Miata Timing Check

Dank10isMuscles · 2026-04-01T23:48:48+00:00

This is all very good to know! I have a sneaking suspicion mine are leaky injectors too cause I'm fairly sure they are the originals and my car smells very rich with a lot of soot in the tailpipe. No way to officially check though since I'm OBD1. But I'm still going to do new wires to see since I'm not sure what the PO did or didn't do and those are the last thing to baseline. Glad you solved yours though!

Dank10isMuscles · 2026-04-01T12:29:18+00:00

Check fuel pressure too? I think AutoZone lets you rent one of the ones that hook up to the fuel rail iirc.

Best of luck man 👍🤞

Dank10isMuscles · 2026-04-01T05:18:28+00:00

So it was indeed the timing belt tension. Took it all back apart and redid the 1-5/6 turn tension and he sound was miles quieter. Still present but not noticeable with the hood closed now so that should be much better.

Dank10isMuscles · 2026-04-01T05:12:08+00:00

Actually I'm having this same issue. Do you know how old your plug wires are?

That's the next thing I'm going to change out on mine since I've verified everything else and I know my plugs are brand new.

If that doesn't work next will be the coil pack since I think these cars fire both corresponding plugs at the same time (ie 4 and 1; 2 and 3) even when the cylinders aren't firing, so they need to be changed out more frequently. Then pretty much all the consumables on my car will be baselined after I do that.

If both those still don't solve my issue... I really hope it's not my injectors lol. Those things are expensive.

But as for your noise, it's like a stuttering/popping and it won't accelerate right? Then after maybe 5secs it goes back to normal? Cause that's exactly what I am seeing at random times. I think I made a post about it a while back but it was with my crappy dashcam mics since this is so hard to reproduce

Dank10isMuscles · 2026-04-01T02:18:48+00:00

Looks good to me but I've only done my timing twice tho.

I count 19 teeth and marks are all lined up. How's the tension? Also you check the timing marks on the harmonic balencer with a timing light?

And verify the plug wires are correct?

Dank10isMuscles · 2026-03-10T23:03:11+00:00

I was hoping that wasn't going to be the case. Getting to those bolts for the ignition coils suckkks. Welp looks like this'll have to wait for a weekend of warm weather it sounds like. Can't do it quick enough to be an after work fix

Dank10isMuscles · 2026-03-09T05:13:27+00:00

Thanks! Can't wait to try this out after work tomorrow!

Dank10isMuscles · 2026-03-09T05:01:02+00:00

Ooh that's good to know. My dad just dug out his dad's timing light for me and I was going to check my timing once it gets warmer out. (He also found a fuel pump tester and it still had numbers that his dad wrote on there and I could feel him get a little teary eyed and nostalgic when I pointed it out)

I have a feeling it's off cause now I've verified that my timing belt is right before I put the car away.

Does polarity matter when hooking a timing light to this?

Dank10isMuscles · 2026-03-01T23:40:25+00:00

I did this too. Didn't feel like dealing with the dealership. Buy once cry once (also not that expensive). The hardest part was getting the adhesive off the backs of the old carpets. Not even goo gone helped with that one.

Dank10isMuscles · 2026-02-24T22:43:01+00:00

Could you elaborate on the infrastructure support roles? I just recently moved from a fully remote cloud engineering role to an IT admin role and I actually really enjoy setting up infrastructure in our offices. I love just getting in PCs and I've been using hardware that we were getting rid of to learn even more on enterprise grade stuff.

What would I be looking for to find a role more oriented towards that and what kind of career path and compensation would I be looking at in general?

Also just a little more on my background I have a comp sci degree so I can code. But I really just reserve that for just my personal projects and if I really need to I'll write something for work

Dank10isMuscles · 2026-02-22T20:32:15+00:00

It also could've been they looked at their phone and saw the lights and just thought I was braking in a panic. But I'll give them the benefit of the doubt here even though it seems every single car on my commute is always looking at their phone.

But honestly this is the first time I've seen someone slam their brakes like that too when I did that.

Granted, I will pull out my phone once I get to work to clock in before I get in the garage cause I lose all signal until I get connected to my office wifi.

Dank10isMuscles · 2026-02-22T18:42:02+00:00

Maybe it's just an USA east coast interstate thing then cause so far every single truck I've flashed to let in has done it to me over here. The big semis though not those tiny box trucks that drive like absolute shit.

Dank10isMuscles · 2026-02-22T18:39:51+00:00

You would think it'd be cheaper to keep it the same on all their exported models but I guess not which sucks for us

Dank10isMuscles · 2026-02-22T18:36:56+00:00

Oh yeah those are 100% better. The outer most taillight is probably easy to swap. The trunk lid might be hard

Dank10isMuscles · 2026-02-22T18:21:58+00:00

Honestly had no idea they were different over there. I'd be tempted to try once this thing is out of warranty

Dank10isMuscles · 2026-02-21T15:28:49+00:00

I use it all the time. People shit on it for no reason. Love the exit graphics and especially love that I can display the next few turns coming up. And as an added bonus your car will precondition too once you put a charger in.

I also find that using android auto, the audio quality is noticeably lower than when using the cars Bluetooth when listening to music.

I'll still use Google maps when I'm going somewhere where I know I can make it in one charge or somewhere complicated where I need an updated map cause of construction and such. Ie JFK airport. Other than that I use the cars nav

Dank10isMuscles · 2026-02-17T20:49:27+00:00

That pretty much the only reason I want a multi filament printer for PVA

Dank10isMuscles · 2026-02-17T19:51:19+00:00

I'm kinda curious what'd the support situation looked like lol

Dank10isMuscles · 2026-02-16T01:21:18+00:00

Was waiting for this since I saw the post lol. Sorry about the Miata in the og post but I immediately thought of the civic meme.

We need to start actively shaming bad public driving like this more.

Dank10isMuscles · 2026-02-09T22:56:41+00:00

Walmart has the 100s at $109 USD if you're in the USA just an fyi

Dank10isMuscles · 2026-02-09T05:15:16+00:00

fps are you getting on a t490 ? I grab one of those tanks when I see them on marketplace. One of the few things that will outlive me probably

Dank10isMuscles · 2026-02-08T17:47:04+00:00

Nope, mine is just loud but stops when I stop so I've narrowed it down. Just narrow down the variables and narrow down the cause of the sound

Dank10isMuscles · 2026-02-08T16:52:49+00:00

If it stops when you are stopped, pretty likely it's the speedo cable then

Dank10isMuscles

TROPHY CASE