I finished replacing front rotors and pads on the F-Type tonight. Rears are fine, but I had been nursing warped rotors for the last, uh, 7 months on the Jag. There was TONS of pad life left, but the rotors were absolutely shot. My guess would be that the dealership did pads only at the last service before I bought the car. @derp has been on me to fix it but as you can tell, my space is quite limited and the Miata (which still doesn't run) has been taking up the driveway.

Those are 380mm rotors. For those who don't speak metric, nearly 15 inches. Which happens to be the wheel size on my Miata.

About the brake job itself, it's not that bad for the fronts. Rears are apparently a bit tricky because of the electric parking brake but the only part that really sucks on the fronts is the anti-rattle clip which requires a crow bar and 3 hands to put back on. Everything about these brakes is massive.

Bedding is fun. Though the brakes do feel a little spongy and judging by the color of the brake fluid (starting to go a little dijon mustard yellow), I really should bleed them soon.

That is all for now. Happy stopping.

I couple weeks ago, I decided to finally make a new gauge cluster for the Exocet. I've been through a few iterations. First was a really ugly implementation of the stock Miata cluster. Second was an Android-powered reverse mirror that was heavy and rattly. Third is this new 3D printed version utilizing a FireHD 8 tablet.

I knew that I would spending almost an entire week printing this monstrosity out of ABS, so I got an Raspi, installed octoprint, got remote monitoring of my printer up and running.

I had to break up the print quite a bit to get it to fit on my print bed and reduce warping.

Tonight, I got the pieces welded together and sanded the seams a bit. ABS plastic is great. It's quite resistant to heat but melts if you touch acetone to it. Acetone and a paint brush = liquid welding.

The acetone trick really comes in handy when you want to fine tune some assembly and merge flat parts. The tablet mount was printer separately to save myself from having to waste filament on supports.

You can also see some of the threaded inserts that I use for m3/m4/m5/m6 bolts. They're brass(ish?). To use them, you print your model with a slightly undersized hole. Then you stick the threaded insert on the end of a hot soldering iron (heating the insert) and just press it in. The plastic melts around the insert as you press. It's a super satisfying process.

Here it is with the tablet in and turned on. I really wanted to maintain the stock Miata hazard button. It's been a PITA and it's never coming out of this thing (it's basically plastic-welded in). The little button above it is a momentary switch for the horn. The rear has two slots for the wiring.

The mount bolts up to the key/ignition bracket for stability and a second piece clamps onto the steering shaft. Here's a mockup of that:

@distraxi said in Smoke ‘Em while you’ve got ‘Em, folks:

The end of the IC engine has begun for realz.

Audi, and therefore most of VAG, have announced they’re no longer developing new IC engines.

Just wait until everyone realizes that their VW electric cars lied and have been secretly using gas all along.

I'm going to repost here from my LinkedIn with a little extra context.

Tomorrow, my former company will ring the NYSE opening bell.

This photo was taken the day that I moved from MA to CA in 2013. It was a day that important at the time, but not nearly as symbolic as I ever could have imagined.

Back in early 2013, I moved 3000 miles across the country to the San Francisco Bay Area. Sitting on the plane ride over, I had the realization that I had quit a job that I could have retired in to take a position with no title, no guarantees, and not much more than hope & air that we were going to turn enthusiasm into satellites.

I was the first person agree to join and the 2nd non-founder to show up to work. They now have around 200 employees.

I arrived on my first day to a roll up door at a garage in SF's South of Market neighborhood. The incubator garage at Lemnos was a full of crazy ideas and we went home smelling like fast food workers as the hamburger robot of another startup was serving up test burgers.

On my first day, Peter (CEO) told me that he wasn't sure which data from space people would want but that there would certainly be a market. That's a near-quote.

Jeroen (co-founder) and Joel (co-founder) had to take turns sleeping on the couch in the garage as it was often too late to go home when they "finished". At our first real office, I almost stepped on Joel's face when I entered the office at 7am. He had been sleeping under the table that we used as a desk because Jeroen had taken the futon that Peter had repurposed into office furniture. In the movies, all you see is a montage of work. Not the hard work, long nights, and dedication that building companies takes. When a shipping company lost a satellite in the mail, Megan (my long-time co-worker and roommate) called them every 15 minutes until it was found. When the business needed to scout locations for ground stations, Chris (another early employee) dropped everything except his suitcase and spent a fairly dangerous month trekking around Africa.

When folks see that opening bell, I'll see something very different than the investors on Wall St. I'll see Art F. transforming his career from office management to engineering. I'll see Lynsey hiring more than half of a 100+ person company. I'll see James on the phone at 3am EST with European reporters.

Lastly, I'll see Peter being told "no", eschewing sleep for days, until some customer, investor, or key hire said "yes".

So where you might see a bell, a formality, or a SPAC - I see nearly a decade of grit, determination, and a people who transformed themselves along with a company.

---

Am I going to be rich? No. Not at the current stock price, anyways.

Ouch sorry.

Also sorry for this: Looks like it couldn't handle the... pressure.

Big black arrows, where the cars actually stretched to.
Small black arrow, where the organizers probably figured it would stretch to.
Yellow arrow, the MSF motorcycle class that ended up in the middle of the event.

This morning was the first Cars & Coffee in the Bay Area in quite a while. It was put on by my friends at VALT. The pent up demand for C&C was huge. Thankfully, they picked a place with almost infinite expansion potential: The USS Hornet in Alameda. It also provides a really incredible backdrop for some of the photos.

I got there at 8:15 and it was already packed. The event started at 9am...

The volume of the cars was just incredible and the variety was stunning. LS swapped 944, all generations of Supra, 20+ R35 GT-Rs, 1st generation GT-R, R32, R33, and R34 GT-Rs, old American Muscle, new American Muscle, 356 speedsters, all manner of 911s from a 1st gen up to a GT3RS, a Delorean, a KITT replica, two Lamborghini Diablos, a Pagani Huayra, various Ferraris, a Geo Metro LSI convertible, a Miatas (of course), Mustang Mach-E, Ford GT (old AND new), and Lucid Motors showed off their new prototype for the first time. Peets Coffee was there as a sponsor handing out free coffee and the CEO was out greeting people.

The event was absolutely off it's nuts. A billion dollars worth of cars in one place. Sometimes $1M car parked next to a $5k car. That's one of the great things about Northern CA car culture. It's not about one-upping people, it's about having a car that speaks to your personal uniqueness.

I didn't take a ton of photos, but here are a few -

This is the CEO of Peet's Interceptor:

How about a Golf with a Toureg V6?

Lucid Prototype

It's a thing!

Mmmmmm GT

Puppies were out.

So were 356's.

And Diablo VTs

And cool old Military stuff:

KITT!

When you need to tow a Hummer, what do you buy?

Back in October 2020, I made the decision to swap out the tired motor on my 1991 Miata. The car has done almost 213k miles on it's original motor. 199k of those belonged to it's original owner, Sally, who bought the car brand new in 1990. She lived just about 3 miles away in Point Richmond in Richmond, CA. Amazingly, in the three decades that this car has been around, it's never been registered outside of Richmond.

Sally was a really good first owner. She did regular maintenance - spark plugs, timing belts, coolant flushes, oil changes, air filters, fuel filters - all like clockwork. When she sold me the car, she handed over almost 2 inches of paper stuffed in a manila folder. If I'm ever wondering if something's been done, it's right there in the receipts.

Unfortunately, Sally needed a double hip replacement and getting in and out of the car was getting problematic. She walked with a cane and instead had been driving a small SUV from a family member. She listed the car on Craiglist in 2017 for a "nice price". She didn't just get an email from me, she got a flood of emails from people all around. The car, as she told me, had to go "to the right person". She had a list of questions for each buyer. Some were too young and she expressed concern about a young person having such a small car with not a lot of safety equipment. Some people weren't mechanically minded or didn't have the means to fix it and she didn't want to see it end up in a scrap yard. After agreeing to meet me, I grabbed cash from the bank and ran as fast I could to meet her.

The car was perfect for what I wanted. My plan, unknown to Sally, was turn the car into an Exocet. The body dings, worn out clutch, sad suspension, bald tires, and oil leaks weren't a big issue. I did zero haggling, handed her the cash, signed the title, and promptly handed the keys to my friend Abhijeet who was proficient at limping a car with a failing clutch.

Watch out for this guy, he's mean.

We got the car home and I started analyzing my purchase. It had LOTS of issues. The clutch was absolutely knackered, the suspension was clunking all over the place, the top was in tough shape, and I don't think it had been washed since 1995. But it was complete and completely rust free. Even with all of its problems, it still drove like a Miata. Smiles from ear to ear.

I did the clutch on it, replaced the brakes (upgrades to 1.8 brakes), bushings, control arms, sway bars, wheels, and tires. All that work took place in my garage. Still planning on making it an Exocet once I got all the mechanics sorted. In the process, my roommate and I, who worked at the same business at the time, began commuting together in the car.

That's when an annoying thing happened. I fell in love with driving the Miata. I couldn't bring myself to rip apart Sally's car. One night, browsing Craigslist, I found a project Exocet for sale in San Jose. I drove down, bought it, and shipped it up to Richmond. Well, damn, looks like I have both! Most people here know that I've got both, so now you know why.

This last summer, thanks to COVID, I had plenty of time to completely redo the car's interor. I went so far as to take the dash out and rebuild most of the broken tabs in it. I also reupholstered the seats (next time, I'll pay a professional because that's a PITA), deleted the center console, put new carpet in, wired up headrest speakers, upgraded the rest of the sound system with an amplifier, added LRB speed door panels (with a custom door pad that I designed myself), had custom speaker surrounds made from CNC'd aluminum, and made a number of other small cosmetic upgrades.

The Miata has been an excellent car. It was my daily for the last 3 years (supplanting my Lancer Ralliart and certainly not replaced by my F-Type R). Unfortunately, I'd been feeling like the car was missing more than a few of it's ponies. It didn't have many to begin with (112hp in 1991) so losing a few wasn't great. I did a compression test and things came out pretty badly. To make matters worse, testing the #4 cylinder was complicated by the fact that a previous mechanic had stripped the threads on #4's spark plug and inserted a threaded insert.

So October rolled around and I finally made the call: new motor time. I looked at a ton of options. Everything from freshly remanufactured motors from various suppliers (terrible reviews) to K-Swaps. I did what anyone would do an made a spreadsheet.

Ultimately, I decided to go with a JDM 1.8 from a 2003 Miata. Other options, like rebuilding the 1.6 to my OCD specification ($9k) or a K24Z3 ($10k), were more expensive than my projection of around $5k for a low mile NB2 motor.

This motor was delivered in November. Why in February am I still not done? Eh, life and ECU's. As you may have read, my saga with VividRacing derailed the ECU process and lead to a severe disinterest in the project. I've since gotten some steam back though.

My process for this project has been fairly meticulous. Every time I touch a bolt, I take a picture, add arrows, give it a number, and put any parts taken off in a number plastic bag. That way, I minimize losing items and maximize my ability to go back and pick the project back up later.

Bit by bit, I've been picking my way through the engine. Replacing seals, water pump, gaskets, and anything that might some day leak or rust.

I even went so far as painting the coolant overflow tank.

I also painted up the headers, the 01+ US intake manifold, and the valve cover.

One of the odd things about this project has been having to piece it together. There are a lot of great guides online about what parts you'll need, but it's full of decision trees. The US 01+ manifold means a 99-00 fuel rail if you use the 90-93 throttle body. Unfortunately, I forgot that I had to clearance the manifold and pinched the first fuel rail that I put on. Woops.

Today I started on the throttle body - which is a major difference on NB Miatas. The location of the throttle body on the NB motor is slightly different, so to use the NA6 throttle body, I'll be using the FlyinMiata spacer. That required drilling and tapping two new holes in the manifold (using the adapter as a guide while it sits on the existing studs, then once tapped, removing the two studs. There's also a spot milled out on the NB intake that you should fill with epoxy or JB Weld to smooth things out, so I took care of that as well and sanded it off tonight once dry. Tomorrow or monday, I'll take the 1.6 throttle body off the 1.6 motor (which is still in the Miata with almost everything disconnected except the drive shaft and engine mounts), and put it on the adapter. Following that, I'll be putting a BMW throttle position sensor to convert this to 0-5V signal for Megasquirt instead of a simple "idle, not idle" that the NA6 ECU uses.

There's still along way to go on this project. I'll do my best to write more updates. I'll also be cleaning up the rest of the engine bay, putting some non-dented panels on, and getting the car resprayed once everything is done mechanically. After that, it's time for a roll bar and some chassis bracing.

In case you want to catch up:

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

Work and allergies slowed down this project significantly but I'm back in action (thanks to a certain steroidal allergy med). I've been doing a little at a time over the last few weeks and finally made significant progress this weekend.

First off, I got the AC and PS mounted to the new motor (still outside of the car). Both were easier said than done since the new motor didn't have an AC bracket. That meant pulling my old one off, scraping off gunk, treating it, and cleaning up the bolts as well. One thing about Japan is that it gets weather, so this new motor, while somewhat fresh, is still a bit of a fighter. The power steering bracket has this odd design where a press-fit sleeve overlaps a bolt. Problem is, mine was corroded in place. Much hammering later, it moved enough to get the bolt out. I used the one off my old motor because it was in better shape (after much cleaning).

So after getting those on, I got the belts on and tensioned. Getting closer!

Now here's where Japan seems to strike again. Most of the coolant fittings on the car are in great shape. Except for one. This is the rear of the motor and runs to the oil cooler.

There were quite a few suggestions and while welding on a new barb was potentially possible, the angle would have been tough. I instead opted to try and find an NPT thread that I could cut into it. I was able to get a 1/16 NPT thread cutter to fit on there (after also trying a 1/8 and realizing that NPT dimensions are weird AF).

Today, I did less on the motor and turned my attention to the engine bay. At some point in the past, the brake master must have let go. The brake fluid was likely not cleaned up quickly because the damaged paint was left to turn into damaged metal. I gave it a metal brush, a scotchbrite, a wire wheel, and another scotchbrite, and a clean, and a metal prep, and rust conversion, and 2 layers of primer, and a few layers of paint.

I also installed a new cat!

I don't have it, but I bet the military would be proud of this clearance that I now have for my swaybar. In case you missed it, here's the TLDR: I put a 1.8 into my 1.6 Miata. The A/C compressor touched the sway bar. No, I want A/C so I needed to fix it.

My solution is these nifty Billet Aluminum Spacers. Okay, that's just marketing speak for me chopping down 1.25 inch thick aluminum bar into 100x75mm chunks, mounting them with recessed bolts into the mounts, tapping new sway bar bolts into them, and bingo - sway bar is up.

For anyone interested in the process:

My heavy duty mounts were already on the car and taking them off wasn't going to be an option. They are a bitch to get on/off. So I hit them with some silicone lube and then a layer of paint and slapped a piece of paper on them. That gave me the templates I needed.

I scanned the painted paper into my computer.

I made a 3D printable guide and printed them in ABS.

I don't have pictures of the rest, but here it is:

• cut aluminum bar to 100x75x(1.25in)
• drilled all 6 holes using my 3d printed guides to keep me straight
• used a countersink bit to cut down the 4 outer holes
• use an m8 tap to tap threads on the center 2 holes
• mounted up to car
• then mounted swaybay to the spacer

@sony1492 @Dr-Zoidberg Just got a text saying it was 3.5 quarts low but not empty.

They also found the crank pulley was on backwards and therefore out by 45 degrees. They flipped it and we're purring like a kitten now.

@streetsofperth Not sure about the fuel. Open the cap and smell it. Does it smell like gas or like varnish? Does it crank when you turn the key?

@orneryduck said in School me about being an Oppo in Colorado:

Co Springs was miserable in some ways, great in others. It is too conservative as a whole in the same way Denver is too liberal. I never saw a middle ground there, but did enjoy some of the more mountain towns, especially on the West side of the front range. Grand Junction seemed really promising, but at that point, Utah is a solid option too.

I wouldn't mind trying the other end of the political spectrum. Things here are batshit. I got yelled at once when entering a building because I held the door for the woman behind me. She yelled at me for "reinforcing the patriarchy". I also got yelled at (twice in the same day) for buying bamboo by patrons of the nursery I was at.

The mountain roads are twisty and beautiful but unless you like running them mid-week, they are packed with caravans and tourists from Friday to Sunday. Riding motorcycles through Deckers and some of the passes are fun but risky due to the people more concerned with themselves and the aights than their fellow meat popsicles. I’ve had far more fun in CA canyons the last three times I’ve been than I did in 3yrs of CO.

CO was also really hard on my ND Miata, not that I couldn’t drive it in winter (I totally did, top down several times), but the stuff they put down to aid in traction and just the excess dust and gravel ends up beating the cars up. Denver is far better in this respect than other parts of the state, especially So.Co. As the general road conditions surrounding the city is better than anything around the Springs (except maybe Teller Co).

So is it more of a constant sandpapering than a rust/salt situation?

I hated winter. I lived at 7200ft and the weather rolled in fast and hard, often. Even if in town was clear, my house would get enough a smattering and that ruined everything for me. Required shoveling, lots of cleaning, and displaced time I would have rather applied to anything else.

This is solid first hand knowledge. Thank you.

Your exocet/Miata would be cheap to register in CO, but the Jaaag would likely cost a lot as CO uses a sliding scale for new car taxes that depreciates over seven years. This will still likely be cheap from CA, but it was a sticker shock from Florida.

Jag is actually 6 years old, but I plan to sell it soon anyways.

I really love the Orlando/Tampa Bay area, but North Florida is prettier, as is Georgia and Alabama, but they are Georgia and Alabama. I’ve been told Tennessee is nice, as are the Carolinas, depending on what you are into.

I drove through TN on my coast to coast trip last year. Jag got stuck in the mountains. In general, anywhere east of central TX feels too crowded to me. TN felt weirdly claustrophobic.

@grindintosecond said in School me about being an Oppo in Colorado:

@nickhasanexocet the race tracks are south and east of Denver, not north. Your budget kind of paints a $350k house, which should get you a 1300sq.ft. Split level With a 2 car garage….outside of Denver. I recommend staying away from any HOA neighborhood if you wish to car, because appearances. Colorado Rally Cross is pretty big here. I’m on the north side of Denver, but you could easily enjoy the western slope too of grand junction, Durango, Montrose, near Moab, but lose your race track access and big city visits for events. I’m finding the weather hot/cold lately, almost literally. It was 94 last week and most of the summer…in 3 weeks Estes Park will have snow. So we get 10 days of spring and fall. When it snows it melts quickly after. Sunny a lot.

I don't do much big city stuff. My only concern I guess is that I should be close enough to a population with a little dating potential. Not getting any younger but also not making any progress in CA. Man, you're reminding me how much I don't love snow. That said, in New England it always stuck around for weeks and turned brown.

Umm. They say cost of living is high but that includes the buy in to live here. Otherwise the grocery store prices aren’t killing me. I like it here, but trying to get a place for a shop or whatever is $$.

Good to know. Compared to CA home prices, everything looks cheap to me.

@huzer I'm not a person who does much with lakes and oceans. I haven't even fished a river in 10+ years.

@jminer Boulder is.... unique. Went into a gas station to grab a snack. Turned out it was a vegan gas station. No Jack Links

I'll put For Collins on the map!

@highlander said in School me about being an Oppo in Colorado:

I actually didn't realize Cheyenne was only 1 hour from the closest squiggle. That might work.

@musashi66 said in School me about being an Oppo in Colorado:

@nickhasanexocet There are some spectacular areas in your squiggle. There are also some white trash meth infested shitholes, so.. buyer beware.

Good to know. I am now crawling over crime maps/stats.

There are some super nice mountain passes, 4x4 roads, and dirt roads in your area as well. I love taking my Abarth over some of them. I’ve rented Jeeps for some other ones. I never considered a rally type car for dirt roads, but we have a bajillion miles of those.

I imagine your Abarth would be fairly similar to my Miata in terms of enjoyable roads (I rented an Abarth in Scotland so I have a little experience).

Housing - $450k won’t buy you anything super nice anywhere where it’s desirable. Your area does encompass some of the cheapest and some of the most expensive parts of CO. In some parts, $450k won’t buy you a shed. In some other, you might even be able to get some land with that.

Yeah. I wish I could double it (go buy some NYSE:SPIR and maybe I can). I could maybe increase my budget, but it would require leveraging my stock holdings. $450k is my salary-based budget.

Colorado (Denver) gets 276 days of sun per year. Some parts of CO get really cold and they are - you guessed it - right in your area. You definitely will shovel, but snow usually melts fairly quickly. I rode motorcycles in January before.

Sounds kind of similar to Utah. I was also in Boulder a few years ago. 24 hours before I landed it was 70+ degrees. The day I landed it was 20 degrees.

Largest track is down south of Colorado Springs. There is a nice one an hour east of Denver. From what I know, Colorado isn’t really the best for track experiences.

Good to know. I don't track as often as I thought I would anyways.

Your questions are a bit too generic to answer properly. Hit me up on PM if you have more specific questions and we can chat or talk on the phone (I know, antiquated concept).

Will do!

@fintail said in School me about being an Oppo in Colorado:

@nickhasanexocet Someone from California not moving to metro Seattle or Spokane? No way!

Don't tempt me. Olympic peninsula is on my potentials list.

I think buying a Jeep, 4Runner, or Tacoma is required to get residency.

New Bronco? Hmmmm.

@cb said in School me about being an Oppo in Colorado:

@nickhasanexocet Skip the middle man, move to Vermont.

I dislike Vermont. It's fake empty. It's remote by East Coast standards but still filled with mailboxes. All the squiggly roads are filled with people and children chasing a ball across the road. Also, summers suck. Also, winters suck.

I'm giving serious consideration to moving to CO. Yes, make your jokes - someone thinking about moving from CA to CO. I'm originally from MA (which I don't like) and never fit in well in CA but you do what you do for work. Now that my job is 100% remote and I keep my salary when I move, I'm thinking about Colorado. It seems to have an appropriate number of squiggles on the map and a density that is low enough to keep me sane. My two favorite parts of CA are the driving roads and large swaths of low population density. Third is weather, which I'm sure I'll give up to some degree. I grew up driving in snow, which I like, but despise shoveling.

I could use some schooling. I know some rough things - like it snows in mountains and

• What's the oppo-experience?
• If I do it, should I build some kind of rally car for the seemingly endless dirt roads?
• I drew a huge irregular shape on that map. I'm not interested in being in a city, but I know nothing about the politics, drug problems, safety, etc of any areas in that map - what should I know?
• I'll have a budget somewhere under $450k for a house but ideally I don't spend all of that and get a huge amount of garage. Garage space should increase commensurate with snowfall - any recommendations?
• Tracks? I see High Plains Raceway, Pueblo Motorsports Park, Pikes Peak International Raceway, and La Junta Raceway. Anything I'm missing?

I plan to do maybe do a scouting trip early next month if any local oppos want to do a drive.

@bison78 said in Numbers...:

@nickhasanexocet said in Numbers...:

Getting conservatives to take a vaccine isn't about how you sell it, mandate it, shame, or market. It's about time -

No. It's about how many unnecessary deaths happen before they stop believing the misinformation.

That's a non sequitur.
Number of vaccinated people in the US: 196 million
Number of people who voted in 2020 elections: 158 million

Pat yourselves on the back. You got more people vaccinated than showed up to vote in the highest voter turnout (by raw number) in US election history.

Try as you might, 100% is not a number you're going to hit and it's a bad goal.