Miata Gets Downforce
The Miata is Getting some Downforce added!!
Alright so It’s time to deal with what i’ve considered to be the miata’s biggest issue since its wonderful aligment was done by Pat Gorman. The car create lift in the front. Apprently Miata are known to be very lift happy cars (maybe thats why they’re always smiling) I attempted to counter this lift with the hood vents but found while it was a slight improvement, I was still getting lift in the front of the car. at this point the only way to solve this lifting issues was to create downforce and wouldn’t you know it RGR.Engineering just realeased the Tipo 1 Kit with the NB tupperware kit compatable side skirts, using the FOurth of July sale I used the sale to pick up the kit for around $1700 shipping to my residental address.
Front Splitter Install
Just a warning before reading this, The photos I’ve taken aren’t the greatest as this was intended to be a youtube video. I will be going back and gathering photos as I have to uninstall and reinstall the areo for other reasons.
The front splitter was pretty easy to install, or so I had thought thanks to my car being in an accident previously, my front end is a little slantend. the basic conecpt is easy you install the spiltter support brace using the included hardware, connect the bracket to the brace, than the bracket connects to the OEM sway bar mount location. However I have the AWR Heavy Duty Sway Bar Mount. This puts the fitment off a bit, but I was able to have a work around for this.
Rgr.Engineering included a M6x1.0 x 25mm Length stainless steel bolt and while this would work for the OEM sway bay it doesnt work as well for the AWR bracket. Instead I 3D printed a spacer out of PETG driver side was 15mm in length and the passenger was 20mm in length, the lengrh diffrance was due to my car’s bent front end. I set this up and was able to fit up the front splitter. However as the instructions suggest you should have a front lip or use the lip sealer included in the kit. I decided it would be a good time to install my JetStream Front Lip and thus drilled holes into my front bumper for the lip. it was quite easier than I had thought it was going to be.
Once the lip and splitter were installed I noticed a gap on the splitter to where the front of the tire was, I assume this was due to shipping or how I had stored the setup so after viewing a facebook post suggesting to use Steel cable to hold up the splitter I ran to my local truevalue and got eye hooks, 3/32 steel cable, cable clamps and a few nuts. Was able to set something up that I was very happy with and was holding the lip up fine.
Rear Diffuser
Next up was the rear diffuser, this was such and easy install. everything was documented really well, simply just setup the included adapter in the rear OEM holes, undo the rear support bracket bolts, and than the rear diffuser bolts right up, only complaint was that the rear support bolts where a pain in the ass to re install but I don’t belive this was related to the kit or parts, I think someone else had cross threaded these bolts at somepoint. that or I just put the wrong size thread into my rear end… I’m really hoping that isn’t the car and Im a just ignore it and hope for the best.