The Craigslist Miata

Remember watching Initial D and thinking how cool it would be to race down winding canyon roads in real life? Battling the local touge; running nose to tail, back and forth across narrow slivers of sketchy pavement, blasting into blind turns dusted with pebbles, victory determined not by lap times but the gap created over the course of the run. However; if you are averse to run-ins with local law enforcement or just aren’t looking to test your luck with a rescue team/tow truck, The Touge Society has something that might be of interest to you.

This was only the second Touge2Track Touge Battle, and while the reigning champ (an older Civic with a K series intimidatingly protruding through the hood) was unable to attend, there was still a healthy turnout from the H brand including quite a few S2000s as well as a handful of ZN6 cars; however, the biggest surprise was the Fiat 124 Spider that ended up running for third. While we managed to pull a qualifying time of 1:11 out of somewhere. Going into the battle we had better tires but the mechanical whine of a supercharged FRS said otherwise.

The faster you went the narrower the road became. While the streets weren’t actually real, the dangers of dropping a wheel and/or going very much were. It was wonderful not having to keep your head on a swivel, worry what will happen when you cross the yellow line, and those pesky cyclists. Horse Theif Mile was very technical with tight switchbacks, headfirst downhill dives, and a very fast chicane leading into a long uphill sweeper. It was no wonder that any BMI title worth buying had a Hot Version Touge Showdown segment.

Continue reading “Touge2Track Touge Battle! @HTM 01/22/21 …and now for Something Completely Different”

One of the great things about having an unreliable car is that somehow you always happen to have the part you need somewhere in the garage. As was the case when the running lights finally gave out. This has been a persistent problem with the Craigslist Miata, I remember the moment right before I drove away the previous owner handed me an alligator clip and said, “Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you, this is for the lights. There was something wrong with a relay or something that I couldn’t get” so he hotwired it.

A better solution was implemented, and being a modified car, before too long the decision to delete the center console where the switch had been located led to a rewiring. All was well and good for a time until all of a sudden the dash and side markers went dark, but then they came back 20 minutes later; then went out for good a week after that. After much internet sleuthing and a quick phone consultation with a few “experts”, it was determined that we are showing that there is a change in potential across the circuit, but no current is flowing. It turns out that the fix for the factory light switch not working was little more than a faulty LA10 relay.

Due to the fact that we take full advantage of the Mazda Motorsports parts pricing plan, there was an assortment of extra relays still wrapped in mylar. For reference sake, it was not the LA10 under the dash next to the fuse box (working on your back inside a car is the worst) but the one under the hood next to the guy we replaced when the pop-ups stayed popped. The running lights have never been brighter. The old battery lead was removed in an effort to pass tech, same with the tow strap. The easiest thing is to use an extension to get at the rearmost bolt and then slide an offset box wrench right in that little rectangular opening to get the other two out.

Continue reading “Let There Be NA6 Running Lights with an LA10 Relay”

It was almost a year ago when we first ventured out to Riverside’s Adams Motorsports Park in order to try our hand at Time Attack. Looking to step up the reality factor from the usual parking lot coursed by orange cones; we had fun, pushed some parts past their limits, and finally came back to break into the 50s. It was very nice being able to show up at 6 o’clock, run a few laps and then head home before it got too late. After spending some real early mornings for full-on track days, this more casual approach to getting your speed on was such a simple release.

Now that I am a racing driver, my first excuse is that the new track surface is super slippery. Like drifting on the RT660s slick, check the videos. The second being a scattering of small rocks right between the apex and track out leading onto the front straight in the third session. Lastly, we were supposed to get three hot laps per session (not two), but perhaps it was the compressed schedule that caused the loss of an extra lap at speed.

It felt very good to be back behind the wheel at what we consider to be the best “autocross with consequences” in Southern California. The top speeds were low enough not to be a reminder of Buttonwillow, and the tossable nature of the short wheelbase roadster racing on a go-kart track made it such a fun experience. While we didn’t set a record this night, I think there was a Versa wearing wider tires that lapped slower; and she made it home under her own power. So, this one will be chalked up as a win.

Continue reading “Time Attack @AMP 01/09/21 Back Where We Started Before Covid”

So first off, sorry, but there was no photographer at this one and it looks like my Track Addict app was going little nuts. This was the biggest and boldest step the Craigslist Miata has ever undertaken, to say we were punching way above our weight class would be an understatement. To be honest, we thought ourselves to be big stuff after “conquering” the Streets of Willow with these guys a month earlier, but boy were we wrong. As the only NA to show up with neither a wing, boost, nor K-swap the only times I got close to the cars in front of me was during the lead/follow parade lap. However, there was that guy in the BMW that didn’t really know what he was doing (watch the video for the spin).

It felt incredible to stretch the roadster’s legs on a real racetrack. Running the full CW13 layout meant that this was what the big boys run, and let’s just say that the CLM was able to hold its composure out there on course. There was a bit of a disturbing thump from the front left, almost like the suspension was hanging up then crashing down on the pavement, the few times we tried to “cut” the bus stop like you are supposed to. However, it was the nasty vibration emanating from the right rear at around 80 MPH that raised concern from the instructing co-pilot.

You see, this is the first time that the Craigslist Miata has been sustaining highway speeds on a racetrack for an extended period of time. This is why we can’t take phone calls while driving, which when you think about it is actually a good thing (right?), and will become the cause for some further investigation in the future. However, the biggest gain of the day was having the instructor force me to turn in way earlier than I would have if I were driving on my own. Experiencing the effects of the outside suspension compressing under load and then feeling the car wash out ever so slightly in such a neutral manner, that you end up using even more of the racing surface than you ever imagined possible.

Right in the sweet spot.

The place where sidewall meets tread.

Only one track day.

-CLM

What else can we say, but thanks again to @devilyoukno for making us look good, as well as the rest of FD/Motorsports/Automotive/Human community for getting through 2020 in whatever way possible. It was an eerie empty event at the House of Drift, but at least it happened, and we were lucky enough to once again have the best seat in the house for the Formula Drift finale. The highlight of the event had to be the CLM “Flexing on the entire FD grid right before opening ceremonies.” -Jonny

Well, it’s about damn time we take this thing to an actual racetrack. Back when we first bought the Miata off Craigslist the plan was to drive the car through the summer, and if it survived make it a Spec Miata racer. After installing a number of very cool “high performance” parts that serve to make the Craigslist Miata more and more impractical for daily use and realizing that this car has been smogged at least three times while in our possession lead to the realization that it was time to hit the track.

The Streets of Willow is a familiar track, having driven it before in other people’s cars; it has been referred to as more of a place where you can push a car without concern for the police than an all-out racecourse; and while Turn 9 on Big Willow is probably the most intimidating piece of pavement on the property, any circuit that has a corner denoted as the “Turn of Death” should not be underestimated.

The NA6 held its own amongst a wide variety of cars. While everyone got a point by going up the front straight, the Winmax pads made us feel like we too could be one of the last of the late breakers, and from the top of the hill all the way through the Carousel the CLM was looking pretty, pretty good. Two of the cars to look out for on video are the silver SR20 powered NB and the other red NA6 we play with for a few laps.

Continue reading “OnGrid @ Streets of Willow 11/14/20”

In the event that you like to pack your goods in Pelican cases, and happen to have an NA Mazda Miata as your daily, you will be pleased to learn that the 1600 Series case fits amazingly well inside your trunk. Well, now you know.

So we might have a problem, but when you can collect wheels and tires off Craigslist for cheap, eventually it becomes apparent that you’re a hoarder. However when you find yourself painting wheel weights to match the inside of your white wheels, now that’s a bit neurotic. Looks like someone will be having a Craigslist garage sale sometime soon.

Continue reading “Wheels, Wheels, Wheels…”

We here at craigslistmiata.org do not condone complaining on the internet. However, after quite a bit of back and forth between the largest online retailer in the world, a couple of guys trying to make a buck as a drop shipper, and an aftermarket parts manufacturer about a puddle of coolant. It’s a shame that it came to leaving a negative review on Amazon, but it turns out that buying car parts online can be a giant PITA if anything isn’t perfect. Now, we are huge fans of the Mazda Motorsports parts pricing program (where new OE parts show up in a new box in a couple of days) but trying to explain to a computer that you can’t just take the defective car part out of your car without having a replacement part to replace it.

There is a problem with speed shops/installers and the internet. Back when you had to physically go somewhere to buy a part, the store owner hoped to pay wholesale and sell it at retail. Later when they expanded to doing installations, some of that margin eroded because they could make up for it by charging for the labor. The shop owner wasn’t making as much selling parts, but they could still sustain a business. Enter the internet and worst of all instantaneous internet price matching on your iPhone, the brick and mortar store can no longer compete and your poor mechanic ends up having to install the cheapest Chinese eBay part you could possibly buy. All to save a buck upfront, only to cost you time and headache in the future.

So the moral of the story is to stay away from big tech like eBay and Amazon and instead solicit total strangers to meet you in random places with goods you’ve only seen pictures of and enough cash in hand to purchase said items. And when all else fails, just engage in some internet whining, and a replacement radiator might finally show up at your door.

There has been an issue with the right front locking up ever since installing those oh so aggressive Winmax brake pads. Some say there’s air in the lines, some have said it’s a proportioning valve gone bad and we’ve even heard that it happens to all non-ABS equipped Miatas when there’s no one in the passenger seat and you have way too much chassis stiffness for your own good. Whatever the cause may be, after our last outing of spirited outing and in preparation for future endeavors, a series of pesky lateral scratches indicate where the tire kept coming to a stop. Damned be those pesky flat spots, those new Falkens RT660s couldn’t have gotten here any sooner.

And you thought we were getting rid of those Rotas out of charity, we really needed to make room for these: the all-new Falken Azenis RT660, a 200 treadwear tire. We had lots of fun with the RT-615K+ and are just about getting to point of having actually worn out a set from hard use. While the old tread pattern is still being sold, the RT660 seems nice that at least you can pull them off the rims and rotate them from side to side; whereas we would completely eat the shoulder of the tire in their first outing.

So it’s time for another go with the Porsche people in San Pedro. The track was straighter than last time, but did include a series of very fun up and downhill chicanes covering a variety of surface changes making it much more challenging than before. Especially being a bit down on power. The competition was also way more serious than our previous outing, as the level of car and driver was taken up a notch.

After taking notes from some of the faster Roadster owners, I believe that a set of Nitto NT05 (100 TW) and a much more aggressive dose of “hucking it” into the turns might result in lower lap times. So would not blowing the 180 before the uphill section as well as overshooting the last turn leading onto the final straight. However we did learn that the car weighs 2,000 lbs.

A good time was had by all, and while driving home under your own power always counts as a win I feel that we are beyond that at this point; so then the goal moves on to not being the slowest car there; which almost didn’t happen, until the times for that WRX were posted online.

Continue reading “AutoX POC @ San Pedro 9/13/20”

Sometimes moving forward, means letting things go. While there was a somewhat not so top-secret plan to expand the collection to include a drift-specific NB in order to preserve the restoration we call the CLM; like most things that happened in 2020 plans changed. Seeing as how we didn’t want to bother with cutting fenders and constantly rubbing arches from a set of 16-inch wheels and tires stuffed under a first-generation Miata, it was off to a new home where they will get used as they were originally meant to be.

If it was a bit challenging to muscle the muffler into place, then you could say hooking those hot pipes up to the head was going to be daunting. Fortunately, today this turned out not to be the case. If the anticipated level of difficulty was 7; it turned out to be closer to 4, thanks to a generous application of Nutz Off, PB Blaster, and good old WD-40. To be honest, removing the strut bar beforehand was the biggest inconvenience. For the most part, every nut and bolt backed out like should, except for one stubborn stud protruding from the head. Luckily turning the stud into a screw seemed to do.

Pro tip – buy a new O2 sensor before you start, that thin little 20-30-year-old wire will break just as you get everything into place. Twisting the new header into place from above took some creativity, and getting the thicker flange to pass between the trans and tunnel was the hardest part. We were working alone, and if memory serves correct, at one point a floor jack was brought in to make a little extra space underneath the car so the header could swing up into place.

Once installed, quite a few moments were taken to admire the new tubes emerging from beneath the polished valve cover. The blue break-in heat from the previous owner really pops with that JDM bling. There were a set of $1,000 hand made high-rise headers that were oh so tempting, but you know what, these are pretty damn nice for the price. The CLM has never sounded this good, and the butt dyno shows noticeable gains above 4,000 RPM. Anyone know a good SMOG shop?

Continue reading “Beating some Race into the Craigslist Miata’s Engine Bay”

It feels like this moment has been coming for quite some time. Once we found the missing link that brought our exhaust together, it was only a matter of time before we pulled the trigger. Laying out the pieces is was very tempting to bolt the straight pipe to the test pipe and see how raspy the Miata could be, but for the sake of our neighbors and the environment, we went with the resonator and kept the cat in place.

Being the lazy parts installers that we are, instead of dropping the Cannon brace that ties the rear suspension together and encompasses the one-piece factory cat-back, we chose to employ the hacksaw method. Hopefully, the cut was straight enough and in a place where it can be put back together easily if needed. Everything looked good laid out on the floor, with a little tease of the Butterfly brace that will one day reside up in the underside of the Craigslist Miata.

Continue reading “Hand Me the Hacksaw We’ve Got an Exhaust to Install”

“Even if it’s only an additional 10 HP; that’s a 10% gain when you’re only making 100 HP.” –CLM mechanic

Ever since an old coworker gave me a new muffler for Christmas a few years back I have been on the lookout for a connecting pipe to bring spent gasses from the catalytic converter all the way back to the rear box. So it was incredible when we came across someone selling not only a 4-to-1 header as well as every type of connecting pipe Racing Beat sold for the 1.6L Miata. A deal was arranged and a trip south to San Diego was negotiated. New noises to come.

Continue reading “Hello Ten Horsepower”

That is currently the case with the hardened bushings in our rear suspension. Having purchased the previously owned polyurethane bits complete with the arms they came in meant not having to play with fire, a job that I am not averse to but really don’t want to hear about the smell of burning rubber from the neighbors. However, it did lead to problems like missing washers, an issue that arose after an evening of pounding one of the lower control arm bushings back into place as it split and slipped over the head of the bolt holding it in place between runs at Irwindale.

Ever since installing the swaybars, there has been a distinct sound emanating from the right rear. At first, it sounded like good old fashion tire rub, but after some additional grease applied to the rear stiffener, it went away if only for a moment. However, with the new rear poly bushings installed the car is quieter than ever on the highway, let’s hope it stays that way. I always heard people say to beware of poly bushings because they squeak, I just wonder what the mice they listen to look like.

Continue reading “Sometimes Doing Things the Easy Way Means Doing Them Again the Right Way Later”

Two very important lessons were learned at the last autocross. One, it isn’t the best idea to top off your fuel tank before a run; and two, that a modified Doorman gas cap from PepBoys is a bad idea. You know, it smelled a bit like hydrocarbons during one of the runs, and after looking at the photos I can see why. Thank goodness for that hardtop; OE cap is on order immediately.

Ever since seeing GRC cars fly through the salty San Pedro sea air with a battleship for a backdrop I have been scheming a way to get past the gates guarding Berth 46 and have some fun behind the wheel. The beautiful thing about this track (aside from the views) is that it is the complete opposite of El Toro. Whereas what remains of the old airstrip dictates that we start off with a slalom, which leads into a 180-degree turn, which leads to another set of spread out slaloms, which then sets up another 180-degree change in direction (in the same direction); and then there might be a quick little left-right chicane before the finish line.

Ever since losing the T-section of the runway a couple of years ago, the layouts are essentially elongated courses that push the top of second gear an uncomfortable amount and favors the straight-line ability of the Porsches. However not this time. Today we would be dodging cones on a patch of asphalt marked by slippery surface changes as well as a bit of elevation and as a bonus, there were even a couple off-camber curves. Being a track day in the time of Covid all we had to go on was an in-car video of the course emailed to us the night before. On the morning of, the track walk was helpful as always, but over way too quickly and any instruction is done from too far a distance to be beneficial.

I never thought that simply sitting in the sun for a couple of hours would raise the air pressure in the tires by over five PSI, on only one side of the car. So with one side bled, the gloves feeling good, and the chinstrap tight; that we set out to feel our way around the unfamiliar course. The cones came up so quickly that it was hard to keep your head up and eyes ahead. After pussyfooting around during the practice laps it was time to turn things up for the timed trial. The right foot redline was raised, we got close to the cones and of course and there was plenty of tire scrubbing oversteer. A few times we were able to squirt out of the initial right-hander at the absolute top of first in an attempt to point the car, but that turned out to not be the fastest method. In the end, it was a matter of slowing down to go fast(er) and trying to remember which series of turns were really long sweepers that helped bring our time between the lights into the forty-second range.

Continue reading “AutoX POC @ San Pedro 8/9/20”

Being close enough to its 3,500 mile interval mark, it was time to cycle the dinosaur juice. However, this time it would be like no other; unless you count that one time I forgot to put back the crush washer. Due to “oil change specials” it is often more affordable to pick up a 5 qt. jug and just return the cheap filter at a later date than it is to purchase the units individually. Normally I fill the one quart container three times and then do some math to measure out the last 0.6 qt. and what’s left gets put away for the future.

Except for this time when all was said and done, there was only a tiny bit of oil left in the big jug. Now I know what you’re thinking, and if your Common Core is up to date: The CLM takes 3.6 quarts of oil and if we start out with 5 quarts of oil and then take away one quart of oil three times and then take away another six-tenths of a quart; we should have way more than just one quart remaining.

With an autocross coming tomorrow, and after driving a few miles to see how bad it sounded we read somewhere on the internet how Spec-Miata racers run half a quart low because “racecar”. In the end, one of the bigger containers was sacrificed in the event the oil was to be reused and my hands ended up covered in oil (at least it was clean[ish]), and the Miata now benefits from a fresh partial oil flush.

Continue reading “This is What Happens When You “Like Working on Cars” or The Benefits of Flushing Your Oil”

100% by chance; went to the bank, stepped out the car, looked down and saw this …

A funny thing happened on the way to the JimmyUp drift matsuri, I ran into our friend @devilyoukno who was awesome enough to leave us with these amazing shots of the Craigslist Miata. There was even an NA getting sideways out there on Willow Springs’ Horse Theif Mile. What a day.

After adding some unnecessary bling under the hood, and then proceeding to drive the car in a quite spirited manner, I encountered evidence of the cooling system outside of where it would normally be. Now this car has always been a bit of a magician when it comes to coolant, and the overflow bottle had been replaced in the past; and was currently running a little low. So the drops on the garage floor were initially attributed to that. Then, a little pool of radiator fluid was discovered, leading to a series of back and forth emails between the retailer and the manufacturer which led to resealing the bleeder screw right behind the filler neck. Hope this holds.

Continue reading “Fixing Dumb Decisions”

It is not very often the roof comes off the Craigslist Miata to reveal the NA’s nature as a real roadster. Originally this top was bought because the original soft top came with the rare USDM drop-down “flow-through” rear glass, and it was full of holes. The car once wore a very fashionable shower cap, but a strong rainy season and an extended trip out of town meant that something had to be done. The only other time the roof came off was when the rollbar went in.

The roof accentuates the Miata’s lines, and that rear wraparound DLO is such an aesthetic improvement over the standard smaller rear window. The roof also acts to tie the chassis together, not saying that it adds considerable stiffness, but it nearly eliminates that pesky cowl shake when potholes jump out in front of you. However, the sun is shining and the weather reports show no signs of rain today, so let’s go for a drive.

Continue reading “Going Topless or Making the World’s Sexiest Dog House”