I don't have any words of advice other than assembly lube generous enough?

Glad to see this project getting some attention again. I'll continue to follow along.

Rod bearing clearance on 1&2 looked really good at 15-17 tenths. 3&4 don't look so great. After I loosened up 4 the crank spins over like it should.

3

4

Did you have any machining done to the rods? i was assembling an engine that came apart as a runner and when i put the newly machined crank and bearings in it would not spin. 2 rods had out of round big ends and had to visit the machine shop

Always check the easiest thing first. Two of the caps were on backwards. Flipped around and torqued down. They plastigaged out perfect and the crank rotates freely.

I did something like that once. I forget now why I had it apart, but after putting it back together it wouldn't turn over. 2 caps were on backward, I forget if they were mains or rods. It's best to mark them all for position and put the mark on the same side of all of them, can use bright nail polish, or anything. I have seen them stamped but don't like that idea.

Glad it turned out to be an assembly error. Can't wait to see this thing run!

Looking like a real engine now with timing cover and pulleys. Time to start looking for a lemony/challengy induction setup. I just don't know if I could do a 32/36 DGEV on it.

The silly volvo engine mounts are at a weird angle and at a way different point on the block than the miata mounts. Nothing's just going to drop in place. I'll start with little plates then not touch the thing again for another month.

I've been trying to figure out how I was going to make engine mounts. There are no foam mock up B18s out there that I know of. Wood it is!

Wheels on the Mialvo?

It's on the ground? That's new

It's in a garage space?!

This is a huge moment. I've been looking for a rental garage space for this car for a long time. One of my friends was just notified by his HOA that there are an "unsightly number of cars" in front of his house(2 per resident isn't that many right?) and that he'll be fined 100$ per day until he fixes the situation. He found a garage unit that somebody was moving out of the next day(yesterday). This place is 1200sq/ft for 500$ with no limit on working on stuff. Going to be splitting with 4 guys, 2 long term project cars, storage for one car, a short term project and we'll leave a bay open for oil changes and stuff. We're pretty damn excited right now. The best question though, which will be running first, the S13 with a ventilated block or the engineless Mialvo?

I'm sad that the engine is leaving my bedroom, but my girlfriend for some reason is excited. I don't understand women.

Having the car indoors and not having to cover/tarp it at night is so nice. Today she lost some weight. Starting to look like the racecar she'll eventually be.

~15 lbs of chopped up useless wiring harness

Rethinking some of my decisions about how I'm doing the interior. What was I thinking a year ago?

Fenders off and lights out. Lots of dirt trapped back in there. The fenders will go back on but I'm going to paint behind them and make room for the exhaust

I'm following the Flying Miata steering rack depower and it doesn't mention how to remove the tie rods from the rack. So I google "How to remove miata tie rods" and what do I get? A forum post of somebody telling a guy to google "How to remove miata tie rods."

Step one to cleaning gas tank is remove miata from around gas tank

Step two is finding 3 years of old gas and brown goo

Not as bad as I was expecting though.

Time to get silly with this rear engine miata...

I'm following the photos of Balto for my car's weight loss. She's really starting to lose metal now

In reply to buzzboy:

Wait....

What ? ? ?

Rear Engined Miata ?

That escalated quickly!!

I was just drying out the fuel tank up front. The volvo engine is going in the normal/boring location up front. With the rear subframe out I was joking to myself that I should put a VW transaxle in it and have an aircooled miata

When I had a Miata with a rusty/ crusty fuel tank, I realized that removing said tank necessitated removing the rear subframe. So I said berkeley that, and donned my rubber gloves and went in the tank through the top with a wire brush and solvent and rags until it was "clean enough".

I'm guessing all this rust came from spilled brake fluid. After wire brushing and shooting it with the rust converting/stopping paint I don't know if I want to go for a full black engine bay or if I should go full white. Black hides uglyness but white will be easier to spot leaks and will fit the theme of the car.

Can't tell if your asking or not, but I vote you go with white.

I also vote white. When E36 M3 breaks, it's easier to see.

Why I run Silicone brake fluid in my cars:

The car's main color will be white too so it will all match nicely. Might be a pain to keep clean, but leak finding will be very important on an engine built in my bedroom.

use White POR15 in the engine bay.

After two years of sitting in my bedroom my torsen wasn't really spinning. That's not a good sign, let's break it open.

The directions say the stub axles will just pop out. HA! Leaning all 145lbs of buzzboy on a 2' pry bar barely got them to budge.

Got her opened up to a lovely coating of surface rust. Doesn't take much top stop a torsen from spinning

I cleaned it up with some ATF and filled the diff up with some used oil just to coat everything for the time being, partially because advance is closed at 9:30pm. Filling it I found that one of the axle seals leaks like a sieve. Yay....

That rust, if you don't get it all, is going to turn your gear oil into the equivalent of valve lapping compound and eat your diff bearings in short order.