5 Weeks Until Nationals

We're now into the home stretch with 5 weeks until the SCCA Solo Nationals in Lincoln Nebraska!  The Miata's got several more events lined up in August to get some final seat time in and make sure the car is 100% ready to go.

With a ton of help from Jason and Phillip, today we got the car back on the lift for another crack at stopping the oil leak and moving to a different brake pad setup. Step one was simply to remove the OEM brake pads and the rotors they were mated to.  These pads have been performing well but have not been delivering the initial braking force I'd like to have on an autocross. The second step was to swap in the heavy duty track pads by Carbotech and the rotors they were mated to for my track day with NASA last year.

Each corner only takes 4 bolts to swap it all out, but one really good friend to bleed all the fluid!

Now that the engine cooled down, we took a look at the camshaft seals and the valve cover seal.  The intake cam seal was looking particularly oily and is our top suspect for the quart of oil that has been bleeding out after a few autocross runs. New gaskets were installed, surfaces were wiped clean and everything put back in it's place. So far the car is staying dry, but we'll see how things look after next weekend in Charlotte with CCR.

Mid-progress on replacing cam seals. Big wrenches hold the cams in place to re-set the timing.

Previously you saw the rear trunk lid of the Miata sample various plasti-dip red paint, but it's finally time to give it a proper paint job.  So far it's primed and a layer of red was put down.  It'll get sanded smooth this weekend before applying a gloss coat and re-attaching that decorative spoiler and we'll share the finished look in a week or so.

I need to mow anyway...