Bulding a Track Car – The Miata has wheels

This morning the 16″ Enkei wheel arrived from Tire Rack mounted with a set of Bridgestone RE-11 Potenza tires.  The call came from the guys at Performance Chassis and I headed right over. 

After cutting them out of the packaging I checked that they were all holding air and then hooked them up to the nitrogen machine that would flush and fill them with pure nitrogen.

Then they were placed in the bed of the red pickup truck and driven over to the shop.  The car went up on the lift and off came the stock wheels and tires.  The sixteen inch Enkei wheels fit perfectly and gave the big brake calipers plenty of room to breath and the wheels to rotate.  Nice.

I took a short test drive and retorqued the lug nuts.  Soon I’ll drive back to Performance Chassis and align the suspension.  Later I’ll corner balance the chassis taking advantage of the adjustability built into the Flyin’ Miata V-Maxx coil-over units.

A few days ago I replaced the rear panel with a carbon fiber version from the folks at Slick Auto.  It fits very nicely and goes well with the APR carbon fiber outside rear view mirrors. 

By the end of this month I’ll also get a set of headlight covers from Slick Auto that are also made out of CF and have a NACA duct on the driver’s side cover that will provide outside air to the intake.