Really? Another Miata thread....

[Sully]

It was a NY car and sat most of its life. Everything strips if you even look at it. When I did the rear brakes, I literally took the threads out of the bracket with the bolt. I thought the bolt stripped but when I looked closer, I was able to actually unscrew the threads of the bracket off the bolt after it was out. Bolt was 100% fine. It was crazy.

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[navin]

Why not call a Miata prep shop that might have some actual insight... Is your car the same as the MX5 Global car? Call up Winding Road Racing, or Long Road Racing... I'm sure they'll have better insight than MCS (makes shocks for hundreds of cars so they won't know every specific detail for each make/model).

[rherold9]

Why not call a Miata prep shop that might have some actual insight... Is your car the same as the MX5 Global car? Call up Winding Road Racing, or Long Road Racing... I'm sure they'll have better insight than MCS (makes shocks for hundreds of cars so they won't know every specific detail for each make/model).

I was literally going to call Adrenaline Racing today. This is through MCS recommendation. Have to wait until they open up since they are all the way in Oregon. I know they are going to say it's spacing but maybe they can help find a different solution then what I'm going for or if they can confirm what I know/doing that's cool too.

[D_Eclipse9916]

Those collars are extremely common and known on sphericals. Sorry you had a tough time but it comes with inexperience. At least it's getting resolved now.

Most pure race stuff doesn't come with any instructions at all. It's frustrating and a learning process.


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[rherold9]

Yes, this has been a great learning experience after it is all said and done. I'd do it over again in hindsight as well. Ito frustrating but I think it will be well worth it.

Martin @ Adrenaline will be calling me on Monday. I went ahead and ordered two different bolt sizes anyways so oh well if I wasted $6. I want to figure the issue out fast so I can drive the car. The exhaust sounds amazing. The dampers feel so good on a quarter mile drive even on the middle setting of 8. Much better than the stock bilsteins with much stiffer rates than stock... two weeks of an inactive car gets old

[rherold9]

TL;DR: Dampers feel good, car feels more powerful, mis-fire after spark plug change.

Martin called me to try to help but he never got back to me after saying he would. I decided to just put one OE washer on each side. Loosen top hat bolts on the chassis and pull the top hat while tightening the bolt back down to the chassis to give a little more room. Still rubs but I don't care much anymore at this point. I'll turn up my music/highway noise is enough to block out any noise. I do not need longer bolts with the setup I have. I tried the 40mm length and they were too long.

These dampers on the other hand I think are made of unicorn stuff. They are indeed magic lol. Softer than OE Bilstein's everywhere except harsh bumps and dips. The dips/bumps aren't even that much worse then the Bilstein's though which is crazy. Running 3 from soft front and 4 from soft in the rear after a few small tuning adjustments after some driving felt good. Each click or two does make a difference in feeling. Sitting about an inch lower rear and 1.15-1.25" lower in the front from fender to center of hub. It's a huge difference of feeling all around. I didn't test any corners but I assume it's going to be reallll nice. So much more planted and no airy/floating feeling. I can't wait to drive on them more and do an autocross on them.

The car for sure has more power as well. It's not a lot at all but you can feel it with the new mid-pipe and header. A lot more so than I felt in my Mazda3 when I swapped exhausts..

Changed spark plugs to NGK (3789) ILTR6A-13G Laser Iridium Spark Plug for my car last night after fine tuning the dampers. The car decided it wanted to run rough after changing them... Yeh. It's for sure a mis-fire. Never experienced it in my life until last night and could tell immediately it was doing it after about a quarter mile of driving. Loss of power/stuttering. While idling it was popping and bad idling. These are the correct ones for my car and I didn't bother to check the gap... So, either the gap is wrong or the coil packs aren't in right. I went to re-seat the coil packs this morning and of course I managed to drop cylinder #3 somewhere in the engine bay that it's gone. Searched for 30 minutes so ordered a new bolt. I've dropped 4 different bolts in the engine bay and have been able to find them right away. This one has just disappeared... I'm guessing it dropped perfectly into a sub frame round hole and is sitting inside a hollow sub frame brace somewhere.

If it still idles bad after re-seating tomorrow night I'm going to turn car on and unplug each coil pack one by one and see if idle changes. If 3 change the idle to worse but one doesn't that's the problem cylinder. I'm hoping it will be that easy to find it. If not uh I'm not sure what to do next besides have to take the plugs out and look at the gap...

The spark plugs in there were indeed OE on 96k miles... Not too terrible looking at all but they recommend changing them at 75k miles.

[ScottyB]

glad to hear the suspension is getting sorted. you've really had to feel the burn with this stage of the build but i hope the results continue to be worth it. the price we pay for shiny racecar stuff....

those plugs look textbook perfect. if you hadn't said 75k miles i would have thought half that. there is almost no ground strap or electrode erosion and the color shows they are perfectly happy.

[*insertusernamehere*]

Interested in whether or not the plugs are gapped. Generally iridium plugs will come pregapped they're very delicate and easily break when gapped at home.

[rherold9]

glad to hear the suspension is getting sorted. you've really had to feel the burn with this stage of the build but i hope the results continue to be worth it. the price we pay for shiny racecar stuff....

those plugs look textbook perfect. if you hadn't said 75k miles i would have thought half that. there is almost no ground strap or electrode erosion and the color shows they are perfectly happy.

Technically not sorted but I'm going to let the delrin adapter wear down and just make sure the damper body doesn't rub on the spring and it will be all good as long as the damper body stays painted so it doesn't rust I'm okay.

Yes, the plugs looked great for 96k miles... This car seems veryyyy well maintained by the previous owners and is a one owner car. No need to really change the plugs but I'm just following the maintenance schedule.

Interested in whether or not the plugs are gapped. Generally iridium plugs will come pregapped they're very delicate and easily break when gapped at home.

I'll found out soon enough. I'm going to pretty pissed if NGK sent me bad gap on correct iridium plugs but somehow I wouldn't be surprised. Never touched or banged the the electrode side... and slid them in on the coil pack side with some needle nose. I made sure this time on the first two cylinders to pay attention and feel it push against the top of the plug as it was about 3/4 down to make sure it is definitely on the plug. Then tightened to hand tight with a 1/4" drive + a quarter turn.

[rherold9]

TL;DR bad spark plug

After some troubleshooting I found the culprit. I started with re-seating all the coil packs to be sure I didn't mess anything up there. I unplugged each coil pack one at a time. Miss-fire got worse on every single one. I went to Advance Auto Parts to pick up a spark plug cap coin thing. Found one at 0.48 while the rest were at 0.50. Very very softly pushed to gap each to 0.51-0.52 as OE recommends 0.50-0.53. That didn't fix the issue...

I then took a break and ate.

Came back out and started pulling each spark plug and replacing it with the same old one. So, took new one out and put old one in. Started car for a minute to check for misfiring. Then took old plug out and put new one back in if it didn't stop misfiring. Of course, got to cylinder #4 and it was the bad one. Would have really loved the a CEL to kick in so I could've scanned it and found the cylinder faster but of course not. Old spark plug is in for now. I'm past the Amazon return window online so I'm going to try to see if I can call tomorrow and check if I can return it anyways...

I will be adding pictures once I get my final height and wheels on, exhaust impressions, and suspension impressions once I drive the car a bit. I just want to drive it a bit and enjoy the car because of how long it has been down.

[D_Eclipse9916]

Dude, you have issues with everything! Even if it's not returnable, call up the spark plug xompany


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[JPolen01]

Amazon will take anything back. But if it under $10 they will likely just tell you to keep it and send another one. I read an article recently that it is actually more cost effective for them to let you keep a cheap item than it is to have you ship it back and then send you another.

[rherold9]

Dude, you have issues with everything! Even if it's not returnable, call up the spark plug xompany

:thumbup: Finally, someone recognizes my pain.

I'm not sure what I did but the car God's are very much punishing me :roll:

Amazon will take anything back. But if it under $10 they will likely just tell you to keep it and send another one. I read an article recently that it is actually more cost effective for them to let you keep a cheap item than it is to have you ship it back and then send you another.

I just got off the phone with Amazon. They are refunding me and allowing me to keep the old spark plug. I ordered another one last night so I think that may be why they believe me. The dude had no idea what I was saying about cars haha. I also gave NGK a 3 star review for the bad spark plug because I'm petty like that.

[JPolen01]

I also gave NGK a 3 star review for the bad spark plug because I'm petty like that.

:lol:

[ScottyB]

But if it under $10 they will likely just tell you to keep it and send another one.

this is true...just found out with a nerf gun from my son's arsenal. they'll probably take care of you.

[Senor_Taylor]

I also gave NGK a 3 star review for the bad spark plug because I'm petty like that.

:lol:

Don't give it a bad review without allowing the company a chance to remedy the situation. Don't be a shit face.

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[*insertusernamehere*]

Lmao the salt hahaha. It's ok ngks reputation far surpasses Ryan's 3 star. Let the frustration out lol.

[rherold9]

I mean it was a defective product. I can't make a review telling people I got a bad spark plug? I could've been really salty customer and gave it 1 star... I thought I was being pretty fair with "it's okay" (3 star) review on Amazon.

These dampers though.... As they are breaking in are literally better in every way over the OE Bilstein's.... Softer, better feeling, more planted, no floaty feeling, less body roll. I'm in love with the car all over again. It was fun car before. But, with these changes really really have made this car that much better. This feels like an actual sports car now. This is coming from just daily driving it. I didn't think it would be that much different but I'm actually impressed. I can't imagine how much better the car will be in autocross as well. Who knows. Maybe it will even see some track time too :bootyshake: :mrgreen:

[rherold9]

Quick Exhaust Vid

Some quick pics for people who haven't seen them:

[Senor_Taylor]

I'm more impressed with how great your view is at your house.