Month: August 2016

It’s The Little Things

The new Miata is fantastic, but not perfect. What David did to this thing when he first bought it is right out of the text book on Miata improvements. The addition of the roll bar was icing on the cake. Although roll bars are foremost thought of as primarily a safety improvement or a necessity for track usage, a huge benefit of one is it tightens up the rigidity of the open top car to near that of a closed one.

None of our previous Miatas had a roll bar and while they do have tremendous benefits, we have been contemplating taking this one out. One of the nice thing about the installed Hard Dog Ace bar is that allows full seat travel and tilt. It sure does, but it doesn’t mention how noisy it is while doing so. The seat goes all the way back, but the top of the seat rubs the top of the bar and the upper back of the seat rubs the diagonal brace of the bar. The vinyl back of the seat squeaks in both places. Our only remedy so far is to move the seat back up one notch towards vertical. And this is a very weird feeling for both of us who have spent the last 13 years in the Emperor with the seat back tilted one inch further back. Physically that is not much, but psychologically it is miles. I feel like a little old man scooted up to the steering wheel so I can see over the hood. Donna feels like she is in a smaller car.

Also contributing to that smaller car feeling is the near total lack of any color except black. Our first two Miatas had all black interiors, but again we have been spoiled by the baker’s dozen worth years in the light beige (Parchment in Mazda parlance) interior of the previous one. It is not too bad with the top down, but when it is up, and you guessed it, it has a black underside, even I think we are going to need more than the silver shift knob and e-brake handle to cut the dimness.

Last night we took a couple small steps to fix both issues. A trip to Walmart netted us some 2″ x 4″ strips of black velcro hook & loop fastener tape and a cheap 2′ x 4′ piece of red, gray & black throw rug. Tonight I stuck the fuzzy side of the tape in three places on the roll bar where it was contacting Donna’s seat back. Sitting in the seat in the garage there were no squeaks, hopefully a road test will turn out the same way. If it does, we’ll buy some more for my side. The carpet was subjected to Brian’s patented Presto Chango treatment and came out the other side, dun, dun, duh – Miata Floor Mats. Garage testing these was a little less conclusive than the roll bar squeak issue, better, but probably not enough.

Exiled

The Emperor started his exile today, we banished him to West Columbia. Well not really an exile, but maybe a thoroughbred retiring and being put out to stud. Naw, that not it either, he’d just getting a new kingdom to rule over.

I sold him to Steve Bartok the owner of Panic Motorsports. When we first talked he was thinking that it would make a nice start on a Spec Miata race car, which I thought would be a nice hobby for his retirement years. But the last email I got from Steve yesterday said that he thought it might be his new daily driver for a while. Today when we dropped it off he said it might be a project car.

Donna thinks for sure he is going to use it as his daily driver. The very first time we took the Emperor to Panic for some service work Steve effervesced over the Garnet Red color. He said he was going to paint his next race car that color. And he did.

Whatever happens, we know the Emperor is in good hands.

CTBNL

CTBNL

I made a quick run to Home Depot on Sunday afternoon to pick up a couple items and seeing as I was trusted on the errand all by myself I had a chance to get up to some mischief. Ssssh, I pulled around behind the building and backed the Car To Be Named Later close to a blank wall, I jumped out, with the engine still running . . . . . . . . I took a picture.

It is so much easier to do this without Donna present. Not that she isn’t usually a good sport about skulking around behind shopping centers and hopping out of the car while I photograph it. But when I start wandering around aimlessly looking for the right angle and sitting on the ground or leaning in then getting in the car again and backing it into a spot a foot away, then dancing looking for that certain approach and maybe moving the car again with the car to get a different angle and taking a picture and then turning the wheel and backing up and…well about then she starts fidgeting.

Here is a photo with the Emperor’s old wheels actually on the CTBNL instead of just rolled up next to it. I think they look real good there, just not sold on the road feel, yet.

Long Journey Home

On July 29th I ordered another Blipshift T-shirt, yet another Miata design, another reprint of a shirt I already have, but with a difference. This shirt besides being long sleeve it has an NB image, AKA my kind o’ car on it. This.

Orders were stopped being taken on August 1st and a week later the shirt was on its way. Everything was going along smoothly until the USPS got a hold of in outside of Atlanta. They sent it southeast instead of due east. When it arrived in Valdosta they realized quickly it was in the wrong spot. Here is where it got weird, according their tracking it went to Augusta, then Tallahassee, then back to Augusta in 16 hours. It was in our Aiken mailbox today, so maybe one day late.

Aug 8, 2016
7:40 PM EDT UNITED STATES Electronic Notification Received
7:57 PM EDT UNITED STATES En route to DHL eCommerce Distribution Center
9:26 PM ET Secaucus, NJ, US Arrival DHL eCommerce Facility
 
Aug 9, 2016
12:06 AM ET Secaucus, NJ, US Processed
8:17 AM ET Secaucus, NJ, US Departure Origin DHL eCommerce Facility
 
Aug 11, 2016
9:15 PM ET Forest Park, GA, US Arrival Destination DHL eCommerce Facility
 
Aug 12, 2016
5:46 AM ET Forest Park, GA, US Tendered to USPS
 
Aug 13, 2016
7:13 AM ET Valdosta, GA, US< Arrival at Post Office<
8:04 AM ET Valdosta, GA, US Missent
7:49 PM ET Augusta, GA, US Arrived USPS Sort Facility
9:04 PM ET Tallahassee, FL, US Processed Through Sort Facility
 
Aug 14, 2016
11:15 PM ET Augusta, GA, US Processed Through Sort Facility
 
Aug 15, 2016
4:26 AM ET Aiken, SC, US Arrival at Post Office
9:24 AM ET Aiken, SC, US Sorting Complete
9:34 AM ET Aiken, SC, US Out for Delivery
2:14 PM ET Aiken, SC, US Delivered

Choices

The new Miata came with some really nice light wheels, Konig Dial-Ins in Matte Gray, and very sticky tires, 195/50 x 15″ Toyo Proxies R1Rs, that look really good on the silver car. Unsprung weight on a lightweight sports car like the Miata is important and that combination weights 30.4 pounds.

Because David also gave me the original wheels that were on this car when he bought it I have an extra set of wheels to play with. Those wheels were the OEM 15″ wheels that came on the car with some 195/50 x 15″ Dayton Daytona SR tires. Based on the amount of tread wear on them they probably were bought by the previous owner new to put on the car when he sold it to David. Then he promptly replaced them with a real sports car tires that he put on some new wheels of his choosing. For the heck of it I weighed this combo too – surprisingly they came in at 30.2 lbs.

I opted to put those stock wheels with the Daytona SR tires on the now dethroned Emperor because I’m selling it, this left his old wheels, the 16″ Drag DR-19 with 205/50 x 16″ Yokohama S.Drive tires as an option to put on the new car. So while I had the Car To Be Named Later sitting there I rolled a set of these up next to it to see what they looked like. Not too bad, sort of brightened up the look some. Go hover your mouse over the image above, if you haven’t already accidentally done it, to see what it looks like. Because these are 16″ wheels and tires the combo weighs more at 34.8 lbs.

I went ahead and put this combo on the car. When we went a small drive this morning to go get some breakfast the car actually felt different. A little clunkier over bumps and slightly slower feeling turning corners. You wouldn’t think that 4.4 lbs a corner would be noticeable, but it is. Not sure I like it, may just go back to the Konig/Toyo combo that was on the car, but for now the heavier Drag/Yokohama combo will stay on. At least until next weekend.

Think of it of like wearing some clunky work boots around all day at work and then slipping on a pair of lightweight running shoes to go home in. If you wore nothing but the boots all the time or you wore the running shoes all the time you would get used to whichever and never know any different.

Tuxedo Cummerbund Color

Continuing the school girl crush analogy from the other day…

Now that I have been asked to the prom and I have convinced my date to go with a silver tux to compliment my gown, we just need to pick out our accent color. To help me visualize what he’ll look like walking towards me I photo-shopped three images. one with a dark gray, one with a maroon and one with a blue.

Because I knew when we were dancing cheek to cheek in the spotlight on the gym floor all the other girls would be jealous because of my date’s muscular, football toned backside, I photo-shopped the same three colors onto the rear view.

Donna and I had talked about maybe putting stripes on a new Miata if we bought a white one, so I wanted to take a quick look at some stripes on a silver car. A good place to see all kinds of stripes in various colors on various color Miatas is the Feztastic Stripe Gallery. After looking trough all 11 pages of silver cars using the somewhat clunky interface I found this car with the right sized stripes. The gray is what is in the original photos, I just tweaked them to come up with some other possible options. The maroon is supposed to represent the old Miata and the blue is there because that is my favorite color.

Not so sure I want to do the stripe thing, but we both are in agreement that the silver is kind of dull looking compared to all the other cars we’ve ever owned1. We need to live with the car for longer that three days before we make that kind of change. After all, I didn’t think I’d ever like the Garnet Red color of the Emperor, but after about 6 or 7 years I actually started to like it.

1. With the exception of Donna’s first car which was a 1972 VW Super Beetle in khaki.

Now That’s Embarrassing

This morning as we backed out of the driveway, I got into the street and when I shifted from reverse to first – I stalled it. Just exactly like the last time I drove when David came over for the swapping test drive thing. I am sure I will probably get used to giving it a little more gas before letting out the clutch because of the lightweight flywheel. Just as sure as I am I will get used to the 1/2″ higher take up point of the clutch. Hopefully sooner than later.

At 6:30 in the AM around here there is hardly anybody awake except for usually one other neighbor going to work in the opposite direction from us and sometimes a person out walking. It was kind of damp and misty morning, but I could easily see a neighbor up ahead coming towards walking his two mouse-sized dogs. So I restarted the engine and while I did, simultaneously started turning the steering wheel to the left to go around him.

This time I gave the car a little more gas and got the clutch engagement just right, so I got a smooth forward motion, but it was accompanied the sounds of a large pack of excited howler monkeys emanating from engine compartment. I pushed in the clutch and coasted by the dog walker with a meek wave and only one or two monkeys saying hello to him as well. About this time, Donna joined in on the screaming too as she was mortified at the noise we were making (me too, just not so loudly.)

I shut the car off and the belts stopped squealing and then Donna did too. I started the car back up and the monkeys were still at it a little, so I slowed down a bit to make a u-turn back to the garage for the belt dressing spray. I pushed in the clutch and the noise stopped, so I slowly let it out and normal quiet had returned to Dunbarton Oaks. I chanced one more start from the stop sign at the end of the block and when the squeal didn’t happen again we kept on going. The car was quiet for the rest of the commmute in.