Before starting, I'd like to thank Quinn, Ryan, Matt and all the folks at The Slip Angle Media team to get this in-depth post about this machine done. Alright let's get into it!

My name is Quinn Kizis. I am 34 years old and am from Connecticut. I've been building and racing cars since I was 16 years old. They have been my greatest passion in life. By day I am a Network Security engineer for a Fortune 500 company (purposely not named lol). Growing up I had the idea beaten into my head that I would basically be a bum without a college education. Being broke and not having a roof over my head was one of my biggest fears growing up. So off to college I went. I have a bachelors degree in Network Technologies as well as a handful of IT networking and security certifications on top of that including a Cisco CCNA. While I still work a day job, I run two businesses on the side, one in automotive for which our YouTube channel The Slip Angle falls under and another in firearms. I have a federal firearms license and am a Type 07 Manufacturer and SOT, which means someone who can deal and manufacture highly regulated NFA (National Firearms Act) items such as Silencers, Machine Guns, Short Barrel Rifles/Shotguns and AOWs (any other weapons). [Quinn is frequently asked what he does so I figured I'd keep this snippet in here]

Several years ago after overcoming some very difficult undertakings (See our video The House Story) I realized how important it is to go to work everyday and do something you love and find fulfilling. IT has served me well as it has been a slow, safe and steady career path but it's just not where my heart is. Ultimately, it was the driving factor for starting the two businesses. I absolutely love working in both industries and being able to serve and interact with people who share the same passions. My long term goal is to eventually be able to leave my career in IT and focus on the businesses full time. I don't need to be rich, I just want to make a living doing what I love. I think that is one of the greatest achievements for any man living on earth today and is certainly much better than going to a job every day that leaves you feeling empty inside. Life is short and time is precious. I just don't have the time or energy for negativity. My motto is if something is not serving your life and purpose, maybe it's time to move on from it. Let go of negative energy and channel it into something positive. Most importantly, show empathy to others. We are all human and being human means we are all flawed. We all live in a fallen timeline where perfection doesn't exist. Everyone has their shortcomings and struggles whether they show it or not. Be kind to others and continue to strive to become the best version of yourself. 

I have no idea honestly because no one in my family was into cars. All I remember was day dreaming about getting my license and being able to explore the freedom of the open road. I just wanted to get out, drive and be able to go places when I wanted. The second part of it was to have a cool car that impressed people, mainly girls. I know it's lame but I was overweight and self conscious in high school so I thought having a cool car would make me more appealing. Aside from that, I've always been a person that goes against the norm. I love weird and unusual things, so a cool car was right up my alley. I grew up with the Fast & Furious scene and wanted a fast car before I even had my license. My first car was a 1992 EG Honda Civic hatchback but I crashed it two months after getting my license and went back to taking the bus to school again every day (One of my more humbling life moments). From there I started saving every penny I could get my hands on and when I was 17 I bought a Mitsubishi 3000GT. At the time it was the cheapest, coolest looking and decently fast car I could find. What a monumental turd that car was but for me it was amazing at the time. Going along with having a cool car was having the speed to back up the looks. It didn't take me long to realize my love of speed and being able to tame a mechanical beast, While my early years were more into front wheel drive Hondas and straight line speed, once I bought my first RWD sports car, a Miata (My red 91 NA which I still own today) it was all over for me. I absolutely fell in love with the art of driving and it took an already growing obsession into the realms of borderline insane. The rest is history. Miata's paved the way to Auto-X, which lead to racing Karts (30 hp single geared ones in a class called TAG), which lead to open track days then to racing SCCA in Spec Miata and other series over the year. Here I am today, though I may be retired sanctioned racing, I still have fire inside burning to tame just about anything I can get behind the wheel of.

This car is probably the most sentimental car in my collection. While my first real automotive muse car was the FD3S Mazda RX-7, for which I currently own two. It was because of the FD I looked at it's more affordable sibling the Miata when I was younger. My 1999 Mazda Miata is the car I have the most car guy experiences with. I started Auto-X'ing with this car, won my first event as well as a bunch of others with it, ran my first track days with it. I tore into this car in every area more than any of the others I own and have just gained so much automotive knowledge: both technical from all the development work as well as driving skills from all of the different events I've participated in with it. This wasn't even the car that I really wanted. I wanted an S2000, but at the time (early 2006) they were way out of my price league, so I bought this car because I loved my NA Miata and this was more S2000'esc but at the end of the day not really lol. I won it on an eBay auction from a dealership for a final bid at 7600.00. The funny thing was that I had called them and offered 8500.00 cash and to come in same day with if they would end the auction early for me but they refused. It was a no reserve listing, so they had to sell it to me at 7600.00 lol. I was so proud of this car. It was the nicest, newest car I had ever owned at that point in my life. I was 20 years old when I bought it bone stock with only 48k miles on the clock. I was pretty much raised on Best Motoring and Hot Version videos. I've watched so much of it I've actually learned some Japanese in the process without ever actually trying to learn the language itself lol. One of the hosts Keiichi Tsuchiya, often endearingly known as "The Drift King" was my driving idol. In fact, a lot of my driving style is adopted from his. I was always fascinated with his ability to hop into just about anything and hoon the crap out of it. So I obsessed over his techniques, studied and applied them to my own over the years which greatly helped me get to where I am today. I love his AE86 Hachiroku build. For me, my NB Miata is to me, what his AE86 is to him. That raw, back to basics mechanical machine  It's not about all out speed, but rather the driving experience. Having that elusive "balance"  A car that can perform well in all aspects: acceleration, corning, braking, but at the same time can be hooned around graciously if the driver chooses. This is a very difficult feat to accomplish, but overall I am super happy with where current setup on the car is. 

The engine setup on this is pretty special. I wanted to push the BP platform as much as I could without actually taking the rod caps off or doing any expensive machine work. The idea behind this was to keep some of the costs down but also make the setup easily reproducible should there be a failure. If you build a bottom end and blow the motor, you are stuck buying all the parts again and rebuilding. With the setup I have now, I can buy a factory replacement block or head, do a little dremel work (worse case a 120.00 head shave) slap it back in and be on my merry way. What I ended up doing was taking advantage of the non-interference factor of the BP(If the timing belt breaks you can just replace it and be set to go). I swapped in a later block from a 2002 because it had the highest factory compression pistons (in the US) at 10:1. At first I milled .060" off of the head, which was more than anyone at the time back in 2011. This bumped compression up to 11.5:1. That setup made 172 whp and 128 lb/ft . In 2014 I tore it back down again to see how far I could go. I took another ,040" off for a total of .100" and brought compression up to 12.5:1. I had to open up the valve reliefs in the pistons to make clearance but only because the lower angle of attack for the valves from the head shave was causing them to barely graze the lip of the piston right before the actual relief cavity opened. Other than that, the underside of the car is very special. I've gone through it several times freshening everything up to make it look nicer than how it did out of Mazda's factory. I get an odd sense of satisfaction when I look under a car and everything is clean, pretty and without rust. I undercoated the underbody, powder coated all the control arms and subframes, and replaced every bushing with polyurethane topped off with brand new suspension hardware. It's something that no one sees really, but when I'm under the car it just looks damn proper and I can't help but smile :)

Engine:

• 2002 Stock Block 10:1 compression
• 1999 BP4W head, ported and shaved .100”
• Maruha’s 264’ / 264’ 10mm Lift Camshafts
• Toda Adjustable Cam Gears
• Supertech Single Valve Springs
• Supertech Titanium Retainers
• Supertech 6mm Lash Caps
• Mazdaspeed SUB Lifters
• New OEM Valve Seals
• OEM Head Gasket .020”
• TWM 50mm Individual Throttle Bodies
• 36 lb Fuel Injectors
• ITG Sausage filter and Backing Plate
• Hondata Intake Manifold Gasket
• Adaptronics Standalone ECU
• Maruha VP Race Header with the Venturi removed
• Racing Beat Resonated Race Pipe 2.375″
• Jet’s Integral Kobe Muffler 2.375″
• Garage Star Alternator and Waterpump Pulleys
• 949 Racing Super Miata Crank Pulley
• Boundary Engineering Billet Oil Pump
• Golden Eagle Vacuum Manifold
• Chikara Motorsports Oil Catch Can
• 7800 RPM Rev Limit

Dyno’ed at 185 whp and 134 ft/lbs

Drivetrain:

• 6.2 lb Spec Billet Pressure Plate
• 7.1 lb Fidanza Flywheel
• 1.3 lb Clutchnet Unsprung Street Disk
• 4.77 Final Drive Ring and Pinion
• 1.8 Miata Torsen Type II Limited Slip Differential
• Energy Polyurethane Differential Bushings
• Stainless Steel Braided Clutch Line
• Redline MT-90 Transmission Fluid
• Redline 75w90 Differential Fluid

 
Suspension:

• Tein Flex Coilovers with 8kg F and 6kg R springs
• Energy Suspension Polyurethane Bushings Master Kit
• Racing Beat Hollow 1.125″ Front Sway Bar
• Racing Beat Sway Bar Reinforcement Brace
• Racing Beat Sway Bar Endlinks
• Powder Coated Control Arms and Subframes
• -2.2′ Camber Front and Rear
• 0′ toe in Front
• 1/8′ toe in Rear
• Minimum Caster

Wheels, Tires and Brakes:

Street:
16×8 +38 Advan RG-II Wheels
Ichiba V2 20mm Spacers
205/45/16 Dunlop Direzza DZ102 Tires

Track:
15x8 +28 Enkei RPF-1 Wheels
225/45/15 Toyo R1R Tires 

• Green Aluminum Lugnuts
• Carbotech XP8 Brake Pads
• Stainless Steel Braided Brake Lines
• ATE Brake Fluid

Cooling:

• Koyo 52mm Radiator
• Koyo 1.3 Bar Radiator Cap
• Mishimoto Slim Fan
• Samco Radiator Hoses
• Flyin Miata Setrab Oil Cooler Kit
• Beatrush Radiator Cooling Panel

Chassis:

• Rustoleum Undercoated Underbody
• Hard Dog M2 Sport Double Diagonal Roll Bar
• Hard Dog Harness Bar
• Rennen Metal Front and Rear Tow Hooks

Exterior:

• Garage Vary Front Lip
• OEM Mazda Side Skirts
• Mazdaspeed Rear Bumper Lip
• Autokonexion Duckbill Trunk Lid
• OEM Miata Hard Top
• Garage Vary Tailight Conversion
• APR Carbon Fiber Mirrors with Slick Auto Base Plates

Interior:

• Personal Neo Grinta 350mm Steering Wheel
• Daikei Steering Wheel Hub
• NRG Version 2.5 Quick Release
• RevLimiter Custom Green “Quinn” Gauges
• RevLimiter Gloss Black Vent Rings
• AWR Needle Caps
• Lotus Elise Sport 160 Seats wrapped in Alcantara with Green Stitching
• Custom Seat Brackets
• Boss Frog Seat Belt Extenders
• Nielex Shift Knob
• Joyfast Stainless E-Brake Button
• Rev9 M2-1002 Pedals
• Beatrush Hard Top Latches
• Custom ABS Plastic Radio Blanking Plate
• !njoy Visor Blanking Plates

RedlineGoods Napa Leather Wrapped with Green Stitching:
– Gauge Hood
– Center Console
– A- Pillars
– Windshield Frame Cover
– Shift Boot
– E-Brake Boot
– Door Handles


Weight Reduction:

• De-powered Steering Rack
• AC Deleted
• Stereo Deleted
• Soft Top Deleted

Stay Up To Date

This has been our most comprehensive review and feeling very fortunate to have covered this beautiful machine and getting a look into the driver behind the wheel. Give them a follow to stay updated on their shenanigans!