Sheesh man you are making some cool progress on this thing! I was here scratching my head trying to figure out why you were cutting the upright mounts off that wing, then I saw the street wing endplates. Definitely cool and looks fitting on your car, mine came powdercoated black but I actually dig the silver 2-tone look on your car. I'm running one for the same reason (massive front aero not needed), though now that I've built a splitter I have considered going BIGGER. But I just slap myself and tell myself to stop friggin' tweaking the car and drive it.

 

Looking good!

Curious about one thing though - there are four bolts holding airfoil to the mount, I expected to see them follow the curve of the airfoil, but there seems to be one outlier?

I was looking at Mulsanne's Corner yesterday, haven't visited that site in years, and looked at the page rise of swan neck mounts. I was surprised at the magnitude of the effects of bottom mounts, or at least what the CFD said about that. Smoothing the remnants of the old mounts might be a good thing, if you are time poor starting at the front and progressively working back. If it were my wing, I would just attack it with the angle grinder (grinding, not cutting wheel), and finish with some bog that can be sanded to a smooth finish.

 

@Fireindc Thank you! Your car is one of the major sources of inspiration for modifications to mine!

Howdy Gee Emm! A picture is worth a thousand words they say, so I went ahead and unscrewed the wing from one of the endplates so I could show you the attachment points. It's good to document that anyway.

9Lives **** Attachment Points
It's important to note that this isn't the "stock" street **** wing - it's actually one of their goblin nose wings that I bought on their scratch & dent auction. ("Goblin Nose"...that's kinda gross sounding now that I think about it.) Anyway, when I was talking to their sales support about maybe buying a set of street **** uprights since I had accidentally bought a wing of the same width (dead serious! it was a coincidence, but maybe they try to use some standard widths to simplify manufacturing? Maybe?) they made a point of asking me how many screws the wing used. So maybe other wings use more or less screws to attach them. I don't know for certain.
To get back to your question, you can see in the picture that they distribute the attachment points between the top and bottom of the wing so it's really more of a zig-zag pattern, at least on mine.

Regarding removing the wing mounts from the underside, Occam's Racer discusses the same thing - the aerodynamics issue is precisely why I removed the old mounts. I would like to smooth the surface more but I don't have the right tools to do the job correctly and I didn't want to chew up the bottom of the wing any further in my attempts to smooth it out - that would be completely counterproductive. I'll see what grinding wheel options there are for my right-angle grinder and potentially revisit those welds after the next track event at the end of the month.

Oh! And while I was reattaching the wing after taking pictures for Gee Emm I think I figured out why 9Lives includes spacers for the na miata street ****. Check this out:

Miata Gotta Gap!

When I push the wing next to the endplate with the other end attached, there's a pretty substantially angled gap! I'll bet the wide part of the spacer is supposed to go towards the front of each upright/endplate unit to square them up properly. The way mine sit currently I'll bet they're slightly angled outward at the bottom. The tops won't be since they get pulled into alignment when they are screwed into the wing. If I ever feel like grinding more off of the decklid I could put the spacers in now that I understand their function and how they're supposed to be oriented.
Probably won't happen, but never say never as they say.

 

Glad she made it home!

 

Very cool, glad my car is an inspiration! On mine I never used the 3d printed spacers either, didn't see much need for them. But your last pic does make me re think that a bit. I personally just wanted to go with as minimal of a trunk trim as possible and using the spacers would definitely change that. I don't know what they meant by "goblin nose", but those look exactly like my v2 street wing mounts.

 

Alriiiiight! Thanks for the explanation, the pics icing on the cake! That wing is their 'stock' item it seems, they have another that is lighter that has only two bolts for the endplates, not sure how that works given the forces acting on the endplates - it is common to see in head-on photos the endplates bending inwards!

The 'goblin' is a kitcar thing, search on their site - that is where I found the comparison of the two wing types.

 

I chatted Sean (of Sadfab fame) up yesterday to tell him about the latest wave of changes to his old car - got some feedback from him regarding what the car's normal operating temps are here during Phoenix Summers, etc. We also adjusted the Tune a bit - dropped Maximum MAP down to slightly more conservative levels to help longevity, and discussed turning knock control on since Sean had wired up the knock sensor back in the day but hadn't started using it in the tune yet.
So yesterday after work, grilling portions of dinner, etc, I dragged the work laptop out to the Miata to update the tune and take it for an auto-tuning run. And I ran into the same weird error I got the last time I tried to turn knock detection on:

Wait...what?

I really should have moved that stupid error message down

I tried to update the ECU definition, but it brought up a file browser so I could provide the path to an appropriate file. Unfortunately Sean's old laptop died before he sold the car so I don't have any of the appropriate data files other than what's saved on the ECU itself (aka the original tune which I've backed up five ways from Sunday.) I forget exactly what I did next - I think I just turned the car off and back on without disconnecting the laptop and the error went away. Huh...that's strange. It then prompted me to reconcile the differences between the tune in TunerStudio and what was on the ECU - I went ahead and pushed what I had in TunerStudio, turned on AutoTune and took the car for a drive.

-Side Note- While I was at a stoplight, a car with a younger driver and passengers pulled up, rolled down their windows and called out, "Make it blink!" After a few seconds of confusion I realized they were talking about the popup headlights so I hit the button and happily the relay was in a good mood - blinks were witnessed. Having driven through the era of popup headlights I tend to take them for granted, but I guess in these days of stringent mileage requirements they've become something of a novelty. Yet another reason to love my little NA Miata.

Sean had set up logging to SD card with a switch so I grabbed a log while going down the freeway. Handy thing, that.
Got back home, the car is pretty hot so I turn off auto tune and shut the car down while I do a few other things. Turn the car back on to burn the tune to the car...the error message is back. Well nuts. I need to burn this updated tune so I connect anyway and burn the tune. Shut the car off, disconnect the laptop, go to start the car and...it cranks but won't start. Try a few times - won't start. Oh, is this that hot restart issue? Wait a while, still won't start. Reconnect the laptop, get the error message about the knock detection again. Turn off knock detection in the tuning software, the error message goes away, sync the tune with the ECU, and I can now start the car. No idea why pushing knock detection to the ECU angers the car so much but it looks like either that sorted the issue or I happened to wait long enough for things to cool down enough to avoid a hot restart issue.
I looked at the log I'd pulled and it really looks like knock detection was screwing up the tach readings - the log showed it thought the car was running at 3k rpm for the entire time on the freeway, even though the throttle input and everything else indicated I was not holding steady rpms. So much for that log.
Looks like I'm going to have to figure out how to sort this before I can turn knock detection on. I researched the error a fair amount but can't find anything specific to knock detection - I did manage to track down what I think is the latest firmware for the ECU, since it looks like Sean bought it from diyautotune.com (at least based on some of his pictures from the build thread.) Not exactly eager to push it to the ECU though until I'm sure it won't cause problems since I don't have a copy of the current firmware version or any idea what else might get screwed up by upgrading.
At least the car starts again and nothing blew up on the tuning run.

Something is leaking though - I plan to let the shop worry about that since they just rebuilt the engine.

Grrr...leaks.

In slightly less annoying news I've wielded my mighty funoodle-crafting skills and threw together version 0.1 of pointy edge covers for the miata when it's using the car cover. Currently prototyped with zip ties - amazon is bringing the bungee cords this afternoon.

Past Schoolhouses

Take it slow

Let the little

Shavers grow

Burma-Shave

 

Now with Bungees


And if you want these kind of dreams

it's Bungeefication

 

Welcome Back, Dear Reader, to the latest episode of Racecar Cooking. We're going to kick off today's show with a brief discussion of how Johnny cooks up meatballs.
If you recall (unlikely, but it's always possible) we had first tried out our spiffy (if slightly illegally sized) magnetic numbers previously...

Cast your mind back...back...

...and decided they looked lame without meatballs.

So!

We need to cook up some meatballs.
Options include magnetic ones, reusable vinyl ones, one-shot vinyl ones, painting a circle on the car with automotive paint, using painter's tape, or my personal favorite, painting a circle with Plasti Dip. I think Plasti Dip is perfect for this application since I can peel it off if I don't like it/get tired of it/want to change the color scheme/etc. Plus it isn't stupidly expensive, permanent, or made of painter's tape. Win!
Unfortunately there aren't a lot of color options for the spray-can variety of Plasti Dip, and hardly anyone around here stocks it anyway. If I wanted to spend hundreds of dollars and paint the entire car, sure, there are a zillion color options. In a rattle can - not so much. And so, after spending entirely too much time digging around online and driving around to different stores in the area I gave up and ordered a can of gunmetal grey Plasti Dip to be delivered to my local Auto Zone. Amazingly enough it got there the next day. So the other evening I got out a big piece of packing paper, covered it on both sides with packing tape, traced a lovely 13"-ish circle using a handy frisbee we had lying around, carefully cut it out, taped the resulting meatball template to the rear decklid of the miata and did a test spray with the Plasti-Dip. I could have sworn I took pictures. I checked my phone...no pictures.
Welp, here's what it ended up looking like with the numbers applied:

No Bueno

In my defense, gunmetal grey looks a lot lighter in the pictures on the internet. I was pondering how to modify the template to only do a ring rather than the entire circle, and since I have a can of white Plasti Dip too, I was thinking about ways to just paint the middle white and leave a dark outer circle and then I realized that I am a Big Dumb Dummy.

If the mountain won't come to Mohammed...

...then Mohammed must come to the mountain

Hopefully I can peel the stuff off of the numbers if/when I change my mind, although it's certainly not the end of the world if I can't.

Better
Yup, I can live with that. Now I'll need to do the same to the doors. Probably ought to put a blob of hot glue under the leading edge of each of the numbers too, just to be sure.

Our next segment in Racecar Cooking is all about Tuna! Actually it's about tuning. Just work with me here.

I've been doing lots of studying about tuning and it's interesting in a terrifyingly-complicated-and-I-hope-I-don't-blow-up-my-shiny-new-engine kind of way. I am pretty much forced to tackle the subject since the car wouldn't run worth a darn after the rebuild unless it got a new tune. After a few days of making cautious changes, incorporating suggestions from the hive mind (thank you Hive Mind! Thank you Curly!) and Sean, the previous owner, I'm starting to get to a point where at least I'm a little more comfortable with the process, and in some ways a bit comforted as I look at the logs and can see that things don't seem to be Incredibly Horrible at least. Here are a few examples from Sunday evening's drive (actual logs attached as well):

Freeway Driving

Punching it at a stoplight
I'd really like to see the AFR not going that high, although I do see similar maximum values in posts from other turbo miata-ites, and I'd like to see lower engine temperatures even if Sean says that's pretty much how hot the engine runs. But at least I can see what's going on and to my admittedly inexperienced eye it doesn't look THAT bad. The boost is really tame, but that's to be expected from the "Some of It" duty table:

Some of It

I'll start taking some cautious steps with the "All of it" boost duty table in the near future, but first...a question. Well, first a picture and then a Very, Very, Important question.
Here's my AFR table:

Not to be confused with ARF - that's what a dog says.

So I've got this hot-running engine in a stupidly hot city, and I've got a few times where the AFR is a bit high anyway, and the car doesn't have a catalytic converter, and it doesn't need to pass emissions (race car FTW!)...so why wouldn't I want to drop any AFR in the table that's over, say, 13, to 13? Wouldn't that make the engine run cooler, with a bit of a power bump as well? My primary goal is to avoid detonation (I reeeeeally want to figure out how to get ping detection turned on too, but I'm working with what I have) and to get engine temperatures down if I can - in other words keep my engine as happy and healthy as possible. Is there some reason I wouldn't want to drop my AFR to 13, pretty much across the board? Obviously I'd leave the lower values in the table alone to continue protecting the engine under load - I'm just talking about dropping that whole lower-left through lower-middle portion of the table where the AFR is 14 or higher. Well, and the 13-point-somethings too. You know.

Thoughts?

 

The reason not to drop your AFR targets to 13 is because you'd get garbage worse gas mileage. I crossed out garbage because frankly I don't know how big of a difference it would actually make. Also, I doubt you'd see much of a difference in coolant temp, but by all means do some testing and post the data

Generally, leaner is considered to make more power than richer. At some point the additional fuel is just helping cool the cylinders. From what I've read the power difference is measurable but not significant for what most of us are doing.
Also I'm assuming you're talking about leaning out the highway/cruising area, but it doesn't look like temps are too crazy from what I'm seeing (I didn't download the logs fwiw). The engine isn't under a ton of load in those scenarios so the chance of knocking is pretty low. I once had a buddy who roadtripped his VW 1.8T to an event after a rebuild and said he was cruising around 16+. He kept stabbing the throttle to get some accel enrichment to richen things up, but either way the engine was fine.

You might also try adding some smoothing/filtering to the clt sensor in tuner studio. You've got some spikes there that seem more like noise than anything. Based on the temps climbing a bit at the end while idling you might also try to make the fan a bit more efficient by sealing it to the radiator.

As always, take this all with a grain of salt. Setting up a coolant temp based rev limiter and/or boost reduction might also give you some peace of mind.

 

Thank you SimBa! The video was a fun watch and although I feel he generalizes a bit much it's a good overview, and it's hard to argue with dyno results. His statement that you can't dial in timing without a dyno is about as accurate as saying you can't measure drag without a wind tunnel, but hey, if you've got access to the good tools then it only makes sense to use them.
After logging and reviewing a few more loops around the block and reading up more on the particulars of AFR in tuning I'm at least not as worried about the engine temps and peak AFR values. The engine seems to be able to shed heat while the car is in motion so Curly's concern from earlier is addressed. I think his suggestion a few posts ago to kick the fuel table for the idle range up 10% is really sensible to help keep the idle AFR spikes under control/act as a safety buffer; I've made that change, but when I use auto-tune it happily drops the values back down again, which I can understand. It looks like either that 10% bump will have to be done once tuning is pretty much locked in, or perhaps the AFR target values in the idle range could be dropped 10% instead? I would think that would allow auto-tuning to work with me rather than against me. No idea how that plays out in reality though. I think the afr peaks are in relatively "safe" times of low or dropping load and the fact that no one here is suggesting the engine is going to melt with the current tune is a Very Good Sign. Really that's what this whole exercise is about - my attempt to keep from wrecking my shiny new engine. To that end I've dropped overboost protection down from 21psi (which was what Sean had set since that was the area he was shooting for) down to 16psi. SimBa, your suggestion of using the Rev Limiter function sounds like a good one to me - Sean had a hard limit of 7400 set - I've switched the Coolant Temp Limiter from Normal to CLT based and set it to use the following completely arbitrary chart that I generated using what sound like reasonable values to me based on the car's logging history:

New Limits!
Sure, five years down the line I'll be all like, "Why can't I rev my screamer 1.8 beyond 7400?!?" and I'll need to remember these limits are there, but hopefully it's the first place I'd look anyway. Now please tell me this chart uses Fahrenheit like the gauge above implies...

Next up - Boost! Sean put a cute switch on the tombstone that toggles between two different Boost Control Duty Tables. Here's the "Some of it" Table which I've posted before:

Some of it
After logging a few drives it looks like that generates about 8psi under normal driving conditions; 9.5 if I'm really hammering it. The car feels...peppy. Yeah, peppy is the right word.
Since I'm cautiously confident the engine is holding together well and reasonable protections have been put in place, it's time to try the "All of it" table as Sean crafted it:

All of It
Took the car around the big city block. My Goodness. There's notable turbo lag and then Pop! Off she goes, and the rpms and speed skyrocket. Second gear (which was pretty steep to begin with) is gone very, very quickly. Also ran into the 16psi overboost protection repeatedly - capped out at 17.3psi before overboost took effect. I'd attach the log but the board isn't cooperating right now. Looks like we'll need to dial things back a bit.

Wham!
Spent some time crunching through the log, looking for psi peaks and conditions that ran into overboost. Looked like it was mostly from 3800 - 4600 rpm, throttle at 40 - 50%, anywhere where the boost duty table was set to 56 or more. Huh. Ok, since it's super easy to make and revert changes, let's just drop everything in the Boost Control Duty 2 table (All of It) that's above 55 to 55...

All of It 55
...and go for a drive.
This log successfully attached. Here's a screenshot too:

All of It 55
Well, that kept it just under the overboost cutoff, had tons of power once the turbo lag passed, and I should probably move my testing loop off of the local streets and on to a freeway farther away before I gather unwanted attention - the car was getting up to excessive speeds entirely too quickly. Definitely surprised the honda civic at the stoplight though. Just testing a tune, buddy. The crushing was merely an unintended consequence. (What's with Honda Civics always wanting to race, anyway?)
Catch cans are pretty clean, no new drips. I did research how much boost is too much for a 1.6 and it sure seems like 15-ish is Ok, even over the long haul, right? Yeah, yeah, it's not the boost it's the torque and HP - I'm looking at getting some dyno time after the track weekend so I have some sort of clue about what's actually going on. Hmmm, Maybe I can raise the boost duty values in the table at lower RPMs to help spool up? - that's yet ANOTHER research topic. Sooo much to learn and do.

Oh, regarding SimBa's excellent point that since my CLT is climbing when the car isn't moving there's clearly some more work to be done with sealing the radiator fan - I first checked to make sure the fan was actually turning on at the set temperatures (it is), and took a hard look at how it's been sealed to the radiator (it isn't, really). In fact neither the fan nor the oil cooler have been sealed yet - there's about a 1/4" gap at the top, and I suspect a similar gap all the way around. I picked up some silicone/EPDM foam blend weatherstripping and some aluminum tape rated for extreme temperatures at Home Depot this weekend so I can address the gaps as time permits. Happily I've got a little leeway in that department since there isn't a whole lot of sitting at the track. Well, except when there is. *Sigh* It's on the punchlist.

 

Friday Nights are Date Night with The Girlfriend. She's got a summer cold, though, so last Friday's Date Night was just a quick trip to get some soup for her and then the evening was free. What to do? Why, install the FM shift light I impulse-bought a few months ago of course. They even had NA-miata-specific-instructions that involved molesting the terminals on the gauge console connectors! Who wouldn't want to do that, right? Yeah, me neither. That's why it's been sitting for months. Anyway. Since the gauge cluster hood was flopping around after the shop installed the oil and coolant pressure warning lights anyway, I figured now was the time to get it all sorted and install the shift light while I was at it.
I pulled my Awesome Amazon $30 gauge cluster hood off and took a good look at what was going on. For starters, it looks like the back edge has warped slightly from the heat. Then there was the missing spring nut that I'm sure you all remember from my post back on February 26th. (I looked it up) Here it is again:

No Spring Nut
In addition, when they had pulled the hood off to run the wiring for the warning lights the back clips had come partially loose and weren't re-inserted properly, and FINALLY the wiring was run along a dip in the dashboard, right where a sharp contour of the hood went so the hood didn't have a chance of seating and in fact was pressing a sharp plastic edge against the wiring.
Simply Brilliant.
True to form I didn't take pictures of anything of course.
Got out the dremels, ground back the sharp contour of the hood so it wasn't cutting into the wires and had a hope of dropping into place. Re-inserted the back clips. Replaced the missing spring nut with one that my Wonderful local Mazda Parts Department rep thought was the correct spring clip - turns out he was right! Good job, local Mazda Parts Department rep!
Now for the ugly, uncomfortable stuff - wiring up the shift light.
So. This impulse-bought Ecliptech Shift-P2 shift light from Flying Miata. I figured I'd pick one up before tariffs made the price go up, and because it was cool looking. (Note - I just checked the price - it hasn't changed since I bought it. ) I could have gotten it a bit cheaper from other places but FM had NA miata specific instructions, I wanted to support them a bit since they obviously put a lot of effort into what they sell, and it wasn't that much cheaper from other places anyway.
I plop down in the car with the instructions, and realize they were written by someone who was quite comfortable with the process and had clearly not been proofread by someone who was mostly clueless like me. Things were compounded by the fact that the gauge cluster wouldn't move forward much with everything still attached and the two connectors that I needed to unplug didn't have a whole lot of slack in the wiring anyway. I ended up using my phone's selfie camera to see what was going on and doing the disconnects and reconnects by touch. The wiring changes were all made while my hands were crammed between the windshield and the dashboard. Oh what fun.
The biggest issues I had with the instructions involved flipping flaps, and releasing terminals. Now that I know what to look for, and now that I can blow up the pictures in full color as opposed to squinting at the black and white printouts I had at the time it's a little easier to see what needed to happen, but at the time I was clueless and it literally added hours to the installation.
Let's start with the flap flipping. The instructions say, "Pull back the tabs on each side of the connector so the flap on the back can be flipped up." Sounds simple enough...poke around at the connector, find the tiny tabs on each side...not sure what is supposed to flip up or how this is supposed to even work.
Here's a picture from the instructions, only blown up and in color. Mind you, this picture is for an entirely different step in the process but it happens to have the information we need:

Flip
So the flap in question is that little bar in the orange box I added that presses against the wiring when it's locked down. The connector has two tabs (circled in red) that need to be moved outward, in opposite directions, simultaneously, while prying at the flap to get it to pop up, while craning your body forward to reach the dashboard from your unadjustable racing seat, working in the limited confines between the top of the dashboard and the windshield, on a connector with hardly any excess play in the wiring. Oh, and did I mention it's a bazillion degrees in the garage? Thank heavens for the portable swamp cooler I inherited from my dad.
I ended up using two tiny screwdrivers that I shoved through the holes in the lock tabs and then performing unholy hand contortions normally reserved for cthulian rituals to push both out simultaneously while prying at the flap. I omitted chanting "Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn" though - no need to go that far.
It seems like other people use toothpicks to achieve the same purpose. No idea what mythos they have to borrow from to get everything to move properly though.
The next significant roadblock I encountered was getting the terminal out of the connector. Here's another picture from the instructions. This one actually isn't bad, only you can't see the correct spot without blowing up the picture. (Seeing it in color doesn't hurt either.)

Poke
To release the terminal from the connector you have to flip the connector around so the metal bits are showing. Oh look, there's that stupid flap again - it's really hard to see it in the printout. Anyway, then you take something super-pointy and press down exactly where the arrow indicates, only on the correct terminal. The spot you push is in between the shiny bits, and appears to just be a lower portion of the terminal that wouldn't do anything when you push it. But it does because it's magic. Well, actually it's just a clip which would make it physics I suppose, but that's pretty close to magic sometimes. Anyway, you shove down in that specific spot while holding the connector steady while pulling on the wire to drag the terminal out of the connector, while craning forward, blah, blah, blah...you know, that picture sure doesn't look like they're working on a dashboard crammed up next to a windshield while peering over a gauge cluster...just sayin'.
I suppose those of you with actual electronics experience might be all, "Well DUH John, of course that's how it works!" Fine, fine, whatever. I struggled. Here, look: Piles of tools and stuff in the car...

Piles
...more piles of tools and stuff on the swamp cooler pulled as close to the car as possible...

More Piles
Stuff that was rent asunder being un...rent...asundered. Yeah...

Rent! Asundered!
...all to get this little flashy thing to work properly. It's pretty cool though. Now that I've worked through the process it wouldn't be nearly as bad a second time, but I still hope to never, ever, Ever do it again.

Done! Finally!
The unit has a slight curve on the bottom which makes it not fit all that well on the flat surface above my steering wheel. The double-sided tape seems to be holding it passably well though. Maybe I'll figure out a better way to attach it in the future. At least it's light and isn't likely to put an eye out if it comes loose.

 

Dang, haven't seen that shift light before but it actually looks pretty cool.

One thing I'd take note of on the rev limiter is that it's going to interpolate between those coolant set points. IE the way you have it setup it's going to start tapering down the rev limiter over 200 degrees. If that's what you're after then no worries, but you might consider starting the taper a bit later, say 210 since your car seems to sit close to 200 during normal operation.

Glad to see she's ripping. EBC is one hell of a drug

 

Continuing my fine series of posts that garner absolutely no interest on a technically-minded forum because there's really nothing technical going on, I give you...Food. Again.

More Meatballs! I got some rather odd shadow effects from Plasti Dipping the meatball on my rear decklid so last Saturday evening I decided to try fastening the template down a bit better on my admittedly rather curvy door with that pesky groove in the middle-bottom and a side view mirror that kept jumping in the way of things. There's a reason I started with something nice and flat like the decklid! Anyway, here's how it turned out:

Ugh

...
Aaaand that's why we use Plasti Dip. Peeled (well more like scrubbed) both meatballs off and talked some nice folks on Etsy into making magnetic meatballs in the size I wanted for less than the cost of lunch. (And not that much more than a can of Plasti Dip, but I'll get more use out of the Plasti Dip later.) We'll see how the meatballs look when they arrive.

Sunday morning it was actually cool enough to do a few things so...
1) Put blue loctite on the Street **** bolts

Oh look, blue loctite

You already know what this looks like

Spin a nut loose, add a drop of blue loctite, retighten the nut. Repeat for all six bolts. Easy-Peasy.

2) Do more Catastrophically Bad paint work.

The supplies
I should start off by saying that I Absolutely Despise Dupli-Color paint. Unfortunately it's what my local O'Reilly's and Auto Zone stock, it's cheaper than ordering bespoke paint over the interwebs, and their Toyota Super White II is a considerably closer match to my current paint than white rustoleum is. For an entire panel, sure white rustoleum. For smaller bits of paint leprosy? Yuck, it's dupli-color time.
I started off easy. First was the antenna plug. It came in black. Not a bad color but I wouldn't mind adding some ablative armor paint to help prevent sun rot.

Before

During

After
Take the plug out, paint it, wait a few minutes for the paint to more-or-less dry, slap some silicone on the underside to help prevent leaks, screw the sucker back on, bam, done. Looks fine.

Oh look at the time. I guess I'll have to wax eloquent about Dupli Color's "Filler" Primer later.

 

Ohhh, that is NOT what I want happening! Revamping that chart now. Thank you SimBa!!

 

So where was I? Oh yes, whining about Dupli Color's "Filler" Primer. Let me preface this by saying I am by no means competent at bodywork or paint. In fact, I'm absolutely terrible. But still, when I buy something labeled Filler primer I don't think it's unreasonable to think that it might...oh, I don't know...FILL THINGS.
This has happened a few times now. I pick a bald spot on a car, feather the edges, spray it with filler primer, wait for it to dry, sand it level, then shoot it with paint. At which point the filler primer vanishes and I get big dips in the paint again. Check this out:

Baaaaad
So not only did the primer collapse as soon as it got painted, but it was so watery that it ran under the masking while the paint actually built up layers at the edge. The filler primer is genuinely watery and absolutely not filler-y at all. I was tempted to just sand it all down to the undercoating and start over but I had limited time and that's a really hard spot to sand because of the weatherstripping on the windows, the hardtop (which, yes, I could take off if I had the time) and the curved surfaces. So I just sanded the worst parts by hand...

Insufficiently sanded
...masked off a bigger area that I could hopefully blend the paint in better with (since Toyota Super White II isn't a perfect match), tucking the tape under the weatherstripping in an attempt to keep it from turning out completely awful...

Who WAS that masked man?
...and then painted it again. As with most things bodywork on this car, it's bearable from about 10 feet away if you squint.

Yeah, that's ugly

Ok, now squint. See? Bearable.
Oh, take a look at the windshield while we're here. The white specks are not overspray, kids. Them's the pits. Driving at night is like driving in a sky full of stars. Which would be swell if I wasn't trying to actually see the traffic in front of me.

Oh, I also butchered slightly cleaned up a leprosy patch near the gas cap. Yes, I should have masked off the gas cap. Maybe next time.

Ugly AND Unmasked.
Still, get far enough away and things have improved.

From a distance...

So why rush through a bad paint job on the window frame? Because I like to SEE

Darnit, the hood is loose again. I really should buy a better one.

No. More. Stars.

Ah k'n SEE!! YAYUS!

What a difference. Really Really. It's like...Wow. I can actually see out of the windshield now. That was money well spent.

Still doesn't have cool blinky lights like the shift light does though. That's cool too.

 

I've got a track weekend coming up. Last week I was thinking, "At some point I'm going to need to get accurate HP for the engine so I can classify the car properly. And it would probably be a Good Idea to stop guessing at the tune for the rebuilt engine before I break/melt something. Maybe I should do all of that after the upcoming track weekend."
It then occurred to me that it might be a Good Idea to do all of this BEFORE taking the car to the track and beating on it for hours.

The one picture I took...and my finger is in it.

Not a whole lot happening at the moment.

Bottom lines are "Some of It", top lines are "All of It"

Same here - Bottom line is "Some of It", top line is "All of It"

When we were discussing goals I told Tim that I wasn't looking to squeeze every ounce of power out of the car - I was looking for reasonable power with longevity. So that's what he tuned for. Even the "All of It" tune is pretty conservative, but the car is nice and peppy at the higher boost levels. I intentionally did not build out the engine for high revs (longevity again) but I still see those torque levels plummeting at 5k and have to ignore the little voice screaming "Cams! Double Valve Springs! More Air!!!" Run it like it is, John, run it like it is...

 

Love the updates man, glad you will be getting it back on the track soon. Definitely run the car on the 12psi tune, it looks like you mainly just get a chunk more torque (and heat) with the 16psi tune. I'd also keep an eye on IAT's because it looks like that turbo is basically maxd out even at 12psi. Should be a fun torque curve on the street. Those little subie turbos really run out of air fast even compared to something like a 2554.

The car is really looking cared for now days. Have fun with it!

 

The last time I trailered the Miata to a track I had clearance problems. I got around them by taking the exhaust tip off (and ultimately scorching my rear bumper), borrowing someone's race ramps when I got to the track, and using some spare lumber I had lying around at home as a makeshift race ramp when I got back. It worked, but it certainly wasn't ideal. I looked at race ramps when I got home and yeah...no. Waaaaay too rich for my blood. They're awesome and all, but I don't have that kind of money lying around. So I made something that I think will work. I'll find out in the next few days when I have all of the necessary bits (like the Miata, for starters) at home to try them out.
Basically I just chopped (well, had Home Depot chop because I can't fit a 16' board in my Flex) a 2x12x16 into two 5-foot lengths, and two 3-foot lengths, and a 2x12x4 into two 2-foot lengths.
Brought the boards home, put a 45' edge on one end of each using a circular saw, and then screwed each layer on using deck screws. I have some 2x4 scraps lying around so I threw a beveled 2x4 across the top layer 5 inches back to hopefully encourage the metal trailer ramps to stay in place while the car is driving over the whole shebang. It's all guesswork at this point, but I can always make adjustments since we're just talking about a few screw holes. This thread needs pictures, so here they are:

Measuring where to put the screws. 2" in from the edges sounded like a nice number for the second layer, with three each across the top, middle, and bottom. For the third layer I put them 3" in from the ends, and 2" in from the sides because why not? The 2x4 got 5 screws in a staggered line since I suspect it will see a lot of force.

Two Layers...
It would have been a pleasant Sunday afternoon putting this together on the back porch if I didn't live in the Undocumented 10th Circle of Hell called the Phoenix Metropolitan Area. As it was, the suck factor was pretty high but the results are decent enough.

All the Layers

All done! The total outlay was maybe $75 in materials and a few hours of work. I'll try them out here in a few days, making adjustments as needed. Or just digging out the scrap lumber again. I could do that too.

Ready for use!
Once I'm happy with the setup I'll throw some sealant (or old motor oil) on the ramps to help weatherproof them. I might even paint a pig on them before doing that. Who knows...

Two Little Piggies...

 

As part of my Swell Plan to keep my shiny new engine from spinning things it's not supposed to, burning things it's not supposed to, or making holes in things it's not supposed to, I had oil and temperature low-pressure warning lights put in. They ended up on top of the tombstone for the moment. When/If I can track down lights like the ones IL Motorsport uses I am TOTALLY relocating them into my gauge cluster because it looks AMAZING.

https://www.ilmotorsport.de/en/kg-wo...lack-5175/1948

*Cough* Anyway, here is my current not-as-pretty solution. You can even see where I dremeled the gauge hood back so it wasn't trying to chop through the wiring.

The lights

The thing is when there's direct sunlight (aka what feels like 23 1/2 hours a day in Phoenix in the summer) you can't tell if the lights are on or not because of the sunlight shining through the edges of the warning lights. I'm sure there's a term for that. I have no idea what that term is. Phantom Indication. Thank you Google. So a reasonable solution would be to add a hood to the warning lights. Here's an example made of tape.

Tape Prototype. Yuck.

As you might suspect, the bazillion degree temperatures here made the tape glue melt, smear, and otherwise fail in the most messy way possible. Someday I'll even clean up the residue. Eventually. When I have some spare time.
Now being a proper tech-savvy resident of the 21st century I of course effortlessly prototyped a perfect hood in Fusion 360, whipped out my 3d printer, and printed a hood.

Yeah, right.

I've been trying to learn Fusion 360 so I can make use of SendCutSend. Poor Sean has given me a few pointers and even offered to try to teach me over Discord, but I can't bring myself to put him through that. He's way too nice a guy to have to do that.
Plus I don't even own or know anyone nearby who owns a 3d printer even if I had the plan thingamagummy.

Lo-tech solution it is!

And here's where I had something I wanted to try anyway. As you're all aware fiberglass plays a non-inconsequential role in the automotive industry. It's been superseded by carbon fiber in many applications, but at least conceptually they're really similar - a lightweight yet robust fabric, if you will, molded and then frozen in place in a hardened resin of some sort. Relatively fire resistant, strong, light, etc. My big problem with both of those, though, is the nasty fibers you have to deal with when you work in the stuff - fiberglass fibers are notoriously itchy and get everywhere - some folks try to fill their pores with baby powder before even touching fiberglass fabric to try to fend off some of the inevitable itchiness as tiny glass fibers happily go flying around in whatever space they're introduced to. Like your lungs. No Thanks. Carbon fibers are stupid-sharp and equally bad when they get in your eyes, say. Double No Thanks. So I decided to take a page from the playbook of low-budget surfboard makers. Turns out you can use plain-jane 1.5oz. non woven landscaping fabric (which just happens to be polypropylene - the same thing innegra is made from) with epoxy resin. I bought some of the correct Vigoro landsacaping fabric from my local Home Depot and some Nasubi epoxy resin from Amazon months ago and they've been patiently sitting in the garage waiting for me to work up the gumption to see if this will even work or if it'll all catch on fire or dissolve into useless goo or whatever.
Turns out being unable to see my nifty new warning lights was sufficiently annoying that I finally decided to try it out.
I made a mold out of some spare grill mesh first (I had a brief thought about just using that, but it seemed like it could put an eye out if it decided to go flying around the cabin), wrapped it in plastic wrap, cut out a more-or-less-appropriately-sized piece of landscaping fabric, folded it around the mold, and then scotch-taped portions of it in place because why not? Might as well see what happens when you use scotch tape too. Mixed up the smallest amount of epoxy resin I could (2oz, since the silicone measuring cup's minimum mark was 1oz) and happily glopped the stuff on the fabric. Oh, I took an old bowl with a hairline crack and lined it with plastic wrap to catch drips. The instructions said to wait until the mix was at 180' before using it - since I was doing it on my back porch I figured that was close enough to inferno-like temperatures and just glooped away.
The instructions also said I had about 40 minutes of working time so I put a nice first layer on and went inside to eat dinner. 30 minutes later I came out and...it was already rock hard. Probably has something to do with the part where I was supposed to be working in a 75' environment, not a 110' one. That was fine, though, because I had put enough on in the first coat. I was just experimenting and seeing how reality measured up against the concepts.
I turned the measuring cup over so the leftovers could cure at crazy-high temperatures without cracking the patio table. See?

Epoxy applied

When you're not working in the 10th circle of Hell, curing time is 48 hours. In my case it was pretty much fully cured the next morning.

Freshly cured

Turns out plastic wrap really doesn't stick to epoxy resin, just like they said! Neither does scotch tape as it turns out. Good to know. Here's the hood next to the mold.

Next to the metal mold

Here's the untrimmed hood just sort of jammed on top of the lights

Rough fitting

Scissors wouldn't do anything, but I was able to trim the excess bits off with a pair of tin snips. Then came the next challenge - how to fasten it down? I envision drilling a hole between the two lights, running a screw through the hole to hold a small L bracket in place, and then running a screw through the top of the hood to attach to the L bracket. I have a bunch of other things to do to the car before I load it on the trailer though, so safety wire it is! At least for this trip. We'll revisit hood fasteners later, assuming I don't just relocate them into the gauge cluster. That would be sooooo cool if I do it right...

Trimmed and securely, if ugly-y fastened

The portions of the fabric where the plastic wrap was pressed up against it ended up flat and shiny so it looks like I could do the old aquarium pump/vacuum bag trick with potentially good (or at least interesting) results. My next landscape-fiber project will probably be spats for the car using a chopped up rectangular garbage can from Wal-Mart as a mold. Or maybe even as one of the layers of material in the spats, who knows? I could also potentially use this to beef up whatever material I use for a splitter. I should probably take a chunk and hold a lighter up to it to test fire resistance first, though. Better go grab some of the trimmings from the garbage. And figure out how not to catch on fire if it decides to explode. Which it shouldn't. But just in case. >.>