Things I do with my '96 Miata

Wonderful

What's the story with the broken Tally Red SPG?

Thanks guys!

Powar wrote: What's the story with the broken Tally Red SPG?

Friends car:

http://www.saablink.net/forum/general-classic-900-posts-information/80610.htm

Got an abandoned vehicle citation parked on the street waiting for a new exhaust manifold so we towed it into his driveway.

Took a little cruise to the beach. Wasn't bad... you know, for a Monday.

The car finally demanded some maintenance - front brakes. New cheapo $15 rotors and Hawk HPS pads. I've had it it three years and 30k+ miles now and had never even touched the brakes.

Then we went back to SLMP! The Hawks held up a whole lot better than whatever was on there before, very impressed so far.

Ended up dropping down from mid 64 seconds at the past couple events to a 63.3. I previously ran a 62.3 with the 6UL's and 205/50/15 Star Specs all around, now I'm 1 second off that pace with steelies and 185/60/14 allseasons, no real changes to the car otherwise. The driver mod is starting to show some progress

General Altimax HP's aren't really meant for this...

Grabbed a couple pics with my friend Jeremiah at the wheel (after unfortunately putting his Golf R32 into the scenery)

Between the beach last Monday and this... in seven days the car has covered over 1000 miles, including 2 days on the track, all without a single hiccup. I guess that means my goal of an all around multi purpose car seems to be working out!

Well, it only took over a year and four attempts... but my T1 Torsen is finally in! Along with some Energy Suspension poly bushings. The bushings noticeable tightened up the shifter (which is definitely getting sloppy, time to rebuild) and are fine around town, but the gear whine is pretty obnoxious on the highway so I'll probably end up replacing them with OEM.

E36 M3ty picture for the occasion:

Cool thread. I know I'm digging this up from a few pages back but I just read it through and I like what you've done to the car! My 1990 is about to roll 190K and other than bringing the maintance up ( I got it cheap in disreapir ) I've done nothing to it really. Longer trips, autocross, even a track day at big willow ( 95% flat out in a 1.6 miata ) nothing. It hardly burns any oil even!

I'm glad to hear the 14s ride way better than 15s. My 15s that came with the car finally just about corded so I've been running my autocross 15" star specs on the street while waiting for a set of stock 14's with decent tires to pop up for a good price on craiglist. Next up for me is front brakes, maybe getting some of those diff bushings, and sorting out my window seals so the water stays on the outside of the car.

Got the car out of storage a few weeks ago. Threw a new coil pack at it to cure the hesitations it's had forever, and raised the suspension up an inch to accommodate my new location on top of a mountain up several miles of dirt roads.

Then decided I wasn't going to buy any car parts.

Then a friend messaged me to say a friend of his was selling a set of 14" Panasports.

Sigh.

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lookin nice!

Another weekend of BBQing, craft beers, and bonfires at SLMP. And driving.

The car did great. Only real change between now and the last event is the LSD and what a difference that made! The car felt better everywhere but especially exiting hairpins. Still on the same set of E36 M3ty General Altimax HP all seasons, dropped over a second off my previous best time down to a 62.1 on Saturday. Might be about time for some real tires :)

I was a little outgunned...

Altimax's did not appreciate any of this

Some pics that are not mine:

Lots more here:

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/ay7bxjm0nwixwgf/AABOsaaTco6qS9KWq_1sfhrSa?dl=0

Looking good mate, just curious but whats your alignment specs? Its been too long since the last time I had my miata aligned and wondering whats working well for you

chiodos wrote: Looking good mate, just curious but whats your alignment specs? Its been too long since the last time I had my miata aligned and wondering whats working well for you

No idea... I have never had it aligned.

Those Panasports look really good.

In reply to thestig99:

Damn well im sure that would help a great deal, then I saw your tire photo

Mr_Clutch42 wrote: Those Panasports look really good.

Thanks!

chiodos wrote: In reply to thestig99: Damn well im sure that would help a great deal, then I saw your tire photo

That place is famously hard on tires. The asphalt isn't top coated so it is incredibly abrasive. Not quite what General Altimax's were designed for

Decided to paint the Panasports as they had more than their fair share of cosmetic issues. However, while waffling about the color I made an interesting discovery - crappy Saab center caps snap right in to these wheels. My girlfriend was able to print me the decals you see here and off I went. Also came up with a set of non rusty lug nuts.

Results:

I'll end up redoing the wheels, probably over the winter, and do a nicer job on the paint prep... but for now I'm pretty pleased!

Did some leaf peepin' because Vermont.

Time to get this thread caught up...

May 28-29 brought another SLMP. Had a blast as always. It was an unfortunately rough weekend on cars, though. While I had no issues at the track, I did end up hitting a deer on the road early Sunday morning while in search of coffee.

Thankfully the damage ended up being incredibly minor... the bracket under the hood that the passenger side headlight mounts to got tweaked as did the cover (lights were on at the time). As a result the headlight was pushed back too far to close.

Made a run to the junkyard and grabbed the bracket and cover in black for $15 and threw it together to test fit and all seems well. Have it back apart now for paint, hopefully I'll be able to get to that this week.

The donor:

Loosely put together:

Finally, some various SLMP pics thanks to Vermont Racing and Dooms Day Device. Closed headlight pics are from Saturday, one light up pics from Sunday...

http://vermontracing.com/1/index.php?/category/76 https://www.facebook.com/DoomsDayDev...19581748107687

Headlight cover came out mediocre - color match is way off. Will have to suck it up and have the body shop do it one of these days...

Got some new tires. Needless to say they work a little better than the Capitol Sports that were on it...

The brown truck man delivered some goodness.

These went in first. Really impressed with the results for something so simple.

This followed:

I cannot say enough good things about the butterfly brace. It is several miles in any direction from my house to pavement and most of the fun roads around here are not the smooth ones. That combined with my suspension made for daily "Holy berk, is this thing going to break in half?" moments... but that is gone now. A+, the best money I've ever spent on this car.

A little behind in here...

First, a few pics from last fall:

Then 4/16/17:

Guessing that spring may have finally arrived in Vermont I pulled the Miata out of storage yesterday. It'll be a while yet before I can get it home as the dirt roads are still in pretty rough shape - I removed pieces of the front end of my Subaru Outback on a frost heave today.

In any case, having not seen the Miata since early November, it felt great to get in it again for a quick drive and get a little maintenance done. Changed the oil with Mobile 1 10w30 Synthetic and an OEM Mazda filter, new NGK plugs, new air filter, and put some Motul Gear 300 in the diff. Ran out of time to do the trans this time, but soon.

I definitely have some maintenance work ahead of my going into summer, hopefully I can squeeze some fun stuff in while I'm at it!

Then most recently...

May 5-7 was this years SLMP event with SCCV. Unfortunately it may also be the last due to the track changing hands and the new owner repaving (the pavement is in a pretty dire state, crumbling and throwing chunks all over) it to focus on karts.

With the spring we have been having in the Northeast this event was... damp. Rained off and on all weekend, standing water on the track, pushing stuck cars through the mud bath in the field/pits/parking. I decided to skip camping and opt for a hotel for this one!

I don't believe I have ever done SLMP in the rain so it was a lot of fun to be able to push the car and see how it responds in adverse conditions. I didn't look at a lap time all weekend.

The car never skipped a beat. My brother and I double drove it on Sunday and, toward the end of the day, there were a couple of back-to-back-to-back sessions after which the valvetrain was a little noisy, I assume due to the oil getting hot and thin. I have been thinking it might be time to consider an oil cooler for this reason.

The pond/chicane

A couple pics from Dooms Day Device: http://www.dooms-day-device.com/Automotive/St-Lawrence-Motorsports-Park/20170507-SLMP-Sunday/

Note the flying chunks of pavement. Yikes.

Lets turn the clock back to 2011. I'm 19, just bought my Miata, and am desperately looking for ways to make it stand out without spending money. Debadging makes everything better, right? Obviously I go rip all the badges off the car pretty much immediately, resulting in a happy 19 year old.

The problem in all this lies in alignment pins.

THIS has been glaring at me for the past five years:

The shame. Ugh.

Finally, last week I received an envelope.

Inside that envelope was a box.

Inside that box was... joy.

Seriously. Life handed me a serious kick in the balls a while ago and opening this package put the biggest smile on my face I have had in weeks.

Oh, and the badge itself? It's above and beyond. It's perfect. Pictures can't do it justice. The only flaw it has is making other parts of the car look shabby in comparison. I have some work to do.

So I positioned it, marked it's location with a dry erase marker...

...and stuck it on!

Thank you, Adam (revlimiter.net), for making these parts and for making my day. This definitely won't be the last time I send you money.

Then today another packaged showed up. This time I found these inside:

Pre-production Paco Motorsports Strong Arms.

SO stoked to get these on!

On an unrelated note, I have recently started experimenting with film photography using one of my grandfathers' old cameras - an Olympus OM-G from 1983. Just had my first ever roll of film developed, picked it up today. This was taken at ~5AM on my way out to SLMP back in May.

Tackled the Strong Arms this weekend.

Step 1: prepare to operate

Step 2: remove fender

Step 3A: Marvel at the sheer amount of dirt and crap in there:

Step 3B: CLEAN

I was a little worried about what this area would look like with all the damp filth packed behind the fender, but I am happy to see it is still nice and clean.

Step 4: Turns some bolts and stuff

Step 5: Reinstall fender(s), drive a bunch, and take a crappy cell phone picture while dodging rain!

I have put a couple hundred miles on the car since installing these, much of which on very rural (read: rough) roads and I am extremely impressed. There is a BIG reduction in NVH, much more than I really expected. The chassis feels much more composed over rough roads, especially hitting a bump mid-corner. Previously things that felt like the end of the world the car can not just deal with drama free. Somehow the steering feels a little more... confidence inspiring? Its hard to put my finger on this. Maybe it's just feedback through the wheel that I'm feeling but there's something about it that's just a little bit... better.

The parts themselves are beautifully made. Removing the fenders is a little fiddly and time consuming but the installation is very straightforward and utilized existing holes in the chassis (a couple do need to be opened up to accommodate the included hardware). Fitment is spot on. Overall I would say this is a top notch product and I can't recommend them enough.

Yesterday I took the Miata on an early morning adventure to Mount Washington. A few times in the summer the toll road to the top of the mountain opens early enough to watch the sun rise from the 6,288' summit.

This seemed like a "must see", so I found myself pulling out of my driveway at 1:30AM and driving to New Hampshire.

Needless to say it was breathtaking.

If you're ever in the area, its worth a trip up there at any time.

Took the opportunity to grab a few pictures of the car, too.

Lame boring update.

Dragged the car out and got to work improving some of the little issues which had been starting to pile up.

First up: refinishing the wheels. They were all covered in chips, tire machine scratches, and I did curb one... Not knowing how many layers of unknown paint were on them I decided to have them sandblasted by my old high school auto class, no charge 

And painted the same color as before:

Similar in nature, was addressing the black paint on the rockers. This had gotten seriously gravel blasted over the past couple years and a few chips had gone through the factory stone guard and started spots of surface rust. Clearly, that won't do. Sanded them down, killed the rust, prepped and painted with POR-15. I somehow managed to not take a single picture while I was at it, but here's how it came out. 

Next was a shifter rebuild. At 165k miles I'm sure you all know how badly it needed it. The first time I left the driveway this year I missed 2nd gear twice. Ordered the kit from Moss with the 5X brass shifter bushing.

Take out console:

Remove seashells (?!):

Yeah, it was time....

New stuff:

And back together, along with some fresh Motul Gear 300 I had laying around in the turret:

Needless to say it shifts a lot nicer now. 

Finally, dyeing the steering wheel. While it's just a lowly Protege5 wheel it was in sorry shape and something I noticed and felt every single time I was in the car. I loosely followed Adams guidelines here: http://revlimiter.net/blog/2013/10/m...o-restoration/

Before, these pictures don't quite capture how rough it was:

And after

The result is certainly not perfect, but it looks and feels a whole lot better than it did. <$20 and couple hours of my time will hopefully tide me over until I replace the wheel. 

Also did some Vermont things:

It's amazing how much a few small things like that can detract from the car as a whole, and how much better it feels now.

And, while I'm boring you, a couple random pics from last summer that I never shared here:

Last weekend the New England Mazda Autoclub held their annual "Great Mazda Climb" at Mount Washington. I've been invited every year this event has gone on and never made it and was waffling at the last minute on Friday when I looked at the itinerary and saw the words "sunset" and "summit". 

Sold. 

Saturday the weather was... iffy at best. Lots of clouds and rain showers, it looked as though the summit would be socked in with clouds - as it has been every year for The Climb. As the afternoon wore on, though, the sun came out and the summit came into view. 

When we made it to the top, this is the view we were greeted with.

From that point forward I didn't put my camera down

The view... didn't suck.