More poor life choices #3(and possibly #4)

I got my front shock spacers installed tonight & got about 1/2-way done on the interior. I hope to finish the interior in the morning & start on a string alignment. 

The interior is as done as I can make it, and as clean as I care to have it. 

I swapped out the passenger’s seat, steering wheel, air bag, arm rests & tombstone with the nicer ones. I also removed the door speakers, headrest speakers from the driver’s seat(the swapped passenger’s seat didn’t have them), and head unit.

I’m missing a couple covers though - one along the bottom of the gauge cluster, and another between my knees underneath the steering column.

I cleaned & lubed both window tracks too, but should the rear tracks on each side also have a plastic roller like the front?

Next up is a trip to Lowe’s Depot for alignment supplies.  

Based on advice here I got the front end aligned with a slight bit of toe out tonight & took it for a drive. It’s much closer, but apparently I should have paid more attention to the rear, as there’s a very slight pull causing the car to veer left. I’ll tackle that one night this week. 

The rear tracks definitely should have rollers in them, but they're notorious for breaking apart.

There are a few vendors out there who make Delrin replacements, might be worth looking into.

In reply to BoxheadTim :

Thanks Tim! They work surprisingly well without them - the lack of friction makes sense, but they actually seem to track up & down smoothly too, which surprised me. 

I just renewed my SCCA membership. Fortunately I found my old membership card & had my #, it expired in 2002...

I grabbed these when I realized my window track rollers were non-existent as well. I've had them on for about 10k miles and haven't had any issues. 

In reply to rodknock :

Nice, thanks!

I took my daughter out to teach her how to drive the Miata. She wasn’t happy with my attempt to take her pic, but she did a good job driving. Need to bring a pillow next time though so she can disengage the clutch fully. 

More cars? And I thought I was bad! :)

Looks like you're having a good time -- usually, anyway -- and isn't that what it's all about?

In reply to Mr_Merkur :

Well I sort of replaced the Vette with 1-3/4 Miatas, so that’s pretty much a wash, right?

#GRMrepresent

I took the Miata to its firs autox today. It was with Gulf Coast region SCCA at Sunny South Raceway - the same site & club I took the Vette to back in February. 

It’s a tiny lot, maybe 150-yards by 250-yards, with a 30x40 pole building right in the middle, but both events have had great courses and been well run despite being a small club. 

There were only 27 drivers, most likely due to the NWS heat warnings issued for today(side note: I now fully understand swamp-ass). However STS was a 6-driver class. There were two well-prepped Civics, one a 2-driver car, and an MR2 all on RE71’s, and a Celica GTS on Direzza’s...so I ended up 6th. 

There were 4-heats of 4-runs each. I ran heats 1 & 3. First heat I shaved 2-tenths off each run, going from a 40.8 to 40.2. Third heat wasn’t as good, but on my 3rd run I managed a 40.1 as my best time of the day. Compared to the best STS time of 36.9 I have a ways to go, and probably more than just tires to get there. 

I had no problems from the car throughout the day, or on the drive there & back. Overall it was fairly predictable, though the ass end liked to hang out quite a bit(which I mostly attribute to the crap tires). I never spun, but did take out a few cones on the outside of a corner. 

Overall a successful day!

Unfortunately I couldn’t find a way to mount my cam to the car, so no vids to share, but here are a couple random pics. 

This was in the tech shed, it’s about 3/4 scale. 

And this was their track sweeper. Notice the levered push-broom underneath. Redneck engineering at its finest!

I was looking at my 2002 this evening. Seeing that green one makes me realize how much work I need to do. 

In reply to Stampie :

It looked nice. I couldn’t help but feel like I was watching a Sean Connery-era Bond film while he was flogging it around course. 

In reply to Pete Gossett :

Sure! We'll go with that!

I got to the point where my then-wife told me if I brought another car home without first getting rid of one she was going to run over me with it. :D

In reply to Mr_Merkur :

Ah, well I’m safe - one doesn’t have an engine, and she can’t drive a stick anyway. 

GCR posted pics from the Sunday event & they got a few decent shots of the Miata in its natural habitat.

All in all, well done.  Now comes some fun.  (And maybe stretching out your credit cards.)

I’m revamping my string alignment jig. I didn’t have a way to keep the strings level with the axle centerline, so this will allow me to adjust that. 

I need to pick up a couple more pieces tomorrow so I can finish the rears, then I can get it back up on the dollies & get the camber set. 

Shows you what  I know.  I thought it was a fanged cone guide.    Good luck with the set up.

In reply to Dirtydog :

Thanks! I kinda looks like a pilot-car setup to me tbh. 

I got the rear bracketry done this morning. One of my design constraints was that I wanted the jig to mount to the factory tow hooks. The front was easy, since they’re open to the front & slanted slightly downward. The rear is more difficult since they’re open to the sides & point straight downward. Fortunately they’re concentric. 

This is what I ended up with. 

Of course it needs to be removable, but it also needs to be rigid enough to keep the uprights parallel & mostly vertical. I didn’t want to have to crawl under the car, try to keep the uprights aligned, while tightening the set screw; so I’m using a pin to hold the driver’s side upright in place. 

To keep the whole thing from rotating down/rearward, I made the passenger’s side arm longer, allowing it to run forward under the tail pipe to keep it from tipping. 

My my plan is to get the car jigged up Tuesday afternoon & spend Wednesday morning getting it aligned better. 

I got the car jigged back up tonight. 

Unfortunately I couldn’t  replicate the measurements I had last time. I primarily need to dial in a little less negative camber on the LF wheel, so I measured the current toe settings & will attempt to match the existing total toe out amount after I get the camber set. 

My plan is to tackle it in the morning while the temp is still cool, and hopefully have it wrapped up well before lunch. 

In reply to Pete Gossett :

That antique tag on a Miata makes me feel old old old.

In reply to Ovid_and_Flem :

It’s hard to believe it’s 28 years old!

I got the alignment done this morning. Here are the final measurements:

LF -4.1* camber

RF -4.1* camber

Front toe out 0.5mm(at the wheel lip)

LR -3.4* camber

RR -3.2* camber

Rear toe out 0.5mm(at the wheel lip)

I ended up finding the centerline of the car, then dropping a plumb front & rear, and measuring outward from it 33” in both directions to set my string spacing. 

I recentered the steering wheel after each adjustment, and triple-checked(or more) each measurement, yet when I took it for a drive the steering wheel is slightly off to the left. Oh well...unless I can find a shop capable & willing to do custom alignments I guess I’ll learn to live with it. 

In reply to Pete Gossett :

Pretty damn close!