Wrecked!

Sometime, in 2004 I was involved in a not at fault accident. A young lady in a Ford Focus decided she needed to be in my lane more than I did. I wanted a fresh paint job anyway, so I decided to do the bodywork on my own, (along with some customization) and use the insurance money to have the car painted. The car would remain black, but I chose to fill in the antenna hole, trunk keyhole, and the windshield sprayer holes. I considered shaving the door handles as well, but decided to keep them as the Miata handles are so unique already. I also shaved the textured rock guard below the bodyline. Fortunately, I have all of these pics.

The damage... ouch

tearing it down

Sanding it down and sanding off the rock guard. Check out that pile of crap under the fender! it was an ant farm.

What you see here is a piece of JDM fiberglass greatness from the motherland; behold the RS Aizawa Cold Air Induction bumper, less than 10 in the US. Purchased from Rspeed.
Fenders back on and primed. Hotness. Straight hotness.

filling in the antenna hole... Car PC, don't need it...
Filling in sprayers, don't be needing them either...

working into the wee hours here. The rock guard fills in some nasty seams where the car was welded together at the factory. Filling them in.

the butt
murdererd out


Next, its off to the paint shop...

Car PC!

Its been awhile, but I have not forgotten about the blog! doesn't matter, no one will read this anyway.

so its about 2005 and my CD headunit is beginning to seem so dated. would it not be cool to have a system that integrates endless GB's of data, and Satellite radio into a touch screen display? Oh yes. The problem though, is that the units offered by Pioneer, Kenwood, Alpine and the like were all $1000+ at the time, so I decided to build a CarPC.

With the help of info from Mp3Car.com I built a system with a Xenarc 7" touchscreen, VIA EPIA M1000 Motherboard and processor, 200gb Hard Drive, a XM Direct Satilite radio tuner, Road Runner front end software, and even wireless internet Road Runner was the really slick part of the setup, it made the PC behave as if it was a headunit. I had an extensive collection of picutures of this setup, but unfortunately they all disappeared along with yahoo photos.

Life after Nitrous Oxide

Fast forward to 2003, I had been enjoying the nitrous for awhile, but like any drug other drug, after you've been using it for awhile you feel like you need it all the time. I saved my money and decided to buy a Jackson Racing SuperSharger (JRSC), which is an Eaton M45 blower, which comes set up to make about 5 pounds of boost for a modest power increase.

I found a used JRSC on miata.net classifieds for $1200, which was a good price at that time when this was pretty much the only SC kit on the market for my car. I installed it in a weekend with the 5psi pulley, JR Fuel System, and a MSD timing control unit, and was extremely dissapointed with the power output. Sure it was more power, but it felt about like that 35 shot of nitrous, just availale all the time. I immediately looked for a way to get more out of this little supercharger, so I picked up a 60mm supercharger pulley (stock was 67mm). This made a DRAMATIC difference in power! Boost pressure went from 5psi to 11psi, and hit very hard at much lower RPMS. I now had the power I wanted. The only problem was, I had to severly retard timing to prevent detonation, and this limited power in the upper rev range. Later on, I added an Air to Air intercooler to combat that problem.

JRSC at 11psi. Also notice the nitrous solenoids

It had also gotten to the point that I decided to buy a new daily driver, know as OTM, or "Other than Miata" in the community. Because the Miata was now modified to the point that I did not want to drive it every day, so I picked up a new 2003 Ranger Edge. I loved this truck, may it R.I.P. - but thats another post

More power!

So now, its about 2002, just into my second year of Miata ownership. Now that I had a car that handled and stopped great, thanks to the new suspension and ditching the boat-anchor wheels, it was time for some straight line power. Turbos, and superchargers seemed so expensive, and difficult to install, so I added a OBX 4-2-1 header and had a custom Flowmaster exhaust made at the muffler shop. More noise? oh yes! More power? a bit. Thats when I decided to add Nitrous Oxide injection.

I picked up a new Nitrous Express import wet kit off ebay for $350, did a great deal of Internet research, charged the bottle up and installed the kit in a weekend, which was uneventful. Mount the bottle in the trunk, run the lines, mount the solienoids, connect the fuel line, and finally mounting the nozzle in the intake, and then the fun part, going for a ride. First, I tried the 35 shot, wich was a nice, noticable increase, but did not really wake the car up like I thought I would. Next, I tried the 50 shot jets, now thats what I'm talking about! The 50 shot jets made a very noticable increase that really got the car moving. The power was great, but we can always use more, so I soon tried the 75 shot jets. I made this run at night, hit it out on the freeway and KABOOM! there was a loud explosion, and flames shot out of the hood gaps on the intake side of the engine. I thought for sure, my next "mod" would be an engine swap, but luckily the only damage was the stock plastic intake getting blown off. Later, I found out that for the 75 shot jets, colder than stock spark plugs were required, once these were swapped out, I had about a years worth of fun walking off from new Mustang GT's and other musclecars leaving them wandering why they cant keep up with a Miata. Once dialed in, the 75hp jets really made the car fly.

Photos, And updates

Its been awhile since I updated, but its all ancient history anyway. I went back and added some photos. I doubt anyone has bothered to read this, but if you have, don't worry, I'm still here and will get it up to date some time this century.

Leaving the "rice" behind

Now that I had realized that the modifcations I had done were really holding me back, the big wheels were sold in favor of some very light 15"SSR competion replicas, and upgraded the shocks to tokikko HP's, and raised the car up an inch all round. Finally, I ditched the playstation along with the heavy subwoofer. The difference in how the car drove was unbelievable. My sports car now handled, stopped, and acellerated as it should, my roadster was no longer a ricer. Well, it could have acellerated better... That's where things begin to get interesting :)

New wheels!
I was so proud of this shot.

"modding" early on

My first modifications, like many done by a young car owner really weren't improvements, but took the car in the wrong direction. On day one, I had added the 17", 42 pound wheels from my previous car, which I thought looked great, but anyone who knows been around these cars for awhile knows heavy wheels on a Miata are like a prisoner's ball and chain. Pretty soon, I did some other silly modifications, like replacing the passengers airbag with a Playstation 2 and a stereo headunit with a 6" flip out TV screen, and adding an eclipse DVC titanium 10 inch subwoofer and around 1000 watts of amplication. I also got a really crappy looking pair of "altezza" style chrome tail lights, a ridiculous looking rear spoiler, and finally some e-bay sourced coilovers on my stock shocks knocking the car into the ground. There was one good modification I had sense to add, a hard dog, double diagaonal roll bar. I thought this was all cool until sometime in 2002, when I made my first group mountain run up into the North Georgia mountans with about six or seven locals. It was during this trip, that I really learned how bad the poor wheels and tires were slowing me down. I also realized how ridculous my aluminum wing looked. I wanted the car to handle better, as well go faster. It was time for a change.

Playstation and Eclipse 7002 in the dash, well it was cool then.
This one shows the Hard Dog Roll bar, the only Decent mod that remains currently
A few red bits and an air filter don't hurt either, I guess..

How it all started...

In the Winter of 2001 I had just started my second year of college. I had what I thought was a very cool 1992 Saturn SC which I had purchased a few years prior for a steal from an auto auction. Despite the fact that the odometer had stopped turning at 150,000 miles, it was still running good enough to run a 16.0 flat quarter mile on heavy 17" wheels, with a aftermarket muffler and a custom cold air intake, and a few other cosmetic modifications. The car really was not aging well and was starting to fall apart at approximately 180,000 miles. One day, on my way to school it all came to an end. I was sitting at a red light and was rear ended by a Ford F-150 truck, which shortened the car about 16 inches, rendering it a total loss. With duct tape keeping what was left of the rear of the car together I continued to drive it for about a week while in negotiations with the insurance company. Once I had the very nice settlement in my hand (far more than I had invested in the poor Saturn) I knew what I wanted, a simple, lightweight two seat convertible around $10k that was easy at the pump and fun to drive back and forth on my long commute to school and work... and the Miata fit the bill nicely. After one test drive I was hooked, and soon found myself driving home from the dealership a beautiful Brilliant black 1997 Miata with the Popular equipment and leather package for $224/month after my down payment. Pretty sweet ride for a kid bringing home $9/hr.

A little about me and my ride..

Well, obviously I'm a hard core car nut (among other things). I've grown up around musclecars as my father was always building something something in the garage, and I was taken out to car shows and related events before I was even old enough to walk, so I was hooked at an early age and I'm sure I always will be. In 2001, I finally was able to purchase a car worth having, a 1997 Mazda Miata which I began to modify from day 1, and I'm still finding ways to make it look just a bit better or go just a bit faster... Its a sickness, I tell you! It's gotten to the point now where my wife and some of my friends are sick of hearing about it, so I decided to begin this blog for my "Miata Ramblings". I dont know if anyone will actually read this stuff, but since you are, Enjoy! I've got much more to come.