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Picked up a trailer this weekend. It's nice and I'm psyched to have it. Pretty much the same one @redursidae got, but with diamondplate for the dovetail portion. Pulls like a dream and I'm psyched to get it setup for the car.
Got the seat+harnesses installed on the PCI rail. Thanks to @hentia.jp for the seat. It fits great, though it was a bit of a bitch to get installed. Mainly because I wanted to mount it as low as possible. I ended up flipping the hardware so the nut is on the bottom in the back. And even clearanced the bolt heat and a few spots on the bracket so the seat could sit another hole lower. Height wise at 6' I easily fit in, with maybe 2" above my helmet. Harnesses feel awesome and I can't wait to drive the car hard with them.
The next "event" I'll be going to is the FM trackday/open house, so looking forward to that, Got a lot going on lately so that's coming up quick!
Got a wild hair and decided to color match the finish panel. It was laguna blue and always bugged me. I was just gonna do it black but figured why not. Just single stage in a can, and definitely brighter and not a match for what's on the car.. but inspiration for the future maybe.
Last edited by Fireindc; May 18, 2025 at 10:34 PM.
Noice! Jealous of you guys and your own trailers haha. Such a pain in the *** (first world problem) grabbing one from Uhaul every track event lol. The dovetail looks good and I bet the Triton pulls it like nothing's there.
You're gonna be so hyped driving with harnesses and a proper bucket too. Interior looks good!
Thanks guys! Slowly making it all happen. I figure with an rx7 in the family I should get a trailer sooner than later. My NA has done me well, by my counts at 30+ track events without it leaving me stranded, so I feel like I've been pushing my luck in that regard. Plus it'll save on some serious tire wear with the commute, and the wife and dog can ride along in A/C. It's been overdue.
Originally Posted by curly
I like these, lower for easier load/unload. Cheap too.
Curly, I love you man, but did you just come here to flex on me with a 17k "cheap" porsche trailer? LIke actually, was this a joke? lol, that trailer looks sick I'd love to pull it behind my G wagon.
LMFAO. I figured, but with your recent posts involving AMG supercars and the likes I had to make sure you hadn't gotten completely out of touch. That fancy paint on laz might have just gone to your head.
Let me tell ya, my team did IMSA at Laguna a few weekends ago, just the baby Michigan pilot challenge. The money the WeatherTech teams have in their trailers makes the difference between a $500 and $17000 trailer insignificant. Still making cheap Miata’s go fast, but we got some rich customers for sure.
I'm lonnnnng overdue on an update here with back-to-back trips I've been busy. This picks up after installing my race seat and harness, that very weekend I took off for our annual TX river trip.
Caught some turtles, hung out with the buds. Went to Bucee's (several different ones), always a treat.
Ended up convincing the wife to go a few hours out of the way to get a 6 speed from a mt.net member. No pics of that but I strapped it down in the back of our subaru, met Calteg who was a super cool dude and BS'd about cars for a while, then continued on with our vacation.
At the time I told my wife "this is something I've wanted for the car forever, though hopefully I don't need it anytime soon". Ha.
Got home and immediately started prepping the ole tow rig for the FM trip. I got a brake controller from my buddy @BenR for free, and it's a super nice unit, so thanks a thousand times for that. Had no idea what I was doing, bought the harness that makes the Tekonsha controller hook up to my Van, and just assumed a 4 pin to 7 pin adapter would tie the brakes into the trailer.
I was super wrong, 4 pins only do the lights. So ended up figuring out I needed to wire in a 12v charging and electric brake (blue wire) into the 7 pin. This was harder to figure out than expected, because most of the stuff you look up just says to buy the harness that ties into the factory pigtail which I was able to locate in the rear, but I had no time to order that. I finally found a wiring diagram and was able to wire it myself (super easy). Did that literally the day before we left and got trailer brakes working. Phew, that was sketch.
This was just me testing the brakes, success! I wired it in nicer than this.
Loaded up the car and hit the road. The trailer brakes were super sketchy driving around town. Stinky with hot hubs. I was afraid they needed adjustment, or something was wrong, and was texting @redursidae frantically about his trailer which is the same model basically. I ended up stopping and letting things cool, thinking (hoping) the brakes were just bedding in. Also got the trailer registered THE DAY we left town. Why do I always shove everything into the last minute?
After going back by the house to finish loading up the hubs were nice and cool again, and the trailer brakes started to have some power! Ok, less anxious about the mountain passes now.
The van pulled the trailer easily, able to maintain speed limit up hills through mountain passes. And took my time on the descents, since I smoked my brakes pulling a uhaul trailer last year which gave me a bit of a scare. It hurts to think of what happens if the brakes fail on me during some of those huge grade 10+ mile downhills. Took it easy but the trailer brakes only were getting better with use and I got the controller dialed in so they felt really nice. Minimal heat in the tow van or trailers brakes the times I checked, things were smooth this time.
Ended up at our airbnb that my wife picked. She got catfished a bit because it had some nice circle windows and was close to our favorite bagel shop. And to be fair our whole house was cute and nice, no gripes, but the neighborhood made me uncomfrotable leaving my tow rig and trailer there. I talked to one of the neighbors asking about the dilapidated house right next to ours (not pictured), and he told me it was a "drug house that should be torn down". The whole plan was to unload the miata and zip around town and enjoy it, which meant the rig and trailer sitting around the house all day. Fortunately they had a little driveway in the back I could back into which made me feel way better. I gave her a hard time about that and ended up chaining the trailer up to the fence after unloading the car. I'm a ghetto NM boy myself but this spot did make me uncomfortable. I'm not a city guy and people walking around, some definitely on drugs, had me a bit freaked out. Whatever, let's get to the track.
At the track I got to grid next to @Roda , he and his wife were great and let my wife and I hang out in their hauler and gave us chairs and ice and other amenities. Great people.
The first session felt like the car was on ice, my 1+ year old very heatcycled rt660's felt like they had no grip. I was relieved when Roda said he felt the same, and neither of us set a fast time that first session.
Second session I was able to drive the car and it was starting to hook up. To my surprise I was only a few tenths off my PB!
Third session I went out and was overdriving the car a bit. Fun, but not any faster, within a tenth of my fastest time the previous session, but I was happy with my lines just needed to tidy some stuff up. Unfortunately when I came through on the cooldown lap I hear the sound of death. At the time I thought I had rod knocked the car, which had me a bit bummed out at first. Even at idle you could hear the knocking. I pretty quickly figured out with the clutch in it went away and free revving it sounded OK. Then I took it for a drive.
Every gear except 4th had the death rattle. The 1:1 gear did not, since the input shaft is locked to the output with no real gears engaged. This was kinda a sigh of relief. I considered sending it at the track but I'm older and wiser now and decided I didn't needa do that.
Good thing I didn't, because I ended up driving the car around the whole weekend and put 100+ miles on it with the death rattle. Getting the most outta that gearbox at least.
I was planning on getting my camera out the next session but was cut short. Oh well, no video this year. I gotta get better at that, it would have been fun to review the lap where the trans was lunched. There's one dip where the car lays down power out of the hairpin that I felt it loading/unloading and I think it happened there. I remember feeling that and thinking it could break the diff the way it was hopping.
Fortunately the time I set in my 2nd session was still good enough for 2nd, so I'll take it! And Roda deserves his win! I leave you with some pics from the rest of the weekend:
K-swap NC I recognized from youtube, dyno'd at PFIspeed. He barely ended up edging out @redursidae by a tenth, which is impressive for Ricardo!
This NC really did look cool. This pic is for @Z_WAAAAAZ
Our NM buddy Tyler's ND2 30th. I rode in this car and the grip is astounding. And the nd2 impressed me with its power. Great car.
Our other NM buddy Tim's recently k swapped NA, this thing only got on the road about 2 weeks ago and made the drive down. Great build, the car is friggin immaculate in every way. Got to ride in it and was impressed with the N/A K, more torque even outta vtec than any BP hopes to make, and great power. Not as vibey as I thought, though he said he has 1 rubber mount on it still.
NM crew out to dinner:
NB COUPE!! really sexy car.
Some nice exo's. The black one in particular had nice attention to detail.
Me and my broken car
Sweet shot on the last night with the NM crew.
Last edited by Fireindc; Jun 16, 2025 at 02:16 PM.
Also of note, the PFC-11's were amazing. Can't wait to get these on the home track, so so so much better than how the r12's ever felt right out the box. ****, I could even lock up the tires on demand again, which has not been a thing since I got these brakes on. Excited to grow into this brake kit and feel confident pushing braking zones going forward.
Jealous. Glad you still had a good time despite the transmission blowing! That turbo NC has me drooling, but the rest of those Miatae are damn nice too.
Stoked for all you guys who made it out. Looked like an absolute blast. Come down to SoCal next! Lol.
Looks like a good time and lots of nice photos! Time for a 6 spd or you going to toss in another 5 spd? Seems like it lasted you a while.
It's 6 speed time, I just picked one up 2 weeks ago, which was weird fortuitous timing for this to happen. Of course that means the diff has to change so I'm working on sourcing a 3.6, which hopefully I have figured out. And a new clutch/flywheel while I'm in there.
I'll be doing the trans first just to make sure it's in good shape.
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