My first race in the Thunder Roadster was everything I wanted it to be except for one thing: oil temps. As I raced through the field during the Aussie Pursuit race, I was closely monitoring my oil temperature gauge as the temperature crept to 290 degrees. Flirting dangerously close to being pinged...
Sometimes your subconscious makes choices that you aren’t 100 percent aware of. And over the last two seasons, I have experimented in several racing series. With nothing quite feeling right. There was always this nagging, ‘this ain’t it’ feeling, no matter how I approached...
Two hours into my endurance race stint, my foot was on fire, literally. By the time I stepped out of the Total-D Miata, I had a second-degree burn. Welcome to the world of Miata hot foot.
The 2015 4th Gen Ram 2500 farm truck gets used a lot around here. So much so that I didn’t even notice when the 150k mark came and went. But when I did notice at 160k, I asked myself a few questions. Namely, have I ever changed the drivetrain fluids?
I came across an ad for these little matchbox drift cars. You mount them to your dash, and they move when the vehicle turns, giving the appearance of a ‘drift.’ At first, I thought, ‘That’s silly.’ Then it became, ‘Eh, kinda cool.’ Which quickly turned...
The minimalist chassis of the Miata Exo Car (aka ‘ghettocet’) makes it the perfect platform to test ideas. Complex designs become relatively easy, like mounting the radiator in the rear. And very early in the build process, I decided on such a rear mount design. As I near the end of the...
The ‘ghettocet’ Miata affords plenty of opportunity to take things back to ‘old school.’ With that in mind, let’s explore hockey puck motor mounts on this project. It’s something I built years ago for the CA18DET swapped 240sx. And something very fitting to...
Remember that two-week window I had to complete the Miata ghettocet before the holidays? Well, those weeks came and went with very little progress. Why, you ask? Because I had to rebuild the engine. Which meant waiting on parts. But after a short delay, I am back on track, and the drivetrain and...
The internet has a way of making direct answers challenging to find and unnecessarily complicated. Unsurprisingly, removing the power steering from a Mazda Miata is no exception. The back-and-forth on the pros and cons is confusing and somewhat comical. That is why I am here to say resolutely that...
I have been building and racing racecars for a long time, and one of my favorite things is removing unnecessary crap. In a 1.6l equipped Miata that spends its life at wide open throttle, the ISC or Idle Speed Control System just so happens to fall into that category. In this guide, I am going to...
The race season is officially over, and it’s time to finish this. I have significant plans for the 2025 season and about a two-week window during which I can devote considerable time to the exo car build. That said, there are a lot of miscellaneous items to address before the final assembly...
I spent way more time on the fabrication of this project than I intended, forcing myself to have a bit of a reckoning. You see, I tend not to be satisfied with my work and continually strive for improvement. That’s a roundabout way to say I can sometimes be a perfectionist. And that is why I...
