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...

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

"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..