Soon to be on my BMW:


Fuel rail getting finished up tomorrow.

 

Three things:

1: As of last night, I now officially have an online backup drive for every hard drive / SSD which I own except for the laptops and the 2TB media drive. Over the decades, I've fucked around with tape backup (everything from 1/2" helical to QIC), piles of floppies, piles of CDs / DVDs, portable hard drives that I have to remember to carry around and plug in periodically, etc. No more of that ****. Each machine now performs an incremental backup every night, automatically.

2: I've been talking to a guy on the phone whose name is Justin Case.

3: I saw a Fiat 500 on the road this morning. I didn't have a camera handy, so I drew a picture for you:

 

The door is sewn on?

 

I like those flush bumpers.

 

Joe, tell me more about your online backup drive. What do you mean? Are you backing up to a server on the internet? A local server? What backup application are you using? You say every machine, so I assume you have multiple computers.

Me personally I use Mozy for my work and tuning laptop and carbonite for my mac. With carbonite I have about 400GB backed up to the cloud. Yes the initial backup took a while.

I also have about 300GB of mp3s that I don't back up; they're just on a mirrored dns-321 NAS.

Backup and similar software is my business. Literally.

 

Somehow looks just as good...

 

Oh, I'm not using any sort of cloud-based stuff. Our internet connection at the office is far too slow for that. I just finally have enough spare physical hard drives to provide a backup for every main drive.

On my main home PC (the i5 machine) I installed a 1TB WD "Green" as hard drive #3, and its sole function is to run nightly incremental backups on drive 2, a 500 GB Hitachi (141 GB in use) which is the app / data drive. Drive 1 (a 40 GB Intel SSD that's just the boot / OS drive) does a weekly incremental backup across the LAN to the boot drive in the media-center PC.

In the media-center machine, the aforementioned drive 1 (a 300 GB Seagate which is used only for booting and a few small apps) does a monthly differential backup (excluding the backup of the i5's SSD which lives on it) onto its own 2TB media drive. There's not much on the boot drive, so this isn't a big capacity hit, although once I get a replacement SSD for that machine, the 300 GB drive will go back to just being the target for the boot drive backups. The 2TB media drive itself has no backup- there's nothing there which I can't easily replace.

And at the office, from within the VM that my "standard client" runs, I do a nightly differential of my Outlook PST file onto the local NT server, and then I have an external USB drive (250 GB 2.5") onto which the main OS does a complete nightly differential (including the aforementioned virtual machine in its entirety).

I am using Acronis at home, and EASUS Todo Free Edition at work.

 

Turbo Miata for Sale:
http://chicago.craigslist.org/nwc/cto/2540811095.html
1991 Mazda Miata MX-5(turbo) - $2700 (Bensenville, il)

Date: 2011-08-10, 10:02PM CDT
Reply to: sale-rtsxv-2540811095@craigslist.org

"Up for sale is my 1991 Mazda Miata MX-5 with 140K mills on it, 5 speed manual transmission, red exterior ,black interior, new soft top, new all 4 adjustable springs, electronic turbo charger on it, clean title in hand,I'm askig $2700 OBO, for more info feel free to call at 773-470-6077."

 

That electronic turbocharger would cinch the deal for me.

 

OHHHHH YEEEEAAAAAHHH!!! In my wishy washy ways, I have decided to put my RX7 build on hold, again (now that I have $3500 in the build, most of the parts cluttering up various rooms of the house), to start back up with the Miata for now. Got the brake parts on their way, except for the 949 BRK. Will be running RacingBrake slotted Corrado rotors up front, with stock calipers, Sport Package rotors in the rear, also stock calipers, stainless lines and Hawk HP Plus pads. Still a street car, so nothing too extreme.

 

I tuned a stock 1.6 with no cat, new exhaust, and MS today:

These are Mustang numbers so add 12% and get 122whp. Not bad for a stock engine.

 

109/97, impressive for a stock 1.8, let alone a 1.6.

Oh ****, ~ 122whp. very impressive indeed, for exhaust and MS on a stock 1.6. Wouldn't have thought it possible.

 

I also tuned a 1994 with a 99 head, exhaust, and MS and made 126whp on the Mustang. That's ~140whp on a Dynojet with my conservative 12%. Most people claim 15% but I've seen 12% in my experience. I'm at the knock-limit on both cars with 93-octane. Both cars were dialed back 3* but we never heard knock...however I know it's there.

 

Only 4hp more with a .2L increase, and a 99 head!? WHAAAT!?

Damn it! Nevermind, I see now you said 126whp on the Mustang. That is more like it. I'm about to do a similar build with my car, since I have sort of abandoned FI for the moment. 99 head, 01+ pistons, MS, COP, header, exhaust and a custom cowl intake. Should make for some pretty good fun at 140-150whp. Beats the 95-100whp I currently have.

 

With 10:1 slugs anything less than 155whp on a Dynojet would make me kick holes in the walls.

 

Just being super conservative, no need to get my hopes up. 10:1 pistons plus a 99 head milled .020 will be closer to 10.5:1. I've seen builds similar to my goal, but with less power adders making upper 140's, so I would think 150+ is realistic, but I would still be pleased with anything over 140whp. Also forgot about the BP5A intake cam, good for another few gerbils up my a... under my hood. Also may end up with ITB setup, but that will come last, and is still a maybe. Not much to be gained other than response and a nice sound. Not sure if it will be worth it. Jenvey makes a decently cheap ITB setup for the Miata, but it doesn't seem to include things like TPS, and seems a bit more DIY than some kits. I shall see.

 

So I know how to remove the haze from my head lights, but how do we keep it from returning?
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Just take out the lens.

 

Anybody think I would find any problems if I were to find a BP from another vehicle besides Miata? All I need really is the bottom end, block with rotating assembly. Someone suggested it and I felt stupid for never thinking of it. Other Mazda, Ford and Kia vehicles use the BP. Wonder if any of them use different rods or pistons? Pistons will be replaced anyway, but rods would be nice to have with matching crank. Doing it this was I could easily go to my local pull a part yard and find one of these cars and get an engine for dirt cheap, and local.

From reading it seems there is a not so good version from the mid 90's Protege that has a stamped oil pan, with plastic pick up tube and no oil squirters.

Find one of these, throw my 99 head on it, 01 pistons in it, all of the other things I will do to it... 150whp n/a bound.

 

Excited to work on my car today. Glad to have that feeling back.