*grumble*

I'll have to take it up to get the engine code pulled. Again. *sigh*

It's barely been 100 miles since I picked it up. I never should have done the post yesterday talking about it.

It's all tuned up, smogged, and running smoothly. Finally.

It's been a long while since I've been able to drive it and feel comfortable about really putting the pedal to the metal. But I can now. And it goes. It really goes!

It's nice to be able to merge into traffic at the speed of traffic with a short onramp. The Jeep just doesn't quite handle that very well.

Well, hopefully it'll last. I'm knocking on wood already that no problems will crop up soon.

Actually, with AAA Plus towing and not having to drive two cars up and one back I think the whole thing was cheaper. It would have cost an addition $10-15 in gas, alone. (About 40 miles one-way, two cars up, 1 back for a total of 120 miles of additional driving at about 20 mpg and $2.60 per gallon is about $15.60.)

I still need to run new mileage calculations on both the Jeep and the Miata. Neither are particularly good, but it would be nice to see just how bad they are. I think...

In any case, the Miata will likely be in for a while to determine the cause of the current problems, which are bit mysterious.

Actually, I didn't plan on parking it. I had planned on calling AAA. The first time I dialed the number, I just had silence for a bit. Sometimes that happens when the circuits are busy and the call will go through after a minute. Not so, this time. So, I tried calling again. When I looked at the phone after a minute it was in the process of resetting! My phone had crashed trying to make a phone call!

Well, after it came on I got side tracked with SMS messages I'd missed the entire weekend. Then I started it and it got to about a block before our parking lot fine. I had to gently nudge it all the way in. That wasn't much fun. I'm waiting for the comments at work on why I parked somewhere different.

I think I'll have it get it towed up to Hayward. It's not that it necessarily wouldn't make it. It's more that it might take a while to make it. At the same time, if I arrived with the problem in full swing, it might make diagnosis easier. Of course, the problem may not be good for the car, so that might not be worthwhile. Additionally, the computer may have the correct problem logged.

It's really strange that the tach will bounce around when in gear coasting down a road. That doesn't seem possible unless there is an electrical problem of some sort. The tach must not measure engine speed by anything mechanical, either. That's a bit strange.

However, it's now actually mis-behaving. Twice now, on the freeway, a problem has occurred. I'll be cruising along, having not pushed the car even a little bit for the morning, and then the tack will go wild, bouncing all over where it should be. This usually happens when the gas is down a little and it can't get any power or accelerate at all.

Yesterday this happened and after pulling over and letting the car idle for a bit, it went away. Today, however, it came back a few times even after stopping and restarting the car. I don't think it's particularly dangerous since it'll idle fine with the clutch depressed, so all the electric stuff still has power.

Oddly, no one has honked or yelled at me for slowing them down a few seconds. They have gotten within inches of the car, though. In all cases, though, they've been on the phone, so maybe that's preventing them from being overly rude. Heh.

In any case, at least part of the reason for posting this is to have a record of it and a date, etc. So, for the none of you that read this, if it bores you, sorry. :p

The code that was pulled was the same as before: EGR flow insufficient. And this is after having the EGR valve changed. So, no one quite knows what is wrong at the moment. Rick called up Flyin' Miata and they'll get back to him if they know anything.

For now, I've been told it doesn't really affect anything other than getting the car smogged. Naturally, I have until May to get the car smogged. Heh.

However, that does mean that I can run it full on. And boy does it fly! I'd forgotten how good flooring it feelins in the low gears. One of these days I'll have to get it dyno'd to get some good, hard numbers. But until then, just know that it's a kick in the back. Although, 1st gear is still a bit uncontrollable. That is, it tends to just spin the wheels. ;)

In any case, I'll be scheduling a longer visit soon. This visit will also include a full turbo tuning with Flyin' Miata recommendations. That should be fun. I'm not sure yet if I'll up the boost or not, but I think a little should be safe enough with the built engine. It has rods in it that are stronger than the ones they use on their 2.0L stroked engines. ;)

This was last Thursday. Given our quick trip to Death Valley, I didn't get to drive it much. Last night, I got to drive it home, though. And, naturally, the check engine light went on. Again.

Damn!

It was literally just in for a fix that should have solved that. Hopefully I'll be able to take it in today and get the trouble code pulled.

I also want to get the oil changed so I can switch back to synthetics now that the break-in of the new engine is over.

*sigh* At this point, I really just want it all running and reliable again. I'm looking forward to really jumping on the turbo and getting it all tuned up and stuff, but not having to worry about it is just as much of a dream right now.

I got a ride up from a coworker in his 2001 Miata that he just got recently. It's very similar, in all, just some refinements after a couple of years. The cup holders are still in the way of shifting, though. But even the CD player is basically the same (Bose model).

Anyway, the car was sitting out front all ready for me. He showed me the engine block that used to be in the car. It had 5 or 6 holes in it (see crappy camera phone picture).

After about 1/2 hour talking with him I was on my way.

OMG! It's so different than driving the Jeep! It sounds a little different than it did, I think. It's been a while, though, so I can't really tell.

I have to change the oil after 25-50 miles to a non-synthetic type. Then again I need to change at 1,000 miles but at that point, I can use synthetic again. It's at just over 70 miles, so I have to get it changed today. ;)

It's about time. They said it'd be done by 10am, which is a good sign. I'll probably swing up there around lunch time.

Naturally, though, it's raining today here. Although the hard top is still on the car, anyway, so it's not too big of a deal. Besides that, the Jeep is technically a convertible, too.

*silly grin*

He says he'll call Wednesday (that's today!) to let me know if they're on track or if Murphy will be getting in the way.

Given that I'm also expecting a package to get to my on Friday, I have my doubts about getting both things then. In theory, though, all they have to do is put the engine into the car. It's made a little more complex by the fact that it has a turbo, but 5 days should be enough, no?

*crossing my fingers*

The engine is still out in Colorado at Flyin' Miata. Supposedly, only one guy at FM is doing engine work as they can't find anyone skilled enough to help him out. This means engines going there enter into a long queue.

Mine is supposed to be done within a couple of days and then shipped back to Hayward. Once there, it'll need to be put back into my Miata. This will (supposedly) only take a few days. In theory, this could all be done by next week. I'm betting on 3 weeks, which puts it into the early part of March. Any time between now and then, though, puts it right where I suspected after I got the call in early January: that it would be done by the end of February.

Oh well. It should all be worth it, although it's getting harder and harder to justify. On the plus side, it hasn't been gaining miles in the last few months.

The rod is one of the weaker parts of the Miata engine. The shop that does most of the Miata work has seen this happen one other time on a FM Turbo'd Miata.

We also drive it anywhere between 4 and 20 times as much as other people do when they do such a thing to their cars. So, it's no surprise that we'd see every problem in the book.

Naturally, the car is up in the shop. The block was replaced and sent off to Colorado with the head for forged pistons and rods and some head cleaning,I think; I was a bit unclear on exactly what work was being done to the head.

I was told it would all take about 3-4 weeks. I'm betting we'll see it first half of January. It's been in for a couple of weeks already, but shipping takes a while this time of year.

Luckily, a friend of ours is out of the country so we have a car to borrow for a while...

Recently, the problem had gotten worse -- when going on boost it would suddenly lose all pressure, and then start gaining again. This made the driving very rough; I pretty much had to keep it off boost.

Taking it in showed 3 error codes off the computer: TPS, random misfire on #3, and running to rich. None of these seemed particularly related to boost issues. However, replacing the spark plugs seems to have fixed it all -- at least, the check engine light hasn't gone back on. It's nice to have the car running smoothly -- and powerfully -- again.

It got new breaks, and an oil change as well. And with the new tires (Bridgestone S-03s) from Costco and a recent car wash mean the car is looking and acting quite well again. At over 75,000 miles now that's not bad at all.

Just as long as everything goes well with smogging next year... ;)

After looking around for a while and enjoying some refreshments and the cafe in the middle we decided on a specific Brother fax machine that also had a flatbad scanner for photocopying and making color scans, an enclosed paper tray good for keeping dust out of the system, a 600x600dpi laser printer for use with all of it's functions, and a decent price with a rebate.

Off we went to the really long line. Well, we thought it was going to be slow so Laurie went to get me a couple of magazines to read. Before I even figured out what I wanted to read I was at the front of the line and calling her on the cell phone to tell her I was ready. Most of their 60 cashier positions were actually open, so the line went very fast.

Just as we finished paying I made a simple realization. How would we ever get this huge box into the Miata?! Oh crap....

Well, luckily I had stuffed rope into the spare wheel area (there's actually a lot of room down there for small emergency stuff). We got the box tied down using the hard top holds and pieces of the top. It just set right behind us on top of the folded down top. It stuck way up out of the car. And we had to drive from Fremont to Santa Cruz like this.

Well, it made it just fine, of couse. ;)

Here's a crappy image I took with a Samsung A610:

Ah, just what we need for our Miata. :>

The feature in question, of course, is the performance meteringin the lines of a (gforce? gtech?) performance meter. I've had one since they were provided free with a set of tires. It's just the old red LED one. The new ones are so much better and this Pioneer has the same features.

But it can also play DVDs and MP3s. What could be better?

Oh, you won't get lost with it. Sold!

Well, maybe not --- it's $2,000. I'd rather upgrade the brakes, suspension, and exhaust first -- and that's still less than $2k. ;)