What did Chief do to his Mazdas today?

[chiefmg]

Miata: Got home from training, after recovering from driving 1100 miles in 15 hours 47 minutes I had a look today. Despite the CEL coming on every time I started her for my trip (three times if you’re counting), the CEL never lit. Battery measured 12.7 volts beforehand. Fired right up, measuring voltage while she was running at high idle and got 14.5 volts. I was going to do some datalogging but for some reason it wouldn’t start. So now I am left with a mystery. Just going to drive her some and see what transpires. Will try firing up as many electrical drains as I can to see if that causes anything.

[chiefmg]

Miata: So far haven’t been able to figure out the charging situation. Have to keep on it.

Last week I had the chance to buy one of the Moss Miata front grilles locally so took it. When it showed up it looked like the UPS folks tried folding it up in two places. Luckily I was able to fold it flat with no distortion (helpful hint: if you ship something lightweight that can be bent, back it up with some sort of board. Cardboard won’t cut it). I removed the old grille by pulling the two socket head capscrews used. Here’s a picture of the old and new together:



The installation instructions say to remove the baby teeth. Mine are gone but I do have a tow hook which came in handy once so I left it in place. This required some cutting on the new grille. I made a cardboard template, mocked it up in the bumper and marked where the cut should be. Once that was all done I transferred the marks to the grille and cut it using aviation snips. Here is how that ended up:



There was no way I was leaving that large silver blob in the front bumper, so I prepped it and then painted it using the same epoxy I used on the rear bumper reinforcement. I didn’t have any spare factory bolts I could use to mount it so ran up to Ace. Unfortunately they didn’t have any flanged M6 bolts, so I ended up getting some stainless M6 X 20mm bolts with fender washers. I prepped those and painted them as well. Pictures of all that will follow once the paint is dry and I install the grille.

[chiefmg]

Miata: Everything was nicely dry this morning so proceeded with the installation. Yesterday evening I put the edging back on, along with a piece of silicone hose I split to cover the cut-out area for my tow hook. That looked like this:



I ended up taking off the hose piece as there wasn’t enough room for it without cutting the grille back further. I mainly wanted it to prevent any rubbing on the tow hook but clearance looks sufficient for that to not be an issue. First time I put it on the sections for the bolts wouldn’t line up so I removed it and cut those back a little more. Second time was a charm!



As can be seen, it appears almost transparent to the camera so I don’t think it will block too much airflow.

[chiefmg]

Miata: Got under her this morning to calibrate the O2 sensor. I have been seeing unusual AFR readings (higher than normal under steady state cruise), at first I thought maybe it was due to the colder temperatures we’ve been having but my gas consumption was up as well. Thinking about it yesterday I realized when I had my battery problem a few weeks ago it might have caused the sensor to reset. After I did the calibration and took a drive she was behaving much better. I have now put this as a point of reference for any future occurrence. Sometimes I’m a little slow on the uptake.

[chiefmg]

Miata: Nice day here so took her out to run to the store. On the way home, I got a big E8 error code on the wideband. She would run ok steady-state but bucked under acceleration. I nursed her home (couple of miles), before I shut her down I checked the battery voltage since that has been an intermittent problem. Voltage was steady at 14.6 so that wasn’t an issue. Checked my wideband instructions and it says the E8 code is for a sensor timing error (overheating or overcooling, appears at full throttle OR damaged sensor). Looks like I’ll be hoisting her up into the air for a look.

[chiefmg]

Miata: O2 sensor arrived today so out to the garage I went. Put her up on the QuickJack, removed the old sensor, reset the wideband, connected/calibrated the new sensor (important step) and then installed it. Old sensor didn’t look bad so must have suffered an internal failure (I’m guessing due to my sometimes rich condition). It was on the car for 9,351 miles.

FYI, DIY Autotune sells two different Bosch O2 sensors. The LSU4.2 (which is what I have) and the LSU4.9. If you check their site the only external difference is the connector on the 4.9 is not as wide as the one on the 4.2. I would have to change out the cable going from the sensor to the Megasquirt if I wanted to change to the 4.9 sensor.

Time to do the job (including putting her up and down on the lift) was the length of the first Saint Asonia album.