So, I've always been a fan of the revlimiter gauge faces for the Miatas. I've had them in basically every Miata I've owned. For the NB, I went with the Warbird Gauges and had them customized with a red tach and red hash marks on the speedometer. Overall the installation was pretty easy if you’re handy.

LED headlights get a lot of hate, but I love them. The hate stems from people putting LED's in projector housings that were never made for LEDs. This leads to having effectively no pattern or cutoff to the light and just blasting everyone's eye holes out. 

Done correctly, LED headlights have the same cutoff as the halogen bulbs they replace while being brighter, using less power, and lasting much longer. 

So yeah, after weeks of chasing a very persistent misfire on cylinder 4 (P0304), I think I have FINALLY figured it out. My map sensor wasn’t getting a vacuum signal due to incorrect vacuum line routing. I honestly don’t know why it would cause a single cylinder misfire, as there was no vacuum leak, but fixing that seems to have fixed my problem. I’m cautiously moving forward with doing some fun stuff. I went ahead and ordered some LED headlight bulbs from superbrightLEDS and a bodywork suction cup to try and pull out a dent in the quarter panel, and I think I’m going to go ahead and order some new gauge faces from revlimiter.net in the next couple of days. Also have some top leak issues to fix, and then I think I’ll do megasquirt. Unless of course the misfire of doom returns. Fingers crossed.

I have been absolutely spoiled by having CarPlay head units. You get navigation with live traffic data, all your music/podcasts, phone calls, and text messages/whatsapp messages sent straight to your car's stereo with Siri integration. I went with the Pioneer 1400NEX, which I also had in my beater Honda Fit before it was replaced with a Prius. 

So it looks like I was wrong about the new motor having a blown head gasket. It looks like through a series of almost unbelievable coincidences, I actually just had THREE bad #4 spark plug wires, and the exhaust will still full of dried-on coolant from the original motor that legitimately DID have a blown head gasket. The plug wire caused the misfire, and the dried on coolant billowing from the exhaust made me obviously think "This thing is burning coolant, must have a blown head gasket".  It looks like I was wrong. 

I'm going to cautiously go about fixing things on the car while I slowly build up to about 500 gentle miles on it to break the clutch in, then I'll drive it like I stole it for a bit to make sure it's going to hold up, then it's time for boost. 

Here's a video of me saying the same thing with words instead of letters on a screen. 

So, basically my “new” motor has a blown head gasket. I’m debating between just replacing the head gasket and trying to get my motor replaced. I’ll update this post later when I feel like typing more.

In my last vlog I mentioned my clutch problems. Basically it's like the clutch was never engaging. Trying to put it in any gear when running was basically like trying to put it in gear without using the clutch. 

As I mentioned last week, Project NB was really starting to come together. The motor is in and the fuel pump made it run. I set about doing my clutch adjustment, but even with a new slave cylinder and clutch line and doing all the pedal adjustment and bleeding the hell out of the system, it won't go into any gear with the engine running. I'm going to try to get it on the lift tomorrow and figure out just what the hell is going on. 

So the Light Mod for the GoPro Hero 8 Black went on sale the other day, and I went ahead and ordered despite the Media Mod not being available for order yet because I knew this was something I was ultimately going to want. It showed up the other day and I decided to go ahead and try it out.

$79 and the Plus discount does not apply. Ships by January 27th currently. I naturally already ordered one. Pick one up on GoPro‘s website.  The media mod fits the Hero 8 black and includes a shotgun mic, a couple of cold shoe mounts and a mic jack. 

As an Amazon Affiliate, I may earn a small commission from items purchased through a link on my site. This costs you nothing and gives me money to spend on alcohol, gadgetry, and car parts.

It runs under it's own power! I still need to install the new clutch slave cylinder and bleed the clutch system, and I'm still waiting on a replacement radiator since the one I got from Rockauto leaks, but I got the DW300 fuel pump installed today and finally cranked the damn car up. 

I should get the clutch stuff done by this weekend but the radiator won't be here until Monday. I might can fill the leaky radiator up with water and take it around the block, we'll see how brave I feel when the time comes, but all that really matters is it's a real live running car. I didn't even mess up the timing belt or anything! 

So this Saturday I had the Miata almost put together and a shop with nothing really to do. I decided it was time to get it running. 

I put the car on the lift, installed the lower radiator hose, put the mid pipe on the exhaust so I could install and plug in the catalytic converter, tightened a few accessories up that I couldn't easily get to from above, and plugged in the oil pressure sending unit (when I finally figured out what the hell that weird little connector went to). 

I just got an email that said “Don’t forget about media mod!”, foolishly I assumed that meant that it was finally available for order, since it’s said “Preorder in December” since the launch of the Hero 8. Not only is it not available to preorder, it now says “Preorder in January”. I want to stab everything.

So, as literally everyone ever may have noticed, I'm a total rube when it comes to buying all the shiny tech things. I also absolutely LOVE the idea of anything that makes my travel setup lighter and more streamlined (even though I don't travel very much at all anymore). This checks both of those boxes. 

My Hero 8 Black (Affiliate link) has become one of my most used cameras. It's small, portable, charges over USB-C, and has pretty damn good video and audio quality. It's perfect for vlogging. I have a variety of mounts and grips for it, and this week I added a new one to my collection.