A Month Off

It's been exactly one month since I parked the Miata for winter. That's one month of not driving the Miata. I'm really missing it. I was feeling antsy so today I started it up to charge up the battery. It started right away but clearly all the oil had drained to the bottom of the engine because for a few seconds it ran all clicketty clacketty. I should probably start it more often. Or make sure to pull the fuel injector fuse and crank the engine a few times to allow oil pressure to build before actually starting it. It felt so good to sit in it and rev the engine. I drove around a little in my parking garage and even managed a short power slide. I almost considered going and getting a day's worth of insurance to go and rip around in it but instead I just washed the one month's worth of dust off. Only two and bit more months of winter left.

Winter blech

With Vancouver looking like this the Miata is just sitting in the garage collecting dust. When is it going to be summer again? I've had to resort to sitting in an old car seat and playing GranTurismo to get my sports car fix. It's just not the same.

Recently I ran into somebody at an xmas party who also owns a Miata and gets the whole fun sports car thing (by that I mean someone who didn't buy a Miata because 'It's sooooo cuuuuuute') Interestingly there wasn't really that much to say.
"the car sure is fun eh?"
"yup"
"Do you have any mods?"
"No. Do you?"
"yeah"
"Does it go faster?"
"Yeah, a bit"
Maybe if we had been drinking more it would have been a better conversation.

Towed

Lame. I got towed today. It's pricey: $57 for towing $45 for the ticket, $90 for the ticket if I don't pay before December 24th. That's a lame Christmas present! Trés lame. What's lamer is that it wasn't the Miata that got towed, it was the Infiniti. If I had been driving the Miata there would have been no problem. The reason for the tow and ticket is "Stop within 6 metres of the nearest edge of the closest sidewalk on an intersecting street". That's real clear thanks. I guess I was sticking out to far but I was over by like a meter, it totally looked like a spot and I wasn't even blocking the sidewalk and there was no sign no nothing. How am I supposed to know what 6 meters looks like and where to measure it from? I'll admit it was a risky spot but it wasn't outright breaking the law and ask ten people on the street they would have said it was fine. The Miata is about 1.5 meters shorter than the Infiniti and would have fit no problem. I was still thinking in Miata parking terms not normal car terms. Saddly the Miata is parked for the winter as of today (the insurance expires) so I better get used to looking for normal sized spots. A write up about storing the car for the winter is coming soon.

The Last Drive of the Year

With cold weather just around the corner bringing rain, snow, and salt trucks, these fair weather days are my last chance to go for a good drive. I had the day free and the weather was decent so I decided to drive the Hope Princeton Hwy then up to Merrit and home via the Coquihala. I haven't done this drive for a long time and I was surprised and disappointed to find that the Hope Princeton Hwy has been upgraded and most of the dangerous curvy bits have been turned to four lane freeway; which is great for minivans and SUVs but kind of boring for a two seat sports car. Luckily they haven't managed to castrate the whole route and I was able to find some adrenaline inducing curves. Here are some observations:

1. BC is Beautiful - the scenery was gorgeous just about anywhere along the route. I really dread the day when it's all turned into Surrey.
   
2. The Miata Could Use More Power - Going up hill in fifth at high speed the Miata would start to wheeze and all the cars I had just passed in the curves would start to catch up to me in the hills.
   
3. Too Much Brake Feel - The Miata is a sports car that communicates really well with the driver; I know what the engine is doing, I know what each wheel is doing, and I really know what the brakes are doing. Hit the pedal and it feels like it's my foot rubbing against the rotor. It's not pleasant but the car does stop quick.
   
4. People Drive Fast and Aggressive Outside of the City - As soon as I got past Abotsford everybody was going 140, and people who were going slower would move to the right hand lane. Wow how nice.
   
5. The Miata's Seats Are Surprisingly Comfortable - Nine hours and my back and butt were fine. I even went out dancing in the evening; fancy that.
   
6. I'm Chicken - This car freaks me out. In the corners the limits are so high that I'm too scared to go that fast. The car is never fazed and keeps asking for more and faster curves. I only reached the limits maybe once, and then the back starts to step out which is really freaky. It's so much fun.
   
7. I Hate Winter - I hate winter.
   

Here's some photos I took.When I got tired I bought this candy but it was not what was promised on the box, in fact it was just toffee.
If you've ever wondered what it's like to carve a few canyon curves in a Miata, I made this brief video so you can enjoy it from the comfort of your home.

Video

Sorry for the lack of posts. I've been busy creating a video of the Miata having it's transmission, differential, and shift linkage oils changed. It's hard and time consuming work. Here's a bit which I in frustration let Microsoft Movie Maker edit automatically. It chose the choicest parts.
Stay tuned for more videos.

The Clouds Break.

Enough repairs in dark garages, the sun came out briefly today so I delayed an appointment and took the top down to scoot around. Serious scooting.

I also came across this beautiful Alfa Romeo Giuletta spider.
I'm no Alfa expert but this car is from the late 50's or early 60's.

At auctions they go for 35 to 50 thousand dollars

This one looks a little worn (note the rust on the grill) so it's probably more of a 30 thousand dollar car. But I didn't see any rust on the body.

The styling was by Pininfarina.


Sweet red leather interior though the owner likes to stuff books everywhere and what's with that LED light stuck to the dash; that's sacrilege, this car is a shrine to classic European motoring, a little respect please.

The Miata is a spiritual descendant of cars like the Spider; simple two seat rwd roadster with style and fun.

Growing Pains Continued

The last two days I've been continuing doing the maintenance that the previous owner didn't do. Yesterday I installed new spark plugs and new ignition wires. Today I checked and adjusted the timing, I advanced it by four degrees making the car a bit more spunky (I think; it's hard to tell) and I had a fuel injection treatment done to clean the injectors. Hopefully this will give the car a bit more guts and fix a slight very very slight tendency for the car to hesitate when accelerating.

Cool

I fixed it. I found a new fan at the auto wrecker and using instructions from the web I took out the old fan and put the new one in. Here's a pic of the old fan. Those cars at the wrecker sure were destroyed. Best not to get into an accident in one of these.

Give me a Voltmeter, I'll Give You the World

I finally found the cause of the Miata's overheating. First I replaced the thermostat like me pa recommended. It was an easy affair; two bolts, gasket scraping, old one goes out, new one goes in, new gasket, two bolts and done. Unfortunately, the car overheated again when I took it out for a test drive. So I started poking around. The problem looked like this: Once the engine gets hot enough (still normal) the fan that's supposed to keep it cool stops turning so the engine continues to get hotter and hotter. Why? Hot coolant, that passes through the thermostat, triggers a thermo-switch, that triggers a relay, that turns on the fan. So the first thing I checked is if there's coolant, check. Now that the thermostat's replaced we know it works. I bypassed the thermo-switch (made it turn on) and the fan still didn't turn on. So then I bypassed the relay and the fan still didn't turn. It was starting to look like it was the fan that was broken. So I plugged in my trusty voltmeter to the fan and could see it was getting power but wasn't turning on. So I guess it's the fan. That won't be cheap. Not getting a freebie on this one. Here's some random photos of the thermostat replacement.
That's the car with the hood open

That's the new thermostat

That's the old thermostat inside its casing (the thermo-switch's on top)

That's the old thermostat with the casing off

That's the new one installed safely with the casing back on. The red goo is sealant.

That's me wondering why it's still overheating.

Utilitity

While the trunk of the Miata may not be the best for moving anything larger than a breadbox, the passenger seat is just fine. Witness this 21-inch JVC TV that made the trip to Value Village unscathed. I was sad to see this TV go as it was part of my severance package when I left Blockbuster Video so many years ago. So many memories but it's all dust in the wind now, or dusty TV in the Miata. When I dropped off the TV the hippie-stoner-dude taking deliveries gave me a "cool car man".

In other news the overheating problem still exists. Every time the Miata is stuck in traffic for an extended period of time, it overheats. I guess my camping trip to Cat Lake only served to alleviate my traffic overheating problem and not the Miata's. I've diagnosed the problem to a faulty thermo-sensor but my dad, the veteran mechanic, thinks it's best to replace the thermostat first. So that's what we'll do.

Overheating and an Old Friend

Last week whilst sitting in rush hour traffic (and by rush hour I mean the traffic jam that seems to engulf this city at all hours of the day and night) I had had enough and decided that no matter what, I was getting away camping. As it turned out the Miata had had enough too, and it overheated; the gauge went past the H mark and the idle was all out of sort. As quickly as I could (getting anywhere in Vancouver even to the side of the road takes longer than it should) I pulled to the side of the road and waited for the car to calm down. Overheating in a sports car is kind of a right of passage. Usually this right is reserved for Italian supercars so having the Miata do it kind of raised it's cachet. For the rest of the trip home the Miata would start to get hot anytime it would stop in traffic forcing me to try and keep it moving at all cost (I didn't even slow down for the jumper on Second Narrows), which is quite a challenge in Gridlockouver. The Miata was saying "drive me, stop fooling around with the rest of the drones in the city, get out on the open road". I heeded it's call and headed out camping the next day. But not in the Miata; not if it's overheating. I took my other car: The 1994 Infiniti G20. Now I know this is a Miata blog but since I'm planning to sell the Infiniti soon I thought I would use this post to give it a proper send off. This could be a long post where I gush about a different car from the Miata, so if you only care about the Miata you might want to stop reading here.
"Born in Japan, educated in Europe" is all I kept thinking while driving the G20 on the Sea to Sky, well not actually driving as the road was closed for hours because it got covered by a rock slide due to the construction but this isn't the Fuck You Olympics Construction Blog so... "Born in Japan, educated in Europe" this was the ad slogan for the Infiniti way back when it came out in America. And I think it sums the car up very well. Like a Japanese car it is reliable, economical, well thought out with great ergonomics and good visibility, and like a European sports sedan it has great handling, a great engine and transmission, and a chassis that really engages the driver in the act of driving. Having been distracted by the newness of the Miata I forgot how great this car is. I didn't really mind being stuck in horrendous traffic because the Infiniti is quiet, the seats are really comfortable for long periods, the sound system is excellent, the cabin is bright and airy, and the A/C blows cold (kind of too cold; I have to turn the heat on sometimes). It's a really nice place to be. Then when traffic starts moving and you hit the curves it's a fantastic drive; with the windows and sunroof open the engine and exhaust make great car noises as you row through the effortless precise shifter and steer through corners with the nice thick leather steering wheel that provides plenty of feedback about what the very capable chassis is doing. Red line is at eight thousand RPM, that's race car territory not a sedan and it's a great aural and motoring experience. When the road straightens out and turns into freeway the engine pulls hard making passing a breeze, and with the windows closed the cabin is dead quiet; no wind noise, no tire noise, just the pleasant drone of the engine and that great sound system.
Cross continental development has given this car multiple personalities. Unlike the Miata which is just sports car; loud, brash, crashing over potholes, everything vibrates, overheating, you can't take your eyes off the road for a second because the steering is so sensitive you might steer right into oncoming traffic, a tiny trunk, no leg room, you can't see out of the damn thing because the windshield is so low I'm constantly running red lights, the Infiniti is; comfortable luxury freeway cruiser, reliable commuter car, and fun to drive curvy back roads sports car. It even handled logging roads (albeit a tire did get torn open) which there's no way the Miata would ever go near, and all our camping gear easily fit into it, which would have been impossible with the Miata, so it could even be called a light SUV thought that's stretching it.So why get rid of it if it's so great? One: it has rust. I hate rust and in the last year little spots here and there have popped up. Even though everything works fine on the car, the rust makes it look like a junker and I hate walking up to it and seeing the rust. It breaks my heart. Two: Out of all its personalities the one I love the most is the sports car one. I love rowing through the shifter and revving the engine to the red line with the windows open and hearing that exhaust roar and slight backfires as the revs drop and O2 is sucked into the tail pipe. I love throwing it into corners and coaxing the rear end out a bit. And the problem is, the car's other personalities get in the way of enjoying the sports car within; it is after all a front wheel drive sedan and not a proper rear wheel drive sports car no matter how much it pretends to be. So the answer is: get a proper sports car - enter the Miata. You see the compromises in the Miata (no trunk room, poor visibility, loud, harsh) aren't really compromises when seen from the point of view of wanting a sports car, because that's what a sports car is. It's the Infiniti that compromises it's sports carness by having four doors, being large and heavy, being quiet, etc.

Anyway for now I'm holding on to both since I dread driving the Miata in snow and salt. I don't want it to get rusty now too. Having two cars is expensive though; I should have a pay pal link for donating to repairs. I need new tires and brakes for both cars and oil changes. And I've got to fix that Miata overheating problem. Plus the Infiniti's windshield wipers suck, I need new pivots....

Washing Day

Washing the car is a very important car enthusiast ritual. It's a chance to caress and clean the car you love. Also a chance to inspect the car for any damage, check the oil, coolant, and windshield washer levels. This time around I found some new damage. Already after only a few weeks of owner ship someone backed over the front of the car. There's a scuff on the nose and the license plate is bent. Probably some idiot in a really big car using their rear-view mirror to reverse because they're too lazy to turn their fat head. This person has earned themselves some real bad karma and I hope they die. I really do. Anyone who's too lazy to turn their head to back up (and I see this all the time) is just waiting to back into another car or worse to back up over a kid. So I hope they die before they kill. I know; you'll say, "Raph that's so harsh, my mom uses her rear-view mirror to back up." Well I'm sorry until your mom turns around to back up, I hope she dies.

Busted!

No that's not my Miata busted by the cops, but that's probably what I looked like earlier today. This pic I took a few days ago; I guess it was a bad omen. I was on my way to work today (I don't like working on the weekend to begin with) and stuck in typical Kitsilano weekend shopper traffic where it takes ten minutes to go one block. Well at the end of this ten minute block I crossed to the next one following the car in front of me. Unfortunately I guess the light had turned red. After sitting in traffic for ten minutes to go one block my mind had melted away so I wasn't really paying attention. I guess I was more focused on listening to the Led Zeppelin all request weekend on Rock 101. It's hard for me to see traffic lights anyways because I'm so tall the header blocks my view. Well anyway there was a cop car there and he saw me cross at about 2km/hr on the red. I guess he felt that was dangerous. So he pulled up behind and waited another ten minutes of traffic until we cleared that block to pull me over. Lame. To make things even sweeter I didn't have my drivers license so it was a double whammy. Sometimes you don't get a freebie. However since, according to the officer, I have such a good driving record, he took off the failure to stop at a red light citation so all I have to pay for is not producing my license. So sometimes it's not a total freebie.

Growing Pains

As with buying any new-used car there are going to be growing pains; things the previous owner didn't fix that you get the pleasure of fixing. Some problems you can spot before you buy the car. These problems you can use to haggle down the price. This particular car needs new rear brakes, tires real soon, and the clutch in about year. Those are great haggle items and I used them to get the price down quite a bit. But there are always the unforeseen problems lurking beneath the surface waiting to emerge in the first few months of ownership. On the first day the radio died: No problem I had a spare. On the first road trip the clutch slave cylinder seal popped letting out all the clutch hydrolic fluid: no problem, some plumbers tape, an O ring from Home Depot, and a hasty roadside repair by dad and everything works fine. Recently the key has stopped working. It requires a lot of jiggling to unlock the trunk, door and worse of all, to start the car. How embarassing when trying to show off your new wheels to someone and the key won't turn. "It'll start I just have to jiggle it" - Not cool.

Both the main key and vallet key are quite worn (17 years old), luckily the key number tag is still attached so I can go to Mazda and have fresh keys cut. In other news the rattling under the car I mentioned earlier has rattled itself out and has not returned. Another problem fixed. Sometimes you get a freebie.

Grins

That's the grin I had today while zipping around Stanley Park on my way home from work. This car is so fun to drive you want to always take the longer way home, go to the Safeway further away, and drive for no reason other than to drive. At least for now before the novelty wears off. If there's a twinge of worry on my face in that pic it's because there's a strange rattling clanging sound coming from underneath the car when the engine revs drop suddenly. Hopefully it's a loose exhaust system cover and not the drive shaft; yikes.

So far my average fuel consumption with mixed freeway and city driving is 9.5 litres/100km. That's pretty good. For comparison a Prius gets about 5.5 litres/100km. So the Miata burns nearly double but have you driven a Prius? It's like driving a boring a shopping cart. What's astounding so far is that I've been averaging about 200km per day. It's fun to drive.

Spectacle

Yesterday, while pulling into my friends residential town home complex with the top down, I was mobbed by a bunch of kids on bikes. I couldn't really make out what they were saying and I hope I wasn't being bullied but one girl asked to "make it a real car". When I asked what she meant she replied "put the hood on". She really needs to brush up on her car lingo, but for the amusement of the kids I put the top up. I'm sure I heard a "cool car" there somewhere. Just goes to show you the power of the Miata, it still turns heads after twenty years, kids' heads. It also impressed me and the kids how easy it is to work the top , it's a beautiful bit of engineering. Just two clamps and the window zipper and you're done. You can do it while paused in traffic. I have noticed however that the fabric of the top is being 'pinched' between these big screws and some kind of bracket every time I put the top down. I'm going to glue some foam onto the bracket so the fabric doesn't get scratched while the car is moving.

My First Sports Car

About 2 weeks ago I bought a 1990 Mazda Miata. I love driving and I've always wanted a true sports car. I wanted something cheap and not too fancy. I also considered a Porsche 944 and a Mazda RX-7 but went with the Miata for it's simplicity and reliability. I found one at the BC trade-in centre that had all the right features. It's in good mechanical shape and the body is in ok shape for a 17 year old car.

On that first day I drove the car from Vancouver to Lilooet. It was a nice drive to get a feeling for the car. It's unlike any car I've ever driven; it's like driving a go-cart, the steering is direct, the tail wags out when prompted, and the sensation with the top down and wind in your hair is really quite something. It's a tight fit, at 6'2'' it feels like I'm wearing the car. The engine isn't the most responsive. It takes it's time to rev up and hasn't got a lot of torque before 4000rpm. But that's kind of part of the fun because you have to work hard to keep it boiling and you never get up to speeds that will loose you your license.

In my two weeks of ownership I've installed a new stereo, door speakers, headrest speakers, and a LED light and switch to look like an alarm and hopefully deter would be thieves.