We only cross front and rear straps in our trailers usually. Occasionally the front has to go straight due to splitters, but if you don't have that issue, no worries about crossing both. That's how we strap on the dyno too, so if it'll hold a car making 350hp, it'll hold one sitting still on the trailer.

Am I reading right that your 6-speed blew at less than 200ft/lbs? I would toss that 6-speed in the trash and just put another in. I've tracked and raced and street driven one at 250-300ft/lbs with no issues in multiple cars, sounds like something was already wrong with yours.

 

Even throwing a good 5 speed in it would last longer than that 6 speed. I ran on one for years at ~240 ft lbs and it held up to a good bit of track abuse. That sketch of your car looks awesome. Honestly better AI rendering than any of the AI FM stickers.

 

Based on my history thus far it seems like it would be wise for me to continue towing the car to tracks. *Sigh* Gee Emm, you're absolutely right about it being more comfortable and having much better capacity for tools, ez-up, etc. It's more complicated, expensive, and tedious than I was shooting for but getting a tow and ride home from hundreds of miles away would be considerably more complicated, expensive, and tedious so it's going to be trailering for the forseeable future.

To rb92673's point, I actually did run axle straps through the rear wheels on the drive out - it didn't change the strap angles significantly, still had to X the straps to get the lengths I needed to use the heavy ratchets, and the ratcheting mechanisms still tried to rub a hole in the straps. Since I've still got the original tie down points on all four corners it's just as simple to use those and I'm not torquing the wheels in funny angles during transport this way. Can they take it? Sure, but why go through more work to do it?
In addition to folks who have fits over X'ing tiedowns, there are others who have fits over strapping the wheels down ("Oh, the alignment!"), others who have fits if you don't fasten the car down by the wheels ("Oh, the suspension!"), others who say only strap to the axles, etc, etc. Since the car still has the tiedown points from when it was shipped over I'm just using those. They were good enough to bring the car across the freaking ocean; they're plenty good enough to bring the car on a three hour drive to a track. It's not like I'm leaving the car strapped to the trailer for weeks at a time or anything.

Curly, I'll wait for your post saying a car leapt hundreds of feet away from the dyno during a tuning run, burst into flames and smashed into a school bus and two minivans, and how you'll never X your tiedowns again. In the meantime I'll continue Xing my rear tiedowns.

Fire and Curly, admittedly that 6 speed was used before Sean put it in the car and it was never the happiest of transmissions when the car came to me. Hopefully this latest "used - worked when we pulled it" 6 speed I bought fares better. I'm still planning on cracking the original (to me) transmission open and seeing if it can be repaired/toughened. They're not in ready supply around here (ok, there's the one guy on Facebook Marketplace asking $1200 for one he says worked fine but I'm not shelling out that kind of cash on the word of some random I don't know) so I want to have a spare handy for the next time this happens.

Regarding AI renderings of my car, admittedly the artwork is far better than I can do, but it isn't as cool looking darnit. That example I posted was kinda frumpy. I want cooooooolllll images. I've been burning through my quota of 10 per day and have gotten some ones I like more, happily.

Slightly cooler looking but what's that under the wing?


This one isn't bad. Much better than I can draw at least.

In other news the meatballs finally arrived. The post office was staggeringly slow on this one - no idea why. Anyway, they look lovely. They were white so I promptly painted them grey.

Grey Plasti Dip all the things!

They stick decently to the side of cars - since the Miata is in the shop I volunteered The Girlfriend's VW SUV for modeling. Wile-E would be proud. (Until he fell in one of the holes.)

There's a hole in the vee-dub dear Liza, dear Liza...

And with magnetic numbers added it all looks like I wanted. A dab of hot glue here and there and I can reconfigure my numbers as needed.

Yup, that's what I was after

 

The black holes are magnetic? We routinely tape at least the leading edge of ours, they can and do peel off on the higher speed circuits. So you see lots of square/rectangular ones ...

Round ones do look much nicer though ...

 

There are a lot of different options, but I like magnetic meatballs and numbers for the durability and flexibility. One downside is as you've mentioned - they can peel off at high speeds. I throw a few dots of hot glue under the leading edge of the magnets to prevent that from happening, but tape would work fine too. Another downside is the potential to attract metal fragments which then can scratch the paint on the car if you don't make sure the magnet is clean before putting it on. I keep my magnets bagged or stuck to the toolbox to minimize that, and since this is the miata we're talking about, honestly no one would even notice another scratch. Poor car.

I know folks typically use square or rectangular backgrounds now but I'm old and I've always loved the classic meatball look. Since the organization I run with is pretty casual about this stuff it's meatballs for me!


Meatballs on a Chapparal 2e


Meatballs on a Shelby Daytona

 

Absolutely, the meatballs have that classic 'is racecar' vibe!

I should have added, the use I was referencing was club days, participants driving to the track in their precious cars, not wanting to apply big sticky panels and then risk paint damage on removal. That includes me, now that I have just had a super expensive paint job on the car!

I read the glue as holding the numbers onto the meatball. Do you see any impact of the glue on the paintwork when you remove the meatball?

We have standing instructions to users - before applying clean and polish their doors, and wipe clean the magnetic surface. Another tip is to first apply the leading edge tape to a window, then remove and apply to the magnetic sheet - this reduces the stickiness noticeably, while still doing the job required, and reduces the likelihood of paint damage on removal.

 

I haven't had any issues but I've always used literally just dots of hot glue on old, well-cured paint, no PPF, and most importantly nothing show-worthy. If I had a nice paint job or PPF then I'd be using painter's tape to secure the leading edge rather than hot glue. Sticking tape on the window first to reduce stickiness is a really good idea!
For really pretty paint jobs I'd use vinyl numbers, cleaning the surface thoroughly first just like you said and avoid tape altogether. I've had painter's tape take off the paint on the miata in spots - most recently when I was drilling the trunk area for the wing. Admittedly they were old respray areas that I suspect weren't prepped well but still... I do have a different car with pretty paint and I even have a set of vinyl meatballs for it but ended up switching to the Miata because race prepping/fixing the Miata is sooo much cheaper and I can't afford to wad up the pretty car if/when I screw up.
Some folks in my organization just make temporary numbers out of painter's tape too. It ain't purty but it works! Heck, that's what I did on an old super vee I had about 15 years ago...

Tape Numbers FTW!

 

Visited the Miata in the shop a few times over the past few days - the transmission came in last Thursday! It looks surprisingly good, at least on the outside.

We've got to stop meeting like this...


The transmission has landed! Judging from the condition of the pallet it must have been a pretty hard landing.

Mad Props to Jeff (and Steve, the mechanic he has do all of my crazy Miata stuff) because they watched all of the videos from the recent threads on hardening the Miata NB 6 speed transmissions and said, "Yeah sure, let's do it!" So they're planning to do the weld mod on the input shaft in the new transmission (assuming it isn't too nightmarish to get at)...

This one

...and they're planning to tear into the old transmission to see if it's repairable and harden it if it is. Based on one of the videos Jeff is wondering if it's that sleeve that needs to have the notches dremeled back in since it matches the symptoms. We'll find out once they're in there.
For the power levels we're talking about right now the plan is to not do the circlip mod on the new transmission. Depending on the condition of the old transmission that mod may still be on the table. We'll see. More from this Tale of Two Transmissions as things progress.

In the meantime I'm taking on the tasks that someone with my level of stupidity can field. Namely battling with stripped screws to take off the headlight cover...

That wasn't fun to get out

...to prep for installing one of these (currently in the paint booth aka my back yard)...

Who doesn't love NACA ducts?

This was a cheap second. That's my speed all right

I got it on discount because it was cracked. They even put an epoxy patch on it before sending it over. Considering the condition of my car I'm totally fine with that. The new headlight cover is in the process of being badly painted now because that's the level of bodywork I can manage.

I also just had to order stuff from Revlimiter.net during the labor day sale. I love the look of, well, pretty much everything Adam has over there and I could really use some automotive therapy right now anyway.
So! I put two of the new goodies on the car on Saturday. Fortunately Jeff is cool having me putter around in the middle of his shop. Have I mentioned he's Good People? Because he is.

Tearing the Tombstone apart yet again

Hats make handy organizers

Ta Daa! New Horn Button and Retro Hazard and Headlight Switches!

I am Very Happy to say that the new horn button didn't require cobbling together parts and using lots of hot glue like the etsy one did. I'm much happier with this one. The Retro Hazard and Headlight switches were completely unnecessary and I Love them regardless. They also match the toggles that Sean used so I'm just extending the theme, right? I had to get them, right? It's an aesthetics thing!

I also tried out some different style flush-mount warning lights to potentially replace the monsters I currently have for oil and water pressure. If I use them I'll probably have to relocate them directly in front of me though - they're plenty bright when they're head-on, but you can't see them as well off to the side. Still trying to figure out where I'd put them if I do. Maybe in the gauge console, maybe next to the tach light (although I'd have to make little hoods if I did), maybe in that boxy thingy just behind the steering wheel...I dunno. I could angle them too, I guess.

Miata included for scale - FM Style

 

I'm sure it comes as a surprise to No One Ever that the Miata is still at the shop.

Yup. Definitely Still At The Shop

This is so thrilling that I decided to commemorate the occasion by letting Google's AI butcher re-imagine the picture. Attempt #1 is pretty innocuous. Wrong on many levels, but innocuous. Apparently the shop is at Potato street. Or maybe that's Fat aio street. Who knows.

AI recombobulating my latest shop pic

Attempt #2 looks similar...until you take a closer look at the shops in the background. Does that say "Sex Business", and "Loves"? Whoa, Nelly! Admittedly the shop isn't in the best neighborhood, but it isn't like that!!

AI re-recombobulating my latest shop pic even worse.

In other news I finally finished painting the NACA duct headlight cover. More accurately I got tired of sanding down the blemishes and repainting the thing repeatedly so it's just going to have to be what it is. I tried ordering replacements for the trashed screws from my friendly neighborhood Mazda dealer only to find the screws are out of production like so much else on my little NA. One trip to Ace Hardware later and I've got six close-enough-for-government-work replacements in stainless steel - same length, head, material (I think) and thread pattern. The only significant difference is the washers aren't permanently attached. I bought extra so I had spares, just in case.
I haven't put the headlght cover on because it would just get covered in greasy handprints. It can wait until the car gets home - I can get plenty of greasy handprints on it here at home without help from the shop.

Freshly rinsed aaaaand...good enough.

Ready to screw around!

As of yesterday afternoon the replacement transmission has migrated to a bench and the bellhousing has been removed, exposing the soon(ish)-to-be-welded input shaft.

Disassembly started

Input Shaft

But wait! What have the sharp-eyed readers spotted? A random metal bit next to the key to my Ford Flex?

One Side...

The Other Side

Jeff says that's pretty normal - when opening used transmissions it's not at all uncommon for chunks to fall out. It's usually just a piece from a larger gear and they just file down the sharp edges on the gear itself and move on. They'll figure out where it came from as the disassembly continues. The plan is to do the weld mod on that input shaft, make sure the rest of the transmission looks good, then bolt the thing up and get it on the car. Apparently Jeff's mechanic doesn't want to leave the transmission apart for any longer than they absolutely have to, so in theory all of this will happen in the next few days. If there was a "holding my breath" emoji I'd put it here. We'll just have to pretend.

 

Are you also having the circlip mod done?

I am lining up a local shop to do both, as soon as I decide whether to do the gearbox in the car, or the spare.

 

IIRC He's doing both the circlip mod and having the gear welded to the shaft, which I think should be very interesting for all of us who are pushing the 6 speeds.

 

We're probably not going to do the circlip mod on the replacement transmission for the following reasons:
1) Time: We don't have a confirmed source for a strengthened circlip and there's no telling how long the machine shop will take to machine the deeper slot in the 4th gear countershaft. I'd like to have the car back on the road in time for the next event in less than three weeks. A little prep time beforehand would be nice too.
2) Knowledge: No one involved has been through the process before and the 4th gear countershaft looks to be pretty far in there. Assuming the rest of the replacement transmission looks ok the general consensus is to leave this one alone for now. This isn't the ideal transmission to experiment with.
3) Power: My little 1.6 doesn't put out anywhere near enough power to make tearing into the replacement transmission that much a necessity. Welding the input shaft? Sure - it looks to be pretty easy to get to and since heat is a factor in the failure it addresses there's a definite need.

BUT

On the failed transmission that's coming out of the car? Different story. Assuming it is repairable (which based on the symptoms it may very well be) then it's getting the full treatment. We'll have the time to source/reengineer what we need to make the circlip mod fly in addition to welding the input shaft and repairing/replacing the sleeve that's preventing me from shifting into 5th and reverse. The plan is to have a nicely hardened 6 speed waiting for this replacement transmission's sudden but inevitable betrayal.

Timeless...

 

It is interesting and cool! But we're gonna need him to pump those numbers up to do some real testing.

 

I see what you did there Fire. And you'd have even more evidence if your inbox wasn't full!

Yes, I'm in the process of number pumping too - I'm hoping things will be in place by the next track day as but I'm not posting about it until it's definite. That's part of the reason I need the car back!

 

Lol! I cleaned out my inbox today. I've been slacking. That said, it's 2025, give me more friggin inbox space ffs!

 

Visited the car last weekend...

*Sigh*
Jeff was thinking they'd have the transmission back together last Monday-ish and the car back to me this week. I talked to him earlier this week and he said, "We're remembering why we don't like working on manual transmissions". Happily the input shaft is welded, the one ball bearing that escaped has been located behind Patrick's toolbox, and I confirmed with Jeff today that the transmission is back together and ready to put back in the car. Hopefully early next week.
It would have been nice to have the car back this week because it turns out the local SCCA Solo Autocross chapter is having their Autocross School tomorrow! I've never ever done autocross before but watching you guys all zipping around killing cones made me want to try it out. I signed up for it anyway even if I can't take the car I want. There's always plan B.

Anyway, here's a picture of of the transmission in more pieces from earlier this week...

Pieces! Such Moar!

...Google's AI interpretation of the aforementioned transmission and bits...

It appears the fromitz hyperthreader is out of alignment by at least two kilofezzes

...and apparently the reason this whole process is taking so long is because my sweet little car has transmogrified into Miatron and is demanding better grade fluids.

 

Completely unrelated to anything, but we get a really neat view of Space-X launches from here sometimes.

There are times when I look up in the sky and really feel like I live in the 21st Century.


I had never done autocross, like, ever, but I've driven by a few locations where they were doing it and it looked like fun. Seeing all of the videos from other folks here definitely supported that theory. Three weeks ago, after reading posts about how doing autocross was a great way to find your car's limits and improve your driving I decided to see what options were available in my area. I did a quick web search and found out the local SCCA chapter was doing an autocross school that weekend and it was the last day to register! So even though my stalwart Miata was still stuck in transmission hell I signed up and brought plan b car instead. I reeeeeallly wish the Miata had been ready. There were tons of Miatas there. Like, Tons. I tried to take a picture of the entire grid, but it was too sunny to see my phone and I cut off one of the cars. I got most of the grid though.

The Field. There are multitudes of Miatas out there.

I sucked of course. First time out and all. It was really fun though, and my instructor for the morning turned out to be this guy! https://vault.autocrossdigits.com/?d...Stephen%20King
Again, I really wish I'd had my Miata. Stephen knows Miatas. He still helped a bunch though.

The course was a bunch of, well, here's the course.

Da Bears, Da Bulls, Da Course

Like any other newbie autocrosser it was absolutely bewildering trying to make sense of this sea of cones, but by the end of the day I was at least able to kinda figure out where I was supposed to be going.

See the Sea Out Yonder? Well it's there regardless.

The absolute best part of the day was doing two ride-alongs with Stephen in his friend's Miata. Oh. My. Gawd. Soooooo much fun! I was literally laughing and clapping at the end of the first run.

Ultimately I managed to knock around 14 seconds off of my course time by the end of the day - still 10 seconds slower than Stephen (who wasn't even driving his own car and probably wasn't going ten tenths anyway) but I figure that's plenty good for day 1.


Timeslips from the morning session. I managed to get my time down to 52.8-something by end of day. Many cones gave their lives...

Unfortunately I won't be able to attend another SCCA autocross event for a few months because of schedule conflicts and the fact that I'm a newbie, but I'll be back out there later in the fall, hopefully with my Miata this time!!! Having to wait for cooler weather might not be such a bad thing anyway - I was pretty fried working station 6 for 2 1/2 hours on a still-hot-Phoenix-day. I ended up buying one of those goofy hats with a huge brim and built-in neck protection. It's my new track buddy.

 

My next track event was October 18th-19th. The car went into the shop for a new transmission on, what, September 2nd? No problem, right? Right??? Pssssh.
They got the replacement transmission in the car. The replacement one that worked fine, right? Right??? Pssssh.
I get a call. "That replacement transmission you bought has the same problem your original transmission did - it won't go into 5th or Reverse."

At this point I owe TREMENDOUS Thanks and PosCats Galore to SimBa and Gee Emm. Thanks to the videos from our recent discussions about Transmission Hardening, my local shop now can repair (and harden) 6 speed NA/NB Miata transmissions. As per the advice from the Oz resident in the video series they cleaned up some mysterious sleeve in my original transmission and it's working great now.
Unfortunately the whole process took a while (learning curve, other people's broken cars at the shop, and a few other parts going on the car) soooo...I didn't get the car back until the 17th. Still in time, just not a whole lot of time for track prep. Like, hardly any.

Changes:
1) I ended up with my original transmission (now with a spot welded input gear/shaft/thingy and cleaned up sleeve thingy) back in the car, and now there's this expensive, broken replacement transmission that I'll get to pay to have fixed as a spare. Jeff plans to call the vendor to have a discussion about this.

Y-U-Broke?!?

Flying Miata got a few of the rear brake kits I wanted in much earlier than the projected Christmas timeline. Ouch. Ouchouchouchouch. >.< Thank Heavens for PayPal's pay over time feature. Ouch.
I don't regret it though - the car has all the stops I was after now, and I'm constantly using the emergency brake (not for drifting - for keeping the car from rolling off while I have the engine running for other stuffs and can't leave it in gear.)
The shop thought the car was done on the 16th, but when I test drove it there was this chunk, chunk, chunkchunk, chunkchunkchunk, chunkchunkchunkchunkchunk going on so it stayed there an extra day while they figured out the emergency brake bracket was rubbing, but only when the car was on the ground and traveling at speed. Adjustments were made and the car was good to go the next day.

Moar Rear Brakes!!

Another change. My thread title is no longer completely accurate. I guess I'll have to change my signature too. I blame all of you guys who went and bought cool new turbos!!! Ok, it didn't help that the tuner guy kept saying, "That's such a small turbo!" and then I made the mistake of talking to the PO Sean who said he had an upgrade path planned out and a VF39 would just drop right in. I was chatting with Fireindc about a good vendor, and then while I was browing on ebay I made a super-lowball offer on a chinesium VF39 with an 11+0 billet wheel thinking they wouldn't possibly accept it.
Oops.

Jumping on the bandwagon...

As you might suspect, the car was...impacted...by the change in turbos. Since I didn't have time to get it to the tuner before the track day I threw an autotune at it and managed to get the AFRs more-or-less-reasonable and the car idling sort-of-smoothly again. The AFRs got pretty high under low/no load conditions but I didn't hear any detonation so I frantically ran around doing other other track-prepping things:
Swapped the front roof latches for the bolt-on metal plates
Cut away a bit more of the heat shield for better brake line clearance
Ran to Ace Hardware to get the correctly sized bolts so I could finally properly secure the heat shield in place
Put the digital supplemental gauge panel back in
Gassed up the Miata
Gassed up the Tow Vehicle (aka the Flex)
Loaded the car on the trailer
Adjusted the new tie-down chains to the proper length (cotter pins are No Fun when you have to adjust a chain length repeatedly)
etc, etc.

Incidentally, Supplemental Ramps V1.5 worked great! Much smoother transitions between boards, no more bucking bronco action, really clean. The tie down chains for the front were also a nice, simple feature as long as I got the car centered fairly well. And the chain lengths properly adjusted. Should be much easier in the future.

Finally got to bed, got a few hours of sleep, and then off for the tow to a really interesting track. But that's a story for another time.








Oh, the other change. The Girlfriend Moved Out. Welp, at least I've got more room in the garage now. >.<

 

Jesus man, your new trans wouldn't go into 5th/reverse either? I know of 2 others locally with the same issue, in addition to mine (I unknowingly bought that way). I still have mine sitting the the garage but it's basically junk to me. I looked at what's involved to fix that issue, and it's not something I want to attempt. I got a quote from Jacks Transmissions to rebuild it but that was like $5k so I figure it will sit around forever, or I'll find someone that wants it.

Curious to see how the ultra-chinesium turbo holds up and what kinda numbers you get out of it!

Sorry to hear about the GF, but at least you have us to talk to. And we listen <3.

 

Yes! No Bueno on the new transmission! I was less-than-pleased, let's say. Especially for the money they wanted. Although in their defense I believe the problem doesn't crop up unless the transmission is mounted in a car. If they tested it loose then it would seem to work fine - at least I think that's what my shop discovered with both my and the replacement transmission. No idea why mounting it up would affect how the sleeve moves, but there you have it. The silver lining from this whole thing though is Steve at Carmel Automotive is spun up on the NA/NB 6-speeds and can actually repair and harden them to some extent. He's comfortable tearing the transmissions down, can fix that 5th/Reverse problem by cleaning up the sleeve that jams, and he's now well-versed with the spot weld input shaft mod - Once I can source the heavier duty circlips that's an option too, but I'm not putting out that kind of horsepower yet. Unfortunately Mazdaspeed doesn't make the hardened gearsets for the early 6 speeds, but again I'm not making that much power anyway. So if you ever get down to Phoenix AZ, bring your broken 6-speeds because Steve can fix them. And it won't be $5k either. Crikey - that's crazy-cost.

Regarding the chinesium turbo, the sad thing is I looked at some of the turbos from the seller your brother suggested but I got scared off by the 90.9 seller rating. This other guy I bought mine from still had over 2,500 sales with a 99.5% rating so I figured his stuff blew up less. :\ If I'd seen your message before making the joke offer, I'd have gone with your brother's guy regardless.
To skip ahead a bit, the turbo has seen two track days and is still spinning - the car desperately needs a proper tune though. The plan is to go get a retune next week before the next track day.

Thanks for your kind words on the GF departure. I'm burying my sorrow in car parts. Expensive, but at least I've got something to show for it when the weekends are over rather than a nasty hangover.