Give Love a Chance - 1994 Miata

In reply to Keith Tanner :

My understanding is that it's always a compromise when choosing roll bars for a dual use car. Am I better off figuring out seating and working from there, or bar first and then make seating work? 

It is always a compromise regardless. You have to trade off roll protection for head->bar horizontal clearance. I don't know if it makes sense to prioritize seating over the bar or vice versa, as you're going to want to be as low as possible with the bar as far forward and as high as possible. I guess I'd start with the seat, as that will determine what your potential bar location will be.

considering how many iterations this car's had... might be a good idea to see what the floor pan looks like too... while you're looking at "what seat to use"

I've seen some pretty swiss-cheesed miatas

found it!

love that you found a miata...

now, imho, i've worked with the ergonomics in my nb quite a bit, and i believe you want to start with the roll bar first (harddog or bbfw), then find your seating position. your seat will be able to be adjusted far more than a roll bar. there are some well-known tricks for seating positioning. get the seat adjusted for your feet, and your head - your hands and steering wheel can be adjusted and adapted from there.

also... what gridlife event are you thinking about going to?

Seth, moxnix, pat? What's the deal with the calipers on this car? All stock or modified?

Just curious, as I've found a set of speed bleeders I bought and never used for my 93, and would like to see them go to a worthy cause. 

In reply to RevRico :

As far as I know, stock, but then again I haven't taken a wheel off it yet. I need to get it on the lift and look at things. 

In reply to RevRico :

They are stock calipers.

In reply to moxnix :

Thanks. I need to start working on this car. 

With that in mind I decided to check the AC. I hooked up the gauges and beyond all expectation it had pressure. 

I used a reeeeeealy long jumper wire to jump the compressor.

The AC clutch was all clicky so I fired it up and watched the pressure drop to zero. Added two cans of refrigerant and it makes cold! So the hard parts work, I just need to figure out why the electrical side is wonky. Any suggestions?

In reply to mazdeuce - Seth :

It should have a thermo-switch on the top of the compressor that you might check.  I believe its primary job is to fail over time, necessitating replacement of the entire compressor since the switch isn't available separately.  Most people that I came across on the internet just bypassed it.  

wae said:

In reply to mazdeuce - Seth :

 I believe its primary job is to fail over time

I'm using this somewhere in the future... 

I’m not an ac guy, but isn’t there a pressure switch that shuts down the system if there isn’t enough refrigerant?

There has to be a low pressure switch somewhere,  but I can't find it. High pressure switch is on the high pressure line. I was wondering if the switch on the compressor was it, but apparently not. Does anyone know what the trick is to removing the plug from the switch on the compressor? I messed with it a bit yesterday. It will wiggle, but not release. It feels like the release tabs should be on the bottom but I can't seem to make it all let go. 

My general troubleshooting for AC is 1. Check pressure. 2. Jump the clutch to make sure it clicks. 3. Jump the clutch with the car running to make sure the hard parts work and make cold. 4. Troubleshoot the electricals piece by piece until I find the culprit. 

In reply to mazdeuce - Seth :

I made the same mistake - it's not a plug and it's not designed to be removed from the compressor as far as I can tell.  I snipped the wires going in and used a butt connector to complete the circuit.  

If I'm remembering correctly, I *think* that there's only one pressure switch that is on the refrigerant line (probably high side) near the right headlight bucket.  It's been a while since I've monkeyed around with the A/C on mine, but that seems familiar.  There are also two relays on or about the the right fender.  I don't know that they're labeled, but one is the fan and one is the compressor.

In reply to wae :

I had a big long thing typed out about how is HAS to come off otherwise the compressor is hard wired into the car, but then I stopped myself and went out to look. It turns out that the wire snakes it's way up to this connector and it's easy to make a jumper between here and the compressor. 

Still didn't work. I swapped relays on the drivers fender. Still nothing. Then to the fuse box. There was a fuse missing from AD FAN. Not sure what an ad fan is, and I don't have any 20A fuses, but I do have some 10's. Put one in and........AC! Once the car cools, again, since the jumper is right next to the header, I'll un-jump it and see if it works without it. Thanks wae, looks like I have AC again. One step closer to being an actual car. 

And I spent all of 20 minutes making the car better before driving the kids to school which means I accomplished my goal of making the car just a little better without cutting into my kitchen time. Nice. 

In reply to mazdeuce - Seth :

Good news!  And now we've all learned that the A/C compressor is powered somehow through the same circuit that runs that secondary fan for the condenser.

It’s probably a failsafe because ac always kicks on the secondary fan, so without that fan operable the car won’t let ac engage.

Which also means that if you pull the compressor wire your AC button becomes a free secondary fan controller! I think anyway. I'll test it once I get home. 

Absolutely correct.  Step 1 of my E36 M3ty blue winter-rallycross car was to yank that wire to get fan control without the power drag of running the A/C.  When running around at high rpm / low speed because of tire spin in the mud, sometimes by the time the single t-stat-driven fan wakes up and activates it's too late to stay ahead of the temps and you really need both fans running from the get-go.

Edits:  Actually my  car competed against now-your-car back in 2015.

It's crappy out today which means that I should figure out something to do on the kitchen but instead I pulled the Miata inside and pulled the hard top to more properly evaluate things. Back window has seen better days. 

The world doesn't need another "how I pulled my softtop" post, so I present simply the final product. Note notches for the previously mentioned roll bar. 

And then I put the top back on with liberal use of padding. Don't want to scratch anything. 

The plastidip on the roof came off in big sheets when things were cold (it's sub 50 outside, arctic) and that revealed more of the cars past. There is a chance that the car just named itself Ronald. It feels like a Ronald. 

Then I took it for a drive in the cold and wet. The less grip this car has the better it is. I can't figure out why anyone puts sticky tires on these. It was a hoot. 

In reply to mazdeuce - Seth :

340TW tires, sub 50deg day, LSD and mid ohio is a hoot. 

I had a $125 otd set of 440tw falkens on the stock 14s on my nb. I swear it felt like it accelerated, stopped, and handled better the worse the weather. The ultimate threshold of grip was FAR lower than stock, but it was way more fun.

Im half tempted to find another set of cheap, hard, crappy no seasons for the challenge car if i can make it pass inspection......

mazdeuce - Seth said:

The plastidip on the roof came off in big sheets when things were cold (it's sub 50 outside, arctic) and that revealed more of the cars past. There is a chance that the car just named itself Ronald. It feels like a Ronald. 

Then I took it for a drive in the cold and wet. The less grip this car has the better it is. I can't figure out why anyone puts sticky tires on these. It was a hoot. 

 

I'm voting for Mac Daddy, it is a Miata... even if this Miata isn't a Mac Daddy......on second thought.... that sounds like a bad idea... 

I graduated in 1994. In that time, in the midwest, I can 100% picture a small town farm kid trying to recreate himself and get his friends to call him Mac D. His friends, being who they are, call him Ronald. 

Dusterbd13 said:

I had a $125 otd set of 440tw falkens on the stock 14s on my nb. I swear it felt like it accelerated, stopped, and handled better the worse the weather. The ultimate threshold of grip was FAR lower than stock, but it was way more fun.

Im half tempted to find another set of cheap, hard, crappy no seasons for the challenge car if i can make it pass inspection......

It's......just.....so......fun........