NB MX-5 Hey, it's Minnie!

Had a guy get a rolling picture of me at the local cars & coffee around that time (credit to the photographer as listed on the picture):

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Couple of days later was a good day. I received the spacers for the big brake kit, along with the Frank B coolant reservoir I sent off for powdercoating. That is installed, here is what it looks like:

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This is bigger than the one I had previously, as well as having a sight glass so I can see the level in the tank.
 
Not exactly what I did to the car, but my wife gave me a present:

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Now I won't have to keep checking my phone for the time when I'm in the garage.
 
Finally got around to connecting my new laptop to the MS and I got the same error message. Going with most likely candidate for failure, I'm guessing my connection cord has an issue. I'll have to see about getting another and and trying that out.

I have also been mulling over what could be causing my less than stellar handling. Took a look at my rake and found it is well above 0.25" as recommended by 949 Racing. Not sure why it is so, but I am taking some good measurements so I can see if I need to raise the front or lower the rear, do that and then get an alignment.
 
I pulled the MS to try some things. With the 90 degree adapter removed I still have no communication. My replacement serial to USB adapter is due here today so I will be able to see if that fixes the problem or not.
 
The replacement serial to USB cable did not fix my MS communication problem, so back to the drawing board.

In the morning I took some suspension measurements and raised the front by 6mm (mainly because the rears are bottomed out). I also reconnected the rear sway. Took a drive for some errands and the car's handling feels better. As in, no big oversteer events better. I didn't have the chance to measure my ride heights, I will do that (and notate it this time!) so I know what I have. Planning on setting up for an alignment check on Friday to see where I am, then will go with the 949 Racing street specs.
 
Past few days I tried opening a new project on my MS and reloading the firmware with no luck. Still showing improper communication (says it can't load all the pages of data) despite getting a good ping when I run the comms test. This needs more research.

After I raised the ride height in front I got it aligned Friday. Went with the 949 dual duty specs, in front ended up with 1.7 neg camber, 4.1 caster and 0 toe. In rear ended up with 1.6 neg camber and close to 0 toe (it's -0.01). I reconnected the rear sway just before that to see how it affected things. All in all I like how it's working now.

Oh, and I found out the TPS works best if it's connected. I had disconnected it when I calibrated the O2 sensor earlier in the week, and for some reason had a brain fart when checking things over and forgot to connect it. Dumbass me!
 
Went on a roadtrip to see my brother and his family the first couple of days that week. Car ran great, top down the whole way. On the one tank that was strictly freeway driving I got 29.1 mpg, pretty good for something that aerodynamically dirty. I tried removing the clutch switch bypass to see if that restored my cruise but it didn't. Have to do some more research on the issue as well. I also decided I will swap out the Recaros for the stock seats the next time I do a longer trip, the side leg bolster bracket just numbs my right leg too much for comfort.

This was the first time my brother had driven her with the MP62. He came home with a huge smile on his face. He also picked my nieces up from school in it, the older (9) came up to me afterwards with a look of awe on her face and said thank you.
 
Went to work on my new ship in October 2015. Managed to make it home for a couple of days to attend my middle son's college graduation. Took a couple of drives thanks to the weather which really helped me relieve some stress.

I have bought a couple of items from an SE being parted by The Parts Group. The two lower radiator supports (I cut mine up to fit the FMIC before I learned what was needed to install without any cutting), some of the carpet pushpins as I am missing a couple, and now the dash. One of the previous owners installed a cupholder and drilled an extra hole to mount it in the lower part of the console on the passenger side. Even though I can't see it this sort of thing bugs me so I've been wanting to get a replacement. That will be on its way shortly.
 
Headed home for the holidays. I have bought a used set of hood hinges, the rear of mine sticks up a little due to the hood lift kit brackets being separate from the hinges. I am going to try to weld the pins from the brackets directly to the hinges and see what that gets me. Pictures when I can.
 
Made it home to find something I forgot to mention, a complete set of powdercoated rear A-arms. I don't know if these will end up on the Miata, or the 7 if measurements show I will be able to insert a Miata rear end under her.
 
Thanks to a comment on another forum, I started thinking about the issue with my hood gap caused by the lift kit. I decided to do some research. Turns out I had my struts reversed from the recommended position (senior moment) so I swapped them. Still had the hood lift. The research showed early instructions said to remove one of the fender bolts. I noticed the strut bodies had the paint rubbed off in way of the bolt head. I removed the two bolts, hood is flush on the passenger side but still slightly raised on the driver's side. Might have to adjust the hinges (mainly loosening the nuts and letting things settle where they will). I'm going to look for the instructions I got with my kit to see if this is something I overlooked. Not happy with the empty bolt hole, I may get the TDR kit which does require drilling of the hinges but no removal of fender bolts.
 
After much consideration, I decided since I wasn't having any luck with my MS on the communication front I would see if Reverant would take a look at it. He said yes so I pulled it that morning and sent it to him along with the harness and CAN wideband module. I was hoping he would be able to fix it and return it so I could install it when I got home for some vacation. My wife would just have to deal with not having it to drive on nice days.
 
Home for a short visit. Finally got my hands on the dash I bought (my buddy stored it in his garage until I got home), now I just have to install it. My MS is headed back to me, took a little back and forth communication with Reverant but it will be worth it. He integrated the CAN WB module inside my unit and loaded upgraded firmware. Can't wait to put it in and fire her up.
 
Mail lady brought me a present. My MS finally returned from Reverant. For anyone interested, it took 11 days for the various postal services to get it back to me. The Greek post office site tracking is even worse than USPS, the last status for a while was for 16 Feb showing it sitting in one place. The final update today was to show it was delivered. I tried checking the USPS site but it did not recognize the Greek tracking number (despite the fact it had to have been checked in some manner).

Anyway, I have it mounted to its bracket for installation in a bit. The pieces that were inside the WB CAN module are now inside of my original unit, and the wiring harness has been modified to have the serial connection for the WB as well as the OBD connection I added. I am not sure what the two extra wires that are twined are for, I've sent Rev a message asking about them.

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Finally got around to pulling the replacement dash apart. See pictures for details. First you have to remove the vent tubes (remove all of them, I left in the one you see in the picture initially but there is a screw behind it). Then there are 10 screws holding the crash bar in place (all are the same except for the one gold screw in the flat bar located beneath the glovebox). You then remove 16 screw to separate the black dash pad from the colored lower section. It was then I found out the VIN tag is attached to a black part that is one piece with the lower section. So I will have to source the correct pop rivets so I can change the VIN tag over.

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Took a few days off in the present day, had some work to do along with some procrastination. ;) Back into the breach!

Installed the MS, doesn't get any easier contorting myself under the dash. Car fired right up, but the CEL is on continuously. Message sent to Reverant to find out what is up with that.
 
I forgot to mention it, but the twined wires are to allow me to connect and enable sequential ignition. I need to do some research before heading down that road.

Reverant answered my query about the CEL. I had to connect to TunerStudio, open a new project and let the program detect the new firmware. TS didn't have the necessary updates to operate with the new firmware so that was downloaded. Once I had everything done I fired her up, and all was good. I drove to our local cars & coffee, there were quite a few folks there from the Facebook Miata group I am on so that was fun. Wasn't able to wash her beforehand due to temperature (I have no problem washing a car when it's cold out, but not that cold).

Got her washed that morning and took a drive on one of my favorite backroads this afternoon. Should be some good days during the week to permit me to do some tuning.
 
Right before I went back to work in March I noticed that the AFR in TunerStudio wasn't changing from 14.7. Wrote to Reverant and asked about it, turned out when he is testing the units he puts the EGO setting to a remote input. I had to switch it to local, unfortunately I didn't get his answer until I was at work.

Got home yesterday, this morning I went out and performed that change to the MS settings, success! Took her out for a spin despite the threat of rain (which became real), did some tuning and went to storage to swap over to my Flatouts w/Rivals. I'm hoping the next few days clear some so I can get out and do more tuning.
 
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