Miatatude

This morning on the way to work the Emperor felt his usual self (VVT kicking in at 3400 RPM with a solid pull up the rev range) until he got fully warmed up, then he reverted to the off tune style acceleration (VVT hitting at about 4500 RPM and sluggish acceleration.)

Thinking I have another another clue to my troubles, I emailed Steve at Panic at Panic Motorsports:

Saturday I put a new Cam Position Sensor in and now the VVT seems to act right – for the first few miles. Once the car is fully warm the VVT “surge” moves from ~3200 RPM to around 4500 and becomes almost unnoticeable and the car feels out of tune.

Is this warm/cold thing a clue or another red herring? Should I tackle the actuator itself even though it appears to be walking a high wire without a net?

His reply:
mmmmmmmmmmmaybe. There is a temperature sensor on the back of the head, sometimes you can grab on to them and twist (gently) to see it if moves. It shouldn’t. Fishing here, via emails obviously, but always happy to help you fix on your own if possible.

Today after work it seemed like the VVT would kick on at the higher 4500 RPM, but then it would solidly pull to 6000 RPM. I’m waiting now for the motor to cool off enough for me to reach between the firewall and engine to see about those wires. My logical, but ignorant mind, thought for sure he was going to say it must be that actuator because it is so oil pressure dependent and the change is due to the multi-viscosity oil thinning after it heats up. But no.

I still think it is the ACTUATOR, VARIABLE VALVE TIMING Part #BP6D-12-4X0D, but no where near sure enough (remember logical & ignorant from above) to just pull the trigger on one. Let alone know how to change it out. Trouble being that what resides inside that actuator remains a tightly held secret, no wait, I forgot Google, I’ll be back in a couple of hours, wait here.

The specter of a new Miata still hovers over the House of Bogardus, and it now seems inevitable, but there is the further trouble of color. The base (AKA, Sport) model is all we need and it comes in only white, matte white black & red. Of the four, Donna would pretty much accept only the red which as it turns out, is the only one I really don’t want.

Back in November of 2014 I said if the 4th Generation Miata came in a bright blue I would be seriously tempted to buy one, so my solution is to buy a brand new car and spend more money by having it vinyl wrapped in blue. But yesterday on our way back from North Augusta Donna told me she was tired of blue and said, “How ’bout that color?” She was pointing at a Dodge Journey SUV in Copperhead Pearl. I thought aloud, “That would look pretty good on a Miata.”

While the Copperhead Pearl color seemed just right to the both of us, a perfect blend of red, orange and brown, that exact shade is not available as one of 3M’s 1080 films. There are a couple of copper-ish colors and for a mere buck apiece you can get a 3″ x 5″ sample of the vinyl from a supply house called Fellers in Oklahoma. So I ordered 3 orange samples and as a back-up, 3 blues:

This morning we went over to Augusta to get Donna measured for her new lenses. Not eyeglass lenses, but eye lenses. Our optometrist has been keeping an eye (pun not intended) on her cataracts for years, but about a month ago Donna noticed a big change in vision and when she went in to see the eye guy he said it was time to get the cataracts fixed. After the measurements we set up the appointments for the surgeries, the right eye will be in late June and the left one will be fixed about four weeks later in July.

Before driving to Atlanta get a room at a hotel near the airport we went over to the Mazda dealer to drive one of the new fangled Miatas. The Gerald Jones Mazda inventory hasn’t changed since three weeks ago, but we had the time and needed to get inside one and go for a drive. Wade got us the key to a black Grand Touring that was sitting just out front. The thing was pretty dirty and the inside was dusty, but it didn’t really matter because even if we loved the new car, this was not going to be one we’d buy.

Not only are the cup holders in a strange spot to use, but they also interfere with placing your elbows in a comfortable position on the center console, so we yanked them out and tucked them in the cubby between the seats on the back wall. I dropped the top and crept out of the parking lot. I had a short loop planned that was familiar from doing the Susan Komen BMW Drives all those years ago. Good thing I didn’t want to go far as the low fuel light was on and the gauge is on one notch above E.

Part way through we pulled into a grocery store lot and swapped drivers. Donna drove about halfway back before pulling over to let me finish the loop. We thanked Wade again, he said he’d call when they got a manual sport in stock again and we parted ways.

We both thought the ND drove nice, as it should because of its newness (the Emperor felt like that way 13 years ago too.) We both thought it was more claustrophobic compared the our current car. You do seem to sit down in it more than our second generation car. The lack of a glove box in front of the passenger in its traditional spot seemed weird, but probably after a while could be adjusted to. While the passenger foot well isn’t as short as the third gen car, the hump adjacent to the transmission tunnel is still a big hindrance to Donna’s storage of water bottle and purse in their usual spots.

Neither one of us are all gaga about getting this new car, but it is just going to come down to whether we want to keep the old familiar and currently not so reliable car or go ahead and bite the bullet and except new, reliable and slightly quirkier one.