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.

After replacing the dead catalyst on the R-car, we still noticed some bothersome rattling on the exhaust, so we started shopping around for a fancy exhaust to compliment our new high flow catalytic converter. Since there was no immediate need and we were on a roll of super bargains with this car, we wanted to see just how cheap we can get things done for this project. We ran across a used Jackson Racing exhaust for 200 dollars from the Flyin Miata salvage yard but passed, hoping for a better deal. A few weeks later, just as we started to regret not getting the Jackson, a second hand, never installed Volt exhaust popped up on the Miata.net classifieds. This exhaust system made a bit of a stir on the Miata message boards when they began to surface a few months ago as a “best offer” item in an eBay store, since people were snapping them up for a fraction of the cost of better known (and likely better constructed) Miata exhaust systems. With our wallet as our guide, we agreed to $140 for the exhaust, plus the actual shipping costs of $24.53, for a total of $164.53. After the exhaust arrived, we were pleased to see that it was indeed a full stainless system, and while the welds weren’t beautiful, they looked adequate. We’d have to plug the O2 sensor bung that the later cars used, but after tracking down the appropriate sized brass plug (+$1.51, or $166.04 total if you’re keeping track.) we were ready for an install.

The work of swapping the exhaust is pretty straightforward, but we found it difficult to remove the stock system without applying the liberal persuasion of an angle grinder and cutoff wheel. The Volt exhaust didn’t include any gaskets, but a thorough inspection of the big red toolbox turned up a leftover 2.25″ exhaust gasket that had somehow gone unused. If this were the $2008 challenge, I’d assign some sort of cost, but since I’m not I’ll consider it free.

The end result was pretty gratifying; the Volt system doesn’t sound half bad. The tip is a somewhat less than tasteful giant shiny thing, but the tone sounds pretty consistent with the other samples running around the office. So far, so good. After finishing the installation, however, we noticed something that other Volt owners had pointed out on the forums; chunks of fiberglass insulation were blowing out from the muffler. This was pretty noticeable for the first couple days, but has gone away after a few hundred miles and hasn’t significantly changed the car’s noise level to our ear.

The day after the install, we took the car out for a practice Solo II event with the Central Florida Region of the SCCA. The car felt much better than it had at the last event, probably more due to the new Kumho Victoracers that we scored for $59 each on closeout at the Tire Rack than the exhaust or catalyst. We left them at full tread depth hoping to use them for rain tires next season, so they weren’t excellent race tires, but they were worlds away from the all season junk that we had on for last event. With the new tires and better breathing exhaust, the car certainly made a better showing and made it into the top 20% of PAX indexed results.

The new grippy tires made the stock 120,000 mile Bilsteins feel their age, as despite the increase in grip the car felt floaty. A good alignment and some decent shocks are next on the shopping list. The driver’s seat is also pretty much shot, so we’ll see what we can turn up there too. We ran the car in E Stock with the illegal catalyst for the last event (with the consent of our fellow participants) but are still unsure of where this car will ultimately end up for next season. Recent conversation with Miata expert and GRM contributor Andy Hollis has turned up a budget friendly, stock legal replacement catalyst, so we’re debating swapping the high flow Jackson Racing unit back out and running in E Stock or going a little further out and making a really fun streetcar to run in CSP or SM2. From the way things are going, it will probably depend on what turns up next on the bargain radar. We’ll be watching the Flyin Miata moving sale and message board classifieds for the next offer that can’t be refused.

A few days after the Autocross, the Miata got a little bit sick. On the way home from work, the catalytic converter gave up on life and collapsed, essentially plugging the exhaust. The car still ran, but wouldn’t rev over 3000 rpm so the ride home up I-95 went a little slower than usual but it still beats a tow truck.

After the diagnosis, I faced a surprisingly complex decision on how I wanted to resolve this issue. More accurately, this seemingly simple issue forced me to re-evaluate the car’s overall purpose. Here’s the dilemma–the stock replacement cat is prohibitively expensive (like $700) from a dealer, but according to my interperitation would be the only “letter of the law” legal replacement for SCCA stock class. Alternatively, I can order a non–factory replacement from Moss Motors or Good-Win for about 100 bucks, or a “high–flow” replacement from Moss or Flyin Miata for about 200 dollars. Any of the non–factory options are equally illegal (technically) in stock class, but I cannot with clear conscience spend seven times the money for a legal replacement that isn’t demonstrably better. So what’s a consumer supposed to do, other than fight the urge to just clear the old catalyst shell and say to heck with the planet?

I finally settled on the high–flow cat from Flyin’ Miata for $199 and waved goodbye to stock class. The car would be more fun as a CSP or SM2 class car anyway, so as long as I’m not hung up on a trophy why not just go with it. As long as I was ordering, I went ahead and checked off some other maintenance items from the list as well, so I ordered the plugs, wires, upper shift boot (lowers are on backorder.) and fluids. I was beginning to get the fever…the fever for some fixin’.

Lifts are for sissies. Real men use ramps made of high-impact plastic.

Once all my goodies arrived from Flyin’ Miata, I gathered my magic bag o’ tools, and sunk my teeth into a feast of wrench turning activity. Of all the ways to spend a comfortable fall afternoon in Florida, I’ve got to say this is my favorite. The whole exercise went better than I thought it would, (you never know what kind of surprises lurk beneath a 120,000 mile car as you first crawl under it) but thanks to a little PB Blaster I had the old Catalyst out and on the ground in an hour. The Flyin’ Miata replacement cat is stainless steel and comes with gaskets and fresh hardware, so it was easy enough to bolt on with hand tools in a driveway.

New hotness on the left, old crusty junk on the right. Couldn’t you tell?

The hardest part of the whole day was fishing the specific hunk of destroyed catalyst blockage from the rear section of the exhaust. I had considered doing a cat–back exhaust at the same time, but decided to wait until I found a killer deal. Had I known where the actual blockage was and what a pain it would be to clear, I would have gone ahead and ordered a hot rod exhaust system. Live and learn, eh?

This is the offending lump of magic catalyst honeycomb rock. It’s probably hazardous, so if I die next week you’ll know why.

Once I had cleared the exhaust and cranked everything down, and began changing the shift boot (I probably should have waited until I could get a lower boot too, but I was on a roll.) gapping the plugs, dressing the wires, knocking out an oil & filter change, and checking ignition timing. Everything went brilliantly, so when I finally went on a test drive it was nice to be able to immediately recognize an improvement in performance, better than the day I picked it up. While I’m certain that some of this is from the new cat, I think the plugs and wires definitely helped also.

So with that in mind, I have to say goodbye to the stock class and consider my next move. I’ve got my eye on a set of trick–looking throttle bodies, but haven’t ruled out a turbocharged or supercharged setup. This change also opens up some different suspension options for the car, so I’m shopping those parts as well. I don’t know exactly what’s next for this car, but I can guarantee it will be different than the Miatas you’ve seen around here before. Stay tuned!

I finally took the chance to run my Miata around an autocross course on September 23rd when I attended my first event with the Central Florida Region. I surprised no one by finding the Miata to be capable and reliable when pushed, however I was suprised at how much fun the car was, despite the high mileage shocks and plasticky all season tires.

GRM staffers were well represented at the event, so it was really good to spend some time getting to know them out of the office. My class ran first heat, so we’d be clearing the cinders and dust from the road surface. I thought this would mitigate the performance advantage of R-compound tires, so I expected to be pretty close to the rest of the field. The course was very straightforward and featured a slalom-intensive layout with a couple of kinks and a sweeping 180 degree turnaround, which turned out perfectly as a warmup course for me after a long autocross break.

I considered making some changes after the first run, but chalked up the sloppy feeling from the car to my lack of seat time and the loose surface. I concentrated harder for my 2nd run, but after seeing similar results I added some much needed air pressure. For the 3rd run, I found the car a whole lot easier to drive, and picked up about 2 raw seconds over my earlier times. The increased responsiveness was a mixed blessing, however, as the car became a little less predictable through the kinks before the finish lights and caused me to punt a couple of cones into a low orbit.

Fourth runs are always a trick for me. On one hand, I love the pressure of “last runs”, but traditionally don’t make the most of the opportunity. Like a thousand times before, I told myself that this would be different. I envisioned the run as a tire-smoking, cone-dancing masterpiece in my mind before I made my way out on course, but reality can be a cruel mistress. I did pick up 3/10ths over my 3rd run raw time, but still tagged a cone (at least it was just one…) before the finish. I may have used some foul language to express myself at the time, sorry kids.

All in all, however, I am still impressed with the way the car handled and performed, even box stock with 120,000 miles. If I had made my last run clean, I would still be trailing the leaders by almost 3 seconds, so obviously there’s a ton of improvement yet to take place, yet somehow my times were good enough for a solid mid-pack position on the PAX index. David even took a couple of pictures that made me look like I knew what I was doing, which I suppose is the gift of a talented photographer.

The rest of the day went well, with the infamous Team Schroeder taking the top two index positions, Scott Lear was 20th in a “borrowed” car on Street Tires, and David S. Wallens landed 25th in the Subaru wagon, probably sporting air conditioning with the stereo on.

Now that the baseline has been set, I feel like I’m ready to start bringing the car up to autocross spec, at least in regard to the tires. I just got a killer deal for a set of Kumho 710s on closeout from the Tire Rack, they should be here this week.