NC Owner in Norfolk VA Area
 

Sup everyone, 2010 NC owner here. As the title says, I'm the in the Norfolk VA area. I'm in the Navy and just moved up from Florida.

My car will be paid off soon and I'm focusing on improving the handling right now. I really want to turbo the car in the future, and I figure that'll be a lot easier once the suspension, tires/wheels, and diff are all sorted out. I'm new to modifying cars, but I have done a lot of work to my Ducati Monster 900 (which refuses to be a reliable vehicle).

My car is a 2010 five speed, Tein Street Flex coilovers I installed myself, ACT HD clutch that I had a shop install after I burned the stock clutch out learning how to drive manual (which is way different from the dry clutch I was used to), and other than that, the car is pretty much stock. I'm planning on a front shock tower brace next and then tires and wheels, after that I'm planning on an LSD.

That enough of an intro?

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1405297769

Welcome to the site cdemarco, thanks for joining up!

That five speed is not going to last very long with any decent turbo power.

I've read people say that, looked for discussions on it, never found much information. To be completely honest, I don't care for getting more than 250 whp in this car right now and have even considered trying to get as much as possible N/A out of the car. I'll see as the car progresses. I have also considered swapping in a 6 speed as well, but not too seriously at this point.

What exactly do you mean by "decent turbo power"? 300? 350?

Edit: also, is your experience coming from na/nb five speeds vs six speeds? Or do you have some experience with the NC five speeds?

he just doesnt know what he's talking about...

So what my research turned up when I was looking this stuff up was this: The NC five and six speeds are completely new animals from the NA/NB, and are derived from later model RX-8s. The NC five speed is stronger than the older five speeds, but it's still not nearly as strong as the NC six speed. I haven't heard of a five speed failing with the power coming from the FM supercharger. Which gives, what, 220 whp?

I've read the weakness with the five speed seems to be that the transmission flexes under power and misaligns the gears, causing them to eat themselves. I think you could help remedy this by upgrading the engine mounts and also using under car bracing, right?

Some bridges you cross when you get to it.

Do what you can with what you have, and when you get to the point of having problems with your 5 speed, look for a solution then. You may find that your transmission will be fine for quite sometime.

Ha, my 2500th post!

welcome, as people have said don't start worrying yet. enjoy the car!

Yup, I've been enjoying it for two years now in its stock form, and just starting to get into modifying it. Been thinking modifying of this since I got it though, so I have a pretty good idea of what I want the car to be. As has been said, I'll cross that road when I get to it. If I'm going to replace the tranny, might as well get use out of the five speed while I have it, and if/when I blow it, replace it then.

Car meets??
 

Nvm

It'd be cool if you had a intro thread too, so I know you're not a bot or something.

Welcome buddy. What's your rate? There are a surprising number of navy vets on here.

Haha I'm no bot, I just googled norfolk miata meets an this popped up , I just picked up a 2000 nb yesterday .

I'm actually a pilot. Winged about two months ago, been in for two years now. I'm going through the RAG for the 60S right now. I did notice there are a few guys in the Navy on here. Guess you can't keep the gays away from the Miata. :makeout:

Well if you're just looking for Maita meet ups, there's a couple groups. Miata Nuts of Hampton Roads is active. But it's mostly older folks who don't like to modify their cars, or at least that's the people I met when I went to one of their meet ups. Also none of them drove their Miata to the meet up! There's also Tidewater Roadsters, they seem more active, and it seems they're associated with clubroadster.net. They're a lot more active than Miata Nuts, and have younger guys in the group. You can search for Tidewater Roadsters on facebook and they have an active facebook group too.

If you're looking for a meetup, you might be lucky going to one of the cars and coffee in the area.

http://car-lovers-tidewater-va.tumbl...water-virginia

I've been to the VA Cars and Coffee. If you like cars, you'll enjoy it. You'll see gems like Fiero's with LS3s crammed in the back. Apparently every Sat morning there is one at Town Center in VA Beach. Also on this coming Sat morning is one in Williamsburg. http://www.carsandcoffeewilliamsburg.com/#!__page-1

Cruise in
 

Yeah I'll probably check out the cruise in , thanks!

Let me know if you're going to one. Last time I went there were no other Miatas.

Just message you through here?

Sure

Whalecum to the forums!

I have a lot of hours in the 60S. That was before HSC merged with HS though. I hope your instructors are primarily HSC guys for your sake.

Were you AW? We got HS guys and a few HM guys coming through the syllabus now transfering to HSC.

Yessir, one of the first nuggets after the transition from the 46. I grew up in HSC-21, did my junior cruise in the Tarawa, and finished out with two consecutive tours with the 2515th NAAD. I hear it's a totally different world now with all of the mergers.

Yeah, I almost went HS. Would have only gotten in one deployment in before being sent to Norfolk to go through the RAG again for HSC. Apparently this year was the last year to select F/Hs out of flight school for us. 53s are going away too. And on top of all that we're getting lots of new weapon systems for the Sierra, so the mission is changing a lot. I think the Navy is trying to make it the answer to small boat tactics or something.

Yep, saw that coming pretty early on. That was one of the tactics our det on the Tarawa practiced a lot.
HSC guys were traditionally the workhorses of the fleet. Older HSC guys are truly masterful at VERTREP and are good at traditional SOF missions and brownout landings. HS guys tend (at least in my time) to be tacticool CSAR wannabes that can't hover over a stationary object to save their lives. A lot of that is probably old resentment over the HS community trying to fundamentally change the way our community did business, but that was a common perception.
Anyway, good luck regardless of what you do, and thank you for serving. I'm slowly starting to appreciate the NC styling. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to drive one yet. NA all the way for me.

I think the NC can be a handsome car. But it needs to come down off its stock 4x4 suspension. I'm on a quest to make it more Miata. Single exhaust is next and a proper roll bar. Not sure what to do with the soft top, since you can't have a proper roll bar and the soft top on this car. Shitty design, Mazda.

Proper as in taller than the hard dog sport?
https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1405696201
It's going to be tough finding something tall enough to prevent your brains from turning into asphalt paint in a street car with stock seats and no harness.

Nah, proper as in having rear supports. The Hard Dog is sometimes sufficient depending on the tech inspector, track, and organization. I want to get the Faborworx rollbar. It has rear supports and would be good for any track day or SCCA event, but it requires removing the soft top. So I need to get a hold of a hard top. I think I may just save up for the carbon fiber top from Good-Win and fabricating my own brackets and weather stripping. Also, I'm really freaking short, so I don't have issues with clearance at the top of the bar.

It's this roll bar for reference.
https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1405696775

I was actually going to say something about that very one, but I didn't realize you were planning on tracking the car. That thing looks stout. Door bars too?

Not sure if I can get a hold of the model with door bars. I believe the guy who makes these refuses to ship the model with door bars and only ships the four mounting point model. Yeah, my goal is to make this a fun track toy. I used to go to track days all the time with my motorcycle, and it is the most fun thing I've done. More fun than anything I've done in an aircraft to be honest.

Nice, can't wait to see you on the streets! I'm around the Newport News area.

So, it's bee a while. Car has gone through some changes. Namely, it's supercharged now, and has a stupid loud exhaust.