Astute observers would have noticed my statement yesterday about the Miata spending the last week mostly outside and knowing that the Miata normally resides in a garage would have been asking themselves, “What happened here?” Well, it goes like this:
Early on in the ownership experience with the CTBNL I complimented the previous owner, and my current fairy godfather, on his Miata modification choices as they closely mirrored what I had done to and wanted to do to The Emperor. He thanked me for the ego boost and said that if he had to do it all over again there was on mod he wouldn’t do and that was the lightened flywheel/clutch set-up.
I liked the engine responsiveness from the lightened flywheel. I didn’t like that the clutch required a bit more leg muscle to operate and a lot of finesse to get a smooth start when backing up or from a standing start. I figured I would adjust, six months later and I still hadn’t. I guess the almost 27 years of using a stock Miata clutch was too ingrained to overcome, or that adage about old dogs and new tricks has some basis in fact.
After enough of my constant herky-jerky backing out of the garage, the Bogardus Enterprises CFO told me to go ahead and investigate the cost changing the clutch/flywheel out. That’s when I had a great idea on how to eliminate having to buy any parts. I thought Steve at Panic Motorsports could find a new home for the ACT Street-Lite flywheel and ACT performance clutch that had a mere 8 thousand miles on them. The sale of that would be enough to buy the replacement new OEM components. flywheel, a pressure plate and clutch so I would just need to cover the labor for the job. He thought so too, so a deal was set.
We dropped the car off at Panic in west Columbia last Saturday and just picked it back up. It was actually done last Thursday but circumstances prevented us from retrieving it until yesterday. Judging by the pollen layer on the car it probably spent since Thursday outdoors in the densely pine tree’d area where the shop is.