Building The
Perfect Beast
Part 24 – OOPS, I did it again!
By: Robert McElwee
(Building the Perfect Beast is a
series of articles documenting my quest to turn a tame 200,000 mile Miata into
a road-eating monster by dropping weight and adding horsepower.)
In my last article, I said that Beast had been coming along
nicely and it was time to install a roll bar for racing and for camcorder
mounting. During the roll bar installation I started doing a little wiring work
and ended up frying part of the car’s electrical system.
The car ended up, as it has often done over the years that I
have owned her, sitting for many months while work was being done to her. I
don’t work fast and often start many jobs at the same time so it always looks
like the car is just sitting there with nothing really getting done. Well, this
was no exception. I was still in the middle of my roll bar installation, I was
working on installing a racing harness to replace the stock seat belts, I was
fixing the fried wiring, I was installing a new Water Injection system, I was
installing a CB for the upcoming driving season, and I was troubleshooting some
problems I was having with my Wide Band Oxygen Sensor. All of these jobs were
supposed to be completed by mid March. I had an autocross, a drag race, and a
Miata event in
A few days before the autocross I finally managed to get the
majority of the work completed. The burnt up wiring had been replaced and the
Water Injection had been installed. The new roll bar with camera mounts and
racing harness was in the car. I drove the car to the autocross, praying that
she would be able to make the 20 mile trip. I had recently purchased some used
racing tires for her and the extra width and sticky rubber really helped her
grip the pavement. For the first time, I felt like I was really in control of
the car instead of barely holding on. The skinny tires I had been driving on
just didn’t provide enough traction for her increased horsepower. A week after
the autocross I took her to the drag races. The local track would be closing in
a few weeks and I wanted to try my hand at racing just one more time. I knew
that driving her 100 miles to the next closest drag strip wasn’t really a
viable option.
In the past, my trips
to the drag strip had been less than successful. There was always one thing or
another that kept me from getting good times. Wiring problems, skinny tires,
and not being able to get the car in 3rd gear were the main
obstacles. I now had my wiring fixed, I had wider
tires, and had just installed new stiffer competition motor mounts. I felt the
extra torque of the turbocharged engine was moving my transmission to the side
and making it harder for me to find 3rd gear. The new motor mounts
would help this. I lined up at the starting line for my first race and hoped
for success. My tires stuck a little better off the line and the shift from 1st
to 2nd was successful. I was running away from the car beside me
when I tried to shift to 3rd. Once again, it just wasn’t there. I
was starting to think that I simply didn’t know what I was doing but when I
finished the race I noticed that I no longer had 3rd gear and 1st
gear was not in its normal position. Instead, the gear shift was now a few
inches to the left of what it normally was. Wow, I just blew my transmission!
A few days later I found a transmission in a junk yard in
Walterboro and started removing my broken one. You see, the Miatas At Myrtle Beach event was only a few days away and I really
had my heart set on going. This would be the first time that Beast would get to
go on an overnight trip and the first time I would get to show off the car to a
large group of Miata enthusiast. I worked feverishly to get the new
transmission installed and on Wednesday afternoon (we were scheduled to leave
on Thursday) I finally got her back on the road. Even though I was sore from
all the work I was extremely happy that she was running. The next day, I gave
her a quick washing and ran to the gas station for a fill up. I drove her back
home and parked her in the garage. There were a group of club members meeting
at our house to caravan to the event a few hours later so I packed my bags and
waited. When the other members got there I was really psyched for the upcoming
drive. There were plenty of jokes about “Wonder how far Beast will make it
before she breaks down”. Well, I didn’t listen to them because I was confident
that she was in good running condition. I raised the garage door, jumped in the
car and ... CLICK CLICK CLICK
CLICK CLICK. She wouldn’t
start. Yet again, Beast would be left sitting on the lift in the garage while
the other Miatas went out to have some fun.
The current
weight/horsepower is now 1875#/201HP (9.33 ratio) vs the original 2300#/90HP
(25.5 ratio).
Next Issue:
Building The
Perfect Beast
Part 25 – On The
Road Again?