So I spent most of the day trying to chase down a confusing problem that makes me nervous. The car runs decidedly better than it ever has...but had a flashing CEL and is throwing 4 codes.
I shall now attempt to type them out from memory instead of going back down to the car and hooking up the laptop:
- P0300 - random misfire
- P0340 - I forget the exact words and acronyms but it's noted as a cam position sensor fault in forscan.
- P0455 - evap gross leak (known about this and is on the "will fix as soon as I decide to mess with it list")
- P1631 - alternator voltage fault
I have checked and re checked everything I can think of and nothing seems to be obviously screwed. Nothing I've tried has made any difference and the car behaves exactly like it did before I took it apart to the timing belt.
Only symptom really other than the flashing CEL and codes is that it seems to intermittently have to crank longer than normal before it fires.
Figured it out. All those codes were things I knew would be thrown by things I did during that first start with the new timing belt. I just couldn't figure out why they kept coming back. Turns out they weren't coming back. They just never left. I was hitting the "clear log" button and not the "reset dtc" button.
Car's fine. I'm just stupid.
Bug and tar remover cleaned up the scuff and we have a crack-less tail light thanks to Floating Doc.
Daylan C (Forum Supporter) said:
Car's fine. I'm just stupid.
I should write this on my tool box.
Spacecadet asked me if I wanted to come to Gridlife at Road America a few weeks ago. Now we're here.
Nothing much to report. Car still does car things. Plans are in the works for a couple updates to get it ready for next season but nothing major. Hasn't been washed since the day before I left for Wisconsin. I forgot to do a full writeup on that trip. But it was mostly because the car didn't have a whole hell of a lot to do with it. I was there to help out so the car just sat in the paddock all weekend. I met a few people who I had been following on Instagram for a while and also bumped into another Kentucky guy who was there with his GT350. It was a cool event and I definitely plan on going back to more of them. Thanks to Spacecadet for inviting me to tag along and introducing me to people.
Daylan C (Forum Supporter) said:
Bug and tar remover cleaned up the scuff and we have a crack-less tail light thanks to Floating Doc.
All the reward I need. It wasn't doing anyone any good in my garage.
Life has been a chaotic mess full of disappointment lately. But I did take some time the other day to pull the soft top out. Because reasons.
Look at all that room! Now you can fit a medium sized duffle instead of the small!
In reply to bobzilla :
It's like almost half of a real car now. It's pretty great.
In reply to mazdeuce - Seth :
I like that. I don't yet for know for sure what we're going to do with. But I like it.
In reply to Daylan C (Forum Supporter) :
Wind tunnel testing was my first thought. See if what works for golfballs actually works on the Golfball.
Related: I had an idea for a bumper sticker that says, "They're not dents, they're SPEED DIVOTS" or something like that.
Scanned over this thread again. It's surprising to me how much I actually did with this silly car in a year that really wasn't a good year for it. I still put over 10k miles on the car, saw 11 states, did my first autocross events, met cool people and learned a lot. In the process the car has really changed how I approach the car hobby. I still think dumb pro touring cars are awesome and want to build one, but right now I'm more concerned with actually experiencing things with the car.
This car gave me an opportunity to get a tiny taste of using my silly sports car to get out and experience life rather than just staring at my pile of rusty metal imagining that one day I'll do cool things with it.
So yeah. This is the car that killed my other projects. My friends are the worst enablers. And I thank them for it.
It turns out that doing things is a lot more fun than sitting around imagining doing things.
I feel the same way a lot of the time - my Miata is not necessarily my dream car, and there are a lot of other cars I'd like to own someday - but it's the car that I have, and I'm determined to enjoy it.
Met up with some weird dude at a kart track in Houston and have a roll bar for my Miata now.
Spacecadet sold me Ronald's roll bar. It got passed on to Seth, who told me to meet up and hang out at the track and watch bike and kart antics and he'd bring the bar.
Yes there was another very helpful party involved in this who might read this thread but I can't presently remember your forum handle, sorry we didn't get to meet on this trip.
For those keeping score at home. This is the bar Seth bought for his crappy Miata now going in another crappy Miata that was briefly owned by Seth.
I was sorting out the order of events when I was loading the bar up. I bought the crappy Miata, bought and installed the rollbar, did some track stuff. Bought Rufus. My wife decided that Rufus didn't work for her about the same time I wasn't driving the crappy Miata enough to keep it in the fleet. Sold the Crappy Miata to Pete but before he picked it up I took Golfball on partial trade for Rufus but due to money things I briefly owned all three Miatas which was the opposite of what I was trying to do at the time. Rufus goes to my friend (still owns and loves) Pete comes and gets the Crappy Miata and I sell Golfball to Daylan. The Crappy Miata dies to save Pete and it gets parted out. I pick the rollbar back up from the friend that parted it out and pass it off to Daylan where it will go into Golfball. I'm having a hard time disentangling myself from these cars.
In reply to mazdeuce - Seth :
Sounds like a soap opera called "As The Miata Turns" 
^
This haha.... Soooo much this
Bill
Daylan C (Forum Supporter) said:
Scanned over this thread again. It's surprising to me how much I actually did with this silly car in a year that really wasn't a good year for it. I still put over 10k miles on the car, saw 11 states, did my first autocross events, met cool people and learned a lot. In the process the car has really changed how I approach the car hobby. I still think dumb pro touring cars are awesome and want to build one, but right now I'm more concerned with actually experiencing things with the car.
This car gave me an opportunity to get a tiny taste of using my silly sports car to get out and experience life rather than just staring at my pile of rusty metal imagining that one day I'll do cool things with it.
So yeah. This is the car that killed my other projects. My friends are the worst enablers. And I thank them for it.
This is why i started pushing you hard last year to get out to an event in the saturn.
get out and start driving.. talking about the wagon and all the things you wanted to do with it was great, but i believed you needed to get out there and start driving..
when seth mentioned to me he would sell GB for cheap you were the first person to come to mind because I believed it was exactly the push you needed.
I am happy that the roll bar from Ronald lives on in GB and that you will get to take the next steps to getting on track.
Building stuff is awesome, but I'm a firm believer in getting out there in a car with cheap consumables so you have the capability to get the seat time.
I had an oops and knocked a side skirt off. I had been trying to talk myself into pulling them ever since I got the car home anyway. So here we are.
More importantly, roll bar is in place but I still need to finish up a couple things before I call it done.
And we have flat aluminum door panels now too. Because I drove it for a couple days with the driver side door panel off and really liked the extra room.
I rode in an '82 911 for a couple of days, similarly door-panel modded... and the owner cited the same reason for doing it.
I approve
Crappy Miata officially has bars.
You went to Taco Bell!
On a more related note: Nice bars.
