The Oldsmobile I had in High School got close, but I’ve never actually hit the 200 grand mark before with a car. But shortly after 8am today, October 5, 2011, my 20 year old Miata clicked over on the way to work.
So I went to jack up the car and put a little more grease on those poly bushings, and realized that now my low profile Harbor Freight jack won’t clear the bumper. Damn. After a glance at the 1×6 boards leaning against the wall and a second glance at my circular saw, this is what I came up with:
Jack slides right under now. 
Ooof, I keep meaning to update this site, but it just keeps not happening. Got to try to be better.
Anyway, the Mazda looks a little different these days, quite a bit of suspension upgrades, check it out:
New new parts include Koni Yellow Sport Shocks, H&R Race Springs, Polyurthethane bushings up front, Mazdaspeed adjustable end links (for the Flyin’ Miata front sway bar I already had on there), and some black paint for the ’99 Miata wheels.
It drives great and I love the look, but I think I need to raise the front end a bit. The springs are sitting on the lowest of the three spring perch positions the Konis offer, so there’s room to play around. I’m rubbing when cornering, and I’ve had some difficulty with certain roads and parking garages. I like the low look, but it’s not worth sacrificing drivability for me. I’m also concerned about the stiffness (not enough?) of the H&R race springs, they might get replaced at some point. This is the first time I’ve owned a lowered car, so it might take some getting used to.
Still, should be fun to autocross on.
While I’m one to go ice racing or put the top down to do donuts in the white stuff, most people leave their convertibles tucked away in garages for the winter. And though I love driving a nicely balanced rear wheel drive car with good tires in the snow, most wouldn’t consider the Mazda Miata to be a particularly good winter car. Last weekend, I’d like to say I proved them wrong.
More after the jump.
Last Sunday I met up with my friends Ian, Faith, Matt, and Steve to take some photos of their cars. I borrowed my roommate’s camera and we went to the same spot I took this one.
More after the jump!
Wow, I can’t believe I haven’t updated this since July. I’ve been real busy, but that’s no excuse, I need to get back into this. I have a few back posts I’ll try to make.
Autocross season was a ton of fun, I got in 6 events, plus the Renegade Test and Tune. I did one event with BMWCCA in the rain, which was insane. I had a ton of fun, and I think I did alright competitively for my first solid year. I’ll be dropping the car on the Konis and H&Rs first thing come the spring, so I’ll be running STS next year. I can’t wait, but there’s plenty of donuts in the snow and ice racing to do between now and then.
The Dunlops held up pretty well through the abuse. The rears obviously look a little beat from the negative camber, but the fronts held up surprisingly well. I thought all the highway miles I did with the toe out would have destroyed them. And I put a lot of miles on the car. 29,000 since I bought it last year.
The biggest news though is that I’ve moved into a new place, and for the first time ever I have my own garage:
I changed my front brakes a couple weeks ago, and I absolutely love having a dedicated place to work on my car.
I have a couple other posts coming soon, but for now, winter tires are on, and the alignment is back to factory spec, so bring on the white stuff!
After this weekend’s beach cruise, I went out towards the New Hampshire beaches and met up with a couple guys from Miata.net, along with a bunch of Subarus, a mean RX8, a Camaro, and an Eclipse for an event called Midnight Run. It was a late night, 3 hour cruise of southeastern New Hampshire’s best back roads, under the full moon. Speeds weren’t excessive, usually around 5-10mph over the limit, but some of those roads are seriously awesome. The exhaust notes, all the downshifts, one after another, the hills, the lights, it made for some of the most fun driving I’ve ever done on public roads. I didn’t know where I was going at all, I just followed. And it was great.
The car on the left was turbocharged, sitting on Konis and Eibachs. Very cool.
I drove up to Maine last weekend to one of Cumberland Motor Club’s events. I met a couple members from this club at the BMWCCA Ice Racing over the winter, and figured trying out some new venues is always fun. I have some friends that live in Portland so I made a weekend out of it and went up to visit them.
This venue, the Maine Mall in South Portland, was the complete opposite of Devens. Even shorter and tighter than NHIS, it was literately in the mall parking lot, so it was extremely visible. The club organizers even allowed passing by spectators to ride shotgun. Crazy!
They’re definitely a fun group though. They offer a Street Tire class, where any of the Stock/Street Prepared/Prepared classes can run, with their times multiplied by Pax for scoring. It’s a perfect class for my car, as I didn’t have to worry about people running those pesky R-Compounds. There was a very similar Miata there with two drivers, and on my second to last run I beat them by just .011 seconds, for a 6/16 finish. It was a good day, and I’ll definitely try to make another Cumberland event this year!
On to the rest of the pics:
