cars. Cars. CARS. CARS!

[GDS_Starfury]

glad to hear your ok but lets be honest here...  your punishment for driving a miata should be far worse.  ;)

[Barthheart]

glad to hear your ok but lets be honest here...  your punishment for driving a miata should be far worse.  ;)

HA! Yeah but I did get away with it fer 23 years.....  :P

[GDS_Starfury]

23 years of questioned manhood.

[bayonetbrant]

glad to hear your ok but lets be honest here...  your punishment for driving a miata should be far worse.  ;)

HA! Yeah but I did get away with it fer 23 years.....  :P

just means we've got 23 years of punishment to mete out.  Perhaps a few weeks of editing Wodin's posts at the Wastelands forums should do it ;)

[Barthheart]

glad to hear your ok but lets be honest here...  your punishment for driving a miata should be far worse.  ;)

HA! Yeah but I did get away with it fer 23 years.....  :P

just means we've got 23 years of punishment to mete out.  Perhaps a few weeks of editing Wodin's posts at the Wastelands forums should do it ;)

Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo  :-X

[Gusington]

Good deal with maneuvering out of the way Bart. Women and machinery do not mix.

[GDS_Starfury]

neither do men and miatas.
next thing ya know he'll be on double dates with azz getting his sphincter bleached... :o

[Barthheart]

Pfft!

I'm holding out fer Harison Ford....

[Gusington]

 :o

[LongBlade]

I wish some hottie would make that song with me in it. Even as a joke it would be pretty cool.

Well, I mean some hottie besides Azz.

[TheCommandTent]

Glad to hear you are ok Barth. 

[Sigma One]

Barth, hope your Miata can get patched up quick!

Might be taking the Focus to an Autocross event in about two weeks, possibly joined by a MR2, another Miata, perhaps a Corvette. The driver of the MR2 is my insurance agent and he has explicitly told me to not hit anything because "we can't cover stuff that happens at races." Which he then follows by asking me what sort of engine work I'll be doing to go faster.

[LongBlade]

Barth, hope your Miata can get patched up quick!

Might be taking the Focus to an Autocross event in about two weeks, possibly joined by a MR2, another Miata, perhaps a Corvette. The driver of the MR2 is my insurance agent and he has explicitly told me to not hit anything because "we can't cover stuff that happens at races." Which he then follows by asking me what sort of engine work I'll be doing to go faster.

I'll bite. What sort of engine work are you doing to go faster?

[Barthheart]

Barth, hope your Miata can get patched up quick!

Might be taking the Focus to an Autocross event in about two weeks, possibly joined by a MR2, another Miata, perhaps a Corvette. The driver of the MR2 is my insurance agent and he has explicitly told me to not hit anything because "we can't cover stuff that happens at races." Which he then follows by asking me what sort of engine work I'll be doing to go faster.

Thanks! It's at the shop now and the insurance company is playing nice so far.... maybe because it's wasn't my fault.  :P Anyway they've rented me a 2013 Edge. Nice SUV....

I'd love to try an Autocross. The Miata is so low and wide that it corners like it's on rails.
I used to do navigational rallies in my younger days. Great fun. Typically run on back roads, old logging roads etc.

http://www.smccrally.com/about/introRally.htm

[Sigma One]

Barth, hope your Miata can get patched up quick!

Might be taking the Focus to an Autocross event in about two weeks, possibly joined by a MR2, another Miata, perhaps a Corvette. The driver of the MR2 is my insurance agent and he has explicitly told me to not hit anything because "we can't cover stuff that happens at races." Which he then follows by asking me what sort of engine work I'll be doing to go faster.

I'll bite. What sort of engine work are you doing to go faster?

There's quite a bit of stuff coming out/is out from Steeda and Cobb to assist with giving the Focus ST a bunch of power and performance. There's a variety of cold air intakes, a computer tuner to adjust timing, throttle response, full exhaust systems, etc. My first real step though is to get mudflaps and all-season tires before it gets too cold. The Focus ST came with summer tires, great for handling and acceleration, but needs the weather to be above 30 degrees to maintain grip.

After that I will probably get the tuner since it is plug-n-play and cheaper, the throttle on the car isn't entirely direct (its fly-by-wire) so I'd like to adjust that. After that if the price is right, I'll look into brakes and then onto the cold air intake and exhaust. The exhaust note on the car is pretty quiet, despite the inducer that's piped into the cabin.

Currently I'm waiting for my dealer to bring in some parts for a new motor mount for the ST. Apparently they thought they could use the same ones used in stocked Focuses, but when you had 100+ hp and torque, the motor is going to move around a bit more, so the new motor mounts will be stiffer and hold it in place. Right now if I'm aggressive with the gas from a stop I can get some wheel hop into 2nd gear and some play into 3rd.

Overall though, the car itself is great stock as a 'fun' daily driver that can take care of itself at an autocross. Track days with extended racing though is something I wouldn't do until I do the brakes and tires and tuner.

I plan on owning this car for minimum of ten years so this will be an on-going project. A buddy of mine wants to try his hand at LeMons racing sometime either next year or after once we can find a suitable junk car to enter and get a team together.


Went on bit of rant again, maybe I'll keep coming back to this thread to show my upgrades and work on the car.

Barth, the Miata is a fantastic track car. Perfectly balanced, lots of available parts, widely supported, the list goes on. That's cool about the rallies! I wonder if anything happens like that out here.