Last night when I got home, I went to throw the driver side headlight rod on the Miata, which took all of ~1 minute or so after pulling it off of the other assembly. Checked them, and it worked just fine.... unfortunately, when I went to get into the car, it had a notice on it saying that because the car had no plates, they were going to tow it within 24 hours... *sigh*.
So, even though I had Wednesday scheduled off to take care of it, I took a half day today instead. I got the title switched over, and got tags, which cost a bit more than expected (although I did pay more for the new "Veteran of the Iraq War" plates). After that, I took the car to a local paint shop, got a quote, and then took it to an upholstery shop and the rear window is being replaced as we speak, it should be done by Thursday. Will be taking the car to have the new-to-me parts painted on Saturday, which will take a few days.
I've been playing with the dampening settings on the coilovers, but they don't seem to make much of a difference on the street haha! Either way, once the rear window is replaced, and the car gets the new body panels & paint on it, there's a couple of issues I need to address:
-Have a set of Hawk HPS pads on the way that I need to throw on there.
-I'm going to adjust the ride height on the coilovers, as I don't think the previous owner knew what he was doing and lowered them too much/cut into the suspension travel.
The previous owner also lost the adjust tools for the coilovers, but I ordered a replacement set from Tein, which were shipped yesterday.
The previous owner also replaced the radiator and thermostat last year, so the radiator is aftermarket.... which, would be fine, except that he is only running one fan (he said both of the old ones went bad and he only replaced one of them). Which, the second fan was only supposed to come on when the A/C was on, and since the A/C has been removed, it's not that big of a deal, except that the previous owner wired the current fan to a cabin-mounted switch.... *sigh*.... the car isn't showing any signs of overheating when driving around on the street without ever turning the fan on, and I suppose I can just leave it on the entire time at the track, but there is a part of me that would like to have it regulated by the thermostat like it's supposed to.
The previous owner replaced the thermostat, but not the relay, so I ordered a new relay, and will try giving it a shot when it gets here, although it’s going to be tough to test as I can’t monitor the car temperature with anything other than the dummy gauge.
Since it’s currently just setup on a cabin-mounted switch, what thinks you CMZC? Leave it alone, or try to wire it back up to the thermostat?
Either way, after driving the Miata around for a little bit on the street, I am reminded of one thing: my BMW 335xi is an AWESOME daily driver! Haha! Seriously, the Miata has no body roll to speak of, requires a good bit of steering effort (P/S de-powered), everything rattles, the aftermarket stereo in it sucks haha, rides rough as hell, the shifter feels like s*** (thinking about ordering new bushings at the very least), the clutch has gone a bit soft… and well, it’s a “project car” haha, that’s how it’s supposed to feel! I’m sure the Miata will corner harder with the right tires on a smooth track/course, but on bumpy/uneven pavement: 335xi>Miata. Of course, it’s not fair, considering my 335xi is probably around the ~360whp & 420wtq mark on MAC’s over-inflated dyno, but driving the Miata for a while really reminds me of how nice it is to have the Bimmer’s amazing low-end torque and uber-broad powerband. I kind of like the contrast of switching back and forth between them.
Either way, it looks like I’m going to be dumping a little bit more cash into Project Miata than I had originally intended, but that’s how these things always seem to work haha! I think once I get the car sorted out, the suspension setup the way I want it (to include a custom alignment), some new pads, new tires (will likely borrow a set of Ecam/Eric’s in the meantime haha, thanks Eric!) and a bit of basic maintenance/TLC, I think this is going to be a fun little play toy!
I don’t suppose anyone wants to invite me over to their garage & give me a hand with adjusting the suspension/putting in pads on the Miata one of these coming weekends?
Happy modding!
-Brandon
