Driven-Daily NA

[drummingpariah]

This week, I picked up a 93 Miata to replace my 2010 Yaris as my daily driver. For $3k I drove home with a rust free (really rust free, not the 'rust free' we normally see here in New Hampshire, which just means there's more car than rust) little soft top with 109k miles on it. I'm trying hard to just treat this like a less horrible Yaris, and have no plans for it to replace my 'proper fast car' - a 75 Datsun 280z with a 2.8liter turbo motor. For now, I'm sticking with maintenance and baslineing the car.

I flushed the engine oil, transmission oil, and differential oil. I couldn't reach the oil filter with any of the tools I have on hand, so I'm just going to get to that the next time I change the oil. I checked the pads (fronts are dead, rears look fresh), and just picked up some generic replacements for them so I can pass State Inspection.

I'm still hunting down a 'wobbly feeling' in the rear end. Whenever I go over a rough patch of road, it feels like the rear end is trying to decide which way to run away toward. After seeing what the eccentric control arm bolt settings look like, I'm not surprised it's a little squirrely (I think a couple of those bolts are upside-down). Much-needed new tires (decided on Kumho XS') are coming in this week, so I'll get an alignment when I have them mounted/balanced.

I really hate that this car has power steering. One of the headlights had a lot of wobble when they were up, so I started poking around trying to find what was loose/broken. It turned out that the rear-most headlight bracket mounting bolt was loose, which happens to be directly under the headlight motor. No problem, I'll just go at it from the side ... but the power steering filler is directly in the way. It's like Mazda intentionally placed it in such a way that 11 years later, I'd come along and they'd finally get to have their laughs. I ended up having to remove the motor altogether to get at that loose bolt. #firstgenproblems

This weekend I'm planning to take this up to Mt Ascutney in Vermont for a hillclimb event, and spend the weekend racing up a mountain road in a gorgeous state park. I have a few 1080p cameras (6, the last time I counted) and am curious as to how other people have mounted cameras on their NA's. The goal here is to give myself as much footage as possible, in the hopes of gaining some insight into what I'm doing right/wrong.

I'm basically starting this thread here (instead of continuing my introduction or specific-question threads) to document my progress.

[drummingpariah]

The lol bar has evolved to a roll bar.
I still need to drill a couple fastener holes for the rear plates, but I feel much better about this bar now.


I'd also like to clean up the cuts I had to made to provide clearance for the bracing



I'm really impressed with the quality of Laurie's welds, and the final fitment we ended up with.


I also found the source of the rear-end clunk. I had assumed that the PO had actually mounted the battery. Silly me, thinking people care about securing batteries that are right next to gas tanks.


I'm still waiting on my extinguisher and my sa2010 helmet (crossing my fingers that it'll arrive on time) so I can climb Mt Ascutney this weekend.

[WASABI]

Nice work so far! Please post pictures/video of the hill climb.

[—atank—]

That hill climb is going to be fun!!!!!!

[drummingpariah]

Nice work so far! Please post pictures/video of the hill climb.

I've been meaning to ask where other Miata drivers mount their cameras. I have 6 1080p action cameras, a video-rigged DSLR, and a couple of dedicated audio devices. The goal is to document the entire season and put it together into a web series at the end of the season. There are a bunch of awesome people in our hillclimb group, and I'd love to share some of their awesomeness along with the challenges of joining a motorsport from 0, without having friends/family who are already involved.

That hill climb is going to be fun!!!!!!

I'm incredibly anxious about it, but as long as I pass tech I think I'm going to have a blast. I still have a lot to do, and have had some issues sourcing an sa2010 helmet locally (and I don't know when to expect the delivery from saferacer). I'm taking Friday off to make sure I have all my hammock camping gear together, and can focus all my efforts on preparing for Saturday and Sunday. The weather looks perfect wet on Saturday (slow & smooth to get used to the hill) then dry and sunny on Sunday (so I'll be able to pick up the pace a bit on my timed runs). I think there's a novice orientation 'thing' on Fridays, but I'm not sure what the details are for that so I'm waiting to hear back from the organizer.

Rankings
It looks like I'm going to be the 'slowest' car on the hill, based on classification. That's good, because it means I'll probably be able to win U6 class. Based on the results from last year http://www.hillclimb.org/events/resu...1_saturday.pdf, I think 4:45.0 is a pretty good time to aim for. We may have a couple other Miatas on the hill, and I'm excited to pick their brains during the post-race fireside chats. Right now, the car that's ranked the most closely to me is a stock Saab 900 - https://www.motorsportreg.com/index....65E77DE7E454A2 ... and I'm two classes below him.

Steering Wheel
I am not a tall man. I'm 5'6" - which seems to be about the right size for the NA's design. However, it seems to be very badly laid out for heel-toe braking. It's not an issue on the hill, because a stock 100k-mile NA 1.6 isn't exactly a speed demon on a ~19-degree grade, and I'll rarely (if ever) use the brakes going up, but it's pretty annoying to smack my knee against the steering wheel whenever I slow down on the street. I think this car would actually benefit from a quick-release hub and a dished wheel, but I'm wondering how others have solved this problem.

Local Sighting
I drove over to my Mom's house on Mother's Day, which seemed like the thing to do. I was lucky enough to follow another little blue Miata for most of the drive on Route 27/43, which was perfect for me because it gave me a chance to study his roll bar bracing a bit, and allowed me to flesh out exactly how I wanted to accomplish my goals. He also waved when we parted, which surprised me a bit. My car doesn't look like something any enthusiast would own, with paint literally falling off of it and a very sad lol bar at the time.

Reinforcement
I still have some DOM left over, and after this event might add some diagonal bracing or even bolt-in door bars with it. I still need to put a cage in the Datsun, but I don't think the NA is the safest car to get t-boned in and it's going to be my daily driver from here on out. I don't like the hydra-effect of making 'one more modification' because every time I do, I see 2 more things I should do.

Now that I have a roll bar, I should add door bars.
Well, I have door bars, I may as well connect them to the firewall.
Well, I have all this upper reinforcement, I may as well tie that in to subframe connectors under the car.
Everything's already connected, I may as well cage this.
Well, that's all pretty good, I may as well add a turbo.

At some point, I need to stop myself and say 'this is just a daily driver' ... but that's a very fuzzy line to draw.

LOL bar to Roll bar
Do you think there's any interest in putting together a howto and some measurements on turning a 'lol bar' into a proper roll bar? I documented the whole process, but it's certainly not for the feint of heart. The right solution is absolutely to buy a braced Hard Dog bar, they're a great value for the price. It would have a fairly limited audience, only people who already have a Hard Dog Hard Bar would be able to use my measurements, and to put it together you would need some trustworthy welding skills (I wonder how many hobbyist welders would really trust their life to their welds?). There was a lot of time dedicated to fitment and re-fitment, and I'd hate to make others go through that same work if I could just send them measurements that would work as starting points.

TONS of this:

and this:

and this:

then making sure that worked with this:

and then finally this:

which resulted in this:


I'm just realizing now that I don't have photos of the final product. I threw it in the car at 11pm and spent around a half hour wrestling the soft top closed (I HATE soft tops, for the record),. and don't want to go through that ordeal again. If you really want to know what it looks like, try to imagine a roll bar that looks like every other Miata roll bar without a harness bar and without diagonal supports (yet). Then imagine it with paint in some places and not in others, and you'll have a pretty good idea of what this looks like. I need to order some POR15 or similar to cover it - or maybe I'll go with rubberized underbody coating or truck bed liner to soften that hard surface a little bit.

[—Martin—]

My solution to the steering wheel issue was a 75mm Techno Toy Tuning spacer I bought from the classifieds here (thanks, tanakapz!). Not the best pic, but you can kinda see how far the wheel is away from the turn signal lever:



I'm 6' tall and I can touch my knees together under the wheel now.

[drummingpariah]

My solution to the steering wheel issue was a 75mm Techno Toy Tuning spacer I bought from the classifieds here (thanks, tanakapz!). Not the best pic, but you can kinda see how far the wheel is away from the turn signal lever:

I'm 6' tall and I can touch my knees together under the wheel now.

There must be a way to relocate the turn signal lever at the same time. I suppose it isn't a dealbreaker, but having all my controls 'right there' is pretty convenient.

I snapped a few more photos of the current roll bar bracing while I grabbed lunch. There's an odd black mark that Laurie and I couldn't identify the source of (the metal was well cleaned before we started, so it's unlikely that it was contaminated).





Still trying to decide on paint, but I'm not looking forward to removing it and re-installing it before this weekend. Getting those seat belt bolts to line up was a serious challenge.

[drummingpariah]

I didn't spend any time working on the roll bar, but I did start digging for rust today. I already knew that the package tray had gotten wet at some point, and the removable panels had some surface rust along with a few pinholes.

Popped them out:



Spent some quality time with an angle grinder:


Blasted them with some primer:

Blasted them with some rattlecan flat black:


And finally reinstalled them, without replacing any of the crusty old bolts or trying to repair the rust holes. I don't really care about rust damage, as long as it isn't spreading. I may even put carpet back on top of that, possibly.

While I was waiting for the primer to dry, I remembered that the battery had leaked at some point and started some surface rust. I got aggressive with a wire wheel on an angle grinder and cleaned it, did the same for the battery mounting hardware, and rattlecan'd all that as well.




For a temporary quick-fix, I think it came out reasonably well, and I'm happy with the hour I spent doing it. Rust tends to spread quickly, and I'd much rather nip it in the bud and have an incomplete-looking car than to put it off until I can 'do it right'.

[—atank—]

Good work !!!!!

[WASABI]

Good job "getting to know" your car. Have you cleared your drains, and have you looked at the condition of your rain rail? The rust that you are fixing can be the result of a crack in your rain rail letting water onto your parcel shelf, and then leaking down into the trunk (around your battery). The battery can also rust in that area, if you have a leak with your antenna seal.

Keep up the good work.

[drummingpariah]

Thanks guys, tonight is rain rail/drain inspection night. It seems to be a common complaint among all Miata owners, so I suppose I should at least inspect it. I hope to have my hardtop-budget together next week, which will (hopefully) allow me to sell the soft top in short order. If my big bin of stainless fasteners has something that'll fit these threads (they look like they're all m6), I'll replace them before too long as well.

[—RuckkehrMiata—]

I am actually in an almost identical boat as you right now, both with the rear bolts to my bar not being drilled yet and the rust / degloved trunk/parcel.

I think I am going to be following in your footsteps for paint/cleaning.

They make brush wheels for angle grinders, right?

[drummingpariah]

I am actually in an almost identical boat as you right now, both with the rear bolts to my bar not being drilled yet and the rust / degloved trunk/parcel.

I think I am going to be following in your footsteps for paint/cleaning.

They make brush wheels for angle grinders, right?

They do indeed, a standard 4.5" wire wheel from Harbor Freight is what I used this time. I often use a knotted wheel instead - it's a bit more aggressive, and when it comes to rust removal I'd rather remove material too quickly and lose a little metal than to spend more time and miss more of the rust.

I have 4 inexpensive 4.5" angle grinders so I can swap from disk/wheel to disk/wheel without having to find tools. If one dies, I'm only out $15 and always have a backup (or three) so it never stops me in my tracks.

I'm borrowing a 90-degree drill again later this week to drill out those rear bolts and snug everything up. Hopefully the hard top happens at roughly the same time.

[—RuckkehrMiata—]

When I tried to do my rear bolts on my roll bar (harddog ace I believe) the tolerances were off/bent and they weren't coming through the wheel well area properly. I have to re-address that soonish.
I really want to spruce up my trunk/parcel shelf, they both look terribad.
The trunk is the worst, years of neglect and slow leaks

[drummingpariah]

Last night didn't happen, Laurie got a flat tire south of Boston, so I went down to have AAA tow her car home and give her a ride. Tonight should be more promising.