More quarantine means more progress, or not.

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Thanks phone mount!

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Roadtrip to a junkyard and 10 minutes later:

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Clean 1.6 dash acquired.

Now to spend an inordinate amount of time and money refurbing and modding it to my liking.

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CAD Template

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To Metal

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Fits well

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Tucks and slightly covers drivers front brake line.

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Gold ricer tape and some rubber trim later and its ready for use.

Got some real nice photos done by a friend:

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I'm happy with it for now.

TRACK TIME

TRACK TIME

Went to Mid Ohio with Autointerests for the weekend.

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My boy Dave in the blue #74. We were trading places the whole session as each of us were faster in different spots. Stupid Subaru was holding us up.

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For the weekend I put on a set of PFC 97 pads. The HPSs were not cutting it lol. It felt so nice to have a consistent and confident brake pedal turn after turn after turn. Especially diving into T7 at 100+mph

Brake caliper bolt fell off on Saturday and caused issues but I got it fixed up enough for Sunday. Only other casualties were super dusty wheels and a cap popped off one of my shocks.

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I ran a 2.00.93 as my PB that day, could have gone sub 2 but traffic in later sessions held me up.

Video of best lap:


Next up is Nelson Ledges in 2 weeks!

Been a while hasn't it?

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Nelson Ledges was a success. Got down into the 1:25s, I would knock this down to a low 23 at a later track day in August.

Side note: The PFCs shed an insane amount of dust and demolish rotors. My poor Glowstars...

Next was NASA @ Pitt Race

Had to help a friend get their car together in time for race weekend...

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COP Kit fixing the classic NB1 ignition issues.

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Nasa @ Pitt was fun, first weekend on Gloc R10/R8s. I couldn't stand the PFC dust. Lead-Follow instruction sucked, couldn't push at all.

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Was in the high 2:20s all weekend.

Took a break from tracking to go to MATG with my friends.

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I had another Nelson Ledges event after, but no photos or data. Borrowed a friend's AIM, managed to get down into the 23s. Probably more out there, track is so sketchy I'm hesitant to push.

Lastly, Carfest @ Pitt Race.


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Whole gang getting seat time.

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PB was a 2:14! Whats crazy is I was stuck in the mid 2:16s all day, then I just went out in open session, track felt like it had decent grip so I decided to push a bit. Didn't expect to set a new PB by a fair margin lol.

Video:


I have a decent amount of plans for the off-season. Should be fun coming up.

High quality posts, dude! Appreciate it. Makes me wanna buy another Miata and start over.

Is the track "follow" requirement a Covid thing?

Do it. Nothing else like these cars.

Yes, NASA required lead-follow instruction due to Covid. Autointerests allowed in-car if the student and instructor is comfortable with it.

Lead-Follow is good at higher speeds/ skill levels IMHO as if you're just trying to find some time out there, its much more intuitive to follow a faster driver and copy what they do versus get instruction inside the car.

Ah where were we?

Offseason I decided to get into iRacing. I got a G27, but the 270mm wheel felt very unnatural. 3D printer to the rescue!

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Picked these up from Tarmac88, figured it was time for more track focused wheels/ tires.

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Hit 90k driving it to/from work

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Then I put it away for the winter, then school started, then it started getting warm and I forgot how much fun the car was. I also procrastinated a ton of maintence lol.

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Fixed the circuit sports coolant tank and its ---- design. Now I don't spill coolant in left turns.

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That should be one piece. Replaced it with a Mazdacomp on the drivers side, OEM on passenger.

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Car Make Corns heatshield decided to just not hold together at the weld. Washer + hammer made it at least not rattle

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VC Gasket, painted VC, new PCV, fresh coils, re-did the coil harness, new plugs and all driveline fluids.

While I had the VC off and plugs out I played with my Boroscope. Order of 1 to 4

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Dunno what I'm looking at to be honest. But I don't see chips or cracks or the usual signs of detonation on the edges of the piston though.

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Stage one of this project.

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Finally getting some proper safety back in the car too.

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Cobra Monaco Pro 40th Anniversary editions, Schroth Enduro harnesses and I'll be wearing an SHR Flex HANS.

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All just in time for Kmiata Day. I fit and clear broomstick, however my 6'6" instructor was never clearing broomstick unfortunately.

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Squadded up

I did go 4 off and blew off my front lip. New one was required.

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I gotta say this IKON MOTORSPORTS rep GV from Amazon is the best RepGV i've ever fitted. Actually perfect, no crease or short end like the others. Also seemed more flexible and smoother/ shinier than usual.

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And got these on after the track day. Definitely a difference, most noticeable in high frequency bumps and potholes. Front end rattles a lot less and theres more of a "thunk" than a rattle or shake when hitting bumps now.

Recently got into Drones too, so the Miata took a bit of a backseat to that as I started in the hobby and did my best to learn.



Until next time.

How are the Cobra Monaco’s on long trips? I sit pretty upright, but I have no A/C.

I’d love a long term check-in on how the flock holds up! Thanks for the post!

They're pretty nice actually. I like a lot of layback in my seating position and I got a good amount with the Jerfspeed brackets. The ~5hrs to Gingerman was fine, didnt find any pressure points or bad seating positions.

I really need to stop procrastinating on the dashboard swap lol.

Only 4 months since my last update? Seems longer but a lot happened.

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Was at a track day at Nelson Ledges and had some... issues.

Car was burning a lot of oil, but I assumed this was valve stem seals as it was intermittent and only on accelerating from a stop or at the bottom of a hill. I got everything to swap them, but wanted to "limp" it through the track day. I also got TB/WP and front end seals to do as they've probably never been changed before.

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Second session out I lost my oil cap. I chalked this up to BP vibrations and me just not tightening it. Was quite scary seeing oil spray on my windshield through the hood vents lol. Was pretty bummed as I've had that cap since 2016, bought it before I even got a Miata. Was signed by Mad Mike at FDATL 2016. Little did I know this was a precursor to some more serious issues.

Then, lap after a PB i'm backing off a bit. Coming out of carousel I floor it and there's nothing. Not the usual Miata 0 power, but genuinely no acceleration. Look behind me and see a massive cloud of smoke. ----.

Put it in neutral an coasted to the pits. Car died on track but was able to restart it and limp it to my spot. Was misfiring badly, and didn't get better after I swapped plugs. Friend had a compression tester...

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Thats cylinder 3. Lmao. Full results were 120-60-0-120

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Definitely a different feeling than when my crunched first NA came off the flatbed. I was able to drive it into my garage though, albeit smoking up my entire neighborhood.

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First signs from the teardown were... Interesting.

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F. Thats cylinder 2 lol, made 60psi with a hole in the piston.

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Gnarly.

My moneys on an injector clogging and the cylinder leaning out and exploding.

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Up and out.

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Lined up a VVT dropout with equal miles to my chassis. So my ODO is correct... Perfect coincidence. But, I also scored a BP4W head and had a local head shop completely refresh it.

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Luckily I had TB/WP and a bunch of seals ready to go already. Just needed a few odds and ends and I could re-seal the whole motor.

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Coming together.

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Also pulled my diff to do poly bushings, come to find out i've been whipping an open diff this whole time. Theres another excuse for being slow lol.

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Found a 4.3 Torsen locally rebuilt by Miata Boxes. Put it in my spare RX7 housing with poly bushings. Should make a good difference.

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Had the VC, Squaretop and header coated. Header was coated with Cerakote, should improve its durability and reduce how hot the bay gets.

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Wouldn't be a "me" project without some pointless personal touch items. Got these from Alethia Motorsports.

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No project is complete without a good wash and wax.

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And she's all buttoned up.

I'm still driving it around and finding/ solving little issues, but she's 99% there.