Miatatude

USB Powered Auto GPS

Even though I now have a smarty pants phone with all the latest travel geegaws, we still use a Garmin Nuvi GPS in the car to navigate when traveling. In the Sonata, it is not an issue, but in the Miata the combination of the location of the cigarette lighter socket and the big stock GPS power plug make shifting into 3rd & 5th gear an adventure in knuckle banging.

Tiring of having to remember to shift into those gears with the flat of my hand in the Emperor I bought an accessory cigarette lighter plug and mounted it on the side of the console out of the way. This eliminated the shifting problem but the large GPS power plug was now an issue for the passenger because it stuck out into their already cramped foot well space. The perfect solution would to have a USB cable that powered the GPS, but…

Even though the Garmin GPS comes with a USB cable it could only be used to charge the unit or load new software or maps. The only way to get to use it for directions was to use the bulky 12V power plug. When I first starting looking for a USB cable that would actually charge the Garmin and allow you to navigate with it, they didn’t exist. I found a tutorial on how to modify a regular cable to make it work, but it involved cutting the cable apart, digging into one of the connector and soldering a jumper wire between two pins of the mini Type-B end. It was delicate operation that me, along with my dull x-acto knife & 40-year old soldering iron would not be able to do, so I gave up.

Fast forward to a week ago and I tried again to see if someone made a cable that would work off the self. This time my googlefu led me to 3BR Powersports, a small business that specializes in cables for the motorcyclist’s power needs, and had just the right product – Red Band GPS POWER CABLES.

Another CTBNL Modification Removal

When I bought the CTBNL from my Fairy Godfather (thanks again David) he had done a few tasteful mods and when he took off a stock part, where he could, he kept the removed item. This is why when we I bought the car I also got a bunch of parts in a box, a few larger things that went in the shed in the back yard and some others went on the departing Emperor.

Now that Donna’s retired, the CTBNL is my daily driver and this means that over the summer I have driven home in a few gully washing type afternoon thunderstorms. When this happens, I will invariably have to drive through a few puddles that have formed along or on the road from the overflow of washed gullies. This then washes the underside of the car causing the accessory belt(s) to squeal in protest (they must like water like cats like baths.)

One of the mods David did was replace the large plastic engine undertray (#13 on this Moss Motors page) with a fancy Beatrush Aluminum Underpanel, so one of the large things in the shed was this huge hunk of plastic. I tried to sell it to members of the MMC, but got no takers. I was going to put it up for sale on the Miata Forum, but opted against it because I did not want to have to figure out how to ship it. Now I’m glad I still have it.

The Beatrush panel is slick looking, if you are laying on the ground looking up at it, but I doubt there is any reduced wind turbulence compared to the OEM plastic piece as they claim. The thing is even heavier than the plastic undertray, so that’s not a plus. The only advantage I see is that it extends past the stock unit to cover up the oil pan and on a lowered car this might be a benefit. But the negative aspect is the sides are open, thereby allowing water to bathe the bottom of the accessory belts when fording impromptu bodies of water. The original plastic piece curls up at the sides sealing off the bottom of the engine compartment better.

So when I jacked up the car on Labor day to rotate tires and change the oil, I put the jack stands one notch higher than usual so I could get under the car easier to take off the Beatrush Aluminum Panel and put the OEM plastic piece back in its place. I’m hoping that this might eliminate the squealing of belts when driving through puddles in the future.

Laborious Day

Monday was Labor Day and the Valve Store was taking a holiday, so I didn’t have to work, but I did do some Miata work. I was a few hundred miles past oil change and tire rotation time, so in the morning when Donna went off to the gym, I jacked up the CTBNL and went to crawling around under it.

First I took off all the tires and rolled them to their new locations. When rolling the left front to the back I noticed that there was a lot of wear on the tire’s inside edge compared to the tire that just came from there. The tires on the right both looked evenly worn and good for several thousand more miles. The left front was not that bad and could go that long. The now left rear has probably only got a couple months to go before crisis time.

So now I’m tire shopping. Really, really love the Toyo R1R and have sworn that when the time came I would replace them with the same. Now, when it comes time, I start to doubt that declaration. There are 8 results when you search for summer tires in 195/50×15 tires on the TireRack.com. I have personal experience with 3 of them and experience with a newer model of tire that replaced one I previously owned.

I have to say the Toyo R1R are the best of the lot, but they are the most expensive tire of the four at $125 each. My second choice is the newer Bridgestone Potenza RE-71R. I ran several sets of the Potenza RE-11’s on the ’95 Miata and was very happy with them. They are $9 cheaper than the Toyos and there is even a current rebate deal that would take the price down to around $100 each. But, the tires are the noisiest of the group in reviews and they have a fairly stiff sidewall which won’t mix as well with the stiffer suspension of the CTBNL.

The cheapest of the bunch is the Yokohama S.drive’s, they were the last tire we had on the Emperor and they handled well, but were the noisiest tire that I can remember having on a Miata. The BFGoodrich g-Force Sport COMP-2 were the tires on the Emperor just before the S.drives and I don’t really remember them, but I must not have liked them much because I didn’t buy another set when it came time to replace them.

After trying, and failing, at really talking myself out of buying the Toyos, I’m a cheapskate at heart and will probably end up with the Bridgestones. First I need to get an alignment…

Track Toy

I have two framed pictures on the back counter top of my cubicle. I used to have the caricatures of the previous 2 Miatas (smaller versions of these), but back last year I changed them to the front views of the NB Miata, one of the Emperor and the other of the CTBNL.

The other day I got to feeling weird about the Emperor picture, so I got to thinking maybe I should put a side profile of the CTBNL in its place. That brought to mind the Miata Track Toy T-shirts from Blipshift, I bought the NC version because it came in silver, so maybe I should download their NB image and change the green they used into silver. While I was editing, I changed the wheels and added a roll bar.

So now I have a front view and a side view. Maybe the next time I’m bored I might go ahead and create a side view along the same lines as the front view of the car, draw a vector version in AutoCAD over the top of an imported photo.

What Is It?

If you have ever watched Ask This Old House you will have seen a segment they call appropriately, What Is It? One of the four hosts brings out some sort of oddity and asks the other three, “What is it?” They then, in their best To Tell The Truth manner pretend they know what it is and spin a yarn, only to be told what it actually is at the end.

Mazda USA every year gives out something they call a Zoom Zoom Box that is loaded with various Mazda branded items (pens, keychains, hats, t-shirts, etc.) to Miata Clubs around the country to give the items away as prizes or door prizes for an event they have planned. This year the MMC received such a box, and the officers divided up the content and passed out a small bag with some items in them out to all the members. One of the items that was given to us was the thing you see in the above picture. It is made from some sort of rubbery material and the back is covered by a piece of peel and stick adhesive. There are also 4 tiny holes in the back through the adhesive and material. I have no idea what this is.

If I was a host on Ask This Old House and was handed this item I would say, “I know exactly what this is, it is a replica of a small auto trash bag for your 1/4 scale replica Mazda made from Lego blocks.”

What would you say it is? Leave me your answer in the comments.

Morning into Afternoon into Night


This morning started with a little event that I wrangled up from within the MMC. Something that started with a video a member posted on the Club site and another member mentioned to me that it would be cool if we could do something like that within the Club. We got all four generations of the Miata together and each one of the owners got to drive each others cars, so that when we were finished we had driven all four models.


This afternoon I started on some valances for the garage and finished about 9:00 PM tonight. A co-worker who does woodworking for fun and profit made the valances for me out of some 1/4″ plywood he had laying around earlier in the week. I started by painting the bare wood with some left over white paint and with Donna’s help picked out about a half dozen old maps to cover them with. She also helped me hang them because there was no way I could hold up a 5′ long valance and somehow reach both ends to screw them into the garage wall.

Tomorrow, the floor.

54,000 Garage Floor Ideas

Sixty-six Black Vented Ultra-Loc Tiles for the center where the CTBNL will sit, surrounded with a checkerboard border of a combination of Graphite & Gunmetal Diamond Grid-Loc Tiles, two tiles wide except three at the back that will be about where the car sits, 94 total. Finishing off the end near the laundry room with the ten of the 3″ edge pieces in red. Total, a little over $450. The only other expense will be about $20 of landscape fabric to quiet the plastic tiles on the concrete floor.

On the way to work this morning the Miata moved past 54,000 miles.