Yes, I’m a little single-minded right now, but can you blame me? After getting Ginger home with her new roll bar and frame rails, I set about torquing the roll bar’s bolts to the recommended range (35 – 40 ft-lbs), but as would be my luck, one bolt stripped badly.It would not loosen, nor would it tighten and it laughed at my unreinforced Dremel cut-off wheels. While I made plans to get help from Jeff Graves, the MCO road racer who sold me the bar, I did manage to cut the bolt off with reinforced cut-off wheels, as suggested by theurgy, one of the pillars of the Ottawa Mazda Club community.

Unfortunately, this hasn’t been the only issue: the rear callipers need replacing. Local pricing, even with various club-affiliation discounts, were in the $400 + $115 (core charge) + tax range and that only got me a one-year warranty. However, some tips from SilverMiataRacer, the admin on mazda-speed.com, pointed me to AutoZone.com where I was able to procure the callipers, with a lifetime warranty and the core charge included, for about $400CAD. Kind of a no-brainer and another experience that shows how badly the Canadian consumer gets screwed. The new callipers should be installed by the end of next weekend.

With respect to the turbo timer, I’ve sourced a harness from tune2mod.com, which is run by Ottawa Mazda Club regular x_o_k_x. Once it arrives, the install should be straightforward as long as I can find somewhere to hide the device in Ginger’s small interior.

Lastly, I’ve decided to forgo the R-compound tires this year and run a “cheater”, which is a street tire that just borders on the edge of being a race tire, with a tread-wear rating of 200 or less. This change from the original plan allows me also skip the trailer and hitch this year. The saved funds might get used for other mods… 

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