Thanks for the input guys. I had a couple people say they didn't like the on/off switch of the SM clutch which is why I decided to go with the FM2. I'll definitely keep the FM1 pressure plate around and might try out Curly's hybrid setup in the future, but hopefully I won't be needing another clutch for a good while.

I've got the clutch, but unfortunately life is in the way for a couple days. Hopefully I'll have it installed by the end of the week.

The stock-ish NC was actually a really good time out at autocross. There was so much time to react to everything. Even floored you still have so much time between elements.

Alright, the transmissions back in and I've been getting some break in miles on the clutch. I would've been further along on this but a work trip took me out of the state for 4 days. I've put about 200 miles on the clutch so far and need to have it fully broken in by the weekend since it's our last event of the season.

While the transmission was out of the car I opted to swap out the speedo gear again. The first 3D printed one I had been using failed and the second one was the same design/print settings so I figured it was on it's way out. I got some printing tips and had the Ender 3 spit out a new one.

https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...a929070f7d.jpg

Note to self, when you do this job tilt the back of the transmission up so you don't end up with a puddle of trans fluid on the floor.


https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...3632e2f23e.jpg



Sure enough, when I did get the old one out it was starting to lose teeth just like the old one.


https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...b42a999031.jpg


While I was waiting on the clutch to show up I installed new master and slave cylinders. I figured they hadn't been done and weren't super expensive to replace. For the reliability it seemed worth it.

The firewall paint was bubbling/flaking off behind the clutch master, so I scrubbed it back a bit and hit it with some black rust reformer spray. Pretty mediocre job but the cylinder will cover it up anyway. Of course I neglected to get a photo after painting it.


https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...3dba822c15.jpg



These are in theory the same disk, but one is the new revision and the other is the old revision. The 6 spring disk is the new design, so hopefully that won't have the spring pocket failure. Looking at it closer now, it looks like the springs have been moved towards the center of the disk so there is more material from the spring pocket to the outside of the disk. The holes in the corners seem like they would be added to prevent cracking or to prevent cracks from spreading. I'll cross my fingers.

https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...6bf5502b4d.jpg



And then I bench pressed the transmission back in over the course of 3 session of trying. I had to apologize to my knees as they got pretty banged up supporting the rear of the trans. Thankfully Zak had provided some knee pads alongside something I purchased from him previously. Pretty sure I'll pull the engine next time I have to do this job or grab a transmission jack...

https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...2233e5a17e.jpg


And we're back on the ground and rolling. I'm actually about to head out to fix some lingering issues. I think the exhaust is slightly misaligned and is causing some crazy vibrations/resonance inside the car at certain RPM. That's causing a rattle in the parcel shelf to be amplified like crazy. I'll measure and realign the PPF since I've got a bit more transmission decel noise than normal. Nothing crazy, but some quality of life stuff that will make the next week of breaking in the clutch more enjoyable.

As far as the clutch goes, well it's a heavy pedal for sure. I'm getting used to it, but it feels pretty close to the non-hydraulic clutch pedal on the '63 Chevy. I think I'm impartial at this point. I wouldn't necessarily recommend it, but I also wouldn't steer someone away from it. If I have the engine/trans pulled in a couple years and have easier access and a known better solution then I might swap it out, but for now I think it'll be in there doing reps until failure.

I also think my brake calipers are going to need to be rebuilt or replaced this winter. After driving a rental car with a super touchy brake pedal for a week I realized how soft the pedal in the Miata feels. Honestly I didn't love the pedal feel at ORP, but it didn't seem like an actual issue, just a poor job bleeding the brakes or something. I think the rear caliper is starting to go out, it seemingly tightened itself up at one point and there was a bit of fluid on the adjuster screw. I've also been getting some brake noise/squeaking that I don't normally get among other things, but that could partially be due to having the track pads on still. Honestly I haven't felt the need to upgrade to a bigger brake kit, so I'll likely just rebuild the rotors in the winter if I can find a good bang for buck rebuild kit. I'm definitely looking forward to finally having fresh rotors, pads, hardware, etc... on the braking system.

On the printed gears; Igus has some materials that are designed for this kind of applications. Siraya also has some ceramic-filled resins if you want to give resin printing a go.

I've only really printed with PETG since I got my own printer, but I have started looking into other filaments. I think the PETG will hold up if it's printed with the right settings.

I'll look into those other filaments though. 3D printing for the car is just more and more intriguing to me.

That is the funniest damn thing I've seen all week. I sh*t you not, I looked at the knee pad photo before reading further and thought, "Damn, that's pretty solid ingenuity right there!" right before reading my name in the next sentence. Those purple rags are such an integral part of my life, I didn't even bat an eye or realize those were originally mine :rofl:

Glad you were able to get the clutch in and can't wait to read about this weekend's event as per usual.

I think those ones were used to wrap up the injectors you sold me, but I can't be completely sure. I think I've collected 4 of those rags now?

In other news I've been putting more miles on the clutch. I still haven't floored it but I've gotten into boost a couple times. I'm getting used to the weight of the clutch and I think it'll be fine. Man... 500 miles is a lot when you're averaging 35 an hour or less. I'm just over 300 now and I doubt I'll hit a full 500 before the weekend. I don't think it should matter too much considering I probably won't be launching the car this weekend due to cold/rainy conditions.

My brakes have been giving me some issues as well. A lot of noise and one of the calipers seems to be dragging. After the track day I noticed the car was pretty difficult to push around in the garage so I adjusted the rear drivers side caliper. Then the pedal seemed too soft, so I adjusted it again. Well after fiddling with it more it was screeching and a temp gun showed it being significantly hotter (maybe 30-40* F) than the other pads after a drive. I got the caliper off the bracket today (for the first time ever) and lubed the slide pins up liberally. Everything seems fine now aside from some other brake noise. The pedal feels good and the car rolls more freely when coming to a stop. There was a good amount of persuasion (read BFH) required to get the caliper separated, so I'm not surprised that cleaning and lubing helped.
https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...a8cf9c15ee.jpg

https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...4f9ec58044.jpg
Uneven wear, presumably from the caliper slide bolts being unhappy


I know it's a cliché, but I've barely done anything to the brakes on this car. I have had them on my list since last winter and they're definitely getting done this winter. Fresh rotors, pads, stainless lines and likely rebuilding or at least cleaning up all the calipers. At this point I'm just limping the car along until after this weekend when the seasons over. We're getting pretty close to freezing temps up here anyway, so the car's probably got another month or so before it'll be sitting more often.

I wouldn't worry too much about the breakin. I probably should have cared more, but we retuned my car on high boost less than 100 miles after I got mine in. It hasn't skipped a beat, but there were a few times on hard shifts when it was fresh that I felt it slip after a shift and then grab. now that it has more miles on it it doesn't feel that way any more.

This is the scary part. each time you risk glazing the friction.
And having to pull and scuff or replace the clutch yet again, so soon after already doing it.

Yeah, you only make that mistake once.


In reality it's not the miles that matter, it's the number of "stoplight" starts, and heat cycles you get into it.
The real goal is to wear the friction to flush with the flywheel and pressure plate, without overheating the friction.

Last week was relatively chill while breaking the clutch in. Pretty generic grandma style street miles which was a bummer, but necessary I suppose.

Last Friday I took the car out in the afternoon (not working right now as a mini sabbatical) and when I pulled back in a noticed a sizeable puddle on the floor of the garage. It was pretty obviously coolant, and having noticed the turbo sounded like a frying pan a couple times lately after parking it, I assumed there was something going on with the coolant lines. Sure enough, tugging on the coolant feed line to the turbo resulted in a nice sizzling sound. So, having a Mark Rebillet concert to go to in a couple hours and autocross the next day, I proceeded to speedrun pulling the turbo to get access to the coolant feed line.

I wasn't sure if it was the banjo fitting or the hose itself that was causing the issue, but once I had the turbo off and the line pulled it was pretty obvious that the hose clamps and heat had cut the hose up a good amount.

https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...e4e8ff8f8d.jpg
https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...047873690a.jpg


I slapped things back together just in time for my buddy to show up to head to the concert. I want to say it was about 1.5 hours to pull, reinstall the turbo, and do a quick bleed of the coolant, which would be a pretty decent record for me. I also needed to add some more coolant as we're starting to see freezing temps around here.

The concert was fun and I ran off to autocross in the morning. It was a cold, rainy day. Very reminiscent of the first event I went to after buying the car. I had about 420 miles on the clutch when I got to the event, but I doubt I stressed it too bad over the course of the weekend. It was cold both days and quite wet on Saturday, so traction was a struggle. Regardless, it was a fun time and I got a couple childhood friends out to ride in the car which was a good time for everyone.

https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...2264acae0e.jpg



The car has been running well with the colder weather. There's still some fine tuning to do on cold starts and such, but really everything is running pretty well. I'm actually surprised how well everything is running given that it's still E85 in cold temps. It's not perfect, but I wouldn't hesitate to throw the keys to someone with a small asterisk. On that note, the clutch is still heavy, but I've largely gotten used to it. I jumped in my Subaru and could barely tell that I had depressed the clutch pedal because it's so light. Not saying I love the heavy pedal, but I don't mind it nearly as much as I first did. I'd still say the level 1 is the way to go unless you really need that last ~40 lb/ft of torque capacity.

So the autocross season has come to and end and I'm pretty sure I've secured 2nd place. I would've loved to have taken 1st again, but the guy who won in his 2.5 swapped NC is a really fun guy to race against and a solid driver, so I'm not mad about that. Having close competition has made the sport way more exciting and engaging.

I took the car on a cruise up to one of the favorite mountain/ski hill roads which was a nice refresher after all the city driving. Unfortunately it was a reminder that garage season is approaching quickly.
https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...1a961af2fc.jpg


But, while the offseason is approaching, I've been having fun with the 3d printer. I took some time to model some clips and such, which has been pretty fun. I figure this winter will be a refinement period, working on polishing what I've got. Things like wiring and hoses will hopefully rub less and be a bit more organized.


https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...64a4aa6143.jpg
https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...b53d52a212.jpg
https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...3da7396af8.jpg
Reroute clip for the rear of the intake manifold.


None of these are final, but if I get them refined enough to be happy with them then I'll upload them somewhere. Half of this is to fix small issues with the car and the other half is because I need a project to justify the printer I bought recently (~$160 for a refurbished printer seems pretty worth it if you can print usable stuff).

I didn't grab any photos but I did clean up some stuff in the engine bay today as well. Mostly just removing excess wiring, hoses, padding, etc... But don't worry, I've got some rear hubs sitting in a box - if nothing else - to keep me busy in the near future.

Nice to see the car out again. Good driving and the car looks like a handful on cold pavement. I always enjoy taking people out in the car who haven't experienced a turbo Miata to get their reactions.

Ah, sucks to miss out on first to a boat.

But i'm literally in the same boat. Local guy i've been battling in a 2.5 swapped NC just barely edged me out with drops (he was more consistently there).

Thanks guys. Definitely a bummer to get 2nd this season, but the guy who won definitely deserves it and I stole 1st from him last year by 1 point. We had one of our national champs running XB for the first couple weekends of the season as well, so that bumped me down a couple spots and lost me a good number of points with the way my attendance worked out. Oh well, I'll still get my little plastic trophy one way or another.

It was a weekend of throttle control for sure. Cold wet pavement and being a single driver weren't helping me out at all. Always fun to get new people in the car, it's nothing like watching from the outside.

I stopped reading here. Jealous as hell. Did he play Girl's Club? Please tell me he plays Girl's Club live hahaha.

Good stuff all around dude! Like Nate said, the car must be a handful on cold pavement, but it looks like you two are getting along really well. Nice throttle control and oversteer corrections as usual.

No comment from the yacht club. Anything I can say will be biased. On the real, though, congrats on the podium spot in the overall! Close competition above all else is the sh*t.

Hell yeah he played Girls Club live! Most of the set was his usual improvised style but at the end he took some requests as well. He played Your New Morning Alarm as well which is actually the alarm I use, so that was pretty great as well. He made everyone get down and "sleep" and everyone jumped up when it dropped. Definitely would recommend going to one of his shows if you're a fan. I was just surprised he ended up in Boise since we don't get nearly as many shows as Salt Lake, Portland or Seattle.

Dude that sounds insane hahaha. What a blast. I'm gonna have to listen to Morning Alarm again, forgot about that gem lol.

So, autocross season is over and offseason projects begin. I changed the oil and drained some coolant to get to a mixture that will be more appropriate for the temps we'll see here in the winter. I had a bucket for the coolant, but instead I emptied the entire radiator onto the floor of the garage. Frankly I don't like the "drain plugs" on the SuperMiata radiator so I've just been pulling the lower rad hose. They double as the fan mount and I just haven't found them as easy to use as a standard drain plug like the OEM rad has. I'll figure that out at some point in the future, but regardless, the coolant is out of the radiator. I also saved the oil filter so I can cut it open when I get bored. This filter should have the track day and our last autocross event on it, so if anything is going to shit this should let me know.

Today I opted to do a job I've thought about for a while now. When I swapped on the eBay Skunk2 throttle body I neglected to match the intake manifold to the throttle body. Even worse, I cut a shoddy gasket that overhung even the stock intake manifold opening. So, to remedy that I pulled the upper half of the manifold off today, filed down the hole where the throttle body sits and cut a new wider gasket.


https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...83c4d304e6.jpg
Old setup, note how much the gasket is poking out
https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...4aacc5f73b.jpg
WD40 used to transfer the gasket shape
https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...89be45d726.jpg
Filed down intake manifold
https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...14d63a08c3.jpg
Finished product


I definitely should have done this when I put the TB on, but I assume I was a bit rushed and was probably more worried about potential drivability issues than performance optimizations. I could probably do a slightly better job than this, but I think this is good enough for now.

I took the car out for a rip and can pretty confidently say the cars making 300 WHP now. This could be due to the throttle body or more likely the colder ambient temps, but this is the first time it's shown 300+ on a VD graph that I'm not suspicious of. I wouldn't be surprised if the TB porting gained 3-10 horsepower, but I'm not diligent enough with my data collection to say.
To be fair I did correct the weight here, as I looked at some of my notes and I had more fuel in the car, among other things, that would increase the weight. I will hopefully borrow some scales this winter to get a better idea of the actual weight, as things like the SM Rad, lightweight flywheel, added sound deadener, etc... will have made some difference.

I also did some pulls to see how much a difference having the windows up vs down would do, but shockingly I couldn't get good enough data to come to any conclusion. I guess bumps in the road are more important than anything else. For context, I took 4 runs, 2 with the windows up and 2 with the windows down and got 1 pull from each that didn't have some weird spike.
https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...b9726b38db.jpg

I cruised around in the car a bit this weekend and also got a CEL for my O2 Sensor hitting a voltage warning. I really appreciate that the Link supports stuff like that, because sure enough my AFRs were all over the place once I started paying attention, reading about 0.7-1 points rich. I think the issue was just a loose connector which is unsurprising since that plug got melted at one point, so maybe that'll get replaced this winter.

But yeah, the car still rips and the turbo still sounds great. I'm pretty confident this winter will be more refinement than evolution. I'm working on prototyping a bracket for the wastegate that I'll be able to get CNC'd by a friend or SendCutSend to replace the stack of washers I've got now. I also just 3d printed new bumpers for my trunk lid which seems to have made a pretty big difference in the noise generated by the trunk flapping around. I oversized them a bit compared to the ones I pulled off the car, assuming they were compressed over the years and especially by the additional load from the wing. No pictures of those somehow, but I can grab them if someone's interested.

https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...56aeed1f8b.jpg
Prototype 1 which was a failure. This took about 10 minutes to draw and another 10 to print, so not too bad aside from the wasted material.

Nothing flashy, but I've been putting a bit of work in on the car the past week or so.

My windows were pretty slow to go up or down and the passenger side had a good amount of front to back play. I figure that meant I'd need new window bushings so I 3d printed a couple of those off of Thingiverse. Once I got the door panel off the passenger side I realized the current bushings were in tact, but had gummed up over the years. I know that I added some type of lube to the tops of the sliders early on when I got the car, so I'm at least partly to blame here.

I remember thinking the job was pretty intimidating when I first got the car but it isn't too bad. I ended up having to pull the whole window regulator out which I would rather not do in the future but it wasn't too bad. I need to figure out a source for some of the plastic clips back there. Two or three of the ones on the passenger side were busted.

For the drivers side I just gave the window rails a reacharound with some extra lube. That side wasn't nearly as bad, so I think it'll work for now. I wouldn't be surprised if I end up pulling that apart and giving it a deep clean this winter, but we'll see.

https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...05bccdd5bb.jpg
https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...05f8b9ce85.jpg
https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...6be9fc5344.jpg
https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...4578ebc68c.jpg



I also had a "wow you're an idiot" moment during that job. The door handle on the NB has a little trim cup that slides over the door handle/lock mechanism. For as long as I can remember I have been leaving that on when pulling the door cards which requires tucking the door card material back behind the trim upon reinstallation. I thought that was a weird design.

You just pull the stupid cup off and reinstall it after the door panel... :bang: I guess I never thought about it too hard, but wow...

https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...ae46e06e5d.jpg


I've also been enjoying the 3d printed trunk bumpers. I oversized these a bit and I think they've really tightened up the trunk. It doesn't rattle now and closing it gives a confident thunk. I assume they've quieted down a bit of road noise/rattling as well, but the car rattles enough in other places that I can't say for sure. They're printed in TPU so they are a bit spongy/rubbery.

https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...588ea9d65c.jpg


And finally I cleaned up my headlights. I've attempted to do this a number of times in the past, but another guy at autocross called me out on my headlights being foggy, so I figured I needed to try again. This was actually one of the first things I did to the car, but over the years I think the coating has failed. I've also made a couple half-assed attempts which have just made things worse. I think there were at least a few different layers of clear coat, headlight sealant, etc... on the lenses so I busted out the 400 grit to start and spent an hour on each headlight getting through all the shit that I've slazzed on them over the years. After that I used a Mothers kit to wet sand and polish them. That kit didn't come with any sealant, so I'm curious to see how it'll hold up. There is a good amount of polish in the kit and a polishing attachment for a drill, so I assume if they get hazy in a couple months I can polish them back up pretty quickly.

Not perfect, but the best they've been in a while.

https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...3c4ad7e60e.jpg
https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...84d40f6551.jpg
https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...4b7224b5e1.jpg


The passenger side looks a lot clearer than the drivers side in that photo but it's just the lighting. In person they're both pretty clear.

The passenger side headlight was also missing one of it's mounting tabs. Naturally, I looked at the drivers side, took some measurements and 30 minutes later had a bracket ready to glue on.
https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...76f76c3d57.jpg

As usual, not perfect, but I think it'll hold.

Took the car out for a joyride last night and as usual it was excellent. The windows go up and down much better now and the headlights seem to be a bit brighter. I fixed a small issue with the tune where my idle offset for my fans was like 3% so it would cause the car to catch around 1500 RPM when returning to idle. It hasn't been a huge issue, but slightly annoying. After fixing that it's returning to idle much better.

We've got freezing temps starting to show up in the forecast with a possibility of seeing some snow in the next week. We'll see how many more miles the car gets before the years over. I was looking at the compressor map for the turbo and might give it a moon tune for a few pull just to see what she'll do. Looking at it roughly, making ~350 CHP @ 250 KPA would still be on the 72% efficiency island. Not sure if I can get the turbo to hold that pressure given the current wastegate but we'll see. Not that the car needs any more power anyway...

Just noticed this.

Maybe I'm not understanding correctly.
The SuperMiata rad I have, has the drain in each lower rad mount. the "pin" is also a plug with a sacrificial anode on one as well.

I trimmed the "closed" bit on my lower mount bushings, and can pull the plug very simply.

You know what, I think I'm just an idiot. I just went back and looked at their instructions and I think I've been going about it totally wrong.

Well that's embarrassing. Not the first time recently that "bad design" has just been user error on my side.

Good clean headlights are a must, most dont realize how much actual light they lose to diffusing it on hazy lenses. Ill do you one better and show off my diy 100$ led projector lights I made. I had spec d headlights for the longest. Light output is garage ass, so I got some stock headlights and led bulbs - slightly less garbage ass but I have mirror windshield tint. Enter 90$ aliexpress bi projector leds. This was nerve wracking, but the hardest part was FIXing the god awful adjustment ball on the stock headlights to actually work.

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...e634875c5.jpeg
https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...ac5e02495.jpeg
https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...60fd9fbf1.jpeg
https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...a4e5dbfef.jpeg
Absolute fantastamistic output with a new car level crispy cutoff. Sealed up the headlights with some new butyl, add some led haloes if you care, and now you have great headlights all in for 120$ including butyl and sheet aluminum. I forgot to take photos for a writeup, but it was well worth it. The last photo is a picture of my friends headlight who i convinced to do it. He got 2 bi led projectors for each headlight. Absolute daylight coming out.