CLOSE CALL

I bought this car, planning to keep it for decades. It's the first car I've really loved in quite a while. I care for it well, and I want it to remain unmolested --except for the tasteful mods I'll carefully make-- throughout its life.

Yesterday, I pulled up in the Checkers drive-thru (although food is usually persona non grata in this car). In front of me is one of those uber big pickup trucks. He decides he wants to leave and starts moving in reverse. I gave the horn a quick blast but he's still moving -slowly, thankfully- so I lay on the horn without let-up. I've considered this scenario before, and thought that I would react quickly to throw mine in reverse and get out of the way instead of just laying on the horn -- in reality, my mind wouldn't allow me to focus on anything that might distract from sounding that horn as loud as I could, I had to stop that truck!! Interesting how the mind works. Anyway, he had to be within a couple inches of crushing my hood with his bumper when he finally heard my horn and stopped. Leaned out his window (my left side was farther left than his), and said, "Sorry - I didn't see your little car." Man. In the future, that scenario will be on my mind more regularly, and reverse will be at hand.

GAUGE REPAIRED, TIRES REPLACED

It's been months. Sent my boost gauge back to Speedhut, and they repaired it. There was a solder connection that wasn't a good connection from the factory. They re-did it, sent it back to me, and it's worked perfectly ever since. But of course I had the job of mounting it all over again. Speedhut sends a threaded ring, which the installer should place on the gauge from behind to hold it securely in place, after having placed the gauge in its mounted position. With the A-pillar pod though, there just isn't room to work that ring onto the back of the gauge. So I used some double sided tape around the gauge, and crammed a little extra in, and so far it's stayed put. I had the tape on hand because I was hoping it would hold the pod


in place on the pillar without the use of the plastic screws. Sounds unlikely? Well, I would have thought it unlikely for BMW to depend on double sided tape to hold body panels in place, but they do. Or at least did on the E30. I guess their tape is a little better than what I got down at OReilly's Auto Parts. After a few weeks, the tape between pod and pillar starting letting go, so I had to use the screws after all. All's good.



At 15,000 miles, my stock tires were shot. Yeah, I had a lot of fun the first few months I had the car (bought it with 7k on the clock, and perfectly good tires). So I started shopping - I wanted to move up at least a little in terms of performance, maintain decent performance in the rain (although I'm in the rain only rarely, I'd still prefer to avoid even the rare accident!), and maintain a decently low noise level, all for a low price. And I guess that's what I managed to do. I bought a set of Sumitomo HTR-Z II's from Tirerack.com at 79 bucks a pop. Moved up a size, from 205/40/17 to 215/40/17 - gives me a tad more sidewall to increase speedo accuracy, fill the wheel wells just a bit better, and maybe smooth a bump or two. Fast delivery via UPS. The performance, I think, is slightly better -stickier- than the stockers. Maybe next time I'll be ready to invest in significantly better tires. :)

all loaded up to go get them mounted!new tires mounted at 16,563 miles

The weather has turned decidedly cool (it's November!), and the 'Speed Miata is getting less drive time. I want to keep the miles from accumulating too quickly, so while it's too cold to enjoy top-down driving, I'll drive the alternate vehicle, my '99 Rodeo, and save the Miata fun for Spring through Fall.

BACK FROM THE BACKROADS TRIP TO INDY

When I was in college, I bought an '85 Buick Skyhawk (a Cavalier dressed up evening style). Nothing special as a whole, but at least it was a 5-speed, and I enjoyed the car - especially due to its little pop-out glass sunroof. It was my first open roof. I can still feel what I felt driving along Highway 72 between Athens and Florence in the late cool evening of a summer's day, with the pop-out glass banished to the trunk. The night air, the moon and stars above me, the rolling landscape that made even 60 fun. Ah, yes.

None of my later sunroof-equipped cars have quite matched it, maybe because the more modern low sloping windshields push the sunroofs farther back, leaving less of the opening forward of the driver's head. Or maybe it was just the novelty of having it for the first time that made it special.

Well, I've certainly enjoyed having the droptop Miata, and I have the top dropped almost everywhere I go...but most of my driving has been in the cities or on the interstates. Getting off the beaten path on my recent trip (see previous post), back on the little country roads of Tennessee and Kentucky with the whole roof banished all day long -- it was that old memorable experience of my college days, and then some. Then a LOT, actually. It was just great.


I rigged (and I do mean rigged) a camera setup to do some video as I drove. No fancy suction mountings, or clasps onto a rollbar...no, I got out my full-size tripod, extended the legs part of their length, and placed it behind the passenger seat, the top angled over to just between the tops of the seats, and slammed the passenger seat all the way back to hold it in place (visible in the picture above, if you expand it). It actually worked really well as far as holding the camera steady in a pretty good position. But I've got to incorporate a method of eliminating wind noise and highlighting the engine/exhaust sounds instead. Next trip.

Specifically, the video was for the twisty sections of the roads I took. The car is so much fun on the twisties. Fortunately some of the roads had two lanes for the uphill side --on other roads I eventually got stuck behind slower cars.

The Rock Island area was indeed cool. The river that flows underground, under a road and structures, and then remerges from the rock above the other riverbed as a waterfall, well that was just eminently cool. Aside from the main flow of the falls, the water at the edge of the falls descends over many little terraces of rock before finally joining the rest of the flow in the riverbed. And a walk downstream along the rocks brought me to a pair of river otters playing in the shallows. Just cool.

Work Accomplished

Another purpose in taking the Miata on this trip was to get some work done on it with the help of my cousin Tim, and of the lift at the shop of a friend of his. These plans were only partially realized. We mounted the Thompson Oil Filter Relocation Kit without problem. Why did I choose this mod? Let's just say that knowing the issues beforehand, I took the car to a 15 minute oil change place for the first change, and the workers could not find my filter until the manager came over, who had done Miatas before. Even then it took them some considerable time to actually get the filter off. Doing it regularly, I'm sure I could beat their time, but I know I wouldn't look forward to the oil changes what with the difficulty and the way oil spills over everything from the filter's factory location. Thus, the Relocation Kit.

oil filter at center
We installed my Speedhut boost gauge (w/ silver face, red lighting, and a Mazdaspeed logo, all to perfectly match the factory gauges) in my A-pillar pod from Flyin Miata , and it began operating flawlessly…that day and throughout the evening. Upon being started the second time on the following day, however, the needle was reading a quarter of the dial off from where it should have been. I was getting 5 pounds of boost just idling! –and >20 pounds under WOT. Sometimes it reads correctly, sometimes not, but whichever way it’s reading upon startup, it keeps it until I kill it and restart, at which time it may or may not change. The gauge has a little calibration-like action at each startup, and that’s apparently the function that’s not operating well. Speedhut has agreed to take the gauge back; let’s hope a new one operates as it should.

Finally, we also got the trans- mission and differential fluids changed. Redline MT90 now fills my tranny, and 75w90 NS lubricates the differential. I bought the fluids online from Jegs, and they threw in a nice yellow Jegs cap with the oils.

When the boost gauge issue gets resolved, I can think about the further mods: a manual boost controller, intake kit, and new dowpipe and exhaust. Those will greatly increase my power, make the boost more linear and accessible at lower rpms, and even give me a couple more miles per gallon. Unfortunately, I don’t have the best financial situation right now, so those may have to wait a while.

An Update on my Wiperless Windshield

I’ve been very happy with this mod…but. In my travels out of town since doing it, I’ve been caught in the rain several times, some heavy, some light, and been quite pleased depending on Rain-X alone. Returning from Indiana, though, I ran into a new situation that presented a problem. Beginning in Kentucky, all the way to northern Georgia, the sky held separated pockets of rain clouds. I’d go through a rain shower for a mile or two, or maybe even 5 to 15 miles, and then it would clear again for a while. Each shower left the thinnest of dirt films on my windshield. Didn’t even notice it until after 4 or 5 showers (and 4 or 5 layers of dirt-film). But then it started raining again in busy downtown Nashville, and I noticed the water drops were not moving very quickly at all. They weren’t in good contact with the Rain-Xed surface anymore, and visibility suffered a lot by this point. I had to stop and use a gas station squeegie, and all was good again. Hit maybe 3 more showers, but the Rain-X held its own. Couple more, and another squeegie stop would have been likely. So: repeated, separated showers are the downside of this mod, but overall I’m still very happy with it.

THE ROAD LESS TRAVELED

I'll soon be making a trip to Indianapolis. While there, my cousin and I plan to get some things done to my car. But those details can wait for a post after the fact. This post is about getting there. Like most folks, I have normally taken the Interstates to my various destinations. Shorter travel time = more fun time (at the destination). But now I have this little car that is so much fun on the twisty backroads. The equation has changed.

Instead of taking I-24 from Chattanooga to Nashville, and I-65 from Nashville northward through Kentucky, I'll ditch the Interstate for part of my trip, climbing Signal Mountain out of Chattanooga, and not rejoining the masses until Cave City Kentucky.

click for larger version
All new roads for me. I'll go up and down mountains (well, what we call mountains back east anyway), wind along rivers, and cross the Cumberland on a ferry. I'll go through places named Mount Airy, Mount Crest, Bone Cave, Rock Island, Boiling Springs, and Nameless, with the ferry crossing at the point where Turkey Neck Bend Road has never had a bridge.

I love to drive, even on the Interstate. These twisty backroads with the 'Speed Miata should be memorable.

(If anyone's interested enough to care, the roads are:
US27, US127, 30, Bone Cave Road, Rock Island Road, 136, 135, Ditty Road, 56, 290, 53, 214, 100, 63, and 90)

SEAT ADAPTATION

In choosing a 'Speed Miata to buy, I preferred an 05 because I wanted the Black Mica paint. But I wanted the red/black interior available only in 04 (05 interior is all black, except for red stitching on the shift lever, hand brake, and steering wheel). Thus the plan was born to buy an 05 Black Mica, and then to later buy the red/black cloth seats and red/black door panels from an '04 car. The all black interior just doesn't quite do it.


Well, I found a good pair of red/black seats!

Fortunately for me, Mark in Arizona takes great care of his 04 Mazdaspeed Miata (often places it in car shows), and makes lots of modifications. He had 12k miles on the clock, and decided to install racing seats, and was looking to sell his factory red/black cloth seats. After all the details of what would be a long story, I bought the seats and he DHL'd them to me. They're in great condition except a couple minor deformations that happened during shipping to 2 metal parts on the bottom of the seat --I saw the DHL guy drop the first seat just 20 feet before handing it off to me-- but they're blemishes that don't matter at all.


When I took the original seats out, I saw all the grit and litter and leaf bits that had accumulated on the floorboard under the seats. Hmmmmm. Yeah, I think I'll make it. I drove the car seatless to the car wash a couple miles away to vacuum out the floorboard really well. A folded up blanket to sit on raised me just enough to see and drive well, and the two cops I saw didn't notice or didn't care that I had no seats in the car. Vacuumed, got it back home, installed the new seats.



I wonder: could mine be the only Black Mica 'Speed Miata with the red/black seats? I kinda hope so. But no matter -- I think these seats look even better with the black paint than with the Velocity Red or Titanium Gray (the only two exterior colors they came with from the factory).

In fact, I'm now satisfied enough with the look inside that I may never go to the trouble and expense of the door panels. If it happens fine, but I'm not looking hard.


To complete the red accenting of the car, I plan on painting the brake calipers red when I get around to it. Already bought the paint, now I just need to get it done.

HEADLIGHT HAZE: CURED!

This deserves a post all for itself.

When I bought my Miata, I noticed that the headlight lenses had begun to haze over - though it wasn't really bad yet. You've seen cars where the lenses get horribly hazy. Couldn't let that happen to this car (new lenses are bound to be a bunch of money!).

Once again, mazda-speed.com had the info I needed. If your headlights are hazy, get yourself down to your friendly local auto parts store, and purchase a bottle of Meguiar's PlastX!


It's an easy application that polishes those lenses clean, even if it does require a little persistence in polishing. There is just a bit of haze still on one of the lenses, but it's so little that I don't even know which lens it is -- would have to get down close to spot it. And if I worked a little longer, maybe I'd have gotten that little bit also. But the main point? Now my headlights make the front end look great! :)

WINDSHIELD WIPER DELETE

Before my purchase, I determined to find a very well-cared for example, and give it equal care, and keep it until it's basically antique (and I will be too, by that time). That means keeping it out of the rain. I just don't want all that defilement mucking up the underside of my car! The original owner of this car had driven it in the rain once while he owned it, and then the day he drove it to work when I bought it from him, it was in the rain once more.

My rule is: never drive it locally on days when rain is possible, but go ahead and take it on trips, and if I get caught in the rain on a trip, so be it. I do want to enjoy having the car after all.

Then I noticed a fellow-member's comment on the forum mazda-speed.com, talking about how much nicer the view out the windshield was when he temporarily had the wipers off for a day. And wow he was right! Further, I'd used Rain-x a lot, and was completely comfortable relying on it alone for the few days I'd ever end up in the rain, so.....

That's right, my car is now wiperless! And looks great.

Having removed the wipers, I was then confronted with the bright bolts and plastic surround that stick up where the wipers mounted. Well, that doesn't look good. I needed to cap them with something that would fit perfectly, and not look like some garish add-on -- like the end of the actual wipers, for example. So I got a couple wipers from a Miata salvage company (partsgroup.com), and cut off the end pieces that cap those bolts, and mounted them. Kept my original wipers in case I ever decide to put them back on.


visible here: the cut side, pointed down toward the engine bay

From the driver's seat, I really like seeing the contours of the hood that had been partially obscured by the wipers, and the view of the car from the outside is great too. It just looks much cleaner inside and out!

INITIAL MODS

I've never had a car that inspired me to make any modifications to speak of. Not until now anyway. There are a lot of mods I have in mind, the more important ones enhancing the car's performance. But right off the bat, I started making some more cosmetic modifications. The performance mods (i.e. the expensive mods) will have to wait a little longer.


When I flew to Dallas to buy the car, I had with me the visor blanking plates I had already purchased. You see, as low as the roof is, the visors in the car don't serve a lot of purpose except get in the way of my line of sight out the front windshield! Since a lot of Miata owners feel the same way, aftermarket suppliers sell these little blanking plates, that fill the hole left when owners remove their visors. After buying the car, my friends and I stopped for lunch, and after ordering, I went back out to remove the visors and install my blanking plates! Ah, much better! And that ugly yellow warning sticker is gone too!

Next mod was after I got the car home. The car comes from the factory with amber colored front side marker lights. On my Black Mica paint, those side markers just did NOT look good. In such close proximity to the headlights, the new clear side markers look much better, don't you think? The clear lenses came with amber bulbs, so they do shine amber when they're lit.




I still need to remove those clear side markers sometime to smoke them a little - so they'll match the factory smoked headlight lenses.

A week and a half after getting home, I made two more modifications. I removed the little factory meep-meep horn and replaced it with a Nautilus air horn - much better sound, and considerably louder - the latter of which is what justified the expense. I've found that other drivers tend to not see this little car with their quick glances (it's 3 feet shorter than a Camry!), and they come right over into my lane! Thus, the louder horn. And finally, Miatas come with two little hooks in the front "mouth" (where a grille would be if there were one) - they look like tow hooks, but are in fact simply tie down hooks used during shipping, and serve no later purpose. In the Miata community, they're known as baby teeth. Now, they're gone!

PURCHASE (4-1-08)

I learned to drive a stick as a teenager, on my Dad's 1974 1/2 MGB GT. Later, he had a Pininfarina (Fiat) Spyder 2000 -- a little two seater convertible that I really liked. So my attraction to the Miata came pretty naturally. Appreciated the Miata's innate sporting characteristics and bullet proof reliability as well. Test drove a few of them over the years, but never was in a position to buy one -- needed to retain the possibility of hauling around more than one extra person on occasion. Last year, I found myself owning a couple of cars with no payments, either one of which could continue to serve well as a hauler, so I looked into Miatas again, and learned about the 'Speed edition. Test drove one and... "Oh yeah, baby!" :) A huge leap beyond any Miata I'd driven before!

Began my search in earnest, and trying to decide exactly what form I wanted. They sold in Titanium Grey Metallic and Velocity Red Mica in '04, and then added Black Mica and Lava Orange Mica in '05. Lava Orange is a great color, but I wanted the Red/Black cloth interior instead of all-black, and red just doesn't work inside a Lava Orange, and wasn't available in '05 anyway. Finally settled on the Black Mica as my favorite paint, but it was only used in '05, and the red/black cloth interior only in '04. So that was it: I'd buy an '05 Black Mica (I like the '05 rims better anyway), and eventually buy the '04 red/black seats and red/black interior door panels from elsewhere, and install them in my '05 Black Mica! :) (I don't like being surrounded by all black everywhere I look: seats, carpet, dash, doors, console, underside of softtop...)


So I carried on with my search. Found an '05 Black Mica in Dallas TX with only 6900 miles on the clock, completely stock. Original owner, pretty much mint other than 1 ding low on the driver door. The owner had driven it in the rain only one day. He had saved every service receipt (not that it had required much service), the window sticker, the dealer brochure, and the newspaper containing the ad that prompted him to go in and buy the car. The boot cover was still in its factory plastic bag, never unsealed.

A friend in Fort Worth went and checked it out for me, confirming what the owner had told me about its condition, so for $99 I bought a one-way AirTran ticket from Atlanta to Dallas, trusting I wouldn't have to hitchhike home!


Checked it out, and bought it, April 1 '08, for a couple hundred dollars under trade-in value. The fact that it was April Fool's Day certainly didn't apply to the deal I made, but to how I nearly wrecked it five minutes after taking ownership! I was still in downtown Dallas where I bought it from the guy at his downtown office workplace. The one-way three lane street takes a little S-curve path, with concrete barriers on either side. I figure the left/right S-curve looks fun, so just as I enter it, I drop a gear and goose it -- too much. Back end swings right, and I over correct, throwing the rear end left, with me facing the right-side concrete barriers and still moving at a pretty good clip -- got it straightened out finally. It was fun, but in a scared-myself-to-death-and-nearly-crashed-my-new-car kinda way. Um, yeah, it had been been a long time since I had driven a rear wheel drive stick that had any power.

Got it home to Georgia and took the next days and weeks to grow more gradually into enjoying the power. This is a fun car. Seriously.

That ad is why I don't feel bad for buying it from the guy for less than
trade-in value! :)

Purchase price was $16,700, plus a $25 Groome Shuttle ticket to the airport, $99 Air Tran ticket from ATL to DFW, and gas home.