Ok, Miata coolant system help, sorta urgent.

About 10:45pm here. I’m three miles from home. Road side. Dark AF. And raining.  I’m sitting here waiting for the car to cool down, when it does I’m going to try to drive it the rest of the three miles. 

Driving about 65mph, all is fine, suddenly I get a strong whiff of sweetness through the vents. It was raining, so the steam coming out the side of the hood wasn’t too noticeable until i came to a stop. From what I can tell, with a smart phone flashlight, the coolant spray is all on the passenger side. The entire inner shock tower on that side was wet, there was coolant inside the radiator fan cage. Front of the engine too, but it was also raining pretty good. So I don’t know yet what is rain water or coolant.

I have replaced the radiator this year, and the cooling fans. The upper radiator hose is a cheapo eBay kit, and doesn’t appear to be leaking, the lower is OEM (old). I’m not crawling under the car in the rain (even though I have a tarp in the trunk, I’ll just wait till I get it home)

what is on the passenger side to check? I know there is some bitch hoses on the back of the head. And there is the oil “cooler” under the intake, that has lines going to it. But could that kick up water that far on the passenger side and the front?

Well I’m home.  Note to self, this forum dies when the east coast guys go to bed. 

There's the 'cursed plug' at the rear of the engine, and the small coolant line from the rear of the engine to the 'oil cooler' which then runs up to the throttle body and around the front of the engine to the t-stat neck.  High pressure spray anywhere along there could probably result in what you're describing.

Yeah, check the small coolant hoses around the throttle body and water pump. Those are known to age out - I had one blow out on the track in the past, but they also can fail during normal street driving. IIRC they're Mazda only, too and if one let go the others usually aren't that far behind.

Yeah, I was thinking cursed water plug.  It's called that for a reason.  Is there coolant inside the cabin or just in the engine bay?  If in the cabin, heater core.

Water plug would be my guess. One good thing about doing a coolant reroute is that you get rid of that thing.

Yeah, from what I could tell m, on the side of the road, in the dark and rain, there is no coolant in the cabin. 

ill check back with more info and pics when I get home from work today. 

Never heard of this water plug thing... i feel like that must be 1.6-only, having never owned one.

I'm going to vote for some misc under-intake-manifold hose as well.  Most likely something oil cooler related, those always tend to blow out on FWD BP's.

In reply to therieldeal :

BP’s have them too. Back of the head.