All posts categorized Miata

Installing New Rotors and Brake Calipers

In an earlier post, we had done a front brake pads change in the Miata, but while doing that change realized that one of the bolts slipped because the threading in the calipers was damaged. So we ended up doing a complete front and rear caliper replacement using remanufactured stock calipers from RockAuto. The good thing about these new calipers was that they were painted red which would look great on our car. In this post, we demonstrate how to go about removing and installing calipers. This work was done in August 2020, but we only found time a year later to write this post. I spent hours editing the photos.

This post outlines the installation of new rotors and brake calipers for both front and rear of the car, and it has a lot of pictures. You may find that installation of the front calipers may have been demonstrated on Youtube but it has not been done for rear calipers.

The next post outlines how to do the brake pads, and bleed the brakes.

Rebuilding the Shifter

The Miata’s shifter was getting worse as time progressed, so I decided to perform a shifter rebuild. I purchased the 5-speed transmission shifter rebuild kit from Flyin’ Miata, which you can also get from 5X Racing. In addition to the shifter, I also wanted to replace the center console boot which is the exterior boot, part number NC-10-64-331A which I ended up purchasing from Tasca Parts.

The process for the shifter rebuild is outlined in this post. This post has several pictures, so may take some time to load.

Changing the Front Brake Pads

The Miata had gone two years without any brake changes by me, and having never done it before I thought it would be a good idea to learn how to change brake pads. This would be a skill very useful before going on the track or for an autocross event. In this post, I demonstrate how to change the front brake pads.

Changing the Valve Cover Gasket

The Miata’s engine has an easy to change Valve Cover Gasket, which I chose to replce because I saw some potential oil leak at the bottom of the car. I asked on reddit and the users said that it was probably a bad valve cover gasket and should be replaced, which is what I ended up doing. I am not sure if that has fixed the problem yet but will keep checking. It is quite an easy fix.

Understanding the Torque and Horsepower Curves

How does one plot the torque and horsepower curves for a 1999 Miata ? In this blog post, we explain how to do that using some dynamometer or dyno data from someone else’s 99 Miata. I have not taken my Miata to a dyno yet but this should be enough for an example for your car or for any other car, as long as you have the data.

The rest of the data specific to a factory 1999 MX-5 Miata (base trim and 10th Anniversary Edition) can be taken from here, which I provide as miata99_data_power.csv for download and also shown in the table below.