Saturday, April 30, 2011

Removing Valves from the Miata cylinder head


The '94 runs well but not like it did back in the day. My goal is to get it back like it was, and make it run like a scalded cat on the track again. So I'm starting on this extra head I've had in the cabinet for the last six years. The mating surface needs to be cleaned up so I'm going to take it to a machine shop to get planed and cleaned and the valve seats re-ground. I can to do the reassembly here and then I'm going to yank the motor and swap the heads out of the car so I can also address the leaking rear main seal, install a light flywheel, new clutch, new timing belt, water pump, and front main seal. I don't believe the bottom end needs a rebuild, however. The existing timing belt only has about 30k miles on it but if I've got it all apart I'm going to replace everything I touch.
So today I disassembled this '96 head with 60k miles on it. I bought it on eBay about six years ago and ended up not using it, so it's been sitting in a cabinet ever since.

Saturday, April 09, 2011

RAM iPhone, Camera, GPS mount

iPhone and camera mounts for motorcycle, from RAM
I got mine from Amazon for around $30. Very well made piece of hardware and works great. I do not think my phone is going to fall off in normal riding conditions. Of course it's not waterproof so at the first hint of rain the phone or camera have to get put away. I believe they do offer some waterproof options.
aSmartHUD app for time/speed/distance/music


MotionX GPS app for navigation

Standard camera mount

Fully articulated arm. Swapping camera and phone mounts takes just a few seconds.