Grassroots Motorsports: The Hardcore Sports Car Magazine

Roll bars, that is. With a weekend forecast full of rain, it seemed like a fine opportunity to squeeze in some garage therapy. We’ve been able to do a bit more in the garage than usual this month, so after spending quality time with the Berzerkeley, Project Saab, and a small dabble with the Tiger restoration, it was good to get our hands dirty with something simple like our R-package Miata.

In case you haven’t heard, but plans are afoot for the R-car at GRM Speedfest at the Classic Motorsports Mitty. The event is just around the corner, so of course there’s plenty to do in preparation for the car’s big surgery. This weekend was dedicated to some safety issues, which we thought would be wise before adding another 100-plus horsepower with the Flyin’ Miata turbo kit. This weekend’s activities included some easy stuff— fresh brake pads, rotors, and braided stainless steel lines—but a Hard Dog Hard Core roll bar installation was on the schedule as well. Good thing we had eaten our spinach, because wrestling the bar in place can be a challenge with only two hands.

We had read the instructions before getting started, so we had the drill and safety glasses ready when the time came to put holes in the car. Committing a destructive act on the car can be intimidating, but the instructions from Bethania Garage are fairly well-written and easy to read. We also used the walkthrough found in Keith Tanner’s book, Mazda Miata MX-5 Performance Projects which had some nice color pictures to clarify the tricky stuff. Thankfully there wasn’t much tricky stuff, and it certainly makes us feel better when we consider that one of the guys doing our turbocharger install literally wrote the book on Miata Performance. Flyin Miata head honcho Bill Cardell is the other guilty party in our Miata power injection scheme. Bill has been developing turbo systems and performance upgrades for Miatas practically since the car’s introduction, so it seems we’re in pretty good hands.

Once the bar was in place and torqued down, we could turn our attention to the brakes. We haven’t run into the instance yet where we really felt the need for giant brakes on any of the Miatas in our fleet, so we kept things simple by just ordering fresh rotors and pads. While we were in the system anyhow, it seemed like as fine a time as any to go ahead and replace the rubber brake lines. The strategy is to improve the feel and feedback from our stock-sized brakes without the weight penalty or expense of a bigger braking system. Again, Keith’s book came in handy with color pictures and practical guidance on all the steps in our task.

With the dirty work out of the way, we tried to church the cabin up with a vinyl rollbar cover. It’s hiding the foam used to keep our brain leaving our noggin when we aren’t wearing a helmet in the car. We also took a time out to apply some of stickers we’ve been collecting recently, including an ultra-rare sticker featuring the one and only Mr. Sparkle. Mr Sparkle lives to banish dirt to the land of wind and ghosts.