Yeah Mazda really blew it with the ecu programming for the MSM. 3.6 for the legs & let the boost build for that car. I road with Turbofan in his Ti MSM on track (RIP, may yours last longer!) and I was surprised at how quickly the shifts followed one another.

 

The shifts on track were seriously stupid, I don't know what Mazda was thinking. And remember, I had more RPM to play with since I was revving out to 7k ish.

 

The day after I installed my 6 speed I bought Hustlers 3.63 torsen.































Of course, its not installed yet...

 

Ok kinda scratching my head about this one:

I kept my hardtop from the white miata and yesterday went to install it on the msm.
It goes on fine, but the latches are a bit loose, and it sticks out higher than the windshield in the middle. Ok, no worries, I tighten the latches via the adjustment rods and try again: now the drivers side is decently tight, but the passenger side just barely has any tension. So I go into the rear latches that go onto the frank bolts and adjust those as well. Still the same thing.

It fit like a GLOVE onto the white one. Like, flawlessly.

One thing I didn't try that I will today is loosening the bolts holding the latches and seeing if the latches will move back a little bit for more tightness.

Am I missing anything? I wouldn't even mind it being not too tight if the middle of the top wasn't slightly higher than the windshield frame, making a bunch of noise at driving speeds.

 

My hardtop fits mine and my fathers MK1 perfectly, but will not fit my MK2, the latches are all loose, and there's a gap where the base of the HT is supposed to seal with the car on the drivers side.

Doesn't make any sense to me, both cars have straight monocoques etc. I've tried new latches etc with no change.

 

I wouldnt even bother driving until you get that thing flush or 'close enough'

my soft top is slightly bent to where the passenger side&latch are slightly loose. High speed winds are so irritating

 

I drove it yesterday, it's not terrible and definitely doesn't stick out high enough to where there's a gap, but yeah it's really really annoying, and me coming from a COMPLETELY dynamatted and sound absorbent foam'd 2001 that was the quietest/plushest NB I've ever driven, this does bother me to no end.

I think my planB will be to buy SM hard mount brackets and just bolting this thing down

 

ugghhh. I totally feel your pain on this one. Getting the NA hard top to fit my 99 has been a absolute pain in the ***. (the year of HT has nothing to do with it, it's all in the hardware).

I've fought with the center alignment issues a few times. I had it all perfect then I took the top off to wrap it and it got all screwed up again.

Things to try:
1) Putting washers under the striker plates on the windowshield header. This pulls the edges down harder which seems to flatten out the leading edge of the hard top.
2) bending your windshield header into shape with brute force. (this is sketchy but prob the single biggest difference maker.
3) Adjust strikers all the way out to pull it flatter.
4) stack weight (in my case my wife) on top center of the HT as you tighten the latches.
5) new latches

It's still a struggle. I'd love to be able to ditch the latches in favor of spec miata brackets but the windscreen header to ht joint is so touchy that I need the tension the latches provide to make an air tight seal.

 

Don't bolt, there is no way to snug it up as well with those and the side brackets on mine cause the center bow. Switching to the Beatrush latches myself. (Because rollbar) Try to start from scratch with it. Loosen all strikers and get the latches all close, then tighten and fine tune the adjustments.

 

Thanks for the input guys, kinda relieved that this apparently is a pretty common issue.

 

Is the hardtop off of a '99-'01? They changed the latches somewhere in '01 I think, or even '02.

Try bolting the softop latches onto the hardtop. Or putting older receivers onto the MSM.

 

Pretty sure it's from an 01+, and it fit flawlessly on my 01 that I had it on for about 3 years.

Also I know exactly what you're saying about the latches, which is exactly why I swapped the OEM original latches from this car onto this hardtop.

I guess it might be worth trying the previous 01 latches?

 

FWIW I am using NA latches on the front of my HT on my 01SE because they click locked better than any of the NB latches I have/have used.

 

They did switch the latches in '02 I believe. Right about just after when the first latches hit 10 years old. The new style latches have a different shape to the ****, more of a pyramid than a rounded point, and the strikers have a correspondingly differently shaped receptacle.

Different cars are ... different. Possilbly the MSM is tweaked. Or maybe it's just production tolerances.

 

I have the OEM latches off my hardtop(currently have specmiata). I can ship them to you if you want to try them to see if they work better.

Hardtop was off a 2002(actual 2002 hardtop), so I see the latches working better for your NB.

 

Jeff, that's so nice of you. I think I will take you up on that after this weekend when I plan to really try to fix this issue. I'll let you know, thanks man

 

I see a BFH being used!

 

I dunno about BFH on a hard top, but I've read about people using heat guns to help with this as well, though it seems like it would take A LOT of heat to get a hard top to soften up.

I wish I'd thought of that. In4pics

 

Yeah when I torqued mine down I put a couple towels down and stacked my winter wheels/tires on top and then put a ratchet strap on my door bars over the hardtop and cranked down. Removed all the wind noise except for a little rear seal gap.

 

Did a compression test. Everything within 15%, not bad.
No other real progress on the MSM lol

But I did finally get my Z to the level of cleanliness that I can live with. Some boredom pics