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The Details
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| Miata coil packs are a pain. Bolted to the back of the head, the lower mounting bolt is hard to reach, and nearly impossible to thread into the head when working blind with your hand pinched between the coils and the firewall. The solution is to slot this lower bushing. This way, you can start the bolt with no coils in the way, and then slide the coil pack on. |
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| Fearing our total lack of tolerances would lead to low oil pressure, we picked up a washer off the floor and wedged it under the oil pressure relief spring in the oil pump. It seems like it makes slightly more oil pressure than it would have otherwise. Probably. |
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| The idle air bypass doodad normally sits here on the intake manifold, blocking access to the fuel rail and manifold bolts and adding to underhood clutter. We replaced it with this flat plate and just cranked up the manual idle adjust screw on the throttle body. Not ideal for a street car, but perfect for a race car. |
So what cost $96?
In the end, after 4 free blown-up engines and lots of labor, the only things we had to spend money on were a head gasket, a set of new piston rings, new rubber seals for the front and back of the oil pan and an oil filter. Looking back, those piston rings were really an unnecessary extravagance.
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