What have you done to your Miata today?

I'm lovin' the spoiler Levi, looks really good blacked out on the red.

C'mon Mike, Maff is going to need a bigger helmet now. (rlaugh) In all seriousness though Maff, that first shot is so effin cool! All business and looking mean....love it!

The only reason I don't need a bigger helmet is that my own driving has kept me humble of late. The car is tremendously good after the offseason suspension upgrade, to the point where I'm not used to it anymore and just cannot for the life of me keep the inside rear tire off of cones. It's all practice, but man, it's been frustrating as hell. "Yeah, FTD!" "...plus one..." *****!!!*

But I agree RE that 1st picture. It looks so awesome. Our current site is a banked oval, and that picture is on the banking at full throttle in a corner, so it's REALLY hunkered down. It also shows that I have the splitter height PERFECT. It rubbed a little (just enough to wear down the rivet nubs a bit), but wasn't dragging.
 
I was taking some measurements for a project I'm working on, and I found myself wondering just how "high lift" my high lift jack is.

Turns out: it's pretty damn high lift.
It's more than 150% the lifting height of the normal "race" jack. Love this thing, even if the damn thing weighs almost 100 lbs lol



 
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I think you should have tried to find the tipping point. And as regards the jack weight, that is why it has wheels.

Yesterday when I pulled out of the garage to run errands, I noticed some black substance on the floor. Got out and looked at/felt it, seemed suspiciously like supercharger lubricant. Looked at the snout and sure enough there was a track of oil running down from the nose bearing seal. @$#%(^&)&*#!! Pulled the belt and wired the bypass valve open. I sent a message to JBP asking for a replacement seal to install myself. He got back to me fairly quickly and said that according to their records my nose shaft had some damage which they took care of by sleeving. He said they would need to look at it to see what the problem was, that it might not just be the seal. This morning first thing I removed the 'charger, when I did that I noticed what appeared to be oily residue inside the rotor housing. At that point I decided to send the whole thing back to him. Really sucks since I only have about two weeks at home to enjoy the car. I'm going to see if I can rig up an NA intake so I can drive her while I wait for the 'charger to come back to me.

In other (hopefully happier) news, I got the double sided adhesive tape I ordered for the trunk saddlebags. Just got done installing that, I had to use two layers of tape on the right side of the trunk due to the wire harness that runs down that side of the trunk lid. Without two layers the saddlebag won't adhere to the lid. I'll see how well it works, early result is that tape is strong stuff. It's hard getting the line-up exactly right, when I tried to reposition the piece the tape was already on there and I couldn't move it around.
 
Damn man, that supercharger has not been very good to you of late :(
Hate that for you
 
Damn man, that supercharger has not been very good to you of late :(
Hate that for you

Thanks man. I figure the first failure was down to me not performing requisite preventive maintenance, but this last one has to fall directly on the rebuilding shop. I'm not too impressed with them at this point.

I'm going to see what I have that will let me go N/A while I'm waiting, so I don't miss any nice days without a convertible.
 
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Sometimes procrastination comes in handy. I still have bits and pieces from the M45 setup so I pulled that out of storage to see what I could do with it. I also stopped by AutoZone and picked up a 3"-2 1/2" reducer. With that in hand, and my years of making repairs with what we had on hand (especially on old ships) here is what I ended up with:

33195185054_7782802319_c.jpg


I used the stock throttle body and put the IAC in its normal place. I had to make a little bracket to hold the throttle cable in place, since I never had a stock one:

33195183804_84fa32c752_c.jpg


Finally, I had to use the metal tube that normally mounts on the supercharger to connect the air filter to the crossover tube. This also allowed me to have a way to tie the filter down. I used some tape and zip ties to close off two openings in the tube so I wouldn't get any unfiltered air:

33195182744_b8df16fe50_c.jpg


Voila! And, success! She fired right up and idled normally. This made me a very happy man.
 
Thanks Bruce.

Youll get used to it Maff. And your competition is hoping that will be later, not sooner. 😉

That jack is great!

Oh man Mike, that is some bad news to read. Hoping they do right by you in regards to the fix. Thats some nice ingenuity you used to keep her on the road!





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Thanks Jeff. It should be covered by the warranty.

'charger is scheduled to be delivered to JBP today. Hopefully the turnaround will be quick.

While I was removing the 'charger, I didn't watch what I was doing closely enough and broke the top right off the dipstick. No big deal I figured, got the part number off Mazda Motorsports and while at the dealer this morning getting the wife's RX-8 airbag recall done I asked the parts guy to order me one. According to what he saw the part has been discontinued. Say what? When I got home I went to Priority Mazda online and ordered from them. That was kind of strange to say the least.
 
Smashed my left middle-finger with a sledge hammer trying to drive out a differential bushing. Goddamn it. Who thought putting steel sleeved bushings in an aluminum housing was a good idea? ****.
I took the drill and sawzall to them to cut the centers out, and then cut slits through the outer sleeve. But because aluminum and steel corrodes when put against each other, it's still a pain in the balls. Delrin is going in next, thankfully. It'll take me a few hours to get the stockers out, and 5 minutes to put the new ones in.
 
Got the motherfuckers :diaf:



Man those things suck to remove.

You can see where the sleeves rusted to that ID in the housing.
 
Thanks Jeff. It should be covered by the warranty.

'charger is scheduled to be delivered to JBP today. Hopefully the turnaround will be quick.

While I was removing the 'charger, I didn't watch what I was doing closely enough and broke the top right off the dipstick. No big deal I figured, got the part number off Mazda Motorsports and while at the dealer this morning getting the wife's RX-8 airbag recall done I asked the parts guy to order me one. According to what he saw the part has been discontinued. Say what? When I got home I went to Priority Mazda online and ordered from them. That was kind of strange to say the least.

Well, at least you can drive the car now, good luck with the charger!
 
been there!! and i replaced them with mazdaspeed motorsports one, should have done delrin but it is what it is now.

Yeah, delrin's nice and easy (and cheap...and stiff). I have delrin in the 4.1:1 diff that I run for autox, this is the hillclimb / "spare" 4.3:1 diff.

Holy s*** Maff. That drove me crazy just reading about it.

It's a bad job if you don't have a massive f**k-off press. Of course the other option is this:



...but once that's done, you STILL have to pound out the old sleeves from the housing. Drilling and cutting out the guts was a bit cleaner (still gross) and faster than going with fire, if far less spectacular lol
 
Yeah, delrin's nice and easy (and cheap...and stiff). I have delrin in the 4.1:1 diff that I run for autox, this is the hillclimb / "spare" 4.3:1 diff.



It's a bad job if you don't have a massive f**k-off press. Of course the other option is this:



...but once that's done, you STILL have to pound out the old sleeves from the housing. Drilling and cutting out the guts was a bit cleaner (still gross) and faster than going with fire, if far less spectacular lol

"Fi-a"!!!!!


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Had the clutch changed out today. 160k miles on the old one and it not too bad shape. Not down to the rivets but close.

Changed to a stock clutch and Fidanza flywheel and changed the tranny fluid. Next up new tires and an oil change. Got a track date next weekend.
 
I started building a thing. Once I've got the 1st one built and am happy with the design, the rest will follow as time permits. These things.... they are not going to be light :lol:

Just under 9 feet of 3/16" angle in this frame, + legs + gussets + supports for the floor on the roll-off pad + stop plates at the front and back + scale pads = they'll weigh almost as much as the car, I fear...





 
Maff, I got lucky with my diff bushings and was able to use my ball joint kit to press them out. I did make sure to use some of my magic moly lube when I put the new ones in.

Damn Bruce, that's a lot of miles on a clutch! Seems like you are driving it right.

Dipstick showed up yesterday. I pulled out the old one and inserted the new one. Easy-peasy.

JBP called last evening. They said it was definitely leaking from the nose seal, but when they took everything apart there was nothing apparently wrong. All the seals were replaced anyway, and they were going to fill the oil compartment right up and leave it inverted overnight to see if anything else showed. I was supposed to hear back from them today but nothing so far.

While I was sitting around idle this evening I decided to do a foamectomy. For anyone who doesn't venture into Miata.net to be familiar with this term, you just remove the seat bottom cover and cut some foam off the seat. Long-time readers of this space will know that I did this to the original factory NB1 driver's seat. Same thing this time, and as I am still a glutton for punishment I reused the hog rings. I took 1-1 1/4" off the bottom of the foam, this lets the seat cover sit nicely so it doesn't appear to be any different. Once I had that job done, I pulled the back seat cover off enough to insert the inflatable lumbar support I have. With everything buttoned up and the seat back in the car, I gave it a sit to see how it was going to work for me. Acid test will be once I take a trip, but I like it a lot sitting statically.
 
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