What have you done to your Miata today?

Brought her to cars and coffee this morning with the for sale sign on the dash, lots of lookers and questions....but no serious prospects. I did get two offers this week. One was real low the other close...I don’t have tot sell it so I’m going to hold out for another month and see what happens. I’d really like to sell it before winter.
Any cars and coffee.....
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Finally got my thumb out and got in touch with EFI Analytics to see about getting my TunerStudio and MegaLogViewer registered on my laptop. They got back to me quickly with the necessary info so now I am all set to get to tuning. FYI, they have this information available on their site if you use this link:

https://www.efianalytics.com/register/resendRegistrationEmail.jsp

Once you enter the name and e-mail address you used for registration you will be sent e-mails with the codes needed for activation.
 
A while back I put some new foam pads on the soft top latches to keep them from rattling when I didn't have the boot cover on. I cut these from some adhesive foam I had on hand. After that I found that you can actually buy new pads from Mazda, so I did that. Here is the number:

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This morning I got around to installing these. The foam I made mine out of was about 2mm in thickness. As you can see the factory ones are much thicker:

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I removed the old ones from here (in case you are not sure of what I am talking about) and then after a good cleaning installed the new ones:

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Latches are nice and tight now. Once that was done I also replaced the forward splash guard on the passenger side front fender. It's this piece:

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I managed to break the old one at the bottom where the large opening is when I was putting everything back together after the head replacement. It wasn't really hurting anything but the new one was only $32 so I figured why not?
 
A while back I put some new foam pads on the soft top latches to keep them from rattling when I didn't have the boot cover on. I cut these from some adhesive foam I had on hand. After that I found that you can actually buy new pads from Mazda, so I did that. Here is the number:

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This morning I got around to installing these. The foam I made mine out of was about 2mm in thickness. As you can see the factory ones are much thicker:

42953207591_f36dd97dff_c.jpg


I removed the old ones from here (in case you are not sure of what I am talking about) and then after a good cleaning installed the new ones:

29080248218_e90f7e8989_c.jpg


41142528660_2e04985506_c.jpg


Latches are nice and tight now. Once that was done I also replaced the forward splash guard on the passenger side front fender. It's this piece:

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I managed to break the old one at the bottom where the large opening is when I was putting everything back together after the head replacement. It wasn't really hurting anything but the new one was only $32 so I figured why not?

Nice work! I didn’t recall seeing those pads before( runs out to check)
 
Nice work! I didn’t recall seeing those pads before( runs out to check)

Thanks. I didn't notice mine until the first time I went without the boot cover on (rain threatening) and the passenger side one rattled. While I don't usually run sans boot, if I have to I don't want to hear that noise. These are cheap and easy to replace.
 
Blech. Maybe I'll actually tear this thing down and a) learn something about transmissions (I get how they work conceptually, but as far as how it's put together, it's kind of a black box to me), and if it's nothing too bad (HA!!!) maybe replace the part and have another spare.



 
Blech. Maybe I'll actually tear this thing down and a) learn something about transmissions (I get how they work conceptually, but as far as how it's put together, it's kind of a black box to me), and if it's nothing too bad (HA!!!) maybe replace the part and have another spare.




I’m sure you’ll figure it out!
 
Blech. Maybe I'll actually tear this thing down and a) learn something about transmissions (I get how they work conceptually, but as far as how it's put together, it's kind of a black box to me), and if it's nothing too bad (HA!!!) maybe replace the part and have another spare.
It's really not that bad. Just SO. MANY. PIECES. You're going to need a couple special tools to completely disassemble and reassemble it. Disassembly is obviously easier but you're going to need a way to pull bearings and clutch hubs off the main and counter shafts. I use a two-jaw puller and made up some extra-long arms (like 16 in.). There's a 32 mm nut on the main shaft that holds everything together. During disassembly you can probably get it off with a large adjustable wrench (it's on there with more than 100 ft lb) but to re-assemble you're going to need a super-extra-long deep well socket. I have a ton of exploded N/A RX7 transmission pictures and the Miata box is very, very similar.
 
I spoke too soon about the driver's airbag delete being a success. Beginning of the week I saw the light flashing six times, which is the code for the driver's airbag. I decided to just get the resistor arrangement from Garage Star. That came in two days ago so I pulled the one I had made (checked the resistance of that and it was 0.5 ohms), swapped over the connector and plugged that sucker in. No joy, the damn thing still flashed. Note I checked the resistance of the GS part before installing and it was 3.6-3.7 ohms. I removed the part and checked the resistance again with the factory connector in place and it read 0.5 ohms. So this morning I took the connectors that GS uses, opened them up so I could put them back on and then took the factory connector off. Before I did anything else I checked resistance of the GS piece and it was back to the same as my initial measurement. I checked for continuity between the ends of the factory connector and both were normal. I also checked the resistance of the resistor I used when I made mine up and it was 3.4 ohms. I have no idea why this wasn't working using the factory connector but oh well. Put the GS connectors back on and soldered the wires for good measure, then put it all back together. I'll find out later if it works or not.

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So whats the verdict Chief?

I swapped out the Hella Sharptones for a Marco air horn from Thompson.

The Hellas stopped working and pretty sure it was the relay. I wasnt happy with them from the beginning so opted to replace them rather than mess around with them. I am much happier now.
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So whats the verdict Chief?

I swapped out the Hella Sharptones for a Marco air horn from Thompson.

The Hellas stopped working and pretty sure it was the relay. I wasnt happy with them from the beginning so opted to replace them rather than mess around with them. I am much happier now.
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Got that one too...beep, beep!
 
Yeah, I had it on my P5 too. Should have gone with it initially for the Miata but thought I'd give the Hellas a try. Live and learn.
 
I had a set of Supertones for a bit but didn't feel like they were loud enough so went back to my usual Fiamms.

I thought I answered you Jeff, but the airbag light was still on. I tried disconnecting the battery and checked the resistance before putting it all back together, but that didn't work either. Pulled it all out, reset the clockspring just in case I had messed that up and then put it all back together. Airbag light was out for a few drive cycles but it is back on. Time for some head scratching to see where that gets me.

The 'charger belt has been moving off by one tooth since I put her all back together. I tried a small adjustment with no success, so this morning I pulled it off completely to move the brackets around. Took a couple of tries to get it where it needed to be but finally got it done. I'll wait for a road test with some speed changes to see if it will be okay or need some more fettling.
 
The MSM is back out on the front lawn for sale. Had a couple of more serious inquiries, but a recent oil pan leak has scared them away. If I can’t sell it as is, I’ll have to fix it myself in the off season, oh well.
 
The MSM is back out on the front lawn for sale. Had a couple of more serious inquiries, but a recent oil pan leak has scared them away. If I can’t sell it as is, I’ll have to fix it myself in the off season, oh well.

same thing scared away a serious buyer from mine. a leak around the oil pan...
 
So what I'm reading is MSMs are leakers? (laugh)

'charger belt has been staying in place so that is good. Unfortunately there has been some damage to the front edge from it walking so I'll get another one to replace it with.

Scraped a couple of the diffuser fins last night leaving the driveway of one of my wife's friends. No major damage but I will have to lightly sand and repaint the damage.

I've been doing some research on adjusting my VE tables. Finally manned up and made some changes to see what I could do. I am happy to report that it was an improvement. AFRs under boost are still high, but the gas smell is almost gone and she felt a little stronger. Now that I feel confidant in making changes I'll be doing more.
 
So what I'm reading is MSMs are leakers? (laugh)

'charger belt has been staying in place so that is good. Unfortunately there has been some damage to the front edge from it walking so I'll get another one to replace it with.

Scraped a couple of the diffuser fins last night leaving the driveway of one of my wife's friends. No major damage but I will have to lightly sand and repaint the damage.

I've been doing some research on adjusting my VE tables. Finally manned up and made some changes to see what I could do. I am happy to report that it was an improvement. AFRs under boost are still high, but the gas smell is almost gone and she felt a little stronger. Now that I feel confidant in making changes I'll be doing more.

Funny one!!! Glad to hear the car is running better....
 
Got her all cleaned up for Miata day tomorrow at Larz Anderson museum in Brookline MA. I’m hopeful I’ll garner more interest in her there....and catch up with all my fellow Miata enthusiasts!
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I told mine I was disappointed in it for not installing the not-broken transmission while I was out of the country for a couple weeks (unamused)
 
Oh sure, blame the poor car for your slacking off!

Finally got my thumb out today and measured the resistance of the stock driver's airbag. It showed 0.3 ohms. Now everyone and their brother say to use a 3.3 ohm resistor when you remove the airbag which is a lot different. The GS one I bought measured at 3.6 ohms, the ones I previously tried were 3.3 ohms. I'm not the best with electrical stuff but I can get some 0.3 ohm resistors cheaply from Amazon, so I'm going to give that a shot.
 
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