Meet Moss and Roy

A few weeks ago (May 5) Roy was backed into by an SUV (not so shocking, is it?!?!) while in a parking lot.  Long story short – our insurance companies decided on 50/50 liability because determination of who backed up first or who initiated the accident was not determinable.  I was pretty bummed and felt that it even if I saw the SUV backing up what more could I have done to prevent it? The driver of the SUV admitted to me that she didn’t see me when she was backing up; therefore, if I stopped or moved forward/backward Roy would have still gotten dinged.

I was distraught at the time of the accident and this tarnished my clean driving/accident-free record! After a few days of having Roy just sit in the garage and not looking at the damages, I had the other insurance’s estimater come out and the damage didn’t seem as bad anymore.  Here are some snaps of what happened when an SUV backs into a Miata.  And FYI – the SUV sustained literally NO damage to its bumper.

Yep, nothing to see here…

Left rear quarter panel.

Such a clean car (was!).

The lip of the fender(?) was bent outward so it was making contact with the tire when driving home.  Luckily, I didn’t need a tow because I was able to “roll” it back up a little bit.  Today, I changed back to the stock BBS wheels and no rubbing driving around the block, so now I can drive him to local bodyshops to get an estimate.  The estimater said that the dents can probably be pulled out and then the panel would have to be repainted.  Let’s hope that’s all I really need done.

My lesson that I learned – don’t park close to the entrance because that’s where all the idiots park.

Today was a highly productive day – firstly, I want to thank Brian and Justin for helping and doing most of the dirty work; it’s always nice to have competent pals .  Roy and I are very appreciative of your help and glad that nothing broke or went wrong! Cheers!

The agenda was to install new front brake pads, coilovers, and wheels.  Sounds like a big day of sweat, blood, and tears – doesn’t it? I guess the perk of having people who know what they’re doing (ya know, doin’ it right) is that things will get done quickly.  I would say from start to finish it took less than three hours and this was done without air-tools! Again, the nice thing was that nothing broke!  I was stuck with doing the easy stuff like jacking up the car, removing and replacing the wheels, removing nuts and bolts…I think that was it (hah!) – even though my tasks were simple in comparison, I learned and gained a little bit more experience with working on my own car…plus the satisfaction that it was all done at home.

Before Brian arrived I put Roy on jack stands using a brand new rapid pump low-profile jack from Harbor Freight.  Just a quick review of the jack – at 45lbs this thing was heavy lifting out of the box, but maneuvering it around the garage was really easy.  Our older Craftsman jack could really only go forward and back then to have it go sideways we kind of had to drag it left and right.  With the HF jack, it glided really easily back and forth as well as side to side…it really didn’t feel like 45lbs once it was settled on the ground.  Overall, it has a very sturdy and reliable feel to it.  The pumping wasn’t exactly effortless, but each pump got the car higher quicker.

Here’s a snap of Roy teetering on the stands.  This made me really nervous.  What if one of the stands failed?!

Moving on – Justin and I decided to install new brake pads for the front.  The pads that I used were the Performance Ceramic by Hawk.  I didn’t lend a hand for this, but it must be an easy process if it was done quickly even before I could ask about the status of it.

These are the original brake pads – they look like they’ve got a lot of meat left! However, the Hawk pads are so much more responsive and braking feels a lot more solid now.  I’m a lot happier now with how the braking feels much more secure and reliable (this is coming from a person who has nightmares of not being able to stop >_<).

Once Brian arrived, the real dirty work began…

I was assigned to remove the nuts from the trunk and rear shocks. Here you can see the Bilstein shock.

I was told that the bushings were in pretty bad condition, along with the dust boot and the spider webs -__-;. A few months back I bought a set of bump stops and dust boot for these guys, I may just replace the old with the new since they’re off the car and incase I want to put them back on Roy.

Tein Flex coilovers on! Now time to put the goodies on…

RS Watanabe 15×6.5 front 15×7 rear +35 (I think…).

I think I want the ride height a little bit lower and he would look perfect.  What do you think? Like? Hate? Ricer? Awesome?

This is an excerpt from a conversation I was having with a friend about our cars and how he currently isn’t so satisfied with his car -

Jon: and meeting you, who is ALWAYS happy to just see your car [Roy]… even though… I think it needs work! .. makes me sad how I cant find that same feeling
Me: well
Jon: EMOTIONAL MOMENT!
Jon: *e-hug*
Me: *e-hi-five*
Me: i don’t have the same feelings towards Moss…
Me: we’re so silly with our cars…

It’s true – I’m absolutely crazy about Roy, here are some symptoms:

• After I’ve parked, I have to look back a few times and think how cute he is
• I take pictures of him at any given moment
• I would rather have someone slash the top or break a window than have him stolen
• I like looking at him just to look
• I keep his original parts for sentimental reasons
• I really enjoy driving him even though he isn’t the most flashy, expensive, or fastest car on the road
• I tell people that I love♥ my car and mean it wholeheartedly

I want to believe that I will be the last owner of Roy, meaning he’ll be with me as long as I live because I can’t trust anyone else to take care of him the way I do and keep him in good running condition.  What makes him special? It could be that he is 1/1500 sold in the US that makes him unique, that’s certainly a good reason.  Also, it could be because he is a Miata, one of the most beloved cars produced.  They are like toys that can be collected and bring out that feeling in you that another car can’t.  I’ll take him the way he is because it’s unconditional.

How can you not take a second look at Roy??

This is a little overdue, but it’s been almost a month (4/25/09) since Justin has owned his ‘05 White Water Pearl RX-8 GT.  We went down to the South Bay to pick it up at the seller’s house and while we were there I took some before shots.  The car itself is pretty fancy – leather heated seats, 6 disc cd changer with an ipod thingie, auto dim rear view mirror, piano black trim, etc.  Also, this is the first (ok, second time, but the real first time didn’t really count!) I’ve sat in a rotary-engine automobile…the sound of the car is so unique, it almost sounds like a hybrid car and the acceleration is very smooth.  Overall, this car is pretty fierce and posh!

For now, the RX-8 has no name since Justin is quite particular.  I’ve come up with plenty of names only to be rejected by the owner who wants to keep with the theme of “Napster”, his FD.  I really like Opal, but that was a no go.

Rotary & Piston Engines

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April 18, 2009 MOCC – Ultimate Santa Clara Meet

Cruise. Sun. BBQ. Photos. Mazdas. Fun.

USCM was set up by the members of mocc and it was quite successful!! The cruise started off at the parking lot of Costco in Mountain View and from there about 30ish Mazdas pulled out onto 101 > 85 > 9 >17 > Great America.  What a route, right? Poor Roy was screaming to go on Hwy 9, but was falling behind on 17 towards Santa Clara.  A worry I had going into this cruise was keeping up since my car is absolutely the slowest among the pack of Mazdaspeed3s, P5s, MSPs, RX-8s, etc…and it happened!! I rolled in last into the parking lot; the saddest part was losing contact on my radio which has  a 2-mile radius. hah! Oh well, I kept up enough to make it there and even ticked 77k miles during the cruise.  Overall, it was nice having a gathering of Mazdas and seeing everyone’s clean rides.  And the sun…I’ve learned my lesson – sunblock, sunblock, sunblock!

Here are some favorite shots and my gallery on picasa.

What’s in store for next year? =)