The $1,200 Miata

In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :

Oh damn!  No, I don't recall seeing that!  I bet that was a wild ride.

In other news, a new battery has been fitted, I cleaned up the battery acid that the last battery left all over the place, new bolts are securing the license plate, and the oil is freshly changed.  I need to clean up the bumpers and the left door and fender a bit and then give the whole car - except the freshly-painted quarters - a coat of wax.  There shouldn't be any problem getting that done by the time the rain is officially out of the area on Wednesday.

A break in the weather gave me an opportunity to finish with the polishing and to put some of the Chemical Guys Hydroslick on all the paint, except for the fresh stuff.  The shop didn't say anything about it, but I've always heard that you should wait a couple months before waxing fresh paint.  I'm very happy with how it has turned out:

I got it tucked back into the garage right before the rain restarted.  I want to do something about adding better sound to the car, but for now I got a $20 Bluetooth-to-FM adapter.  Ideally, I'd like to figure out something that I could connect to whatever the CD changer used so that I'd keep the OEM look.  But that's pretty low priority.  For now, I can't wait until Wednesday when things are supposed to dry up!

In reply to wae :

I think I still have the speakers that I pulled out of the E46 when I put the new BavSound speakers in it if you're interested in seeing if any of them fit well in the Miata.

In reply to Ashyukun (Robert) :

I appreciate it, but I've got my eyes on a set of Rockford Fostgates from Crutchfield

---

For about 12 hours, we managed to not have any rain, so I took advantage of that and got the Miata out on the road for a few miles for the first time in forever.  There's a nasty vibration at about 35mph and another not-so-bad one at around 70mph.  I've ordered up a new driveshaft since that speed range is more than likely the front U-joint.  It was also running a little bit hot after climbing the hill to get home, so once it cools down a bit I'll check the coolant level.  Other than those minor issues, it was an absolute joy to get out there and drive that car again!

Looking great! It's making me want to polish Sven before the race this weekend.

Finally!  A good day for a drive!

Now that I can see it in the sun, I'm very happy with the color match on the paint.

I've got a new driveshaft on the way and that should take care of the vibration, but I have noticed that as I've driven it, the vibration has gotten a little less severe.  Other than the driveshaft and maybe some centercaps, I don't anticipate doing anything to the car for a while.  My winter list for it is to do something about recovering or replacing the seats - or at least the driver seat - and doing a foamectomy and adding seat heaters, improving the sound system, and trying to find the refrigerant leak in the A/C system.  There's also a small oil leak that I think is coming from the valve cover gasket and I may or may not look at that.  And I may refresh the suspension as well, but I think the Saab is in more dire need of such work.

Can't catch a break!  Taking the car to pick the youngest daughter up from school, the little rubber isolator on the clutch pedal broke apart so every time I hit the clutch there's a tapping sound which is irritating.  And then on the way home, it popped a P0420 code, so it looks like it's time for an anti-fouler.

The vibration could be as simple as flat spotted tires from sitting. Drive more :)

In reply to Keith Tanner :

Well, when I drove the car to and from the paint shop, that's what I thought.  But now that the brand-new, freshly mounted and balanced tires are on there, I think that's less likely. 

But I'm going to keep driving it, just in case!

Since I had two papers to write and a midterm to study for, I decided to clear off my work calendar yesterday and drive down to Buffalo Trace to buy some bourbon.  I stayed off the Interstate and spent the drive down on US127 and the drive back on KY16 and US25 and it was a great drive.  The P0420 code came back of course, but that didn't really surprise me.  Other than that, it was absolutely perfect there and back and I got a ton of compliments on the car while I was threading through the parking lot at the distillery.  I've made out my list of things that I need to do, but most of them are going to wait until after the weather changes and I put the car up for the winter. 

• Driveshaft and/or cure the vibration
• Replace the last four non-shiny lug nuts
• New wiper blades
• Polish and wax the hardtop
• Put a couple anti-foulers on the downstream O2 sensor
• Replace the rubber clutch pedal stopper
• New door speakers
• Some sort of Bluetooth solution without ruining the 90's aesthetic of the car
• Recover seats - foamectomy and add heaters while I'm at it
• Fix the AC
• Repaint the wiper arms
• Buy or print some centercaps
• Replace the under-engine splash shield
• Find a way to secure that bumper support
• Get the right clips to install the trim in front of the headlight
• Track down the oil leak

It's interesting to me to see how this has evolved.  It went from non-running project to fun car that needed some things.  I transitioned it back to non-running project and now it's back to fun car that needs some things.  But other than the vibration that I'm getting, the things that it needs are not all that serious, so I can take my time and relax a bit with it which is nice.  I get to enjoy the project car instead of paying taxes and insurance on something that is just in the way all the time.  This also moves me into a position that I haven't been for about 6 years:  All of my cars are out of "inoperable project" status!  The most work I would need to do to be able to jump into any one of them and drive them would be to put the street tires back on the Neon.  Now I just need to keep pressure on my daughter to get her Civic back together and I'll have a completely open workshop!

Consider just leaving the second O2 sensor just out in open air and plugging the hole.  I did this for my 07 Mazda3 race car when I put a catless header, and expected a check engine light from it, but never got one now more than a year later.  

My kid bought a Ghostbox for the Bluetooth music in his 93.  It's a small box that fits behind the factory radio. He says it works well, sounds good, and the factory door speakers don't cut out like they did before. Downsides are that the factory radio has no power, so no clock or AM/FM. It was about $140 shipped. 

Well, wtf...  New SKP driveshaft installed.  The old one was very notchy.  But this new one has a larger flange that won't clear the PPF when it spins.

I think the problem is that this is a piece of E36 M3 part.  The only way to keep it from hitting the PPF is to put a pry bar on the transmission and push it extremely hard to the right and even then things go back when you tighten the PPF bolts and let off the pry bar.

Look how much wider the yoke is on the replacement (right).

I'm too lazy to scroll through 10 pages, but it had a hard top when you bought it.  Figured it was worth $1200 or so alone, and now that's more like double the amount.  Keep it or already sold?

In reply to Jerry :

Still have it!  I actually really like the car with the hardtop.  In the late fall/early winter and early spring when it's cold but no salt I love driving it around in "coupe mode".  When the A/C works, I kind of like it in the middle of the summer when it's super hot out, too.

For those of you future people finding this via google...  The driveshaft I tried was an SKP SK936251 and it does not fit. 

You can see that the OEM yoke is about 73mm wide while the made in china junky SKP yoke is about 87mm wide.  Because of that, no matter how you adjust the PPF, this happens:

It's a little hard to see in that picture, but just in the process of trying to drive the car down the ramps and then backing it up about 3 feet into the garage, it clearanced the PPF a decent amount.

Now I know that you're sitting there saying: "well, you dummy, of course some made-in-china hunk of crap wasn't made right!".  And you're right.  I should have known that.  IN fact, had I realized what I was buying I wouldn't have.  They named their brand "SKP" because when you're in a hurry and not looking real close, you might do what I did and think that you were buying an SKF.  shiny happy people.

I went ahead and aligned the PPF, put the original drive shaft back on, and buttoned it all up.  So basically spent all day to get the car to exactly where it was when I started.  But I did at least verify that both of the U-joints are notchy.  Rock Auto has issued a pre-paid shipping label for me to return it to them so now I'm looking at either an OEM Mazda one if I can get the Mazda Motorsports thing worked out or the $350 one from Flyin Miata.

I appreciate you f(j)ording the aftermarket driveshaft waters. If I gotta replace, I gotta have replaceable U-joints.  Looks like Flyin Miata is the answer.

Also, excellent thread. You could probably still make the car free selling the hardtop.

I sent in pictures of the car and my SCCA membership card and am now part of the Mazda Motorsports Team for the next 12 months.  If you don't have race results, you have to call them to place an order, so I did so today and for under $400 after tax and shipping, I've got a new OEM driveshaft on the way.

But I'm not going to scam the good people at Mazda!  I just registered the daughter and I for an autocross on Sunday with the Cincy SCCA region.  Other than the Challenge, I don't think I've been to an autox since about 2005 or 2006, so this should be an adventure.

You autocross people have let this whole classing thing get a little out of hand.  There's a million different classes, then index classes, novice classes, ladies' classes, and what the everloving berkeley is a PAX??  As far as I'm concerned, I'm Stock Rear.  Anyway, the car is completely uncompetitive since it's just running on 14" General Altimax tires and has absolutely no modifications or tuning of any sort, plus the suspension is more than likely whatever it left Hiroshima with 27 years ago. 

But it's gonna be fun!

Is this a bad time to point out that I have two 1.6 driveshafts and one aftermarket 1.8 driveshaft (that was like $50 at Summit scratch and dent) that looks a lot less janky than that one?  Probably.

The new Mazda one of course will be way more better-er.

In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :

I don't know if I'm getting less risk-adverse, if my financial situation has changed, or if aftermarket parts are just more E36 M3 than they used to be, but I'm pretty happy with the idea of having an OEM one.

And it looks like I'm going to have plenty of opportunities to buy OEM parts for the car.  I may have been DFL in ES today, but race results are race results and I've got them uploaded to Mazda Motorsports.

New driveshaft arrived today.

What I find very interesting is that this one is noticeably lighter than the chinesium one that didn't fit right.  Which makes me wonder what the overall effect would have been had it cleared the PPF.  Anyway...  I'm getting really good at replacing these so I had it swapped out in about 40 minutes.  No need to take the exhaust off, just use a clamp:

And then push forward and slide back.  Installation is reverse of removal.  I did it with one wheel off the ground so that I could release the brake and rotate the driveshaft to get to each of the bolts.  Maybe that wouldn't work with a Torsen, but there's got to be some sort of advantage to having an open diff!

The vibration is reduced significantly, but there is still some vibration at around 32-35.  I didn't have time to get it out on the highway yet to see what the difference is at 60-70, because that was a decent amount of shake before.  I don't think it's in the front end because the steering wheel is pretty solid.

Got on the highway today and the shake is very much not improved.  I must have been smoking crack yesterday.

I did, however, discover that the tires were at about 40psi except for one that was at 32.  I let some air out to bring them down to 26 and we'll see how it does on the ride home.