Rufus - Life with the 2017 Flyin' Miata Turbo RF

A couple of days ago I decided to check out the Open Classifieds on this forum. I look at what's there maybe once a week, usually less, but on that day, the top post was this one. Interesting. 
I sent the link to my wife and mentioned that this was a smoking deal. We've been looking for a car for her for quite a while and this was the right combination of interesting and practical so she had me call Keith. He answered a few questions, I called my wife back, and the next morning we sent a check. Sometimes life is remarkably easy. 

When my older son was 10 he and I flew to Pennsylvania to get the 911 that my wife consequently stole from me because she fell in love with it. For this trip I'm taking my younger son who is the same age. We're starting at Flyin' Miata's headquarters and will end back home in Texas. A quick check of a map shows a fairly substantial set of hills between here and there, and we'll be doing the trip the first weekend of December. Life is better when it's exciting. 

This shouldn't be much of a build thread because Flyin' Miata did all of that already. This should be a very boring thread about living with a moderately famous car. Lots of commuting, oil changes, maybe an autocross or two, but I have other cars for that and I probably can't fit with the roof closed and a helmet on anyway. 

Buying a pre-built car is about the least Grassroots thing ever, but buying a car through Keith Tanner is about the most Grassroots thing ever. I think they cancel out nicely and put us on even ground for the start of a thread. 

Nice, congratulations.

Awesome!

You continue to make solid vehicular choices. BoxheadTim should keep you on retainer.  Naturally, I wish you the best of luck, though I doubt that you will really need it. Enjoy!

Dang, the only thing I’ve ever bought from Keith Tanner was a Mazda 323 factory service manual. If the RF is half as useful or enjoyable as I found that fsm, you’re in for a treat. 

You, sir, are doing it RIGHT. 

So jealous!

Congratulations on a most excellent purchase! 

Woody said:

You continue to make solid vehicular choices.

In a lot of ways it's easier to buy fun interesting cars with a $1500 limit on craigslist than do the same with new/newish cars. You can walk into just about any dealership and buy a fast competent road car that will do 100k miles with just oil and tires no problem. Combine that with me being lucky enough to own some spectacular cars in the last few years and it makes it easy to dismiss a lot of options. Cars that are good and have a story, a history, those are hard to find. We certainly didn't go looking for a magazine car, and my biggest concerns were actually the miles put on it by people that needed to write a story about it. But a car that lived with Flyin' Miata, that was developed into the most perfect complete street Miata they could at the time, now that's worth looking at. I'm sure I could get the car home, pick up the phone and call Keith for more goodies, but this car as it sits is an interesting window on the state of shop level tuning in the here and now. 

A $1500 car doesn't have to be great. If it runs and is interesting enough to make your life just a little bit special, it's worth it. These cheap cars are never sterile in the way that a new car is. They have rattles and smells and leaks and they'll probably get you home. Probably. But a new car, a good one, will be good every day until you get sick of just how good it is. There better be something else, something special, that makes you look forward to the morning commute. 

Years back I had the pleasure of being in the passenger seat of the V8, Targa Miata with Keith driving at Road Atlanta (The Mitty). 

Since then, I have spent a lot of time with Seth at Challenge and One Lap. 

I'm not sure that you have both met before.  I'm sure you'll hit it off wonderfully. Congrats to both of you. 

Was that the year that we discovered the Targa would go into limp-home mode at sea level on a full throttle shift? Oops  Turns out the massive gulp of air was enough to make the ECU think the throttle was stuck open, but at our lower air pressure it wasn't enough to hit the limiter.

Rufus is in a good place. You could bolt more goodies on, but I'm not sure you'd improve the car for the intended purpose.  It's really well balanced overall, and it's quite likely that if Rufus had stayed at FM it would have not changed one little bit. There are a lot of people here who are genuinely sad to see it go, none of the other NDs have made quite as many friends. I mean, Indy the V8 and I get along REALLY well and I'm quite possessive of the driver's seat for that one, but it's not as universally loved and certainly not as easy to live with day by day and hour by hour.

You know this is the twincharged car too, right? We never took it out of the shop or even really opened the throttle in that form, but it was self-propelled.

Woody said:

You continue to make solid vehicular choices. BoxheadTim should keep you on retainer.  Naturally, I wish you the best of luck, though I doubt that you will really need it. Enjoy!

Ahem. I'm watching.

Nice car, btw.

In reply to Keith Tanner :

I didn't know that this was that car. I need to sit down with you and get a handle on the history and the media and try to document that so that I can pass it all on to the next owner (svrex?) someday. 

John, no, Keith and I have never been in the same place as far as I know. I talked to him on the phone a couple of years ago when I bought a rollbar for a friend for his wedding present, and we've interacted online a bunch as I continued to declare my dislike for Miatas. He's  significantly responsible for the crappy Miata that's on the lift right now. Every time I say that I don't like them Keith is there telling me to give a hardtop car a chance and I finally gave in. For what it's worth, he might be right. A hardtop and a change in seating position have solved anout 90% of what I don't like about the early cars. 

My wife is really glad you bought this car, now I’m not bugging her about it. 

Question: Are you looking for another son?  I am available. 

you bought the warranty, right?

Just to get you excited for the drive, check out the video.

https://www.facebook.com/CBSDenver/videos/1776415739135635/

https://denver.cbslocal.com/2018/11/24/emergency-shelter-stranded-motorists-i70/

...and that's I-70 :)

Actually, one thing you will want to know - Colorado has a traction law. If it's in effect, it's illegal to drive without snow-capable tires (with the little snowflake on the sidewall) or chains/traction devices in the car. The state patrol does not have a sense of humor about unequipped motorists causing accidents, or even being unable to move.

Rufus does not have snowflake tires. We could probably arrange for a set of snows to be on the car and ship you the S.drives to be reinstalled later if you'd like. Or give yourself a bit of leeway for holing up until the roads clear. Colorado is pretty good at dealing with snow on the roads once it stops snowing.

One thing to know about COTrip.org - you'll see some closed roads when you look at the state. Those are usually high altitude passes that just shut down for the winter. Don't let them freak you out :)

In reply to Keith Tanner :

This is where my Rocky Mountain geography sucks, but it looks like I can swing west on I-70, drop down on 191 and then wait to cross the high stuff until I'm far south. I could even take 191 all the way down to I-10 and then take the worst drive in the world by driving that all the way back to Houston. Moab next weekend is supposed to be cold at night but dry by Saturday morning. From there I "think" I should be ok. Maybe? 

mazdeuce - Seth said:

In reply to Keith Tanner :

This is where my Rocky Mountain geography sucks, but it looks like I can swing west on I-70, drop down on 191 and then wait to cross the high stuff until I'm far south. I could even take 191 all the way down to I-10 and then take the worst drive in the world by driving that all the way back to Houston. Moab next weekend is supposed to be cold at night but dry by Saturday morning. From there I "think" I should be ok. Maybe? 

Buy snows (or a very competent all season if you can find one to meet the criteria)... just do it... that's my feeling on the matter. 

mazdeuce - Seth said:

In reply to Keith Tanner :

This is where my Rocky Mountain geography sucks, but it looks like I can swing west on I-70, drop down on 191 and then wait to cross the high stuff until I'm far south. I could even take 191 all the way down to I-10 and then take the worst drive in the world by driving that all the way back to Houston. Moab next weekend is supposed to be cold at night but dry by Saturday morning. From there I "think" I should be ok. Maybe? 

If you're going to go through Moab, you want to take 128 to get there. Your plan is a legit alternative, I think, as you'll have epic red rock scenery until you get to the end of 191.

Let's see what the weather looks like next week. If you do want to go with alternate footwear, I think 235/45-17 is going to be the size to look at.

 US 50 is probably going to be out. It was a mess at monarch pass yesterday. I was fine in AWD and snow tires but I wouldn't do it in Rufus. This winter is coming pretty cold and snowy early.

My boss is in Moab right now and sent me some pictures. That looks like a good route. It's looking pretty clean that way. No snow in the Canyons where he was hiking at this week. 

Huge pile up on I-70 yesterday with the highway being closed for some hours.  Winter travel is always dicey here with weather and this year even more so.

If you're still planning on driving it back, watch the weather forecast carefully and pick your window.  Call me if you need help or a place to stay. 

I'd seriously consider having it shipped down to you...

We're flying in Friday before noon. We'll watch the weather and we have time to make a strategic re-route or grab a set of tires. Tire Rack has a warehouse in Denver so it's HIGHLY likely they can get tires to Grand Junction if I order them on Thursday assuming Keith doesn't have a closer source. I'm still figuring we can chase the dry. The cold doesn't worry me as I'll be driving very very very gently with a kid in the car. Proper fun times are for later. 

Let me know as well if you need a place to stay near Co. Springs. Five one 2 three 8 three 6 5 eight 7. I'll be around most of the weekend. 

Honestly, I'd look at going west and looping around. Not as good as a drive but not the time to drive through Colorado on summer tires. I'd go I70W to 191 to 264 to 491 to I40 to US287 to I20 to I45.