ClockworkN

Chronicles of Miata Ownership #4:

For safety and for meeting the requirements of some events I needed to add a rollbar. I went with a Hard Dog rollbar from Berthania Garage. Shipping and import into Canada was costly but I like the design and the well documented instructions of this model.

Comes in a nice big box:

Gotta strip out the interior to get access to the tunnels to the sides of the fuel tank:

Then I had to cut some clearance from the rear deck for the bar's rear struts. I only had some aviation snips and a file but it all gets hidden anyway so I try not to dwell on it:

With the space created the rollbar can be set in the car. I recommend having help for this part as wrangling it on my own was a pain:

The next step is drilling through the underbody of the car through the rollbar mounting plate holes. Then backing plates are installed and bolts sandwich the whole thing together. Unfortunately I didn't take pictures of this part ;-(

But I did take a closeup of the trim pieces I cut and and fit around the bar to create a clean interior:

While I had the interior out of the car and before the bar went in I sent away my old seatbelts to be rewebbed. I opted for red which I think turned out great:

With all that done I had to get it out to some more autocross!

Chronicles of Miata Ownership #3:

I've been wanting a better wheel fitment. The stock Miata wheels sit quite tucked into the wheel wells.

Cheapest way to do that at this stage is with some wheel spacers. In classic fashion didn't take any good shots of this but this is after installing 25mm wheel spacers:

It's pretty subtle in these shots but in person I think it gives it a much more aggressive stance; and we'll see, it might help with roll center.

Anyway after that I took it to an autocross at the big track:

Chronicles of Miata Ownership #2:

Time to do some maintenance!

Didn't take many great pictures during the process but I change all of the drive line fluids: Engine Oil (Rotella T6) Trans (Motorcraft Unicorn Tears) Diff (Redline Gear Oil)

Also changed the Air filter, and Fuel Filter.

With that out of the way I hit the track again and ended up with some great shots:

I'm currently trying to decide between CatchyOS and Nobara.

I'm sorry to be generating another of this kind of conversation as I can see they are getting pretty tedious. But you see I'm finally getting ready to take the plunge and try Linux again (after a brief encounter in the early 2000s).

I'm a gamer and I care a lot about gaming but I'm also a game dev. I need to be able to use Unreal Engine, Blender, Gaea, and other dev tools. My understanding is that something like Bazzite isn't right for me there.

So I've been looking at CatchyOS and Nobara. I've read their documentation and so far leaning toward CatchyOS. But sometimes people say Nobara is easier to use. I am not afraid of a command line, but frankly I don't tinker with my computer for fun. I get in and get what I need set up so I can get back to making things.

So what do you all think?

Chronicles of Miata Ownership:

I picked up this Miata with aims of creating a good autocross car. It's my first "project car" and my first time working on cars. I changed all of its fluids, and checked everything. Then "personalized" it slightly by modifying the front license plate mount to sit off center. I did that by bending one of it's arms and screwing it to one of the baby teeth.

Holds better than you'd think. Then it took it to autocross! What a blast, this thing is smiles every time I chuck it into a corner.