Miatatude

Three Planets

New Radio

Yesterday afternoon I put the final touches on the new radio install and what better way to put it to the test that a pleasant summer evening drive. Donna had the idea of what to see, a rare grouping of 3 planets in the night sky and I had the perfect spot to see a nice unobstructed view of the west northwest sky, J. Strom Thurmond Dam at Clarks Hill.

We arrived just after sunset with the west sky a brilliant red to find the parking area pretty full. There were people fishing along the shore, people watching the sunset and a few folks there like us to see the celestial triangle in the sky formed by Mercury, Venus and Jupiter.

The middle third of this 75 mile journey is the best part, all rural and with some semblance of windiness to the roads, add to it our own soundtrack and it made for a perfect evening drive.

Great Lucas’s Ghost

I drove the Emperor and Donna drove the Purple Whale to Augusta this morning. We both came back in the Miata. We left the Sonata at the Whale Doctor for it’s 30,000 mile service.

On the way over driving the Interstate I set the Miata’s cruise control to 75 and that was fine for the first half of the trip. Then for no reason it surged a few MPH up and coasted back down. Then surged back up again and coasted down again. Then it seemed fine, but it was kind rainy, so I shut it off for the rest of the trip. On the way back I tried again and this time it wouldn’t engage. The on/off switch would turn on and light, but when I tried to set the speed the cruise light would flash on and right back off, without engaging the cruise control.

So what do these two things have in common? I don’t know, but maybe a search of the Miata.net garage will tell me.

Started down, went up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1226

The Sounds Of Silence

The only radio we listen to in the Miata is from RadioParadise.com. OK, occasionally on a Saturday morning I’ll tune to an NPR station to catch some classic Click & Clack, but 99.9% is an MP3 ripped from an internet stream and burned to a CD. Ten of those CDs sit inside a cartridge housed inside a Sony Disc Changer that is tucked into one corner of the trunk. It has been that way for the 9-1/2 years the Emperor has been in the family. This same changer even predates the Emperor for a couple years prior it sat inside the spare tire of the trunk of our previous Miata With No Name.

Recently this unit has been randomly powering off leaving nothing but static emanating from the speakers. I’ve checked all the connections and they all seem sound, wiggling any of them (especially the power cable to the changer) will not make it hiccup, once or twice a ride it will cut out for anywhere from a few seconds to around a minute. Annoying to say the least. Last week I decided to do something about it.

I ordered a GROM AUX-IN Adapter that that allows the use of an iPod and plugs into the back of the Miata’s head unit where the OEM Mazda disc changer would have went. We happen to have a 4Gig Nano that only gets used one or twice a year when Donna and I fly in an airplane, the rest of time it sits in a charger waiting patiently, this will give it reason to get excited for each new day.

The adapter arrived in the mailbox on Monday, so naturally the rest of the day was spent ripping out the Sony Disc Changer, reclaiming 5% of the Miata’s tiny trunk space. Then I needed to remove the OEM radio to get at the connector on the back. Using instructions found in the Miata.net Garage I made my removal tools from a coat hanger, but no amount of pushing/pulling/squeezing/ wiggling would get it to come out. After 20 minutes, a couple of cuts, several bruises and a blood blister on my left index finger I gave up. I guess I might have to breakdown and buy 2 sets of the official removal tools. I had disconnected the battery to take out the CD Changer, so I hooked it back up and set the time on the clock and even loaded a couple of the local radio stations as presets.

Tuesday morning when I got in the car to drive it to work the radio didn’t come on! Pushed the power button and it just bounced back at me, no click. The display didn’t even light up with the clock. There wasn’t any faceplate illumination either. Didn’t have time to do any troubleshooting, so we took the Sonata to work.

At work I called a couple auto parts stores to see if they had any of the removal tools and struck out. Then I tried a local car audio place and the guy there said just bring in the car and I’ll pop it out for you. After work I went there and lickity split he had the unit loose. Amazing what the proper tool for the proper job will do. I thanked him and came home. The radio fuse was fine. I pulled the head unit out and disconnected the harness. Got out my trusty Radio Shack Multimeter and with with the pin out diagram for connecter (thanks again m.net garage) checked for 12 volts. Unfortunately I had the correct voltage at the correct pins. I say unfortunately because that meant the radio was dead.

Hooked the radio back up, slid it back into the dash, buttoned it up so the interior looks good and wishfully tried the power button again (still didn’t work.) Now comes decision time, try and locate a very scarce used Miata Bose head unit keeping AUX-IN box or return the AUX-IN box and just buy a new aftermarket head unit with the iPod function already built in. Until a decision is made it’ll be kind of quiet in the Emperor’s cockpit.

The sound of silence will not be as hard to get used to as it will be to not see the time on the radio display…

The Miata Is As Good As A Pickup*

*on a non-rainy day

Carpet Carrier1

A 12′ wide x 12′ long piece of carpet gets brought home easily from Home Depot.

Carpet Carrier2

And, believe it or not, Donna was able to ride home comfortably in the passenger seat as well.

Social Outcasts

Savannah - 1991 National - Group Photo Small

In yesterday’s post I mentioned that you could run on the track both Friday and Saturday. I only showed you Friday’s results. That is because there were no Saturday results for me.

Back in 1991 the Miata wasn’t the center of our universe, that didn’t happen for a few more years. We were still into bicycling pretty big and the Miata was just a really sporty means to transport our bikes. So on Saturday morning, instead of driving around Roebling Road Raceway, Donna and I met up with the Coastal Bicycle Touring Club and rode 50 miles with a half dozen or so folks. We met at a Park N Ride lot off I-95 northwest of Savannah and rode to Bluffton to eat lunch at the famous Squat & Gobble, then riding back along the same route.

When the 1991 Miata National Event was through on Sunday morning the last thing we did was drive to a closed shopping center where a professional photographer got up on the roof and took a group portrait. I don’t think every car that was at the event made the trip to get photographed, but a vast majority did. I count 100 cars in the picture above. The first row consists of one car of each color the Miata was available in then (they had just added silver and British Racing Green in 1991.) We got to the photo spot fairly early, but they took one look at our car and told us we would have to wait until everyone else arrived before we would be lined up. They didn’t want us to spoil the Miata aesthetic.

Our crime was a bike rack on the back of the car with two bicycles sticking up. Click on the top photo and it will enlarge, where if you look at the last row where the round looking tree is, there is a gap because no one wanted to park right behind our blue car…

Brian Bogardus: Race Car Driver

Roebling Road Lap Times

Our trip to Roebling Road Raceway brought back some memories. We have watched John race here a couple of times in recent years, but we had been here once before a long time ago for a different reason.

In the early days of Miatadom there was a national umbrella club that was the central point of information for the rest of the clubs around the country. The Miata Club of America, along with Mazda’s help, put out a glossy magazine quarterly that went to every member and they planned and put on events around the country at different places with the help of local clubs. The 1991 National Event was in Savannah and we decided to go.

There were lots things to do, poker run, scenic drives, a riverboat cruise, etc, but the big draw was track time at Roebling Road. Each person who wanted would get one session on the track both Friday & Saturday morning. I don’t recall how many laps we got, but my guess is five, a warm up lap, 3 at “speed” and a cool down lap. Your best time of the two days would be counted towards a small bit of prize money or trophy or something. To help keep the speed down some and to keep folks from running right off Turn #1, they placed a cone lined chicane* near the end of the loooong straightaway.

*In the intervening 2 decades they’ve built one into the track.

All you needed by way of safety equipment was a Snell approved helmet and I ate up a significant portion of the Miata’s trunk space on the trip with a borrowed coworker’s motorcycle helmet. Tech inspection consisted of making sure your lug nuts were tightened to the proper specifications. They also opened the hood and looked underneath to check for modifications because they were going to handicap the cars based on any improvements made.

As you can see in the image above, my bone stock 1990 Miata lapped the 2.02 mile track in 2 minutes and 15.19 seconds. John’s best lap time in his race prepped 1990 Miata last Saturday morning was 1 minute and 24.9 seconds. That means if we left the starting line at the same time, he would pass me just I started on lap #3 while he was beginning his 4th lap.

Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1218