March - The First half
Green Miata
The green miata had developed a bit of play in the steering wheel on the way home from FL so I checked and the pinch bolt holding the steering shaft to the rack was a bit loose. Nothing too dangerous just a bit of a dead spot at the center like I was driving an old ford truck. I guess I did not get it tight enough when I swapped the rack right before we left for FL.
Van
I have had a scangauge for a while now and it has just been just sitting hooked up in the center console cupholders and if I want to look at it I have to take my eyes way off the road and maybe pick it up to see everything. I was following Toms Ex-GRM Van thread and noticed he had found a good place to mount it so decided to do the same for mine.
Careful measurement.
Hole drilled.
Mounted.
Dirty Snow Impreza
The impreza had failed inspection this year for a bad wheel bearing, leaking exhaust and bad inner tie rod end when my wife took it in.
They were even nice enough to give me a quote on how much it would be to take care of those things for me.
That is the same inner tie rod end that I replaced last year. Once I got some time I inspected that corner. This is the same corner that lost the wheel at the rallyx last year.
I could tell for sure that the inner tie rod end was bad so I don't think I will be getting the Beck Arnley tie rod ends again for this car. This time I went with a Moog.
Yes I try to label all the auto parts that come into the house so when I actually get around to installing them I still know what car they go to.
The old tie rod end was pretty bad. I was able to shake the whole wheel because of it and as soon as I disconnected the outer end it just flopped as far as it could.
At least it was easy to get out since it had only been in there for a year.
After replacing the tie rod end the wheel no longer shook so I think I can get away without doing the wheel bearing.
Not sure why he thought they might have some problems when replacing the muffler.
I ended up disconnecting it at the cat so I could get at those better and had to cut and drill those out.
This one looks a little better.
While I was working on the impreza I decided to take a look at the wheel that had been leaking down on air pretty quickly.
I think I found the issue.
Cleaned it up a bit.
Put the tire back on the rim.
That seemed to take care of the issue. I guess I should have looked at them closer before I mounted the tires up in the first place. I hope I don't have to do this again with the other wheels.
Passed inspection.
I spent $30 for the tie rod end, $100 for the exhaust and ~$5 for the gasket?. So total about $135. Just a bit less than the shop wanted to charge to fix it to pass inspection.
Time for my yearly updating of the thread getting it ready for the season where I hope to remember to update it throughout the year. Also where I look and see if I remembered to take any pictures in the last year and try to remember when I did things.
April 2017
Blue RallyX car.
One of the biggest problems I had with the NB was the seat belt is attached to the seat rails unlike the early NA where you still had a hole that you could install the NA16 seat belt receiver so I was not able to move the race seat over to the car like I hoped to without a bit of extra work.
Made a run out to OG Racing to pick up a harness mounting plate.
After cleaning out a bit of dirt we were ready to install it.
Drilled hole.
Mounted backing plate.
NA Seat belt receiver installed.
Now I can install the race seat and stop bouncing my head off the roof everytime I hit a bump.
Blue CSP Car.
After running the car a bit and talking with other competitors locally decided we needed a little bit bigger center section for the front bar.
The different bars from this side look about the same.
This side they are a little different.
New bar installed.
CSP Miata Seatbelts. Using the same harness mounting plates that I used on the rallyx car I moved the seatbelts from the old CSP car to the new one.
Swapped the steering wheel from the old CSP car to the new one.
Stock wheel is in pretty good shape for the mileage.
The hub on the old CSP car was a little hard to get off but a puller got it off.
All nice looking in the new CSP car.
Updated the CSP swap list.
The blue CSP car also managed to run our first two autox events of the year so that was nice. The brakes seemed much better at not killing tires and since that was the whole reason for the swap it was nice to see.
May 2017
CSP Car
Because CSP is a never ending exercise of getting the little bits of weight off the car I swapped the manual mirrors from the old CSP car to the new CSP car.
You can tell just from looking at them that the manual mirror must be so much lighter.
So pretty?
I just sort of had the megasquirt hanging from the wires and getting in the way of my feet for a while. I now found enough room in the stock location to put it into.
June 2017
Blue RallyX car.
Had WDCR events #2 and #4 on back to back days and it worked great both days.
RallyX #2
RallyX #4
Why 2 and 4? Because 2 had to get rescheduled a few times.
Blue CSP car.
Solo #3
I got a few decent runs in but then the car started overheating at the autox. Thought it might be the water pump so I bought timing belt kit/water pump kit and did a timing belt on this car.
Still had the same issues after that and after actually troubleshooting it instead of tossing parts at it I found it was the fan not working. Replaced the fan with one from my fan spares box and it is working now.
Solo #4 - It did not overheat.
July 17
Bought a new bicycle. Found it fits on the rack I already had; I just need to put a wide load sign on it or something.
Dirty Snow
Had somebody interested in renting Dirty Snow for the national challenge rallyx so decided I should at least start up the car and make sure it runs.
What is this under the hood?
That looks yummy!!
Yeah I guess I need to run the car a bit more.
East Coast Challenge
I came, I saw, they gave me a hat.
With the rain in the week leading up to the event we had been pumping out the puddles all day Friday. I was sitting there hoping I was not going to be first run group off on Sat since I (REALLY) dislike running in the mud. I got lucky being in the second group Saturday morning with MA/MR and PA running in the first group. I ended up with FTD overall for the weekend. Being the first and second Mazdas in the class, my wife and I got some money from Mazda.
Saturday Morning Course. Yes this was still wet when the first group ran it.
Saturday Afternoon
Sunday Morning
CSP Car.
Finally managed to get an appointment with our graphics guy before he left the area.
Aug 2017
The Two Crystal Blue Mica race cars together.
Blue CSP Car.
CSP Clutch replacement again : At the last event in June the car had been acting a little funny with the clutch not holding as well as I thought it should. I did not do anything about it at the time and tossed it back on the trailer for the July event. When we started having issues just backing it off the trailer with the clutch we decided not to bother running it in july without fixing whatever the issue was.
Turned out that after blowing up the original organic disks in the clutch when I had bought the replacement ceramic discs that they did not know or at least did not have on their website that if you had an older 949 race clutch that you needed what they now call an update kit since they changed the thickness of some of the parts and the new clutch discs would not work with the old thinner floater disc. So with having that mix in my car it was not grabbing well.
The older ones have a .137" thick floater disc.
The newer ones have a .177" thick floater disc.
Since I did not have enough time to get the parts from 949 after I figured this out before the next autox I ended up putting in a stock type clutch and flywheel that I had laying around from one of my other cars.
While I was getting the updated floater plate I decided to upgrade to the carbon/kevlar from the ceramic discs for better feel.
Van brakes
The inspector a few months ago mentioned I might want to replace the brakes on the tow van. I kept putting it off but had some time and wanted to make sure it was done before RallyX nationals so decided to do them. Most of the pads looked ok when I pulled them off. This one not so much.
Blue RallyX Miata
Since I ran Maxxis tires at the East Coast RallyX national challenge, Maxxis was nice enough to send me a few free ones.
The door handle on the rallyx car had been acting weird so before I started on the timing belt on it I decided to pull apart the door and see what the problem was.
The rear part of the door where the handle attaches to the door was broken.
The other half still attached to the handle.
I cleaned them up and reattached them with JB weld. It worked for a few days and then broke in the same place again. If I am careful when I first start opening the door it works fine so I have just left it since then.
AHR RallyX.
Some of the people that got involved with RallyX while the WDCR program was in Cumberland decided to start their own program now that WDCR had moved back to a more DC area location. They needed some safety stewards to help get the program started so my wife and I volunteered.
Thanks to the AHR RallyX program for the nice picture showing my car and the Cumberland Raceway venue.
A couple of videos from that day.
Morning
Afternoon
Sept 2017
Went to Josh’s junk sale and came home with a bunch of junk.
Blue RallyX Car.
Did a timing belt/Water pump on the RallyX car.
Installed a header on the RallyX car that I bought from RedGT on the GRM forum.
Then of course I put a blanket on it to hide it right away.
My 1997 Miata has been eating a lot of oil recently so I had been looking for a spare engine for it. I found a wrecked NA with hardtop and 120K engine for $1500.
The owner had some questionable taste in interior decorating.
As I was paying the owner in $20’s he made what I thought was a joke about to bad he had quit smack. I sort of laughed a bit but maybe I should not have? These were all over the car.
Got to work pulling the engine from the car,
Of course right after I bought the NA part car a NB parts car came up for sale at an even cheaper price.
$1000 with the hardtop. The front frame rails were completely rusted out but the hardtop, engine, diff and trans are worth way more than the price I paid since it is a 6 speed car.
Those rusted front frame rails.
The NB also included a set of these wheels in addition to the stock wheels.
Tow Van.
The window regulator broke at a RallyX far away so I had to tape it up to get home.
Replacing the regulator.
Why ford would you rivet this on?
Went to another AHR RallyX and a WDCR one.
AHR
WDCR
Oct 2017
Rallyx Nationals
Bought the IndySport mud tires so it would not rain at Nationals…….
Still rained. I still sucked in the mud.
How bad was the mud? I managed to get my van stuck on the path between grid and start Saturday evening.
We had two Miatas that brought mud tires so I knew if it mudded it would be between the four drivers in those two cars.
This pretty much tells the story. On the one dry course I was 5 seconds up on the class after 3 runs. One wet run and I give it all back. Second wet run and I lost more time and the lead for the class.
1-4 in class are the two cars with mud tires.
First course.
Mud Fest
Dryish but the ruts from the previous runs were so deep that I think I was laying frame in the rallyx car.
Got home and had to clean off the mud tires.
Now to put them away for next year.
WDCR Solo #7.
WDCR RallyX #6
Nov 2017
Black/Blue CSP car
Finally got the dash out of the black car that still needs to go into the blue car to save a bit more weight.
RallyX
These showed up from Nationals. I am glad that the national office knows what cars are the real wheel drive ones. I feel sorry for those fools driving the wrong wheel drive cars out at Nationals.
My tool chest was overflowing a bit and tools could be hard to find.
The Black Friday sale on this guy at Home Depot convinced me it was time to upgrade. 52” wide and 20” deep.
Now I can actually see what screwdrivers are good and what ones are just pokey things.
After getting stuck at Rallyx Nationals in the van and finding out there are no tow points on the front of the van, I decided to install a front hitch.
Front end off putting the hitch into place.
Installed.
Got in some mud event practice for next year's Nationals.
AHR Mud Fest - Everything looked good until the night before when it rained. Day of, the track was drying up a bit and then it started raining again during the drivers meeting and stayed a mess the rest of the day.
SUSQ “Rain Date” RallyX - SUSQ made the mistake of publishing their rain date at the beginning of the season and then when one event early in the year got rained out they moved it to the rain date. We showed up that day and sure enough it was raining.
The next day we had a WDCR RallyX and while it was not completely dry it was a lot better than the other two events this month.
Dec 2017
The tire rack in the basement was full and bringing in all the race tires for the winter meant they started spilling out over the rest of the basement.
So it was time to build a second tire rack
Protege 5
While heading to a Christmas party in the wife's car, I started having issues with the clutch not working and then the brake warning light lit up so I knew I had a leak in the hydraulic system since they share the same master. By starting it in gear when I needed to move I managed to get to the party in DC traffic and was able to convince the valet that he was not going to be able to drive it into the parking garage. Made it home fine since we were only a few blocks from the entrance to the highway home.
Checked it out the next day and the clutch hose was shooting out fluid under pressure. You can see the nice bright new one here.
After saying for years that I need to put a sub-panel in the garage so I can run a few more things, I put one in.
Floor space is prized and propane smells nasty, so I added a small electric heater to keep the garage “not cold”.
Also added some more/better LED lighting around the lift bay. Bought the lights based on a post here.
Jan 2018
My wife got tired of the keys sitting on the kitchen table so I found a key rack that would hold all of the different keys that I need.
Now that I have some heat in the garage I would like to try to keep it there. This meant it was time to finish up the insulation that had been sitting in the garage for a while.
Added some behind these shelves.
Finished this wall.
Added OSB where I am always bumping into the wall.
A weekend drinking with my cars.
Feb 2018
We installed some more OSB on the rest of the lower areas.
Now that we have the OSB in place I decided to install this folding work table thing that I found when I was cleaning up the garage while installing the insulation. It came with the house when we bought it, so glad it's finally getting put to use.
Since the NA parts car has been sitting on the lift since I got it I have not been able to do a lot of work on the other cars. So it was time for it to go.
First I tried out the front hitch backing the trailer into the driveway and it worked pretty well.
Moved the NA parts car onto the trailer
Bye bye
Now that the NA parts car is out of the way, I can get some other work done.
The basics.
I can use the lift for oil changes again. First the wife's car.
Scruffy
Cleaned up the underside of Scruffy.
And the wheels
While I was under there, I replaced the plastic fuel filter shield and since I have always had some issues with the starter, I went ahead and replaced the starter to see if it makes a difference.
Bought a high lift trans jack so the next time I need to replace a Miata trans I don't have to do as much heave ho to get it out and in.
Not jacked up.
Jacked.
Spent the weekend under a friend's Evo installing shocks, rear diff seal and a front swaybar and this is the only picture I took.
That was when we had the front subframe dropped trying to figure out how to get everything in/out in the little bit of space we had.
Mazdaspeed Protege
The MSP had been sitting with a broken exhaust for a while but I did not want to try getting those bolts until I had the lift free again. Now that I can put it on the lift, I can get at them a lot better.
Broken exhaust
The bolts still rounded off.
So I had to cut them off.
New exhaust installed.
I have to hand it to you...you manage to stay busy and motivated...I couldnt keep that many cars running if I had to lol. I have trouble enough with the 3 I have. And only two of them are running at the moment.
In reply to livinon2wheels :
Not always so motivated. I just have enough cars that the unmotivated ones can sit for a while.
March 2018
The Rallycross program actually bought new cones for the first time in a while. All 200 fit in the back of the Protege5.
The Impreza got its yearly? Wash
The diamond plate on the trailer had been separating from each other and the rails so I decided to try out the welder I bought last year. It made some nice sparks and got things put together better.
Also "somebody" had backed into the trailer box and it needed some fixing.
I beat it back into shape well enough to try welding it back together.
You can't even tell it was busted.
A little black paint and it looks as good as new (new was not very good)
Rallycross Unicorn
My wife had been wanting the steering wheel swapped over from the old rallycross car but I must have used loctite red instead of blue because it was stuck good. I ended up having to drill out 3 of the 4 bolts holding it and using a bit of fire to get what was left of the bolts out.
I do have to admit the Momo steering wheel does look a lot nicer than the stock wheel. I just hope it comes back out easily when I need to swap it for inspection. 
Since 949 released their stock length coilovers (Xida XL) I had been wanting to get them. After consulting with 949 on what spring rates they recommended and getting them to add them to the buying options since most recommended rates for those were a little softer than what they recommended for my use I bought them in time for the new season. They look so nice and new in there.
Not like that dirty old stuff that I pulled out.
May/June 2018
I had been keeping my eye out for a 4.3 Torsen for the CSP car but was not having much luck finding one in the price range I wanted to pay. A post on GRM got me a whole 99 miata parts car for $400 or less than the 4.3 Torsen normally goes for. I had to bring a pair of taller wheels to get it to go onto the trailer since the spare tires it was on were not tall enough and I had to winch it up with ratchet straps since the owner had lost access to the key until Tuesday (Holiday weekend).
Most of the rest of the car was rusty trash but I got a 99 engine and Torsen for $400 and a bit of time.
On the lift ready to strip down.
The engine comes out pretty quick if you just cut out everything in front of it.
NB CSP Car
While I had it sitting there we decided to try test fitting the spoiler from the old NA CSP car. The trunk lid had a small spoiler and a lot of rust so I pulled out the trunk lid from the other NB that I stripped down and got it to work well enough that I could put it on the NB CSP car.
July 2018
Scruffy.
Scruffy had been making some noise/vibration but I was never able to isolate the exact conditions it was happening in and trace what was causing it. A friend of ours rented scruffy for a local rallyx event and drove it to the event. He had tried to trace it down and sent me this.
It makes the noise if you're on the gas above ~55. If you get off the gas, it stops.
If it's making the noise and you put the clutch in and/or take it out of gear while on the gas, the noise continues at whatever speed.
If you lift off of the gas, the noise stops, and whatever you do with the clutch/trans doesn't change that.
It can coast over 70mph with no noise, which I discovered coming down the mountain.
It also makes the noise going quickly around traffic circles. This would point to the right rear, but I got some noise when I was able to briefly load up the left rear, too.
Even with all those clues I was not able to figure it out until I got under the car and started wiggling things.
Here is the driveshaft removed.
I had a spare laying around from the parts car last month so tossed that in there and everything was much better.
August 2018
East Coast Challenge
The weather forecast leading up to the weekend was looking good so I decided not to bother mounting the indysport mud tires and just leave the old mud tires in the van since I use them for local events sometimes.
So yeah it rained all weekend and the whole thing was a mud fest.
Dash-n-Cars photo of muddiness:
I ran on the crappy mud tires and kept bringing the gravel tires to grid hoping it would dry out enough to run them but it never did.
I was dragging bottom on the car the whole weekend and some cars were getting stuck going from paddock to grid.
Blue RallyCross Car.
This year the only tire manufacturer to offer contingency for rallycross events was hoosier. Unfortunately they only offer their tires in 13” and 15” sizes and I have been running 14” tires on the car. After looking at the hoosier options I decided I did not want the extra height from the 15” tires (24.8” OD) so I needed to find 13” wheels to fit my car so I could keep the 24.5" OD with the hoosier 13" tires the same as my current 14" tires. Trying to find 13” wheels in a 7” width in the right offset for a miata is not an easy thing in the US. I ended up ordering some Team Dynamics wheels from demon tweaks in the UK. After a month and a half they finally showed up after I got back from The east coast challenge. Good thing I ended up not needing them there anyway.
At least they look pretty.
September 2018
Sometimes you just want something different. While I was at our local mazda club meeting I heard about a member selling a car that he had had for a while. After talking with him about the mods and issues with the car I decided I should get it. The only problem was my wife said we were at our limit for cars right now so I had to sell one. So i decided to get serious about selling a car that had sort of been word of mouth for sale for a bit. Since I had never sold a car before before I posted an ad on the GRM forums
And some guy that does not even like miatas bought it and already has a 10 page thread about it.
Now that we were under the magic number of a dozen for current cars I was able to get my new car.
Or as my wife calls it “The Appliance”
According to the PO it needs the Cat replaced to pass emissions inspection and may need new shocks and possibly a new engine but for the price I paid I still think it was a good deal.
The good and bad list of the car from the PO.
2003 Toyota MR2 - 200,000 miles.
Tein Super Street coilovers (100k on them, need replacing)
Front and rear strut tower bars (Possibly Corky's)
Breastplate (Possibly Corky's)
Front and rear big sway bars (Forget the manufacturer)
Short shifter (Forget the manufacturer)
Brass shifter bushings (Speed Source possibly)
Poly engine mounts (Kirkasaurus)
Intake (K&N)
Header (Che)
Downpipe with high flow cat (Possibly Monkey Wrench Racing, cat has gone bad)
Exhaust (Team Toyota Europe)
There are various little bushings in the control parts that have been installed through the years.
The engine burns/leaks oil. I know of a few possible fixes for that, but I've never investigated them.
The transmission works fine, but could probably use new fluid.
The parking brake doesn't always hold tight. There is an adjustment for the cable, but I haven't adjusted it.
The stereo doesn't work. It uses standard Scion stereos so they aren't hard to find.
The tires are Yoko S.Drives that are only maybe 10k miles old.
The top was replaced about 3 years ago. I'm not sure of the manufacturer as I took it to an upholsterer.
There are lots of little JDM Midship Runabout Screaming Chicken logos and such on the car.
Susq region can get some interesting “cars” coming out to their rallyx events. This guy wanted a raptor but did not like the price tag so build his own version with the truck he already owned. It was not fast but he was having a lot of fun out there.
Blue RallyCross Car.
Since got the wheels last month I got the tires this month and test fit them on the car. They seem to fit ok.
Blue CSP Car.
The main reason I bought that 99 parts car a few months ago was the 4.3 diff in it so I should get it installed into the CSP car. While I am at it I should also install the diff bushings that I bought back when I was running the STS car 10 years ago.
After trying a bunch of different methods people recommended online I recommend the air chisel method for removal of the old bushings.
I also tried a bunch of different methods to put the new ones in since I did not want to drag the whole diff into the basement where the shop press is but that ended up being the best method.
“The Appliance”
I found that the radio issue was actually the speakers and since I had a cheap set of speakers laying around that would fit I pulled the old and replaced them.
After checking the O2 readings I decided that it did actually need a new Cat.
Measured up the current cat so I can try welding in a new replacement before I spend the money to replace the whole mid pipe.
Found one on Amazon that seems to be the right size for $72.26
Pulled the mid pipe to start cutting it up.
October 2018
RallyCross Nats
What is the standard definition of insanity? Doing the same thing again and again and expecting a different result.
RallyCross Nationals was another mud fest just like it has been for the last 4 years that I have been going. The mud was so bad for the prepared group that the top 3 PR cars ran mud tires the whole event and I spent a lot of time looking at courses like this.
Since PR was the first prepared class off the line running first car off was actually an advantage since you still had the grass instead of mud on line and the guy that ended up winning was first off for two of the three heats. At least that is what I am telling myself. I got another second place 1.5 seconds back from first.
Blue CSP Car
I have had the parts laying around for a while now to put the twin disc clutch back into the CSP car. I forgot to take pictures but I put it back in.
We decided to take the long road home from RallyCross nationals and went to Gatlinburg for some moonshine and to go to the Dollywood amusement park. Somewhere along the way I must have let the trailer tire get a little low since I felt something weird and started hearing weird noises and pulled off to the trailer tire (on the trailer axle then) looking like this.
Since this is my first trailer flat I would say I am not doing to bad there.
Wash day for the RallyCross Miata
November 2018
Protege5
One of my wifes complaints about her car and one of the reasons she has been looking for a new car this year is her current car does not have heated seats. Since it does not look like we will be making a decision on a new car quickly (She started doing test drives this spring) we decided to install seat heaters in the current car. We bought a cheap kit on amazon and one of those add a fuse things.
The seats ended up being fairly easy to take apart and the seats look pretty good after they are installed. The rest was just a bit of wiring and they are installed and my wife has a happy butt.
“The Appliance”
I “welded” in a new cat in the midpipe
I only burned a few holes in the pipe while I was trying to get the metal to stick together.
Once I did that the O2 readings seem better.
I spent some time driving around with Torque hooked up trying to get the Catalyst monitor to set.
Total I think I ended up putting over 400 miles on the car trying to get the monitor to set. Running the drive cycle over and over. Then I drive it to work one day and it manages to set itself.
Scruffy
Everybody that has driven the car has mentioned that the shocks are not very good. Since KYB was running a special earlier this year I bought new shocks for it.
Everytime I do the rear shocks on a miata I have problems with the drivers rear top bolts and the fuel lines. This time I decided to buy a new tool.
The Harbor Freight 1/2 in. Drive Professional Flex Head Long Handle Ratchet
This allowed me to get back to those top bolts while keeping my arm off the hose clamps.
I always hate using the death sticks to change shocks since I spend so much time cranking them down to get the springs off. I am not sure this is any safer or quicker but it worked for miata shocks.
A bunch of stock shocks. They all still have pressure but we will see how it goes the next time I drive that car.
Fresh and new.
Blue RallyCross car
Finally got around to washing off the mud tires from nationals. I had to bring out the pressure washer.
Garage
My boss at work asked if I was interested in a old air compressor that one of his neighbors was giving away. Since I have been making do with an 8 gallon harbor freight compressor I said that a 30 gallon one would be much better.
I installed it down in the basement by the tire machines so I no longer have the air compressor in the entryway to the house running the entire time I am changing tires.
I looks like if I run a 240v line down there or steal the one from the drier this compressor could run on 240v instead of 120v.
Green Miata.
Once the shocks were changed on Scruffy I had the lift back for one on my bigger projects for this winter. I have been having some oil burning issues with the green car to the extent that fill up the oil check the gas was really not far off what I was having to do so I plan to swap the engine from the NA parts car that I bought a while ago into the green miata.
This is how smokey the garage was after pulling the miata into it.
I winced just seeing this picture.
artur1808 said:
I winced just seeing this picture.
I know... All that dirt on the shock. Such a shame.
I should have built something like this guy did. But since they are miata springs you are only talking 100-150 pound springs and some times I have just taken them outside and run the top nut off pointing away from myself.
I'm pretty sure doing that outside, or using death sticks with the shock in a vice, are both infinitely safer than the press with the ram on the curved eyelet. holy smokes.
Also...you've really never sold a car before the miata this fall?
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