PROJECT MIATA

1990 Mazda Miata MX5 with a 1.6 litre engine.

Body modifications:To begin with, a Shogun style 283 ground effects kit from Erebuni was installed. The kit includes a front bumper spoiler, side skirts and, fender flares and a rear bumper apron. The kit is made from hand-laid fiberglass with a white gel-coat finish. The front bumper spoiler has a large opening for an intercooler if you happen to have one. The rear bumper apron has openings for dual exhaust. Erebuni when designing this rear apron had anticipated that an exhaust manufacturer would make a dual exhaust system for the Miata, but no one has done it yet. The side skirts are very simple to install using screws or rivets. Fender flares are bonded onto the fenders to give it the factory look. The advantage of the fender flares is that you can use wider wheels and tires without having to worry about rubbing. Two separate rear wings were installed on the car which created a dramatic rear view of the car. First a custom 3 piece wraparound rear spoiler #357WRS was added to the trunk of the Miata. The center piece sits on the trunk while the outer left and right pieces are attached to the quarter panels. Two way tape, screws and epoxy are used to attach this rear spoiler. For this show car Erebuni decided to give the rear spoiler a different look by blending it into the trunk and the quarter panels of the car. The result was so dramatic that even Miata owners thought that we had a limited version of the MX5 with a special tail end. Then to make the rear of the car even more aggressive to complement the front's wild look, Erebuni designed another wing which it calls Shogun Style #609RW to go on top of the 3 piece wrap around rear spoiler giving it a double decker look. Next Erebuni had to address Miata's dismal vinyl tonneau cover. Not only it does not look very good but it also flaps up and down at high speeds. Erebuni designed an aerodynamic and appealing tonneau cover which with its curved shapes hides the head rests when you look at the car from the rear. Installation of the tonneau cover is very simple since it utilizes the factory mounting areas and it takes a total of 2 minutes. The original mirrors were taken out and the holes closed. Erebuni found that Celica factory mirrors fit perfectly on the vent glass of the doors, but drilling through the glass would have been very tricky. Instead, special glass epoxy was used to actually glue the mirrors onto the vent glass. Unless you try to rip them off with a crow bar, those mirrors are not going anywhere by themselves. K.G Works of Japan has made the original dual head light conversion for the Miata and Erebuni decided not to look any further than Japan for this awesome looking head light conversion. In its open position the head lights have a lower height than the stock head lights therefore more visibility at night driving. Erebuni also installed grilled parking lights with a small light reminiscent of the classic car lights of yesterday also courtesy of K.G. Works. A racing style gas cap cover of polished steel and black center made by K.G. Works was exchanged with the stock cover. Installation and customization of all the body components were accomplished by the skilled technicians at Midway Auto in Brooklyn, New York. Dennis Scalley, the owner of Midway, actually painted the checker board flag rather than using vinyl decals and then painted the car in BMW M3 yellow base coat with a finish coat of urethane clearcoat

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Wheels and Tires:For wheels Erebuni used Toora's Monotoora T300 10 spoke 16x7.5 wheels in silver finish. Erebuni is the exclusive importer of Toora wheels to North America. The Monotoora line of wheels are reminiscent of Formula 1 style Center Lock Clamping System (CLCS) wheels that until now could only be used on the track. Toora has developed and patented the revolutionary CLCS wheels which are German TUV approved. One wheel fits every type of car with the use of the appropriate adapter for each car. Each adapter is hub centric, has the proper offset and the bolt circle for a particular car. This is not an imitation center locking system and it is not a "one wheel fits all" gimmick. This is as close as you can get to Formula 1 racing wheels. Erebuni chose to clad the wheels with the Yokohama's new A520 tires in 215 40 R16 size. There was noticeable improvement in handling of the car with this tire and wheel combination before even going to the next step of upgrading the suspension.

Suspension:When doing any type of modification one should always use the best, since the idea is to improve on an already good car, therefore we chose the best in suspension upgrades. A set of H&R/Neuspeed lowering springs were mated with Tokico's infamous Illumina 5 way adjustable shocks. Neuspeed's springs lowered the car by about 1.5" without loosing much in comfort, while the Tokico adjustable shocks give you enough flexibility to adjust to your heart's desire. Flushing Motor Works of Flushing, New York did the suspension work.

Exhaust:As mentioned above, Erebuni designed the rear apron with a dual exhaust set up in mind for the Miata. Since no aftermarket exhaust company made a dual exhaust for the car at the time we decided to make our own. We used Thermal R&D's aluminized steel muffler as the replacement muffler unit and two 4" Thermal R&D exhaust tips. The rest of the custom pipe work was done by skilled technicians at American Muffler of Flushing, New York using aluminized steel pipes. From the catalytic converter to the muffler they used a 2.5" pipe and from the muffler to the 2 exhaust tips they ran a 2" custom welded Y pipe. The dual exhaust tips and the entire set up under the car looks so neat that one would think again that this must be a special edition Miata. The good news is that you don't have to go through the trouble that we went through in making the dual exhaust since there are a few aftermarket exhaust companies now that offer dual exhaust systems for the Miata.

Under the Hood: We wanted to dress up under the hood to give it a more appealing look and at the same time add some performance components as well. The color scheme chosen was red to accentuate the yellow color of the car and polished metal or chrome components to brighten things up. Eastern Autosport of Flushing, New York detailed the entire engine area, first by painstakingly cleaning every single component with a tooth brush, then polishing the valve covers and everything else that could be polished using Mothers metal polish. The black plastic oil cap was replaced with Z.Speed polished metal cap. All the chrome pieces under the hood were all courtesy of Kirban Performance Products, which included head light motor adjuster covers, hose clamps, cruise control cover, emission canister cover, accelerator cable bracket diaphragm, fuel pressure regulator cover, water reservoir cap cover and clutch cylinder reservoir cap cover. All the small hoses were changed to red color hoses. The stock airbox was replaced with a red S&B filter charger. To stiffen the front strut towers Eastern installed a Greddy Grex strut tower bar and painted its base red and polished the bar itself to match the valve covers. To finish the red theme under the hood many custom pieces were fabricated from anodized red aluminum to cover some of the areas under the hood that Mazda left unfinished, such as making a custom cover for the the spark plug wires.

Interior: Eastern Autosports did all the interior work also. A wood dash kit from Madera Concepts was installed over the stock black dashboard. To complement the wood dashboard a K.G.Works wood finish instrument cluster and a wood finish emergency brake handle were also installed. K.G. Works also supplied the polished gate shifter reminiscent of the Ferrari with a polished ball shifter knob. A K.G.Works camel back chrome roll bar was installed to complement the humps of the Tonneau cover not to mention protect the driver's head in case of a roll over. A MOMO Fighter 13.8" black leather steering wheel with brushed steel center hub complemented the MOMO seat belt pads. At a first glance this may seem odd that we had combined the elegant such as a wood dash kit with the racy such as black steering wheel, seat belt pads and polished shifter gate and knob, but that goes to show the dual nature of this dual exhaust Miata.Future Improvements

A Greddy Tu rbo charger and Clutch Masters clutch and aluminum flywheel were already installed. Autometer gauges were also added and all the work was performed by Kaz Tech of Hackensack, NJ. Look for more pictures in the near future showing all the improvements done under the hood and in the interior. Our car was also featured in the December 1998 issue of Turbo magazine, December 1998 issue of Super Street magazine and June 1999 issue of Turbo magazine.