The Evo becomes more ill-mannered, impractical and uncomfortable a road-going car—and a better race car:

• The new Cobra Imola racing seat I installed was a bit too high, and (according to the strict interpretation of SCCA rules) would have required a seat back brace, so I removed the adjustable seat rails and bolted down the seat straight to the bracket that’s bolted directly to the car. So unless you’re 5’7″, give or take an inch, you can’t drive my car.

• At the same time as installing the seat, I removed the factory seat belts since they wouldn’t really work with the seat. Getting in and out of the car is something of a minor production that takes a few minutes to buckle and tighten all the belts on the six-point racing harnesses.

• I replaced almost all the suspension bushings with stiffer polyurethane pieces; now the car has a harsher ride than ever before, and there’s an entirely new cacophony of noise from the suspension and drivetrain.

• I inadvertently put a hole in my radiator a few weeks ago while working on the car. I had the radiator fixed, but a pinhole leak remained, and I decided that just to be safe, I’d best get a new radiator. I opted for a Koyo racing radiator which is larger and has better cooling capacity than the stock unit—and costs about half as much.

• In order to make room for a larger Koyo radiator, I removed the air conditioning yesterday. I went through most of last summer without using A/C to prove that I could live without it. Of course that’s much easier now that I drive the Miata on a daily basis.

Next up: we spent a few hours trying to tune the Evo to make more power, but it had some strange problems with the turbo and/or engine not running quite right: inconsistent air/fuel ratios, irregular boost build-up, and a frequent tendency to misfire while accelerating at partial throttle. I’m slowly working through all the possibilities, and hopefully everything will be fixed soon enough. Or as I like to say, “I’ve got more time, money and determination than the car has problems.”

From: yannio01@yahoo.com
Re: 1990 VW Corrado G5 car

Hello,
I am YAN NIO, I am located in china, so the shipping won't be any problem. However i did saw your advert and I am highly interested in purchasing it to a good home, I will like to know your asking price and the present condition and the pictures, I am a serious buyer. Email me at your earliest convenience
Thanks

Of course, they’re located in China, so shipping won’t be any problem. You really can’t make this stuff up; these scammers are that amazingly, hilariously stupid.

… in the scammers to legitimate enquiries about my rally car, that is. No real prospects for a sale yet, but I didn’t expect something like this would sell quickly anyway.

In other car news:

• New WORKS O2 housing (turbo turbine outlet), Zeitronix wideband oxygen (air/fuel ratio) sensor, and ECU+ piggyback ECU are now installed in the Evo. I’m awaiting on a fix to a small radiator puncture before I can start playing with the ECU+. In a week or two I’ll rent a couple hours of time on the dyno to do some proper tuning. I’m hoping for around 280 horsepower to the wheels, which would equate roughly to around 350 horses at the crank.

• Also on the Evo: I now have all the bits and pieces to install my new Cobra racing seat. Getting all the necessary parts has been a challenge because there are no totally “bolt-in” seat solutions for the Evo; some amount of custom fabrication is invariably needed to make all the pieces fit together.

• With the radiator out, I’ve got easy access to the A/C condenser and the A/C compressor. So I’ve decided to take the opportunity to remove the air conditioning from the Evo, taking another 30-40 pounds off the car

• Did a two-day track event with Speed Ventures down at the Streets of Willow Springs, where I met Brian Goodwin of Good-Win Racing, a major Miata parts vendor. I was favourably impressed by Brian (himself a very capable race driver) and last week, ordered Good-Win Racing’s “Autocross ‘Stock’ Class Performance” package which includes Koni adjustable shocks, front swaybar, exhaust and intake filter. I installed the exhaust a few days ago and couldn’t be happier with it; the suspension pieces will go on this week as soon as I can get the Evo out of the garage. This will make the Miata mostly “done” for C Stock autocross class; I’m still planning on doing the Miata Sport conversion but since all the Sport option components need to go on the car at the same time, it will be a while before I have all the parts gathered.

• The Evo will return to action at the world-famous Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca on February 20, at a track day run by the Golden Gate Lotus Club.

jimhoward2006@yahoo.ca claims to be from Canada. Shame on you Jim for trying to rip off a fellow Canadian!

Thus sums the response to my ad so far: 3 lame-ass scam attempts, 1 legitimate interested party. I suppose I’m surprised to have even received one legitimate reply so far given I only posted the car yesterday.

derayonline@yahoo.com and smithmichael19@yahoo.com, you suck. I hope you die and rot in whatever hell you believe in. (Well that goes without saying I suppose.)

Why do scammers like Yahoo mail so much, I wonder?

Not an hour passes after I post the rally car ad up, and I get the following E-mail:

From: mark james (mark12_james@yahoo.com)

Hello
Good day to you, i am mr john and was passing by adverts on internet just
saw that you want to sell car so i am very intrested in it and will like to
buy it i am a serious buyer and will like you to get back to me tell me
about the condition and then tell me how is works,the asking price and the
pics as well so that we can proceed on it.
Regards
james

Of course anyone with the least bit of Internet savvy would recognize this as the opening salvo of the well-known car-buying scam. As far as scammers go, this so called “Mark” or “James” or “John” was particularly lame as he neglects to even mention a single detail about my car.

I replied by offering to report him to the FBI.

Under continuing pressure from my housemate, and having no place to store it and not enough time to work on it, I put the rally car up for sale.

Realistically speaking, Northern California is just about the best place to be to get into roadracing (due to wide availability of racetrack venues, the car-friendly weather year-round, sheer number of racing clubs, vendors, etc.), and about the worst place to be for rallying: events are far away (and the nearest ones are reputed “car breakers”), laws make it extremely problematic to register a rally-prepped car (as required). So maybe it’s just as well that I focus my efforts on the former, for the time being…

… than I was a year ago, I guess. Technically I’m only 2 days older than when I was 30.

You’d think the shock of being in your thirties would have worn off again… you’d think.

Two things that easily slip your mind when you’ve had less than 3 hours of sleep:

1. Check your mirrors carefully as you back out of the driveway.
2. Your housemate parked his M3, half blocking the driveway behind your Miata.

Sigh.