Miata Repair Manual

Ordered manual on Amazon Mazda MX-5 Miata 1.6: Enthusiast Workshop Manual
I'll be needing it for instructions on pulling the engine and, after the conversion, for brakes and other non ICE maintenance. It's not an official shop manual, but it will hopefully be more readable.

Got a car!

I’ve been monitoring CraigsList for Miatas for a while. I’m looking for first generation – ‘90 to ’96 – preferably ’94 or later because they have a passenger air bag. Has to be manual transmission, the rest is a trade off - does it make more sense to fix it or pay for it up front. So I thought I found a car, but while trying to arrange to see it, a better car popped up. It’s a ’92 with a straight body, replaced top, AC, manual steering, alloys and a blown head gasket. Went up and looked at it and found that ir wasn’t the head gasket, but a leaky water pump. Nice, that makes the resell of the engine a little easier. For an extra $100 they even delivered it.

Welding class

Did a little research and found that Oxy Acetylene was the easiest to learn and the equipment was the cheapest. Bought a book on it that made it sound pretty doable. Still a class would give me a chance to ask questions and have a better handle on safety issues and the like. There are a bunch of classes offered at city colleges, but they are too long for my needs and you need to sign up at the beginning of the session. I found a class at a tech center called Tech Shop. They give you instruction on stuff, wave soldering, plasma cutting, etc., then you can buy time on their equipment. They had an Oxy Acetylene class at 35$ for one hour. Good deal. Now I’m dangerous. www.techshop.ws

Planning, planning, planning...

I’ve been thinking about converting a car for a while almost a year now. I’ve researched other conversions, joined some EV mail groups and read a few books. I decided to focus on converting a Miata, they are light, aerodynamic, cheap and plentiful. I put together a spreadsheet to compare different components and voltages. And the best combination of speed, range and cost got me came out at 156 volts with a 9” WarP and a Zilla 1K. Next was to sell the concept to my wife. Luckily she is pretty understanding of my eccentricities and went along with the idea.

That's me sitting beside Ian Wright in his WrightSpeed X1.This was at the Silicon Valley EV event September 06. Ian gave a group of curious onlookers a ride down El Camino Real in his $150K one off, Lithium Polymer powered street legal racer. 0-60 in 4.3 seconds - yow! Felt like a jet taking off. I certainly returned with an EV Grin!