What did Chief do to his Mazdas today?

[chiefmg]

Miata: Pulled the steering wheel and connectors all out, reset the clockspring just in case I had messed that up and then put it all back together. Airbag light was out for a few drive cycles but it is back on. Time for some head scratching to see where that gets me.

The 'charger belt has been moving off by one tooth since I put her all back together. I tried a small adjustment with no success, so this morning I pulled it off completely to move the brackets around. Took a couple of tries to get it where it needed to be but finally got it done. I'll wait for a road test with some speed changes to see if it will be okay or need some more fettling.

[chiefmg]

Miata: Pulled the steering wheel and connectors all out, reset the clockspring just in case I had messed that up and then put it all back together. Airbag light was out for a few drive cycles but it is back on. Time for some head scratching to see where that gets me.

The 'charger belt has been moving off by one tooth since I put her all back together. I tried a small adjustment with no success, so this morning I pulled it off completely to move the brackets around. Took a couple of tries to get it where it needed to be but finally got it done. I'll wait for a road test with some speed changes to see if it will be okay or need some more fettling.

[chiefmg]

Miata: 'charger belt has been staying in place so that is good. Unfortunately there has been some damage to the front edge from it walking so I'll get another one to replace it with.

Scraped a couple of the diffuser fins last night leaving the driveway of one of my wife's friends. No major damage but I will have to lightly sand and repaint the damage.

I've been doing some research on adjusting my VE tables. Finally manned up and made some changes to see what I could do. I am happy to report that it was an improvement. AFRs under boost are still high, but the gas smell is almost gone and she felt a little stronger. Now that I feel confidant in making changes I'll be doing more.

[chiefmg]

Miata: 'charger belt has been staying in place so that is good. Unfortunately there has been some damage to the front edge from it walking so I'll get another one to replace it with.

Scraped a couple of the diffuser fins last night leaving the driveway of one of my wife's friends. No major damage but I will have to lightly sand and repaint the damage.

I've been doing some research on adjusting my VE tables. Finally manned up and made some changes to see what I could do. I am happy to report that it was an improvement. AFRs under boost are still high, but the gas smell is almost gone and she felt a little stronger. Now that I feel confidant in making changes I'll be doing more.

[chiefmg]

Miata: Finally got my thumb out today and measured the resistance of the stock driver's airbag. It showed 0.3 ohms. Now everyone and their brother say to use a 3.3 ohm resistor when you remove the airbag which is a lot different. The GS one I bought measured at 3.6 ohms, the ones I previously tried were 3.3 ohms. I'm not the best with electrical stuff but I can get some 0.3 ohm resistors cheaply from Amazon, so I'm going to give that a shot.

[chiefmg]

Miata: Since I am now headed for MATG, this morning I got my Recaros out of storage and swapped them out. Dropped one of the washers I had modified to use as a spacer for the belt receiver, a diligent search couldn't find it. Made another one and got that all together.

While the driver's seat was out I pulled the brake and clutch pedal switches that tie into the cruise control system. Since I have changed everything else with no change I figured might as well. The one on the brake pedal has two switches, one for the brake light actuation and the other for the cruise. Both of those tested good. The clutch switch was intermittent while I was measuring it. Sometimes I would get continuity/break, other times it would stay in continuity. Going to get one of those ordered to see if I can finally fix that problem.

[chiefmg]

Miata: Since I am now headed for MATG, this morning I got my Recaros out of storage and swapped them out. Dropped one of the washers I had modified to use as a spacer for the belt receiver, a diligent search couldn't find it. Made another one and got that all together.

While the driver's seat was out I pulled the brake and clutch pedal switches that tie into the cruise control system. Since I have changed everything else with no change I figured might as well. The one on the brake pedal has two switches, one for the brake light actuation and the other for the cruise. Both of those tested good. The clutch switch was intermittent while I was measuring it. Sometimes I would get continuity/break, other times it would stay in continuity. Going to get one of those ordered to see if I can finally fix that problem.

[chiefmg]

Miata: Ok, so picked up the clutch switch on Saturday and installed it yesterday. Due to rain wasn't able to get out for a test until today. Results of that to come.

So the switch I am talking about is the one on the clutch pedal that is closest to the driver. Mazda number here:



Here is what it looks like:



And here is where it goes:



Note the lock nut on it is what allows you to set the height of your clutch pedal. Getting access to this is much easier if you have the seat removed and also remove the plate below the steering column. A set of thin wrenches make this job easier, as so:



You can see the thinness compared to a normal wrench:



So on to the test. Unfortunately this did not solve my issue so the cruise still doesn't work. On to the next possibility.

Finally in case anyone has forgotten what the Recaros look like installed, here they are:

[chiefmg]

Miata: Since I am supposed to be getting some help with my tune at MATG, I decided I would go ahead and calibrate the O2 sensor. Got that done, then since I was already under there figured I might as well finally install the RB front sway blocks I bought a long time ago. Found out the bolts were wrong so measured the length I would need and paid a visit to Ace. Got what I thought were the correct bolts (M8 X 1.25) based on the stock bolt and some nuts to lock the blocks down. Unfortunately the bolts were jamming when I tried putting them through the factory sway bushings blocks. Going to have to go to a local hardware store, they usually have a wider selection of fasteners to see if I can find what is correct.

[chiefmg]

Miata: Forgot earlier but also while I was underneath the car I touched up the slight damage to the rear diffuser done on my wife's friend's driveway. Here is how it looked before:





The impact only hit the two fins on the driver's side. I just sanded things down and gave them two coats of the paint. They ain't perfect but you won't see it if you don't crawl under the car.