Modifications
Interface modifications
My philosophy regarding tuning cars over the years has basically come down to one thing, driver enjoyment or in other words the interface. The ultimate goal of modifying a car is to make it more fun or more pleasant to drive and the interface directly affects that. This page will be documenting the modifications to the Blueberry that will attempt to take its interface and it as a whole from wonderful to brilliant.
Modification 001: Drivetrain mounts
Unlike the A4 the longitudinal rear wheel drive Miata has only 4 drivetrain mounts. Two engine and two differential. Mazdas PPF (Power Plant Frame), a truss that connects the transmission and differential, eliminates the need for mounts on the transmission and multiple mounts on the differential. This is great news to me after the ridiculous sea of mounts on the A4.
Differential mounts: MMR
These are solid UHMW mounts to replace the stock rubber ones. You can feel the rear end twisting with the rubber mounts.
Engine mounts: Mazda competition 40% stiffer rubber mounts
These are exactly the same as the stock mounts except they are new and 40% stiffer and they are offest 1/4 lower for a better center of gravity. I normally don't like to use rubber if I don't have to because it degrades faster but this is a street car and a loud one so I'd rather not have solid mounts to vibrate the hell out of the chassis. After having these for a while I will probably get solid mounts sometime in the future.
My stock drivers side mount was torn so this was indeed a repair as well as an upgrade. Getting the passenger side in was not terribly difficult. Take the nut loose from the bottom of the mount, unbolt the bracket from the engine and pull all of it out as an assembly. Put the new mount on and replace. It may take some finagling to get the holes to line up.
The drivers side was a total nightmare. Getting the right hand bolt off of the mount bracket took a 14mm box end wrench and some arm yoga. The mount and bracket wouldn't come out as a unit so I took the old mount loose inside the engine bay from below. Once the new mount was on the bracket the real fun began. I had jacked up the engine with a floor jack to get the mounts off. Apparently that isn't the way to put them back in so that the holes on the bracket line up. I eventually hooked up an engine hoist and tried it that way. After hours and hours of trying a dozen different movements and tricks the only thing that worked was to put in that right hand bolt for the engine mount bracket and then put the stud on the bottom of the mount into the hole in the subframe. Then I lowered the engine down until the other two holes lined up. This was the only thing that worked after about 3-4 hours of wrestling.
They tightened up the shifter feel (which I didn't think was possible) and made the throttle response feel sharper.
Modification 002: Shift knob
In the green bean I had a polished aluminum normal sized Voodoo shift knob. It required polishing practically every time you touched it and would literally rub off on your hands. Aluminum isn't exactly good for you so I opted to get the larger sized (2” like the knob in the A4) pearl finish knob with a clear coat for the Blueberry. The shifter and shift knob are of course one of the most important interfaces.
Modification 003: 1.8 brake upgrade
The rear passenger side caliper was starting to freeze and the front pads were totally wooden feeling so I took this as an opportunity to get a set of the larger 94+ model year brakes. The cost of one reman with new rotors and pads was as much as four calipers from a 99. At the very least i'm getting 4 calipers that are 7 years newer than what's on the car. They and all of their slider pins look just fine so I expect many good years of service out of them.
I chose ebc greenstuff pads for the front and hawk hps pads for the rear. The rears don't do very much of the braking so this inexpensive long lasting performance pad fit the bill. I had greenstuffs on the Green Beans stock 92 brakes. I think I like the HP+ pads and the Ferodos better now though, don't bother with the EBC's.
