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Front fame tacked in place and a few top railes tacked in.

Yo Drew-
You're coming along nicely... Keep up the good work!

Slow progress is better than no progress.

I don't know why the seat back gave me such a hard time. Well I do know. I am mixing and matching Saturn (now ntsengineering) and Vodou plans. So I am using a 1x2 for SB3 (the bar mid height the seat back) instead of a 1x1. This is now Vodou does it and I like it. Give you something solid to build the upper rear suspension area from.

So this meant that SB4/5 needed to be 25mm shorter than a Haynes Roadster. SB4/5 are also 240mm apart from outside to outside. This is how NTS does it.

So all that gave me fits. Mostly because I wasn't sure which plan I really wanted to go with. Then add the compound miter cuts on SB6/7... it took me longer than it should have.

Sorry about the shaky pictues.

I expect all these pictures look about the same to everyone but me. All the diagonal bars have been added. Time to start working on the transmission tunnel.

I think I am going to mix the Vodou and NTS plans for the tunnel. The Vodou tunnel is not as tall as the book or NTS plans. If anyone can come up with a good reason to not do that let me know.

Been goofing off most of the summer. Back to work now.

Rear section starting to look like something. Using the 2x1 in the middle of the seat back meant I had to do some math to get the angle right for the upper 2x1of the rear section where it meats up with the seat back. Just tack'ed for now.

I know I am slow, but these rear shock tower/roll bar mounts take some time to make. Still need to make the back plate, fully weld it, then weld it to the frame.

Started making the rear panel section. I first made this out of 3/4" DOM tube and tacked it in place. To make the bend I used a Home Depot 1/2" conduit bender. The first bend went very bad. I was placing my foot on the tube to keep it in pace, bad idea. The next bend went much better by putting my foot on the foot tab of the bender, imagine that.

Anyway. I didn't like the look of the 3/4" tube. I modified the NTS Engineering plans using 1" square tube. Then I made the outer bend out of 1/16" sheet and boxed everything in. I am very happy with the outcome. The bend is a tighter radius then the conduit bender can do, and I expect this is much stronger. In the pictures the left side is still in progress and the right side is mostly done. FYI, a 1 gallon paint can is the perfect diameter to bend the sheet steel around.

looks good. i was planning on plating my rear corners like this, but with 1/8", and running rear rollbar stays down to there.

The Miata deconstruction has begone. Next time someone remind me how much easier this would be on a lift.

I have concerns over the RA5 tubes. They appear to be pointing right into your back and may impale you in a rear end accident.

Must be nice to live in a place where you don't have to insulate your garage. I'm looking out at a foot and a half of snow

David

Consider a doubler and braces. Definately worth your back.

I'm not familiar with those plans, but I'd look into something less stout and not parallel to the wheelbase to mount the irs to so it will bend around instead of being driven into you. That looks like 12 ga 1x2.

Here is a picture of the more completed rear section. The plans are basically Haynes Roadster plans. There is a good bit of rear section that should distribute the load in a rear impact. Plus there were will be tubes from the roll cage that come down to the rear corners. I do like the idea of the addition of tubes on the side. That would be easy to add and it would brake up a somewhat long tube.

One set of rear control arms are done. Only six more control arms to build. I ordered rear shocks. I hope they are short enough. If not I may have to modify the upper arm to get me a bit more shock length. They were special order from summit racing so I won't have them for a few weeks.

I revived my shocks that I plan to use for the rears. QA1 82 series, 8242 is the model. 4" stroke, 9.38" compressed, 13.75" extended. They are not going to fit between the rear upper arm and the upper mount.

So I think I am going to weld a plate to the lower arm and weld a shock mount to that. Then I will fab an upper mount just above the inside of the upper arm. It looks good mocking things up. I will post pictures when I am done.