this project up back in 2018! Some of these following posts will be catching up from a build thread posted elsewhere, but now that I've fully committed to an LS based build, I decided that I should document the progress on here too.

I bought an Exocet kit car from Exomotive who is based out of Georgia, plus a donor Miata in the same area. The time had finally come to pick this thing up, and being based in Alaska, the only logical way to do this was of course plan a 9,000+ mile road trip to GA and back. I’m doing this as a joint venture with my father who bought a 29’ enclosed car hauler down in the states, and taking advantage of the open space to bring them both back as affordably as possible. We traveled through Canada, down to Utah for a couple days, which is where the trailer is stored and also to visit some family, then a straight shot down to Georgia to pick up the car and the donor, and then wandered up to Michigan to pick up restoration parts for another project, and Minnesota to visit the factory of the manufacturer I used to work for. We only had about 2.5 weeks to blast through all of these places, so we booked it pretty much the entire time.

Picked up the trailer in Utah!



Met up with David @ Miatastuff’s place and picked up my donor car. It's a 2001 1.8L/5 speed with 140hp and a 4.30 open diff. It runs excellent and he did a great job of stripping it down to save weight for the trip. We were also very appreciative of him holding this for us for over a month to make it happen!






So we made it down to Exomotive on the far side of Atlanta this morning. Kevin met us right away, and gave us a really detailed tour around his shop. He is definitely living the dream down there, a nice shop and producing some really badass cars. I got to check out a few previous builds as well, including the Maxxis tire car and the red Turbo car that Randy Pobst drove on MotorTrend, and even a few builds where they were trying new things. Very impressive work done there and Kevin is a really fun guy to talk to.

Since we had to unload the trailer and this the donor car to load the kit in front, I grabbed a few better shots of it!






The kit car bundled up and ready to load!









And finally, my dad and I at the shop. We’d logged 5,863 miles so far!





We finally rolled into the driveway the last night about 9:00PM. Final mileage count was 10,083 miles! Backed the trailer in, threw my stuff in the wash, and went and passed out immediately.

Nick_R_23

I’d been pretty busy getting back into the swing of things and trying to take care of all the small projects that still needed to be done, but we got the trailer unloaded and the parts car backed out near the garage, and took some better pictures of the chassis now that it wasn’t buried in parts. It stayed in the trailer until Monday which is when I dropped it off for powdercoating. The owner stopped by my house and gave me a quote at $1250 for blasting, phosphate, 1 or 2 layer depending on color, and clear. I also built a large pallet dolly to move it both on and off the trailer and inside the shop once I got it back.











Massive pile of parts that comes with it!



The chassis dolly. I needed to go grab two more wheels as I originally planned on making this 4x5 but it turned out closer to 4.5x8 since I realized I could later store a 4 wheeler on it. It should handle the ~250LB chassis just fine though.





Chassis dropped off at powdercoating! Went with Neon Green, which they had to order in. They had Florescent Green which wasn’t quite what I wanted, so it was a week or two before I got it back.

freeimagehost



I got a call from the powdercoaters letting me know that the chassis was done! $1200, but well worth it since they phosphate them before coating. The pictures really don’t do it justice, the Neon Green pops insanely bright!











Also, rear wing mounts coated in the same Neon Green

ebay image host

Nick_R_23

I dove into remodeling both the garage and some portions of the house at exactly the same time, as well as had a really busy season at work. The roof leaked on the house this prior winter and damaged the ceiling in three rooms, so I had a new roof installed. The garage interior was in bad shape, the sheetrock was barely hanging in there, the place had no vapor barrier and little insulation in the walls, and the electrical was downright dangerous and wasn’t even capable of truly supporting 220V with any idea of safety. So I gutted the whole interior, rewired the whole place, and sheeted and painted it.

Death panel in the old wall:



















I had to run a new line to the meter box and in the process found that the old one had been overloaded and melted the terminals. Got that changed out to a new one.

Nick_R_23

Getting all the covers and panels installed!



















Next step was building a workbench and creating more storage and making the most of the real estate. Ended up being 20 feet long by 2 feet 8 inches wide. Lower level for storage, the end not meeting the wall is where the air compressor will end up.

Nick_R_23

Last piece of the puzzle in, built a solid stand for the air compressor and cleaned up the rest of the junk and gave away some of the old cabinets and workbenches to friends’ shops.



Also brought the enclosed trailer over and unloaded the chassis!



Fast forward to 2020! A few major life changes happened, I paid the house off, bought a new car, started a MUCH better job, completed several other major projects, and sold all of the side projects off with the exception of the '78 Chevy and '74 Nova.

So this wrecked piece of junk had been taking up space in the shop for over a year now. Time to change that!











This is what roughly 80 gallons of Miata looks like. Most parts I'll need to retain, such as the column, brake components, harnesses, etc.



Now that everything is removed, the car is gently separated into two pieces using a pair of dull scissors.











Right here is where I fucked up. Since this remaining part of the car is stupidly awkward to work with and my ceiling height provides barely enough clearance for a tall midget to keep from scratching his head, I separated the front half of the car on the ground. Most subframe bolts were easy to remove from the ground, but the last RH rear bolt didn't have enough room, and I needed the body raised slightly to clear the engine hoist legs, so I slid the floor jack under one of the rockers. Turns out the subframe, body, or some combination of both were very tweaked and spring loaded, and when that last bolt came loose it spring apart so violently, it kicked the body off the jack and dropped the entire car onto this finger. Luckily, it also landed on the ratchet and I had barely enough clearance to yank that finger back out, but it was just barely. Took about a week to heal (and for my bruised ego to heal also, lol), but the swelling stopped and I got full movement back. Not very fun!



Later on, the front half of the car removed.



And finally - The Roller Skate!






I don't really know why I took this one but it looked like a couch or something I guess



Off to the scrap yard!

Nick_R_23

I had been going back and forth on building the 1.8L or going turbo, and both just seemed very expensive for the small amount of HP they provided. So just for ***** and giggles I threw the Miata engine, trans, driveshaft, diff, and axles up for sale on the local Miata Facebook group...and it looks like it may already be sold. I didn’t expect that so quickly. Looks like I’m committing to an LS swap now! Miata engine, transmission, driveshaft, rear diff, cv axles, harness, and ECU’s sold! I made the guy a deal and just sold them for what I paid for the whole car, which just made the steering, suspension, brakes, and rear diff cradle free. He’s planning on a 2.7 stroker with a turbo in an NA chassis.

Nick_R_23

So fast forward to today, I’ve slowly been collecting chassis and LS swap parts. I decided to go with an Explorer 8.8 rear end, T56 Magnum-F, and possibly a 6.2L LS, but that’s still up in the air. I have a V8R tubular rear subframe on order for the Explorer 8.8, as well as DSS Stage 2 CV axles and billet rear hubs. I also have a TrueTrac for the 8.8.

I ordered the LS swap subframe and had it powder coated.





I also ordered the V8R Pro Series complete control arm kit!



I didn’t like the idea of the rod ends being exposed on the street, so I ordered a boot kit for them!











I ordered an Epowersteering.com EPS kit specific to the Exocet. I wanted to keep steering assist along with the faster rack ratio, and didn’t want to deal with power steering hydraulics and plumbing, plus it keeps things cleaner under the hood.



Started on depowering the steering rack



First one ended up being bent, luckily I had a spare!



Completely rebuilt and depowered! Supermiata inner TRE’s, Miata type R outer TRE’s, Flyin’ Miata delrin mount kit, and new boots!



I went to go mount the rack up, and found that the mounts were completely different. Turns out the NA and NB steering racks have different mount types, and I was sent the wrong subframe. After a bit of back and forth with V8R, I am sending them this subframe back and they are sending me the correct unit.



Ordered up some 8.8 solid mount bushings, as well as the rear spindle upper spherical bearings.



All new OEM suspension bolts, Supermiata forged lower ball joints, and Miatahubs rear wheel bearings.



Also started teardown on the 2007 Explorer 8.8 differential.



And, lug nuts!

KnightmareLS1

iTrader: (12)

In!

Holy **** what a bad *** start to a thread, that’s what I’m talking about!

Sick road trip with your dad to start, I’m pretty envious tbh that’s priceless stuff. Love the garage remodel and the green chasis color soo cool.

Im def turning on alerts for this thread I VERY interested in watching this project progress

Project GatTagO

iTrader: (7)

Looking forward to seeing more progress!

Since you decided to do a LS swap, did you actually need a Miata to start with?

Andrew

G Atsma

I'm betting it's for most of the suspension parts, electrical gear, and likely a bunch of other non-drivetrain parts. Kit cars can get complex.

Project GatTagO

iTrader: (7)

He has a custom K member and all custom suspension bits...

G Atsma

True. But it always seems that there are small bits and pieces that are needed from the donor that you otherwise might not find elsewhere.

Nick_R_23

Thanks guys!

To make a long story short, no, the donor wasn’t really worth it at the level I’m building the car at now. It didn’t take me too long to get to the point where I was buying so many new parts anyway that I may as well take it to the nut-and-bolt level. However, it’s easier now to do this than when I originally purchased the chassis, as many of the things I have or will be ordering weren’t available back then. Even the EPS kit no longer requires a donor column to be sent in.

The list parts I’m using off the donor are:

• Front Spindles
• Rear Knuckles
• Steering Rack (These are available new already depowered, now)
• Lower Steering Joint
• Brake Dust Shields
• Parking Brake Handle
• Brake Booster
• Pedal Box Assemblies
• Multifunction Switch/Ignition Switch (Most likely buying new)

Honestly, I think in any other case the donor would be worth it, especially staying with the stock engine. A low mileage/good condition donor would make the case for using one even better, as a lot of things don’t necessarily need to be replaced or upgraded as far as I went, like the subframes or control arms, I just didn’t want stamped steel parts bolted to a nice fabricated tube chassis, even though everything I had was serviceable. I thought it kinda ruined the aesthetic! The only thing that would be a little difficult is a lot of the suspension and chassis bolts are getting hard to track down new, so having a donor with everything already there would be pretty beneficial.

Nick_R_23

Yukon Gear Ford 8.8 3.08 gears showed up today! I also ordered a complete differential rebuild kit, crush sleeve eliminator kit, and Billet 8.8 1350 yoke and U-joint straps from Strange, and a hub and steering wheel for the car as well.

Nick_R_23

Hub showed up today!

Project GatTagO

iTrader: (7)

U-joints have their place, but there is a reason that modern Mustangs all use CV joints. You can order a CV pinion cup for about $90 from Ford Performance.

Andrew

Nick_R_23

I don’t really see a reason for it, the 1350 is overkill anyway and everything stays serviceable.

I had some rare free time this weekend, so I finished getting the 8.8 housing stripped, the bushings fought me the whole way. I also got all of the spindles and sway bars stripped to get dropped off at powdercoating!

Nick_R_23

Man, what a wild weekend. I broke off an extremely toxic relationship Friday, and scrambling to get my life back now. The good news is that it’s only upsides from here! I’ll actually be able to focus on my projects instead of being allowed a handful of weekends a year to get things done.

To start with, I got all the small pieces dropped off at powder coating! The sway bars will be done in Red, the spindles/knuckles in Chassis Black, the differential case and cover in Speedboat Silver, and the shock spacers in Neon Green. I was told a few weeks out to see these back.

The steering wheel I forgot to post:



Strange Engineering billet 1350 yoke, yoke straps, solid pinion spacer kit, and a Ratech gear setup tool. (Thanks for the extra stickers, Strange!)



Strange 8.8 gear installation kit:





I also forgot to mention this, but I had ordered an Eaton TrueTrac last year as well!

Project GatTagO

iTrader: (7)

Congratulations on cutting the bitch loose...

Andrew

Nick_R_23

Not what I wanted but you have to accept when it’s just never getting better. The big upside is that I’ll be able to be in the shop every night so I’m hoping to move all my projects along a lot quicker!