Over the past couple of years I've come up with a lot of blog topics that I didn't seem to have a lot to talk about. Not that the topics weren't interesting, just short. So I thought I'd throw some of them together into one blog. Sorry if it seems to jump around a lot. 
 
Sway bars 
 
As much as aftermarket swaybars are promoted, they're still underrated. I've said this a million times before, but spend any amount of money you want on your Miata to improve the handling, and you can get more than half that improvement from sway bars alone. They make a huge difference. I think Racing Beat or Flyin' Miata are best. You can sometimes find them on CraigsList, unfortunately not often at bargain prices because everyone thinks they're made out of gold or something. 
 
If. . .   Read more

A while back in these pages I wrote about my experience of going back to school to learn how to weld. That was almost two years ago now, and in all that time I have to say I haven't welded a darn thing. Part of the reason for this is that I really haven't had much of anything to weld, but the main reason is that I haven't had anything to weld with, a certain amount of equipment being necessary to do the job. 
 
That situation changed a few months ago. For my birthday this year, Kaitlyn bought me a brand new Miller 140 with all the trimmings, including 20 pounds of wire, lots of clamps and magnets, a cart with inert gas bottle, and auto-darkening helmet. I haven't actually set it up yet, but for the past several months, whenever I haven't been slaving away on the BAMD website, I've been. . .   Read more

At our last tech day we painted Zoe's front bumper, which had been roughed up pretty badly by a tree that jumped out into the middle of the road. The tech day was a lot of fun and great chance for everyone to see what's involved with painting a car. Someone asked me during the event if I had enough thoughts on the subject of painting to post a blog about it. As it happens, I do.  
 
A lot of us with 10-20 year old Miatas have reached the point where keeping the car looking shiny is a constant battle. We wash it regularly, we try to keep a thin layer of wax on it, and we might even clay bar the thing once in a while. Or maybe we gave up on all that a long time ago. No matter how well the paint was treated, garaged, protected, and maintained, factory paint eventually loses its luster.. . .   Read more

I thought I might share my thoughts on Miata suspension upgrades, since so very little has been written about it over the years. Okay, maybe more than a little, but only if you count all the books, magazine articles, and billions of forum posts on the Internet. 
 
If you've read more than a few of these reputedly informed opinions on the Internet, one thing that seems immediately clear is that the stock Miata suspension sucks, and that anyone with a stock suspension risks launching their Miata into a fatal skid at every turn in the road. In declaiming the design of the Miata suspension, these self-proclaimed suspension gurus have decreed that the engineers at Mazda, with their hundreds of years of combined training and experience, got it wrong. 
 
Giving these people the benefit. . .   Read more

Few Miata enthusiasts can stand to drive a stock Miata for very long. Fortunately the world is full of parts you can use to customize and personalize your pride and joy. You can find these parts on eBay and Craigslist, at the junkyard, and on the local forums. When all else fails you can purchase them retail from an aftermarket parts supplier. The parts you install will make your Miata faster, sleeker, shinier, cooler, and more comfortable, all at the same time. Or maybe not. But certainly better. 
 
From Elise Seat Brackets. . . 
 
One of the more popular seats for a Miata are the fiberglass shell seats that come stock in the Lotus Elise. Comfortable, good support, lots of side bolstering, and small enough to fit, they're one piece so they don't fold forward--nothing. . .   Read more

To begin, I should say: I was warned. The Flyin’ Miata website specifically states 
 
“. . .Cars with a stock header will require some trimming to a factory heatshield. 1990-93 cars with stock header and catalytic converters will be a difficult install and may not fit. . .” 
 
at which I scoffed. I do have an FM catalytic converter on my ’93 so I did, I suppose, dodge that bullet. And I was resigned, nay, eager; to modify whatever “factory heatshield” they were talking about. And, while these issues did rear their ugly heads, they were not the most challenging ones. 
 
I have installed a few Flyin’ Miata components on my car - the frame rail braces, sway bars, springs, bumpstops and the aforementioned catalytic converter and have always found their hardware well designed. . .   Read more

We're launching a new BAMD website. Any day now. Some of you have probably noticed the changes creeping in already. In fact, these blog pages are part of the new website. So it's happening. 
 
If we're honest, the first BAMD website was something of a hack job. Thrown together in a week so we could start organizing events back in 2009, it had four wheels and an engine, but it was justifiably criticized for its plain looks and lack of features. We spent the better part of a year throwing on mods, adding a lot of functionality, but the site still had the same chassis and the same old 1980s styling. As BAMD approached its first anniversary, we realized a major overhaul was in order. So that's what we did. 
 
We kept a lot of stuff we liked. A paint job was needed, plus a whole. . .   Read more

All we wanted was a fun group of Miata owners to go driving with. We wanted to be able to enjoy group drives every now and then without anyone dictating to the rest of the group how we should drive our Miatas. From that simple idea Bay Area Miata Drivers was born, and has since grown to be the largest Miata owners organization in California. The reasons for this are apparent in retrospect. BAMD found a niche among Miata owners who like to drive their cars, work on their cars, and talk about their cars. 
 
When we started we didn't really know what direction BAMD would take. We had an idea for a website, and a few guiding principles, mostly based on our experience with our last car club, which taught us some important lessons. Number one among those principles was to make sure no one could. . .   Read more