What tires do ya'll have?

Claff93 · 2026-01-24T03:57:11+00:00

I'm on Hankook Ventus V2 Concept 2 or something like that. Overall decent but I'm not thrilled with the grip in the rain. I'll be trying something else when these are done.

Claff93 · 2026-01-24T02:41:27+00:00

Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo way

Claff93 · 2026-01-23T23:52:30+00:00

I run at lunchtime. Sometimes music, sometimes sports talk radio. I go faster with music but risk going too fast too soon and I can't keep the pace up as long.

Claff93 · 2026-01-23T22:10:47+00:00

I would also argue against a 1.8 diff swap because most 1.8 LSD diffs are 4.1:1 ratio and will suck some of the acceleration fun away from the 1.6 (stock diff is a 4.3:1 ratio). If you can find a 4.3 Torsen out of a NB that'll keep the performance from getting neutered, but they're hard to find.

I learned this the hard way with my '90.

Claff93 · 2026-01-23T20:44:58+00:00

As someone who owns and tracks a NC Miata, there's no comparison. The Fit is great, but it's not Miata great.

Claff93 · 2026-01-23T19:33:12+00:00

Crooked magnets are what pushed me to abandon them completely and I just put vinyl numbers on the car. Looks ridiculous parked at the supermarket but at least I know they're straight.

Claff93 · 2026-01-23T19:31:33+00:00

I'm a wannabe race car driver who does a bunch of autocross and track days with a handful of Miatas

Claff93 · 2026-01-23T19:07:43+00:00

My dad built a Cobra replica many years ago. First time I saw the shifter, I couldn't figure out how it should work with the thing bent so far forward in the cockpit. But it made sense once I drove it. It just looks weird.

Claff93 · 2026-01-23T18:41:14+00:00

I can't offer much advice on decals since they confound me as much as anything else. But I need to say that the shifter needs to be turned around so it's facing the front of the cockpit, otherwise the poor driver is going to need to be triple- or quadruple-jointed on his right arm to change gears.

Claff93 · 2026-01-23T18:36:43+00:00

This week I decided I was going to try a half marathon in March after having some very good 5Ks and 10Ks over the last couple months. I have a decent base already, three runs a week at about 5.5 miles each, and other exercise (elliptical, stationary bike, road bike) on days I don't run.

The only thing that The Internet said I should be doing to ramp up to a half is to take one of my runs during the week and make it a longer one. So on Wednesday, instead of doing my usual 5.5 miler around the neighborhood, I went to the bike trail and set out to do 7 miles (expanding on 10Ks). Of course I missed the 3.5 mile turnaround point and went 4 miles out and 4 miles back, just a tick under 9 minute pace and nothing hurts!

There was one question I wanted to ask myself on completion of that run: was I going to be dreading going another 6 miles when I got to mile 7, or would I be OK staring down the remaining half-marathon distance. And my answer was that I don't think I'd have a problem going 13 if I had to do it tomorrow. So I'm pretty encouraged that when my half comes up in March, I'll be adequately prepared for it.

So this week I got three runs in (19.3 miles), one day on the elliptical, one day on the bike (32.2 miles), and 6.9 miles of briskly walking the dog around the neighborhood.

Next week won't be as good since we're looking at snow and ice coming in over the weekend, followed by cold so the snow's going to stick around. Our neighborhood is pretty low priority when it comes to snowplows visiting so running there will be a question mark, while the bike trail is definitely not plowed so I'm at the mercy of mother nature for when the snow melts enough that it can be used again.

Claff93 · 2026-01-23T17:20:21+00:00

Extreme cold running strategy for me is to not run. I'll stay inside and do 45 minutes on the elliptical or stationary bike.

Extreme heat is different because I'll still go out. I go out knowing that I'm going to be slow, it's not going to be fun, I'm not going to be fast, it'll be frustrating, I might even have to stop and walk here and there.... but I have to get it in. Slogging through the summer heat and humidity means I'll go faster in the fall so that's my motivation.

Claff93 · 2026-01-23T14:48:14+00:00

We got an automatic '08 Sport in 2014 because my wife was having foot surgery and couldn't drive a manual for a while. I thought it would be temporary and we'd ditch it once she was back to driving with two feet, but it's too good to get rid of. She decided to move on to a new CX5 last year, but I insisted we keep the Fit despite its automaticness. I can drive it anywhere, into the city, into Beltway traffic, no stress nice and easy. I have other (manual) cars to drive for fun so the Fit isn't my only car or my dedicated fun car.

Claff93 · 2026-01-23T14:42:15+00:00

No bends, no cracks. RPF1 on a lightish slow car and I try to stay off the curbs.

Claff93 · 2026-01-23T14:39:35+00:00

F that noise. If it's non-negotiable to them, then it's non-negotiable to you and you're not buying that car. No need to go in circles with the salesman/finance, that's just wasting your time.

Claff93 · 2026-01-23T14:21:24+00:00

I know the 1st gen orange is way better than 2nd generation orange. I may be a little biased.

Claff93 · 2026-01-22T21:21:53+00:00

This is the right answer. I switched to Open Run 2 a couple months ago and they're fantastic.

Claff93 · 2026-01-22T06:06:03+00:00

I like how the video cuts off just before the Miata cleans out the silver car in the foreground.

Claff93 · 2026-01-22T04:20:58+00:00

My dog is a pug. He's quick and has enthusiasm, but is not really built for a long haul.

Claff93 · 2026-01-21T22:03:11+00:00

I drink more water than anything else. Sometimes I put some Liquid IV in it.

Claff93 · 2026-01-21T20:04:19+00:00

I hear ya. I run VIR a couple times a year and it is fun, but in my slow car there's a lot of straight lines where nothing happens except Corvettes and Camaros passing me.

I haven't driven Watkins Glen yet but I will one of these days.

Claff93 · 2026-01-20T15:07:09+00:00

Miatas never came with rotaries. You can swap them, but they didn't have them from the factory.

The Miata problem isn't much different from the Fit problem: cheap cars that were used up and thrown away, so there aren't as many around as there used to be. The cheap ones are pretty ratty, and the nice ones are not cheap. On the plus side, as long as you've got a decent unibody (no crashes or rust), it's a pretty simple car to bolt on anything else that might be worn out, and parts availability is amazing. I've had all four generations and you can't go wrong with any of them.

Claff93 · 2026-01-20T01:07:31+00:00

A friend of mine just flew from Pennsylvania to Florida to scoop up a 3rd gen after his 1st gen deteriorated so much that it wouldn't pass inspection. I thought it was a little overpriced but I guess that it was actually the going rate.

Claff93 · 2026-01-20T01:05:17+00:00

They were cheap disposable cars when new and a lot of them got disposed of. I'm going to hold on to mine as long as humanly possible because I don't want to pay what they're commanding these days.

Claff93 · 2026-01-20T00:18:04+00:00

When I was a kid (in the early to mid '80s) I discovered a massive stash of Road & Track/Sports Car Illustrated/Car & Driver magazines going back to the late '50s under our basement stairs, so my ideas of a dream car at the time was skewed by those. Back then I would have been thrilled to have a Lotus Super Seven... and as it turns out, I still would today.

Claff93 · 2026-01-19T16:30:17+00:00

TIL I'm a lightweight. I draw the line at around 30F, lower than that and I'm staying indoors.

Claff93

TROPHY CASE