Teh Official "Dude Where's My Forum?" Thread, Brought to you by the minds of Box, and her fiancée, Lorelei Options

[Box]

The idea is to get away from old death traps. Then again, being a BMW it should break down and thus be very safe sitting in the garage.

[SwissFerdi]

Bitter, your talk about HL2 got me looking into mods as I only ever played vanilla version. Found MMod, a really nice reworked version with iron sights added!! Makes for much better gameplay.

Also, having DDed one for the past year, it’s a good car but the NC is not a great Miata.

This post has been edited by SwissFerdi: Aug 30, 2019 - 11:53 PM

[Bitter]

Haha. I love rediscovering old games that I never finished and then remembering why I never finished them as I play them again. At least now I've got plenty of hardware power to run them at full 'wow' settings.

[Box]

How can the NC not be a great Miata when it's everything about the NA/NB but better? Shouldn't the Miata be the best car it can be? I've never understood that NA is the better Miata, NB/NC/ND is the better car mentality. I know for a fact the NB2 is far superior to the NA6 in every regard, better assembled and better driving, so it only stands to reason the NC is even better and the ND better yet.

[Box]

I'm sure the automatic doesn't help, and I've heard the factory sways and suspension(even with Bilsteins) aren't conducive to sporty driving. I still like the NA/NB, but I don't want to die from being rear ended. That and I honestly fail to see how a statistically worse iteration can be the better iteration, if that's the case then the best Miata is the Lotus Elan and all the other British tin cans it was originally inspired by.

This post has been edited by Box: Aug 31, 2019 - 12:54 PM

[SwissFerdi]

You have that a little backward, I put the NA and NB together, with one being the obvious purist choice but the other being more refined, yet as good if not better. The NC is just a boat standing alone as the ND went back to feeling like the first two gens did, minus engine. I have driven them all, and the NC has a good enough ride quality and muchly reduced tire noise, but the interior has weirdly textured plastic everywhere and feels cheap. The leatherette is tearing like cardboard whereas my LE repops are soft like a nice sofa. The only nice touch is the slab of piano black, but otherwise, just drive one and find out.

I also wouldn’t trade my NA6 for an NB2 for anything, so...:dunno:

This post has been edited by SwissFerdi: Sep 1, 2019 - 12:22 AM

[Box]

The NB is an evolution of the NA, same fundamental chassis but there were improvements along the away. Enough that I feel a suitable distinction can be made, more like the differences in generations of American cars like the Mustang and F-body than what you're used to in Japanese cars. That said the NB2 was a HUGE step up over the NA6, you have to remember the NA6 killed the Miata for me and had me writing them off as everyone that liked them being mentally deranged. Then the NB2 redeemed the Miata, and has caused me nothing but problems ever since. Also I wouldn't say the NA in stock form is what everyone cracks it up to be, it's that hype that set the bar too high for me and was its undoing. The same things people say about the NC now in regards to handling and body roll were my observations with the NA6, but everyone has modded theirs to oblivion and/or wears rose tinted glasses so that gets glossed over. The NA is definitely the cutest and nothing gets a person going more than things that pop up, so there's that.

Trust me I MUCH rather have the NB2 over any NC, but I just can't unsee the car folding up into itself like that and seeing what happened to those dummies. I also can't ignore all the accidents people should walk away from littered across Reddit and forums, but they couldn't because their legs were broken. The NC is hardly any heavier than the NB2, not even 30 pounds between 6-speed models, so with suspension mods I don't see how it can't be just as good if not better. The whole boat derogation of the NC doesn't make sense taking that into account, and even the NA6 is a boat compared to a Lotus Elan or Suzuki Cappuccino...

Oh and as far as my statement, if you go far back enough you see plenty of posts where people say that the NA is the better Miata and the NB is the better car. I **** you not...

[Bitter]

How about a RX-8? You won't drive it enough to wear out the Rotary and if you do you just LS swap it!

[Box]

I've thought about it quite a bit before actually, but they're just so finicky and to get them to last you need to remove the cats which is something I won't do. That and there's just the trouble of finding a good one that passes compression testing, and even that's no guarantee.

I think the NC is the best option for me all things considered, though I've yet to drive one in the real world. Via anecdotal accounts of those that have owned the NA/NB and NC the NC is sways and springs/shocks or coil-overs away from "Miata-ness", which short of the NB2 and probably the ND is the case for all of them anyway. Many say sways and springs is enough for factory Bilstein cars if you're keeping it on the streets. Also in a way I get the whole NA6 thing; if you're just wanting the lightest RWD car made in the last 30 years sold in the U.S. you get a MR-S... I mean the NA6 and that's fine. So in a way one could argue the only Miatas worth getting are the NA6 or ND, since the NA8 and NB1 weigh just as much as the ND.

[Bitter]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-M0M69lIFY

Clearly you need to get a 6th gen Celica. But put a V6 in it.

[Box]

Or get a 7th gen GT-S that just needs a LSD put into it during a clutch change. A 6th gen GT with the 1MZ and E153 with LSD would be fun though.

[Bitter]

I think that would be more fun for you than a 7th gen honestly, I think you'd HATE the 7th gen interior way too much.


Still cracks me up that the first gen guy was FLOORED that my r/r wheel was just hanging in air when I pulled off the side of the road. Yeah modern chassis with a few bars is pretty stiff...and coil overs. Photos of his car careening around the corners were near cartoonish with the amount of body roll and suspension travel, but in a good way.

[Box]

More fun perhaps and nicer interior, but 7th gen is safer I imagine and definitely easier to reach the desired end result.

My brother's Genesis did that too, which was bad with the TorSen rear since then it became an useless open diff...

[Bitter]

Yeah the ABS isn't happy when that happens but it's at such a low speed I hit the cutoff threshold in a couple feet anyway so whatever. I've never driven the car with ABS disabled because as near as I can tell it uses the ABS as a proportioning valve for the rear brakes, I think, as I don't see a prop valve on the firewall like a non ABS car would have. It's an electronic prop valve in a round about way, the rears get the same pressure as the front but being smaller have less grab and if they lock up the ABS takes care of it by pulsing that wheel (and maybe the other wheels too?). I don't lock up wheels hardly ever with the sticky Z2's and presumably the Z3's will get even less brake lock up. If I do lock a wheel it's almost always a rear during hard braking because those pads heat up faster and would grab harder before the Z2's were fully warmed in the rear. It is a 4 channel system but I'm not sure if it's independent 4 channels or if it pulses all when one locks...so I'm going to go and find out. Find out by reading, not going out and locking up my brakes.

[Box]

From what I know 4 channel independent would mean it's capable of controlling each brake independent of others, I know at least that's the case for the fourth gen F-body in the 3 channel vs 4 channel cars. The 3 channel has the rear shared on one channel while the fronts remain independent.

Omgerd fibro fog. What I meant was that as far as I know any 4 channel system would be fully independent, since that'd mean each wheel is on its own line off the module. As far as I know any 1 channel ABS systems were back in the 80's and it was only on one axle, then some cars had 2 channel where front and rear were controlled independent of each other though left and right were as one.

This post has been edited by Box: Sep 1, 2019 - 10:19 PM

[Bitter]

I'm fairly sure it's 4 independent channels that pulse one as needed. I'd need to watch live data for the solenoids and lock a wheel up to confirm, easier said than done these days!

[SwissFerdi]

I don’t think it could lift a tire in anger but after I put a rear strut bar in the Celica, if I jacked it up behind a front wheel it would lift the back as well, which was amazing to me at the time. Memories. I miss that car.

Didn’t you already have an NB? It’s established it doesn’t work for you, but think of the NC as having even more body roll and less sensitive steering than that, or definitely an early NA. Doesn’t help that being 6AT, I got gipped out of factory Bilstein shocks, an LSD, and 9hp!! Even then, other NCs haven’t quite given me much fizz comparatively. To me my Miata is the best one ever made, but I recognize I’m biased. I prefer a lighter and rev-happy engine, I don’t mind having to see 5k just to get anywhere.

[Box]

No, I had the NA6 before the Firebird(s) and then my brother got the Shinsen NB2 on my recommendation before deciding that wasn't good enough and he needed motorcycles. In the time he had it I was able to drive it a few times and it completely changed my opinion of the Miata and made me realize how much I miss small and lights cars(doesn't help I never got comfortable with the Firebird), then set me down the path I'm on now. I LOVED how that car drove and felt, and it was 100% stock(albeit wear&tear were new like shocks and tires etc...) so it'd be even better mildly modified to my taste. It's just I scared myself out of driving one between all the anecdotal crash accounts on the internet and crash test videos(though I was always leery of being rear ended to begin with), hence looking into the NC and some other cars that SHOULD be safer. I know the best thing regardless of the car is to be defensive, and I am, but you can't control everything 100% of the time and that's what worries me. I know there's an inherent risk to driving in general, and being in a smaller car in general, but seeing what happens to the NA/NB and those in them is beyond my level of acceptable risk. I don't want the car to be the difference in walking away and being seriously injured, or worse. So if the NC can offer 90%(probably 100% once modded) of that NB2 experience with the added peace of mind that comes with a 15+ year newer chassis and crash safety tech then that's a compromise I'm willing to make.

I didn't like the overly touchy steering of the NA6, the NB2 being a good bit heavier was more to my liking and I would've like it even heavier so the NC might be perfectly fine for me in that regard. Body roll on the other hand I can't tolerate(it makes me sick) so sways would be the first thing done, if not springs in conjuction since apparently the NC has pathetically soft springs stock being 111 ft lbs in the front and 90 ft lbs in the rear...

[Bitter]

Drove the Z3 gently today and my engine light came on as well, I'll find out what's up with that tomorrow. Something emissions I'm sure as it runs like a top.

So they do the same suction cup noises but even more than the Z2's, the steering feels a little more twitchy and sensitive to slighter steering inputs but that may just be because they're brand new or it could be the difference in the curvature of the carcass between the 2 and 3, the 3's are supposedly better at spreading the force over the whole tire instead of the edges which might mean I could get away running a little less camber but I'm going to leave my alignment alone. The car goes straight as an arrow for like 1/2 mile at a time on flat highway only slowly succumbing to the crown of the road and needing a small course correction. I didn't push the tires one bit not at all because they're new and I want to put a hundred or so miles on them before I start easing into them some and feel them out more.

[Box]

You mean it's not like a German car where the light just stays on?

Suction cup noises? Ha that sounds like it'd be funny driving slowly.