William Quade

If you are into track days or autocross eventually you’ll probably want to move away from regular street tires, and start using the faster 200TW or better rubber. One of the downsides of these fast tires is that they tend to not last so long if you are constantly driving them on the street.

Drivers of larger cars can stash an extra set of tires in the trunk or back seats, but that’s not possible with something small like a Mazda Miata. In this post I show you one solution to this problem, a tire trailer. [Read More]

It’s hard to believe that I’ve owned my NB Miata for three years already. For the first two years I wrote posts covering the previous year of ownership. This year I continue that format where I cover the year with a single photo and short description for that month of ownership. This particular post goes from March 2023 (where I left of last year’s post) through February 2024.

March 2023: Tire trailer upgrades

In 2022 I built a small tire trailer to bring additional tires and other supplies with me to track days. This year I made some upgrades to my trailer by adding a lower deck that goes down to just below the axle. [Read More]

Last year I wrote a post briefly covering my first year of owning my NB Miata. I figured I’d post another one this year, covering NB Miata year two. I purchased it in late March 2021, and my last post ends right before March 2022, so that’s where this post starts. A single photo is included for each month of ownership, along with a short description.

March 2022: Back on track: Raceway Park of the Midlands

What’s the best thing you can do with your Miata exactly one year after purchasing it? A track day of course. That’s what I did with my car, getting it back out on track to start this year’s driving season on March 19, 2022. [Read More]

I’ve been writing a lot of posts about my NB Miata. This is a less content heavy and more photo heavy post about my first twelve months of owning my NB Miata. I purchased it in late March 2021, so that’s where this post starts. A single photo is included for each month of ownership, along with a short description.

March 2021: Getting my NB Miata

I purchased my 2000 Mazda Miata on March 19, 2021. Below is the first photo I took of my NB Miata after bringing it home. From the moment I first sat in and drove the Miata I knew it was something special. They may not be fast (at least in a straight line with a stock engine), but they are very fun and can be modified to do pretty much anything. I think a lot of it comes down to the size and weight of the car, a small and lightweight platform is a really good starting point. My NB is also old enough that you still have a lot of the rawness you don’t see in modern cars, but without some of the downsides of really old cars. [Read More]

One of my goals with my NB Miata over the winter was to pull the engine to fix a few lingering issues I have been having. With just a single one of these issues it probably wouldn’t make sense to pull the engine, but the combination of these issues makes it worthwhile to just pull the engine to make the rest of the work easier. In this post I cover pulling my NB Miata engine along with what all I did while it was removed from the car.

Here are the factors that lead me to pulling the engine:

• Leaking rear main seal that was slowly getting worse.
• Stripped oil pan drain plug.
• Desire to install a coolant reroute to improve engine cooling performance.
• Needing to replace the two coolant lines that are hard to get to with the engine in the car.

Pulling the engine

I was able to remove and reinstall the engine in my Miata by myself without too much difficulty. Removal was super easy, you really just need to disconnect everything and lift the engine out of the car. Installation was a little trickier since the engine needs to be aligned correctly for the engine mounts to slide into their mounting points, but it was still doable. [Read More]