Damn it.

I appear to have a short-nose crank problem after all...as you can tell.

On the upside, apparently Miatas are really easy to work on, much simpler than any Honda I've touched or an S-chassis. I spent a total of maybe 4 hours getting everything taken apart, working only from miata.net "garage" section printouts.

1.6L Grainger manual is in the mail.

Where do I get these?

I found this in a Flickr photo set from the Jefferson 500 (annual vintage race at Summit Point). These are some NASTY steelies, I want a set of these to run on my Miata. I wonder if they're 4x100?


Website for the race:
http://www.jefferson500.org/

Garage Life

My garage was a hellhole until very recently. Tools all over the floor, household stuff, old cardboard boxes, etc.

I got a burr up my ass this past weekend to do something about it. I've only just started (just organized, cleaned, and got some racks), so I won't be posting up mine until it's a little farther along, but I thought I'd toss up some shots of my favorite garages.

First and foremost is Mark Arcenal's garage, of Fatlace fame. I'm trying to avoid making my garage a carbon copy of his, but I will be hanging my banners the same way.




Next is "Jack Olsen" (member name) from the Garage Journal boards. I like his quirky color
combination and the general minimalism of the whole thing. I wish I could do something like that Ivy, but my HOA would throw a fit.




Last is another Garage Journal member who goes by "OL55". This is not the look I'm going for, as it wouldn't fit with what I have parked in there, but it looks sick nonetheless. He must have other, brighter lights in there that he uses sometimes though, as I don't know how you can wrench with just Christmas lights.

Bow's Gallery

Japanese OEM auto websites tend to be loaded with "fan" material, much more so than their American counterparts. Honda is an extreme example, as their site has tons of owner galleries, iPhone apps, a collection of engine sounds, etc.

They also have "Bow's Gallery", where they have commissioned an artist (Ikeda Kazuhiro) to paint a series of works that feature old and new Honda products.

Often they will include one car, one bike, and some "small engine" product (i.e. lawnmower or something).

I've been checking this section of their site for years, so I thought I'd toss up a link and some of the images. I'm trying to see if they sell big prints of these, so that I can hang them in my garage.

As time goes on, I'll post other content from the OEM sites, but this is the best one.


LINK:

http://www.honda.co.jp/Bow/gallery/index.html

Fish parts

One of my favorite foods is "Hamachi Kama", or broiled/grilled yellowtail collar.

Hana sells the collars frozen, so I picked up a couple and took a shot at making my own. I'm never going out for it again, it was every bit as good as my favorite spot on my first try. Just make the cuts, salt, let it sit, and grill.

Loosen Up!

So, I generally feel like I'm familiar with pretty much every obscure Japanese auto tuning subculture. Drifters, Vanning-zoku, Art trucks, Kei tuning, boso, yanky, etc.

Once in awhile, however, something new comes along and throws me for a loop.

I stumbled across some pictures of Dodge Vans on the RS Watanabe website's "owner pictures" section. This led me to the following site:

http://blogs.yahoo.co.jp/r_q_collectibles

This is the coolest thing I've ever seen. They run these vans at Ebisu circuit, apparently.







The best part though, is that the Japanese tuners in question seem entirely aware of the whole "perv van" stigma and are embracing it openly.




I will pay $100 for this T-shirt, if brand new. Can anyone find me one? I'm pretty sure that "Hentai no Tsudoi" means "Pervert Festival".

Getting Away

Break time. Palm Beach.

Slurping

To continue the review of all the goodies I picked up at Hana yesterday, I made a bowl of Myojo pork-flavored Ippei-Chan ramen today at work.

Very good for instant noodles, a million times better than Top Ramen or whatever, and also much better than the "Nong Shim" bowls.

These are like $3 at Hana, which is kind of a lot for instant noodles, but I think it's worth it. I'm going to start keeping a drawer of them at work.

I wish I could find a curry one.

OISHII!!

There's a little Japanese grocery store in Bethesda that I used to go to on the regular (Daruma), but that's a little far from my office now, so I hardly ever get to go.

Today, thanks to Yelp.com I discovered a new one, called "Hana". It's considerably smaller and doesn't have a prepared foods section, but it has all the basics and at much better prices than Daruma. The owners are very nice and I will definitely be a repeat customer.

It's located at 2004 17th Street NW, in the U St Corridor of DC.





While I was there, I discovered this thing called "Cream Bread", this particular one being made by a company called "D-Plus". I tried the Hokkaido Cream flavor, and it is the truth. Go buy some.

iPhone

8900 Curve (and subsequent 8330) is gone, iPhone is here. Not the "S", just a normal 3G. Having lots of fun with it though. Playing Square-Enix's "Crystal Defenders: Vanguard Storm" all day.

Mazdafarian

I have acquired yet ANOTHER Miata. I still have my flat-white 1996 (for sale, now), but I couldn't resist picking up this absolutely mint 1990 a couple weeks ago. Just about 100k and near perfect inside and out. Now I just need to find some Wats in a good size.

Oh...and apparently it has a short-nose crank dysfunction, necessitating either a quickie loctite fix, a whole new crank (ordered just to be safe), or potentially a whole new engine (trying to avoid this).

Excuse the blurry shots, I need to take better ones once it's been waxed and it's running right.

Pip Pip Old Chap

The wife and I were taking the NA8 for a drive last weekend and stumbled across a huge British car show. MG's, Triumphs, Sunbeams, Austin Healeys, Jaguars, Rolls Royces, and Lotuses as far as they eye could see. The Lotus Europa was definitely my favorite car at the show, as I'd never seen one in person before.