It's been forever since I posted anything on here and I don't really have a ton to report.  Even during winter break I was pretty busy with work but I got quite a bit of grinding done on the frame.  I got quite a few of the welds ground down and about half of the rear welds from the swingarm taken off.  However my dad and I decided it was time to add more surface area to the garage so we built a shelf over my mom's karmann ghia so that I could work on my go kart and keep my motorcycles inside along with her car.  I also bought a real swingarm off a raptor 660 since I was tired of trying to screw around with my current one and the damn chain tensioners.  It had a broken bolt in the tensioner so it was quite a bit cheaper than the other ones listed and I figured I'd give it a shot.  I'm not exactly sure how they broke the bolt but I got it out with a pair of pliers, no heat or any other tricks, just a normal pair of pliers.  That was a good day!

After I got that I started looking at how my suspension's gonna work and I think I may lower the kart a little with the new swingarm and build my own spindles to drop the front another 1.5".  I'd like to have the kart back together by May but I'm pretty sure that's not gonna happen.  Either way, it's fun working on it as often as I can and getting the chance to be back out in the garage again.

Other than that I got my timing belt done on my Miata and received my v8r frame for the swap coming up.  I decided that since I was making quite a bit more at my new job that I could take a bigger hit to my budget and have come to the conclusion that a 376 ci engine would be best for the Miata.  Although it forces me to buy more expensive axles (among other things) and is going to be more expensive than just an ls1 I think I'll be happier with it in the long run.  I'm planning on getting a l92 long block and going from there, I just wish I had been checking ls1tech because a couple weeks ago cause one went for 1375 plus shipping and I had that on me.  I'm sure I can catch a deal in the next few weeks though. 

This has kind of turned into a section on my next project but seeing as how I don't have a ton of progress on my current one I figure I might as well write something interesting.  After I work the kinks out of the Miata I plan on rebuilding the engine to ls3 specs and go through the heads since my total plan for the Miata is to hit the 500whp mark.

Thanks for reading,
Stewart Kerns