California Car vs, Road Trip! ***56k, Piss off, lots of pics!!***
 

So last monday Josh "yunvme666" and myself flew out to Sacramento to pick up my 2000 turbo Miata aka "the amazing car the Vlad built". We didn't get there till 11:40pm so we stayed at a hotel that night and Vlad picked us up the next day after work.

But anyways after talking to him a bit, going to the bank and getting all the funds straightened out, and than wasting time at the DMV for them to tell us just to drive it back on the California plates, we were off.

Was thinking about taping the whole car but that would have took to long seeing as the front took me an hour. Yeah I can be a perfectionist at times, and this was one of those times. After all the shit we drove threw and taking the tape off the front makes me wish I had taped up the whole car.
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We set out at night to sacramento so there wasn't really anything worth taking pics.

We did stop in Reno for a few pics.
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Saw a 280Z, it could have used a nice detail but other than that, the car was pretty clean.
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We were driving around a bit, just checking out all the casino's and what not, than I decided to leave at just the right time. The car was attracting a bit of attention and a cop had followed us right out of town. LAWLZ

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View of the Rockies from the hotel parking lot.
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From inside "not our room unfortunately, but at the end of the hallway."
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Windmills.............
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First fill up on e85 since we got out of Sacramento. There was E85 in Salt Lake, but it was pointless because we would have to fill back up on 91 a couple times.
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We didn't really take any pics from after half way threw Nevada as it was just boring. Over all was a fun trip, car is running great and I couldn't be happier right now. I just about passed out when I got home friday night! I would definitely recommend this trip to anyone considering picking up a car across country. If not picking up a car at least make the drive!

That's pretty awesome. I'd love to buy a car across the country and drive it back.

Holy shit THAT IS FUGGEN AWESOME :D

Looks like you guys had a great trip.

Man I miss my car so much right now:cry::cry::cry::cry:

PS: 2.99/gallon is cheap as hell.

It was a pretty gnarly trip.

I actually kinda felt bad taking it away from you. lol

Gas ain't that cheap here, the cheapest we found it was 2.7xx, today I filled her up, it was about 3.4xx.

shit got junk in the trunk.

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Roadtrips are great. A couple years ago, my GF and I did one with FM's Summer Cap as the highlight...but that's hard to say after spending 3 days at Zion National Park. Our route covered over 10 days...go A to B using the lower route, B to D as a part-day trip (Bonneville), B to C (Zion National Park) and then C up to Grand Junction, Colorado and from GJ back to Atlanta (upper/northern route). Almost 6k miles driven in that time and not a single hiccup from my car the entire time.

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5104/...1302c815_b.jpg

ya i deffinatly want a miata more now after driving that through a few states...lol....

Wow, happy to see the car in good hands. Make sure to be active on the forum, and I HOPE you will be man enough to turn up the boost on that built motor.. =P

:giggle: hataz gon hate. I thought it felt damn fast at 300, don't see the need to break records. I can't imagine how hard it would pull at 25psi though:eek5:

im gonna have him get the ebc valve and find out the wire diagram for the ms2 so i can use that to control it . we gotta make it pass inspection here quick before i mess with it much, i cant wait to try it out with more boost..... im also gonna drag his ass to the yard to find a fuel sensor for the e85 and adjust the pot for the knock sensor so that can be ran again i guess its too sensitive right now... ill eventually add more timing too after i get some det cans, altho it is e85 we should be able to crank the timing a bit, its got less timing in it right now than i had on 93...lol...

Left Vlad's house around 8 tuesday night and got home late friday night. We only stopped in Salt Lake City, arrived there around 11am on Wednesday. Left around 6:30 the next morning and drove straight home from there. That night we had to pull off a few times to take a nap on the exit ramp. Sleeping in a miata can be a bit harsh but it's better than sleeping in an ambulance!


I love being able to break the rear end loose, so we will see how tail happy I want to git.

I don't think I will ever take it up quite that high, I still like the idea of reliability. I'll see what she has on 18psi for now. I still haven't driven her on 18.

Ps. Where did you get that lip from, I kinda ran over a deer or maybe a dead body on the thruway, Josh thinks it was a koon. The thud was pretty loud lol. It was 2am and dark out and shit comes up quick. I already learned my lesson from swerving around shit like that at high rates of speed. It' not bad lol, can't even tell it's cracked unless you get on the ground to look at it.

Another thing, if you get some sort of toll ticket in the mail from ohio I think, "not sure" just send me the info and I'll hit you up on pp. I kinda went threw this express thing and there were no toll booths but to the right there was toll booths so yeah. No surprises lol

Lip came with the bumper, and took me FOREVER to find. Good luck lol

And will do about the ticket. Though I don't think it will come to me since we turned in the release of liability at the DMV and it will probably get forwarded to you. Unless they take forever to process it (which is highly probable).

How hard was it switching back to pump gas mid-trip?

lip won't be an issue, it is cracked in two places, on each side of the slot below the passenger fog light. My cousin could patch it up for me if I wanted. It isn't even noticeable so I will probably get that done later on. I was joking about where you got the lip by the way, to easy to fix. :P

Remember she ripped up the paper and didn't do anything else and said just to use the plates that are on it. I'm going to register it friday so I have more time to get it ready to pass inspection here. Josh seems to have everything figured out in that department.

It wasn't hard switching at all. We actually past the e85 station once due to my lack of paying attention and ended up finding another station that was closed, so we had to put a gallon of 91 in to get us to another e85 pump. Really had no problems at all.

Did I miss where you actually ended up?

i almost think it was a raccoon just going off the color of the hair hanging off the car when we pulled over...lol... first thing i did was watch the oil pressure, hoping he didnt crack the pan open... it was like hitting a stump in the road...lol.... im just glad it was him not me, id have never heard the end of it....lol...

tuning was simple, i love ms2, ill be adapting mine over soon now, theres just so much more to adjust and tweek...lol..

we went from sacramento cali to buffalo ,ny area. it was like 2500 some odd miles


i had it about 24mpg, doing 80 at 4200 all the way here. we did get into boost alot, and i had to fix the dead rich while in boost that began soon as we left your area.... it woke right up when i got it into the higher 11s, im not cutting more till i get det cans tho... but we did waste alot of gas due to all the elevation changes and what that was doign to the tune every so often... so i go more into it a few states from here,and it woke right up..... its been good since... he loves it... your tune showed me how lean i can actually get mine in all the vac cells tho, i got mine idling at like mid 15s to low 16s, and cruise a little leaner..... now i just have to get his timing table more like mine and it should rip.... were deffinatly lining them up cause going from your car/ your old car...lol..., right to mine i swear where it is now is super close to mine it should be a good run, well have to tape it for ya...lol... thats got more low end mine might have more top end...lol...

Did you guys observe gas mileage? I wonder what it averaged

Wow, I didn't think you'd actually sell it, let alone this soon.

$2.99 a gallon, wtf? I just filled up on 94 @ $1.54/L!

Awesome looking trip. Nice to have this car on this side of the continent now.

On 91 I think we were getting around 27 and on e85 it was closer to 24-25mpg. Still not bad considering all mentioned in Josh's post. ^

This car should be at the Mazda Meet in niagara falls Ontario. It goes the whole weekend starting friday June 10th. Due to a wedding I'm going to saturday I will only be able to make it sunday for pics and cruise.

Missed Joshs edit. Just saw it.

That's GREAT. I'm glad the car is adapting well and working as well for you as it was for me. 24-27 aint bad at all considering the setup and power level.


About the elevation and temperatures tweaking the tune that is probably because I'm a pussy:giggle:. I set up the trims and compensations REALLY aggressive so that if the car isn't in its "ideal" conditions that I tuned it in, it will go super rich and super conservative JUST IN CASE. Probably way too conservative for most people but my motto is "you can NEVER be too careful, better safe than sorry".