What have you done to your Miata today?

Got home, checked the battery to find it under 2 volts. Wasn't that old but went ahead and bought a new one at the local O'Reilly's. I find it amusing that their part number is MIATA. Got that installed, she pretty much fired right up and I took her for a drive. Only PITA is that while the CEL wasn't in evidence initially, about 10 miles into the drive it came on. So I still have to figure that out (running a MS2 so I can't just plug in a reader to see what it is for). Going to keep an eye on the battery voltage to see if I might have some sort of constant drain.

I went ahead and ordered a CAS, CPS and coolant sensor from Rock Auto so I had them on hand should they be needed (since the two sensors are known failure points for NBs). Those are in hand, along with the QMAX reroute. I had to order a new thermostat for that, for anyone interested you can get one from Amazon for $6 and change plus shipping.

So do you just clear it and see if it comes back?
 
All it usually takes to clear it with the MS2 is shutting the ignition off and restarting.

Washed her this morning. Received the thermostat this afternoon, and swapped out the wheels for my special ones. Took a short drive tonight, so much fun.
 
Replaced the stock Bose speakers with M800 speakers from 3rd Millennium. Sound is good but still have some adjustments to make.
 
Added some bling
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Nice. I have the Cravenspeed stubby on mine.

Is that Robin's Wrangler in the background?
 
Thanks! No, that*s my daughters. Robin rocks a 15 CX5!
The antenna matches the knob

Ah, didn't know you had the shift knob too, cool. Ok, didn't know if she might have got a new car. We turned our 16 CX5 in on Monday for a 2019 Jeep Compass Altitude 4x4. Went to two Mazda dealers and neither one of them put any effort into winning our business, so we went elsewhere.

...there's a Miata joke somewhere in there (rlaugh)

Yes there is.....yes there is. LMAO
 
Ah, didn't know you had the shift knob too, cool. Ok, didn't know if she might have got a new car. We turned our 16 CX5 in on Monday for a 2019 Jeep Compass Altitude 4x4. Went to two Mazda dealers and neither one of them put any effort into winning our business, so we went elsewhere.



Yes there is.....yes there is. LMAO

Well that sucks....about the mazda dealers!
 
At first I thought that was some kind of funnel. The joke pretty much writes itself.

That sucks about the dealers Jeff. Can't believe in this day and age dealers are still that short-sighted.

Installed the QMAX thermostat housing, all told it took me about three hours start to finish. I got lucky with the gasket on the old housing I was using, nothing stuck to the head so that reducing the time it took by a lot. Getting the snap ring holding the thermostat in place in the QMAX housing is a PITA. The arms on the thermostat interferred with the snap ring. I also had some trouble getting my pliers to stay in the holes of the ring, next time I do this I will get some larger posts to hold it better. Here is how it looks once in place:

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There are no gaskets on the QMAX housing, they provide a small tube of gray sealant. This is used on the housing halves like so (ignore the lumpiness, this was before I smoothed it out prior to assembly):

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The same sealant is used for the joint between the housing and the head, you do have to be very careful when putting that into place so as to not smudge the sealant. I left everything for a couple of days so it took a good set (also, I was sick so that helped). Filling up the system is easy with the bleed screw on the housing. You can hear the air escaping as you fill the radiator. After filling the system like that I also jacked the front end into the air and bled it further with the engine running. I did end up having a small leak from the O-ring on the new temperature sensor, I replaced that with an aluminum washer which is what you get from Mazda. The QMAX housing is very close to the configuration of the home made housing I have been using, see these pictures:

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I have still been having a CEL come on, frequency has gotten worse. I tried changing the cam position sensor with no change. Yesterday when I went to go for a drive she would start but then die immediately. Today I decided to try installing the new crank angle sensor I bought. While pulling things apart I found one of the wires for the IACV connector was broken.

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Figured that was likely the reason for the engine dying after starting. Got my spare engine harness and cut off the connector, then spliced it onto the installed engine harness to take care of that little problem. Got the crank sensor installed and started her up, after running for a few minutes the CEL came back on. Went ahead and buttoned everything back up. Have been thinking about other possibilities causing the CEL so I put my head underneath the dash and looked at the wiring for the MS. Moved some around and looked for bad connections but nothing was apparent. Went for a drive, lo and behold the CEL never came on. Guess I'll be pulling out the MS harness as much as I can to see what might be bad.

I also pulled the driver's front shock with an eye towards installing the Maruha extended tophat, but the hole on it is a lot larger than the shaft on the Ohlins, so I'll have to do some figuring on how I can mate the two together.
 
Miata Friday...Took her on some great back roads to get some clam chowda, walk the CC canal and got some cream....great day!
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I also pulled the driver's front shock with an eye towards installing the Maruha extended tophat, but the hole on it is a lot larger than the shaft on the Ohlins, so I'll have to do some figuring on how I can mate the two together.

A small steel bushing / sleeve to take up the slack should do the trick for that.
 
A small steel bushing / sleeve to take up the slack should do the trick for that.

Yep, I just need measurements and figuring out how to make one (probably on a ship).
 
Ah, didn't know you had the shift knob too, cool. Ok, didn't know if she might have got a new car. We turned our 16 CX5 in on Monday for a 2019 Jeep Compass Altitude 4x4. Went to two Mazda dealers and neither one of them put any effort into winning our business, so we went elsewhere.

WHy the change? Was there some issue with the 5?
Miata Friday...Took her on some great back roads to get some clam chowda, walk the CC canal and got some cream....great day!

Nice Mark. I've had Mia out 3 times since I took her out of storage in the beginning of May. The weather here sucks big time, hasn't been over 60 yet for more than half a day.
 
For you track day folks, you know the pain of paddocking and sometimes having to jack up cars on soft soil.
I had built a set of wood 'platforms' to go under jack-stands when paddocked on soft surfaces. I realized this weekend that my race jack just barely has the throw, if everything is perfect, to get the stands on the 'platforms' under a car. When everything's not perfect, it's too low. I figured I could build something better that doesn't add 1.5" to the height of the stand.

Started with some 22ga steel from Home Depot Racing Supply:




I cut them out on the band-saw, but this could also be done with an angle grinder or even a good pair of tin-snips:



A bit of work with the hammer and a 2x4 'buck' and I got all of the flanges to 90 degrees. From there it was just a matter of putting the stand on the 'pad', and hammering the flanges around the legs of the jackstands. Since they're angled, this essentially captures the pads so they can't fall off.




And done!



For a 'finishing' pass, I lowered the car onto them (with the lift) and then went around the perimeters 1 more time with the hitting stick now that they were captured with 3/4 ton on them and sharpened up the corners, as it were. Not sure I'd want to do that without the lift to support the car in case I did something stupid (I guess you could have a jack there as a backup), but it worked great.

Now to figure something out for the jack itself.
 
WHy the change? Was there some issue with the 5?


Nice Mark. I've had Mia out 3 times since I took her out of storage in the beginning of May. The weather here sucks big time, hasn't been over 60 yet for more than half a day.

Well, its not been much better here.....weather just really broke Memorial Day weekend!
 
For you track day folks, you know the pain of paddocking and sometimes having to jack up cars on soft soil.
I had built a set of wood 'platforms' to go under jack-stands when paddocked on soft surfaces. I realized this weekend that my race jack just barely has the throw, if everything is perfect, to get the stands on the 'platforms' under a car. When everything's not perfect, it's too low. I figured I could build something better that doesn't add 1.5" to the height of the stand.

Started with some 22ga steel from Home Depot Racing Supply:




I cut them out on the band-saw, but this could also be done with an angle grinder or even a good pair of tin-snips:



A bit of work with the hammer and a 2x4 'buck' and I got all of the flanges to 90 degrees. From there it was just a matter of putting the stand on the 'pad', and hammering the flanges around the legs of the jackstands. Since they're angled, this essentially captures the pads so they can't fall off.




And done!



For a 'finishing' pass, I lowered the car onto them (with the lift) and then went around the perimeters 1 more time with the hitting stick now that they were captured with 3/4 ton on them and sharpened up the corners, as it were. Not sure I'd want to do that without the lift to support the car in case I did something stupid (I guess you could have a jack there as a backup), but it worked great.

Now to figure something out for the jack itself.

Nice work Andrew!
 
That's a great solution Maff.

Went to a local C&C yesterday. I still love this car.

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