Miata Mailing List: September 1992, Message #11
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   From: (none)
Subject: New Participant
   Date: (none)



Hi everybody,

I don't know if you are supposed to introduce yourself when joining the
mailing list but since I also have a review and a few questions, why
not.

I'm Michael and has had my white B pack + HT for a year now. This is my
second Miata. The first one was only an A pack. an did not have a HT.

I live in Dallas, am a software engineer, 30 years old and originally
from Sweden. I bought a Miata mainly because there are no other "real"
cars around, only motorized juke boxes (some of them very exciting, I
must admit, but still juke boxy). I always had an eye for Lotus Elans
and BMW 2002s. The only cars I have ever owned that I cared for are two BMW
2002. One of them was a "tii" and the other a race ready one with a
souped up engine with Alpina gear.

Only the Miata has been able to capture my interest since these two
cars (10 years ago)

So far I've only installed the Clearwater speakers and amp. What do I
like them? well... I don't like them as much as the people in the Miata
magazine seem to do. I kind of liked the original speaker, although the
Clearwater ones handle power much better than the stock speakers. They are
much better if you are driving top down and
need to crank up the volume. The sound is pretty clear and undistorted
at all levels. However, the bass is not very deep. I actually feel the
stock speakers handled low bass better even though you could not play
as loudly with them as you can with the Clearwater ones. My friend
tells me it's because the stock speakers suffered from heavy distortion
which made the lower bass appear stronger. Maybe he's right, I 'm not
sure. The stock units could not handle loud bass at all, that's for sure.

The speakers are OK, we can conclude. Sturdy and well built. Mid range
and treble unarguably better than stock. My friend says he had problems
with the speakers touching the outer ring of the grill, so he replaced
the grill with something else and the problem was solved. I haven't
noticed this problem so maybe he likes his music louder than I like
mine.

I don't like the design of the power amp that much. It sounds
OK, and sure, it's more powerful than stock. There is an annoying pop
everytime the stereo is turned on or off. This is a *loud* pop and if
the manual hadn't warned me about it I would have thought there
was something wrong with the setup, that's how loud it is. Clearwater
suggests that the power is turned on and off with the key and the
stereo is left on at all times. This helps a little, but not much.

I don't regret my buy and I'm not going to return anything, but I hope
someone (maybe me) will find a solution for the "pop" problem (maybe a
should start listening to jazz instead of pop :-) and that there will be
a bass module available soon (I wonder where to find room for it).

Now to my problems. No matter how much I like the little beautiful Miata,
there are some things which really annoys me. 

The first one is a rattle.
I'm mighty surprised that nobody else has as much as mentioned this problem.
Both my previous and current Miata has this problem. My friend's Miata
has this problem too. It's a transmission rattle which becomes very
loud when the transmission gets warm. It mostly appears unprovoked when
shifting from first to second at around 3500 rpm, and especially if I
ease up on the throttle just before disengaging the clutch (stepping on it).
I have heard some people complaining about the buzzing sound from the heat
shields but this is not a buzzing sound. It's more like the the whole
gearbox is rattling. I can provoke an almost deafening rattle if a drive
up along a concrete wall (just a curb will do also) with the left side of the 
car (where I sit), roll down the window and drive the car in second gear
at around 3000-4000 rpm. The rattle dissappear at the slighest acceleration
or decelaration. I figure this is a normal characteristic of the car but
I would like to hear your comments on it. Does anyone else hear this noise?
 
The second problem concerns the fuel injection. It seems all modern cars have 
this problem, more or less. I'm pretty sure it's because of the emission
control. The car hesitates when I want to accelerate. When the car is cold 
it's sometimes almost impossible to accelerate just after shifting up. 
I shift from
first to second, take the foot of the throttle, clutch down, shift, and when
I step on the throttle the engine will just refuse to give me any power.
It'll just cough softly for about a second or two, and then it'll
speed off. When the engine gets warm the problem becomes less apparant, 
but it's 
still there. Sometimes, when I step on the throttle when  engaging
a higher gear, instead of jerking forward, the car suddenly throws me forward
for a fraction of a second before it starts going. Just as when you step on
the throttle to late after shifting (but I don't, believe me). It also feels
like the fuel cutof, that goes into effect when the engine is braking the
car, makes matters worse, i.e. when the engine fails to respond to my
command, it brakes the car when I engage the clutch, instead of pushing
it forward. This seems to activate the fuel cutoff which turns off the fuel
completely, making it even harder for the engine to understand that it's
supposed to assist me in increasing the car's speed. Fortunately the engine
comes to life after a little while (like half a second or so).

I have developped a technique where I put my foot on the throttle a little 
earlier than should be necessary, but since the delay is somewhat random it 
does not always work too well.

I also have a problem with the A/C starting. It seems the throttle
is opened up a litle bit when the A/C starts. Unfortunately it opens up
to early, which causes the car to jump forward before the A/C actually
starts (like half a second later). Also, when the A/C starts, the throttle
compensation is not enough to maintain the speed, so I have to press
a little harder on the throttle to prevent the car from loosing speed.
I don't think there is much to do about the car loosing speed, but shouldn't
it be possible to adjust the throttle compensation so that it doesn't
jerk the car first forward and then backward,a t least?

Well, that's all for now. I hope I didn't bore you too much. I promise
that if I ever solve any of these problems (or other Miata problems)
I'll let you all know.

Best regards,
Michael

PS.I want too keep my Miata forever.