What have you done to your Miata today?

That's a great solution Maff.

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

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Beauty for shua! [emoji6]
Took her for short cruise....
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It really is one of the prettiest NBs I've seen. That wing is perfect. Better than the ugly ass OEM, but not all crazy boy-racer. I love it :D
 
Just a simple oil change over the weekend. Hoping for more nice weather this weekend so I can polish the headlights.

*edit - Over lunch today I fixed my cowl leak. Was very easy and took about 20 minutes start to finish. Found that both plastic covers over the screws had tabs broken and the PO used silicon to hold them on?! I took out a hunk of silicon the size of a quarter on the DS! Ordered two new ones from the dealer and pick them up Wednesday.

Well that sucks....about the mazda dealers!

Yeah, especially the dealer from which we leased it from. Oh well, the Jeep dealer was happy to take my money and the wife is happy. That is what matters. :)

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:

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):

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:

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.

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.

Yes, hard to believe. What miffed me is that I knew they were going to make a decent profit off of selling mine at 3yo with under 23K. Knowing that and that they wouldn't even consider paying off my last two payments at the least....I'll just help myself out the door.

Sorry Mike but I all I read was "blah, blah, blah". I was too focused on the pretty shiny part. :D

Any more CEL?

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.

No issue at all, our lease was up in August and we didn't want to purchase it. First choice was a 2019 CX-5 Touring in Sonic Silver but neither dealer wanted to play the game. They never gave us a complete breakdown of numbers but pretty sure they were working everything off of MSRP as they said the only way to help lower our payment, vs. more down, was to remove the PEP which is a $1375 option.

Well, it*s not been much better here.....weather just really broke Memorial Day weekend!

Finally!!!! Enjoyed the sunshine this past weekend!

That's a great solution Maff.

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

I can see why! Absolutely love that color. Your personal/custom touches make it even better!
 
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Thanks for the kind words, y'all making me blush up in here.

It really is one of the prettiest NBs I've seen. That wing is perfect. Better than the ugly ass OEM, but not all crazy boy-racer. I love it :D

The MSM spoiler I had was an improvement over the stocker. I wasn't ever sure if I liked this spoiler until I saw it on a red NB. I feel like with the color of mine it brings out the curves better but in a subtle way, if that makes sense.
 
Sorry Mike but I all I read was "blah, blah, blah". I was too focused on the pretty shiny part. :D

Any more CEL?

Nice to see I haven't acclimated anyone to my posting pictures.

CEL pops up once in a while, I still haven't drug my ass under the dash to pull the MS harness to check for any issues.
 
Lol Mike.

Good luck with that harness once you do get in there. No envy here.

Restored the headlights today.
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Finally got around to adding some lock nuts to the muffler hanger I added. When I looked underneath I found one nut had disappeared yet again. I was thinking about using Nyloc nuts but someone pointed out the nylon might melt if the temperature of the hanger got high enough. Solution was some all-metal lock nuts courtesy of Ace.

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Put those on to back up the regular nuts I had on there, shouldn't be any more issues with that.

I decided to pull the MS harness connections to see if there were any loose wires that might be causing the intermittent CEL. Didn't find anything abnormal, however when I was putting everything back together the power wire to the wideband pulled out of the StaKon. Fixed that with a new connector. Cleaned up my wire routing a little bit too, since I was already contorted it was a good time to do that. I'm getting too old for crawling underneath a dash. Have to do some driving to see if I took care of the CEL once and for all.
 
That someone would be correct. Nyloc is pretty dependable, but not when heat's involved.
 
Been busy the past week doing work preparatory to MATG. Too lazy to document it all right now. Headed south in the morning, glad that I am able to make it again this year.
 
Been busy the past week doing work preparatory to MATG. Too lazy to document it all right now. Headed south in the morning, glad that I am able to make it again this year.

Cool, I've got a bunch of friends who'll be there. Next weekend (Aug 10/11) is the hill climb, so this weekend's all prep for me
 
Can't believe I didn't post this here :D






Stickers make you faster :D




Obligatory park-bench shot:

 
Can't believe I didn't post this here :D






Stickers make you faster :D




Obligatory park-bench shot:


I can't believe you didn't either, since you bombed the rest of the Internet. (yawn)

Got home from The Gap around noon after a 5 1/2 hour drive. I have pictures to post once I recover from the festivities. Had a blast, did more driving than last year and did a lot of hanging out with like-minded folks (which to me is a big part of the draw for the event).
 
Got home from The Gap around noon after a 5 1/2 hour drive. I have pictures to post once I recover from the festivities. Had a blast, did more driving than last year and did a lot of hanging out with like-minded folks (which to me is a big part of the draw for the event).

The Chasing the Dragon Hill Climb is this coming weekend. Coming to hang out? :D
 
The Chasing the Dragon Hill Climb is this coming weekend. Coming to hang out? :D

Unfortunately no. I am starting a new job beginning of September and will likely have to get some training before leaving. The wife will be upset if I don't maximize my time at home. I do wish you luck though.
 
I'm a bit behind on posting, but that's normal for me.

At the beginning of this year, the rumors started, that Mazda was going to be releasing a 30th Anniversary Miata and it was going to be a bright color. For those who are not familiar, we*ve owned 7 Miatas (NAs and NBs), raced 6 over the years on both dirt and asphalt and love brightly colored cars. Since the ND Miata was announced and I got to autox one 4 years ago, I*ve loved everything about them but the boring colors. So, come February when Mazda made the 30AE announcement, I got in my pre-order.

Say hello to 0070:
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Not nearly as practical as my Protege5 was, and way too assertive when it comes to all the technology that was not present in my 16 year old car, but it*s so fun!!


 
Ran the Lucky Number 13th running of the Chasing the Dragon Hill Climb in North Carolina this weekend and exceeded even my wildest hopes for what I and the car would be able to do.
We rolled it off the trailer and on a shakedown / recon lap, it was 2 seconds off class-record pace (127 sec), and would have set the record a couple years ago.
On Saturday I ran a 124.3. I knew there was probably a little more in it, maybe a high 123, but not much.

Sunday morning had absolutely perfect conditions, and managed a 121.5, absolutely obliterating the 125.9 record set last year.

 
Thanks!
With an unbelievably successful Hillclimb in the books: It begins.



 
I also may have started hacking away at it like a maniac with an angle grinder and sawzall affliction....



I figure the engine will likely be in and out a bunch with the upcoming project, so I might as well make it easier on myself and be able to pull the engine and trans straight out the front as a package.
I cut as much of the upper rad 'support' as I could get away with, without affecting the hood pins and bumper-cover supports and will be making the crash bar a bolt-on piece.

There's so much room for activities!
 
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