Miatatude

Bucky Update

Drove down to Eugene this afternoon to bring the folks at FTW Tuning the shock bushings. And as you can see from the above photo they were waiting on me. Right now it looks like they’ll be finished next week sometime. I’ll probably drive down on Friday in the Mini and pick up the OEM wheels with their 25-year old tires. Still not sure what I want to do with them, but I’m leaning towards mounting them on the New Miata.

I took this opportunity to snag three post office photos on the drive down. I might shoot for a couple three more on the way home.

The first post office was in Albany and the second was in the home town of Oregon State University, Corvallis, and the last was in Monroe. Tonight I’m staying Eugene which is the home of the University of Oregon. The town just over the Willamette River from Eugene is the home of the Simpsons, Springfield.

Can’t Leave Well Enough Alone

Because I have bought new lightweight 15″ wheels and some summer rubber for #6, AKA Bucky, I wasn’t sure what I’d use the the 2001’s stock wheels for after I get rid the 1/4 century old rubber that is mounted on them. My first thought was to put some snow tires on them and have them handy for winter time use. But then I ran into a picture someone had added to a thread on the Miata Forum, this fellow has a dark colored 3rd gen Miata that he had put the 16″ OEM Miata wheels on. I did a rough draft by adding a bright blue to that image:

Hmmm, I think I like that better than the stock 17″ wheels of the New Miata. I think that they looked better when the car was that Aero Gray color, but now that it is blue…

Jaunty Angle

I’ve tried a couple of times to get that front license place to be parallel to the road surface, but something keeps shifting it. Not sure if it is the post into the tow hook threads or the screw that holds the plate support to the post. I’ve tightened both separately and together, but invariably it ends up non-parallel.

My need of order is screaming at me, “Get that thing right!” while the newly created laidback vibe is saying, “Chill dude, it’s fine.” Or perhaps it’ll be some enterprising young rookie on the traffic beat telling me, “According to Motor Vehicle Code 237.4, sub section ii, the license plate must be set at exactly 0° or 90° to the angle of front wheel camber.”

Mod Regret

In the 2 months of ownership I have added or changed 11 things to make the car my own. Of those 11, nine are just what I wanted, there are 2 I am slightly disappointed in.

The first is the Shark Fin delete. It was something a fellow on the Miata Forum was selling on eBay, a small 3-D printed plug that fills the hole on the trunk lid once the satellite radio antenna was removed. He did have some that were professionally painted in stock Miata paint colors, but my car’s Aero Gray wasn’t one of them. I ordered one in white and then bought a spray can of touch-up paint in 52C PaintScratch along with a can of clearcoat to finish it off.

After a little sanding and painting I went to but it place, but it wouldn’t fit in the underside of the trunk lid’s cavity. The “plug” portion wouldn’t line up because the round base was off center in the trunk lid’s round hole. I had to sand about 3/32 of an inch off the front half to get it to fit. When I did get it in and lined up, my Aero Gray touch up did not match the trunk lid’s Aero Gray. I was going to put the shark fin back on, but by then I had decided to vinyl wrap the car so I left it in.

The second item is the Rear Running Light Strip that I bought from CravenSpeed here in Portland. It is a strip red LEDs that are stuck to the underside of the trunk lid that spans between the two tail lights and lights up when ever the lights are on or you hit brakes. A few cars have something like this from the factory, most notably, the Porsche 911. It isn’t as nicely integrated as the 911’s, but it is cool looking. Trouble is, the 2024 Miatas have gone full CAN bus, so that every time I start the car the left info gage in the cluster shows a big old “Rear Brake Light Warning” note that has to be dismissed by by hitting the Info button on the steering wheel. It is a minor hassle to have to do this every time right now, but I’m not sure about how long it will be minor hassle.

Its A Wrap

The folks who are wrapping the Miata posted an Instagram reel yesterday that showed what they were working on that day. Along with the commercial vans, fuel tanker trailer, semi trailer, a race car and a Range Rover getting a color change was this cute little foreign car. They called me 4PM today to say I could come and get the car tomorrow morning.

On an unrelated note, I started another jigsaw puzzle this evening and while I was sorting pieces I stepped on something. When I looked down I saw the missing puzzle piece from yesterday. How I missed with my high powered bicycle headlight I’ll never really know, but my money is on the alternate universe theory.

800 Mile Thoughts

After 6 weeks of ownership, 800 local miles driven and 8 modifications added I am almost totally happy with the car. There are a three more modifications I have scheduled to do next week and I won’t say I’ll be totally finished changing or adding things then, but I’d like to think I will be.

I have noticed three things that I kinda wish were different, but do not diminish the love of the car in any meaningful way:

1. The car has heated seats which are nice, but I wish they operated like in the Mini. Right now, if you turn on the heat at one of the three settings it stays at that level after turning the car off, so the next time you get in the heated seats come back on at whatever level they were. In the Mini after shutting off the car and 15 minutes elapse the heated seats will turn off.

2. The power windows have a one touch feature for down, but not for up, you have to hold the switch to raise the windows. And when you unlatch the roof to drop the top, the windows go down a third of the way so the top will clear the window, but they don’t automatically go back up. MX5Things makes a module that you can add to get the auto up, but I’m not sure it is worth the $120 to me.

3. There is a back-up camera, but the guidelines are static. On every other car I’ve been in with a backup camera the guidelines bend with turning the steering wheel to give you an idea if you will clear the side obstacles or not.

Genuine Rear Under Skirt

While out driving around yesterday I stopped in at the Mazda dealer to see if the little tape things (AKA Protectors) arrived. Nope, so my friendly parts guy ordered another set. I have lost all my days that have no rain and will reach to low 60s and now I have a hard deadline of Sunday the 17th of getting the under skirt on. Hopefully those Protector things will get here during the coming week so I can get them on the car by then. The skirt itself can be done after the 17th if need be.

Forget what I just said in the last couple of lines above, f*ck the Protector things, I put the rear under skirt on this afternoon without them. The first of the two YouTube videos I watched made zero mention of those little double sided “protectors” and second vid didn’t show the process, but did mention it was a pain in the ass to put them on. I would be willing to bet if I paid the big bucks the dealer wanted to install the whole kit and caboodle those guys wouldn’t have gone through that hassle and used them either.