Installing a modern stereo in the old Miata for Apple CarPlay

Hey! Long time no post! Yes, I'm still here - alive and kicking, and the Miata sometimes gets a little attention. Nowadays it's garaged 600 miles away from my main digs and I only get to see it a few months of the year, but when I am with it, the magic is still there. I actually drive it more miles per year than I did for the last five years before I got it painted and fixed it up.

Anyhoo, when I'm at our place in Florida, I get really bored and need things to do, because...well, just because. So last year I decided I would update the technology stack inside the Miata from 1990 tech to 2022 tech. In our other car, we have Apple CarPlay from the factory and we do use it quite a bit for navigation and streaming music and podcasts. So I figured that'd be a nice upgrade for the Miata, even though I never take it on long trips. I still need navigation around town sometimes and well... see above - I was bored. So the pictures here in this blog post show what I did. It's a Pioneer DMH-W2770NEX. It is pretty no-frills, actually. It just has basic stereo receiver, bluetooth, and wireless CarPlay functions (Android Auto, too but I don't use that).

As I am a terrible documentarian, these photos are a bit jumbled and not very well conceived. BUT they do sort of show what I did so let's just go with it. I was able to use the factory stereo bracket to mount this unit. That was just luck. So I didn't need any sort of adapter

As you can see, the NA Miata's stereo mount opening is not really double-din. It's a bit taller so there's a gap under the stereo unit. The following pics show how I dealt with that. For transparency, I didn't dream this up on my own. I found a YouTube video and just copied what they did.

I fashioned some little brackets from aluminum stock to attach to the factory bracket, and a faceplate filler from some bigger stock Plasti-dipped for color. I bought some small cap head screws with washers and bolts to hold it all together and there you go. You can see how the factory bracket isn't really a perfect fit for this stereo, but I was able to get one bolt in a good hole, and two others were a little off but overlapped the bracket just enough to get a hold on it. It's actually quite solid and I'm really glad I didn't have use some stupid adapter kit.

Above, another pretty good view of the three machine screws holding the unit to the factory bracket.

The cap head machine screws with a washer actually look pretty factory. I like it when things don't look too janky. I mean a little janky is ok, but not TOO janky.

Hey, here you can see the Coco mats.

Yeah... it's a little janky.

It's not perfect and I marred the plasti-dip finish a little when installing it, but it's perfectly acceptable.

It pretty much looks like it belongs there, so I'm happy.

Once this was in, I thought it sometimes sounded fine, and other times sounded pretty bad, so I opted to replace the 25 year old Pioneer door speakers with some slightly larger (6.5 inch) Kenwood speakers. It improved the sound a bit, but it's still pretty sad. I've found that when streaming audio from Apple Music to this unit, sometimes it sounds really crappy! If I'm playing songs stored directly on my phone it's quite a bit better. So I'm not sure why but it seems like sometimes the streaming quality drops. My phone is a current model iPhone so maybe it's the wireless CarPlay connection. I'll try it wired and see if it makes a difference, but in any case, I think this stereo would benefit greatly from an amp and maybe a small sub. It's not a big priority for me since I don't really need to listen to music in this car, but maybe the next time I'm bored and need something to do I'll address it.

A Drive on the Foothills Parkway in the Miata

Just a few photos I took yesterday from a drive out in the mountains. With everything we've had going on all spring this was the first time I've gotten this car out for a real drive since I finished the suspension work and got the new wheels and tires, which was already most of a year ago. It sat in storage for six months. I know that's a crime, and I won't let it happen again. The car felt great! The new Flyin' Miata VMAXX suspension works perfectly on these mountain roads, and the Conti tires on the Enkei RPF-1 wheels give prodigious grip.

I did have to sort of get used to this car again. Most of my driving in the last 18 months has been in our 2019 CX-5 Signature, which, while an SUV, has a TON more horsepower and torque than the Miata, and in a real testament to where Mazda is today, refinement you'd expect in a Porsche or Mercedes. When I wasn't driving the CX-5 I was driving my Cayman, which is also incredibly faster than the Miata, and bolted together like a German tank. So, at first the Miata felt slow. And loud. And unrefined. And, well... kinda dopey. Once I hit those mountain roads, though, and retrained myself to keep the engine in the power band, and the car got a few miles under its belt, it started to come alive and open up to me. I started to feel that magic again. I haven't felt it in this car in several years, but the work I put into it last year has really paid off. The magic is still there. Those old familiar sensations were still there. This car has been a part of me for almost 25 years.

On this particular drive the odometer flipped over 180,000 miles. It had been in the 179,000 range for at least the last four years! Here's to putting some more miles on this chassis, now that I have some time and inclination again. Please enjoy the photos.

Miata is complete! Complete refurb including interior and paint.

I finally got the Miata out for a photo, just before I stuffed it into my storage facility. The most significant change of note here is the new set of 15x7 Enkei RPF-1 wheels with Continental Extremecontact Sport tires in 205/50-15 size. I considered 8-inch wide wheels but that pretty much limited me to 225 width tires and I couldn't get the ones I wanted. Plus I think the 15x8 and wider wheels look a little funny on a Miata. It looks a bit clumsy to me. Just my personal impression, of course, and if I were autocrossing or tracking the car I'd want as much width as I could get. Also of note: you don't get center caps with RPF-1's so I had to order some separately. I found a company called Flatout Graphics that sells them with nice Enkei logos which you can choose in any color. I chose red.

I've yet to drive more than a few miles on these new ties, but they're the same tires I use on my Cayman S, and I like them.

So, for all intents and purposes, this project of restoring this Miata is complete. There's really not much else that it needs, and I've certainly spent far too much money relative to the car's actual worth. My goal now is to actually drive it, and of course I want to drive the Cayman, too! It's tough when you don't have to go anywhere for work, to put miles on cars.

LED Headlights for the NA Miata

Since the late '90s I've had a set of Cibie H4 headlights on the Miata. If you're familiar with Cibies you'll know they are European-spec "E-code" headlights and as such have a superior light pattern to the ordinary US DOT spec sealed beam lights early Miatas were saddled with. I had them loaded with Halogen H4 bulbs and they performed admirably for many years. Now that we have other cars with modern lighting technology, though, the old H4s were starting to lose their charm with their yellow light which doesn't seem very bright anymore. So I decided to update my car with some LED headlamps with the hope of getting a brighter, whiter light that hopefully would also look cool and fit with the character of the car. Our CX-5 has LED projector lights that swivel to turn toward the direction the steering wheel is turned, and the Cayman has Xenon HID projectors, and both are excellent. So the lights I chose for the Miata are up against world-class competition.

There are a dizzying array of aftermarket 7-inch LED light units on the market, mostly aimed at the Jeep and cruiser motorcycle crowd, but they fit NA Miatas too. I wanted to avoid no-name Chinese units but also didn't want to spend too much money. As it turns out, I probably spent too much money. I found some lights made by a company called Grote. They looked good and upon investigation I found that Grote is a real lighting company and not just a brand created to sell knock-off items on Amazon. Here's where I screwed up (although it was not entirely my fault). The Amazon listing for the lights said "headlights" and I assumed that meant for $150 I'd receive a PAIR. Not so. I received a single lamp. Reading the reviews and comments I should have picked up on that, but I didn't. I bit the bullet and spent ANOTHER $150 to order an additional lamp, and then left a review on Amazon to alert others to the fact that "headlights" does not indicate that you'll receive plural lamps. Almost immediately after I posted my review, the listing was corrected to say "headlight" - singular. So, you're welcome.

To be honest; the jury is still out on these lights. I hardly ever drive anywhere myself because I work at home, and if my wife is with me we usually take her CX-5, so I have very little night-time driving time behind these lamps. Compared to the Cibie's the light pattern is not as precise. There is a sharp cutoff at the top, but there is a weird bright spot in the middle of the beam which I don't like. It also lacks the characteristic E-code "kick up" to the right which is useful for illuminating road side signs and such.

The lights are very pretty to look at. They have a classic look and don't look ridiculous like most of the LEDs on the market for Jeeps.

Here's the light pattern from a single lamp. Pretty good but not great. There's no kick-up to the right like an E-code has.

Here's the pattern from one Cibie lamp. SO YELLOW but the pattern is actually really good; although it does have a bit of a hot-spot too.

Side by side, Grote and Cibie. Ignore the aim as I had just had the car in pieces and didn't re-aim the lights yet.

Here both Grote lamps are installed and these are the high beams.

Low beams. I'm not enamoured with the hot spots in the center of each beam but I will have to get out for a longer drive at night to really make an informed judgement.

The question I now have in my mind is whether there's an LED H4 bulb that would perform admirably in the Cibie housings. I've seen a couple threads on the Miataforum where people have had decent results, but no long-term reviews. If the LED H4 is designed carefully I think it could give the correct light pattern in the Cibie housing, however just throwing any LED that fits without regard to the reflector design is unlikely to work well. Some LED bulbs have big heat-sinks on the back, too, which may interfere with the Miata's pop-up headlamp design. I'll update this post when I know more.

Finally some progress to report

Hello! Yes, I'm still alive. The long-awaited day has finally arrived. I just dropped the Miata off at my local Maaco paint shop for a full repaint. I'm changing the color to Dodge's Destroyer Grey. I had wanted to paint it an old Porsche color - Slate Grey, but it turns out that color is hard to come by in modern paints. The shop tried very hard to cross reference the old Porsche paint code to something they could mix up, but to no avail. I'm sure a real Porsche restoration shop can do it, but Maaco can't. So this Destroyer Grey seems to be pretty close, if perhaps a bit darker, which is fine with me. I really just wanted it grey, and I wanted the car to not look terrible anymore. I did a ton of prep work myself, which may or may not pay dividends. It's not paint-ready, so the shop is still going to do some sanding and prep on it, but I got all the old dead clear coat off and most of the color coat. I also removed as much of the trim as I could - all the window moldings, beltline molding, side marker lights, and most of the interior. I'll post an update when the car comes home. I'll have a good bit of reassembly to do, but that's easy stuff. Then it needs new tires and probably a suspension refresh.

Back At It (Miata Paint)

Slowly but surely I'm making progress in preparing the Miata for paint. I could just drop it off at a paint shop and pay them to do everything, but to ensure that the job is as good as it can be, for the amount that I'm willing to spend, it's best if I do as much of the prep as possible.

So I'm sanding all the old dead clearcoat off. First I'm sanding with 220 grit, and then I'll go back and do a quick pass with 400 grit. Anything else it needs I'll have the paint shop do.

It's a slow and tedious process and I only have a couple hours per week to spend on it. Updates as I get closer to being done.

I Have a Confession to Make - 94 Miata Paint

I have this thing that's eating away at me. It's been happening for about a year now. I don't advertise it although it's not a secret; but it's time I do something about it.

The paint on my '94 Miata has failed. The clear coat just fell off. If you look back in this blog to the end of 2011 you'll see I did this paint job myself in my garage. It turned out ok. Not great but ok. For the $500 I spent on it, it was fine. I started to see the first indications of a problem in late 2015, just as we moved from Tampa to Knoxville. There was a single small bubble in the clear coat on the hood. It was the size of a pin head but I knew what it meant. Once in Knoxville, the car had to be parked outside. The damage unfolded quickly from there. By spring of 2016 the car still looked ok from 10 feet away, but the de-lamination of the clear coat was progressing apace. By the spring of 2017 the destruction was pretty much complete. So, my DIY budget paint job lasted between 4 and 5 years. I'm fine with that. I didn't take care of the paint and I didn't expect it to last forever. It was a stopgap measure from the start.

So, a paint job is forthcoming. I will not be doing it myself. I also have a place to store the car indoors now, so once this is fixed the issue should not come back.

Large areas of the clear coat are completely gone. I've been encouraging it to come off by pressure-washing every few weeks to remove loose paint. I figure the more I can get off, the less work the paint shop will have to do.

While I'm at it, I'm going to install this RSpeed officially-licensed Garage Vary style trunk spoiler.

Here I've just stuck it on with some painter's tape so I could see what it looked like. I also have some small fender flares from Rev9. I don't have a photo of those so you'll have to wait until they're painted and installed. I'm still debating on color. I'd like to restore the car to the original color, but at the same time I'd also like to do something different. Tough life decisions...

More soon...

Revlimiter Gauge Face Install in '94 Miata

So I'm doing some work on the Miata! I've had this Miata for almost 20 years now, and the last year and a half since we moved to Tennessee has been really hard on it. It's been parked outdoors 24/7/365 and for a 24 year old car, that's brutal. I've got some parts and upgrades ordered and it will be getting a complete paint job here pretty soon. I'm also going to find a way to park it indoors. To kick things off, though, I decided to do something I've always wanted to do but never got around to it. I've long been a fan of the bespoke handmade gauge faces made by Adam at Revlimiter.net. His designs are pure genius and the workmanship is top notch. The best part is he doesn't charge an arm and a leg. So a few months ago I ordered a set of his faces, and they proceeded to sit on the shelf for six months or so before I got a chance to install them. This is pretty typical for me, by the way. I have a set of Flyin Miata frame rail braces that I bought in 2012 that I have yet to install. I swear, I'm getting to it.

Anyway, as usual I'm not going to tell you how to install anything. Revlimiter has outstanding instructions on the website. Instead I'll just post some photos and make some comments.

Just for reference, here's the old gauge faces just before I took them off.

I just thought this was interesting. In 20 years of Miata ownership I've never seen these parts. I think they're wonderfully analog!

New faces in place.

Getting the needles lined up right. The only tricky one was the water temp gauge. It just wanted to read too low no matter what I did. I finally got it to point straight up when the engine is warm. That's close enough for this inaccurate gauge. Ditto the OPG. The numbers don't mean much. I checked the speedo against GPS and it's within about 2 mph at 40 mph. The tach seems to read too high unless I set it too low at idle. I don't care.

The finished product.

Here's how they look at night.

This is a meaningless yet strangely satisfying modification. I think it bodes well for where I'm going with this car. More to come.

Classic Motorsports "The Mitty" at Road Atlanta 2017

Last weekend we took a trip down to Road Atlanta for The Mitty. This year's featured marque was Porsche and since we are now proud Porsche owners it seemed fitting to participate. We stayed at the lovely Chateau Elan Winery and Resort - or more accurately, we stayed at the new Hampton Inn and Suites on the Chateau property. Much more affordable and we could still easily enjoy all the amenities of the resort. I'd write more about it but this is an automotive blog.

I shot almost 1000 photos on the weekend but since most of the track is surrounded by catch fencing, it was really hard to get unobstructed photos of cars on track. I did my best, though, and here are some halfway decent photos.

Here's part of the Porsche corral. This only shows a fraction of the cars. It was really cool parking with all the other Porsches. No other marque had anywhere near the showing the P-cars did.

Flyin' Miata brought their stuff all the way from Colorado. This is the Mazda MX-5 RF with a lovely set of bronze 6UL wheels and a lowered suspension (don't know the details). This car is quite striking in person. There were many MX-5s in attendance.

I just love the patina on this old truck. Had to snap a pic.

A great looking 944.

Back in the mid-late 90's I had a racing game on my PC called Sportscar GT. It was the greatest racing game I'd ever seen up to that time and I spent hundreds of hours playing it. This car was in it, and it was always one of my favorites. I also remember seeing this car at many races back in the day. Seeing it in person again after all these years was really neat.

Awesome Brumos-liveried 987 Cayman.

I got lucky and got a shot of this Gulf liveried 911 through an access hole in the catch fence.

A line of Porsches heading down into the Esses.

The Ford GT40 is possibly the greatest sportscar of all time. It's a 50 year old design and still makes your blood boil when you look at it. So amazing to see on track. There were several in attendance and as you'll see I love taking photos of them.

This one pulled off track with an issue. Getting the sister car in the background was a complete accident. These sorts of accidents are why I love photography.

And here we are on track during the touring laps. Photo by Double Vision Photography. These were the fastest touring laps I've ever done. We expected to slowly drive around the track for one or two laps but instead it was 4 laps driving at least five-tenths. Jen had never been on a track before and seemed to really enjoy it. Great fun.