What have you done to your Miata today?

Yesterday I took my '90 to Summit Point and ran parade laps during the lunch break. Fun ride there (rode with eight other Cheapskate Area Roadsters members), fun laps, and even a decent ride home till I started smelling coolant. Got home to find the radiator pissing a little stream from the front.

Hope to have a replacement here in time to be installed before the weekend. Someone's offering up a set of R-comps if I have him as a co-driver. I've never run on R-comps before so it's intriguing, but with the short week due to the holiday I don't know if Mazdaspeed can get a radiator to me in time without heroic efforts.
 
finally had some time to give the car a full wash, then i hand polished it and put a layer of spray wax on. Cleaned out the interior some as well. Then the g/f and i jumped in and drove around the back roads for about and hour or so because it was finally not blazing hot outside.
 
damn Miatas look sexy...

I put my first tank of Premium in, runs like a champ! Sprayed my daisies also for winter
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I put in premium because I'm planning to get a supercharger within the next 6 months and wanna make sure my engine stays healthy lol. It really does purr with 93 octane...thanks for the comment about the wheels :) can't wait to put the winters on...

I polished and cleaned the hell out of the car today. Yes, I really do need a better camera. Anyone wanna buy me a Nikon D5000? :D

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some pics of the detail work from this weekend...you can see the coolbreeze scoop installed on the car and the damage i did to the front lip.

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fitftw said:
I put in premium because I'm planning to get a supercharger within the next 6 months and wanna make sure my engine stays healthy lol.
Click to expand...

If you're not detonating with 87 octante, you're wasting your money.
 
Apples to oranges, I prefer running 93 in my car. I am willing to spend the extra $1.50 for the peace of mind.
 
Detonation or whatever. Plus when bolt-ons come into play I'm sure it will help, even if it's barely.
 
We had two cool breeze scoops, but when we were leaving the Gap back in early June we ran across a passing rain shower. The wife tried to take her scoop off while doing 65-70 and it slipped out of her hands. It's somewhere on the side of Route 74 in rural western North Carolina, probably in a million pieces. I think I passed it while it was still in the air.

I ran premium in my '96 when the timing was set at 14*. It would ping otherwise. The '90 is set at 12* and runs fine on the cheap stuff.
 
I run 91-93 just because it contains less crap in fuel mixture, like benzine and other hydrocarbons that like to screw up my engine. I don't think I need it for the knock protection, it just gunks up the engine less.
 
I say if you can afford Premium, why not? I'm gonna do it as long as I'm not strapped for cash. It's only an extra like $20-30 per month. Since I quit smoking, I can afford to play around with other stuff.
 
Claff said:
We had two cool breeze scoops, but when we were leaving the Gap back in early June we ran across a passing rain shower. The wife tried to take her scoop off while doing 65-70 and it slipped out of her hands. It's somewhere on the side of Route 74 in rural western North Carolina, probably in a million pieces. I think I passed it while it was still in the air.

I ran premium in my '96 when the timing was set at 14*. It would ping otherwise. The '90 is set at 12* and runs fine on the cheap stuff.
Click to expand...

Did you notice a difference when you advanced your timing? I'm thinking of doing this just for the extra little gains. Will it affect reliability or efficiency (gas mileage, mainly)?
 
Reliability is fine (my '90 is 168000+ miles and purrs like a kitten), gas mileage is about the same.

The timing bump doesn't really increase power, it just changes where the power happens. Compared to our stock '93, my '90 seems to get off the line better, but loses that advantage at the top of the RPM range. And the difference isn't dramatic, either. You're not going to jump out of the car after the first drive post-bump and shout WOW. It's more of a "oh, that's what that does". And if you drive in a fashion where you can take advantage of the little extra help down low, great. I don't think our stock '93 drives badly at all, which is why I haven't done it to that car yet. The wife wants it done ASAP but I think she'll be a little let down thinking it's going to transform the car, when probably half of all Miata drivers won't even notice the difference.

Picking up my new radiator tomorrow at Rosenthal, hope to have it in on Friday since the wife wants to take the '90 autocrossing this weekend. I'll be running the Mazdaspeed.
 
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