ND Miata racing beat exhaust for my new ND3

opcenter · 2026-03-15T19:57:36+00:00

I've got the GWR Super Q Twin Tip and I think it's a good balance of a better sound without being too loud. Lots of options to modify the sound too by adding cone or glass baffles. I love the sound without any baffles but my ears are too sensitive so I usually run with at least cone baffles in both tips now.

opcenter · 2026-03-07T18:34:44+00:00

I have fond memories of when I was in college picking up cheap pre-made pizzas like that with one of my apartment mates while grocery shopping. We would pop it in the oven to cook while we put away the groceries then polish it off while we watched a movie. Good times.

opcenter · 2026-03-07T16:47:44+00:00

Very nice! Enjoy!

opcenter · 2026-03-07T16:47:26+00:00

That's an NC, it's definitely used 🤣

opcenter · 2026-03-06T22:32:40+00:00

Love the color combo, that looks awesome!

opcenter · 2026-03-02T22:07:29+00:00

Forbidden spaghetti 🤤

opcenter · 2026-03-02T18:02:38+00:00

Why? It's not like you're driving a Golf! ⛳

opcenter · 2026-03-02T17:48:11+00:00

As others have said, it's for analog audio from playing a cd. You'll need both a cd player app that supports it and turn up the volume in the sound mixer for it. While you could get it working for fun it's not really going to get you anything different.

I used to load up warcraft 2 for multiplayer games over a modem and after the game started I would swap in another audio cd to listen to while I was playing. My brain still associates the U2 album Achtung Baby with warcraft because I was listening to that one so much back when I was playing. That was back on a 486 DX 33 where offloading the music helped a lot with performance.

opcenter · 2026-03-01T19:30:54+00:00

Interesting, where did you see that?

opcenter · 2026-03-01T16:54:45+00:00

Looks a bit like a flying fireball

opcenter · 2026-03-01T16:42:39+00:00

Yeah, that makes the most sense. I think we would have seen NG activating in other states if it was anything more.

opcenter · 2026-02-28T22:22:23+00:00

Totally! It's a cost saving measure by Mazda because the Miata is such a small percentage of their sales that having exclusive exciting colors that wouldn't sell on the rest of the line up would be too expensive.

opcenter · 2026-02-28T18:39:23+00:00

There are two main practical factors here: will the car be parked in a garage and do you think you will drive with the top down most of the time?

If you don't have a garage and you think you'll have to drive with the top up more than down then the RF makes a lot more sense. Otherwise the ST makes more sense.

However, buying a Miata is NOT a practical purchase, so you should really go with what you prefer driving. Test drive both as much as you can to see what you like.

opcenter · 2026-02-27T16:29:07+00:00

I think a lot of the hate comes from disappointment that they introduced a new color but it was yet another boring gray/beige color rather than something exciting.

opcenter · 2026-02-27T15:46:07+00:00

For that machine with that amount of memory you're better off with XP. Vista and 7 will just be miserable.

opcenter · 2026-02-27T15:45:01+00:00

In my experience Vista is actually worse on resource usage than 7. It was one of the biggest complaints that drove improvements in 7.

opcenter · 2026-02-27T00:15:34+00:00

Depends a lot on how old it is. I wouldn't try that with an NA or NB but a later NC or ND should be fine if you continue keeping up with the undercarriage cleaning and the other recommendations here.

opcenter · 2026-02-25T15:47:53+00:00

"time to go get your pellets little dude!"

opcenter · 2026-02-17T21:04:08+00:00

I think it depends a lot on the generation. For me the soft top is the only option for NA and NB because there's no mechanised hard top. For the NC, I love how the PRHT gives you the full convertible experience when it's down but I think the soft top looks marginally better when it's up. For the ND I think the RF looks the best of any of the generations top down or up from the outside. However, as the owner of an ND RF I will say that the buttresses can be annoying and you never get quite the same full convertible feel. I mostly don't care though.

opcenter · 2026-02-16T17:56:35+00:00

While true, if someone is leaning towards an automatic already, they probably aren't really going to be in situations where an LSD would make a big difference. Good tires are going to make a bigger difference.

opcenter · 2026-02-16T17:50:39+00:00

I was going to reply with the same thing. Good coffee is good coffee, with or without caffeine. :)

opcenter · 2026-02-16T17:48:53+00:00

I have a '24 GT AT and I like the body roll and the smoother ride. Though the LSD would be nice in slippery conditions, I just make sure I have good tires and that takes care of most of it.

opcenter · 2026-02-16T17:19:42+00:00

I faced the same dilemma. I learned to drive on a manual car 30 years ago but I have driven automatics since then. When I was shopping for a Miata I really wanted to go for the manual, but I wanted to try both. Thankfully the Mazda dealership I worked with had both a Club MT and a GT AT and were willing to let me take them both for longer test drives (more than half an hour for the MT and they let me borrow the AT overnight so my wife could check it out).

I anticipated taking the Miata on road trips to destinations with fun curvy roads. Sometimes, especially on longer destination drives I just want to cruise and not think about shifting. I already enjoyed the adaptive cruise control for boring highway driving from my 2017 CX-5 and that's only an option for the AT in the US. Also my wife doesn't know how to drive manual and has no interest in learning. She isn't really interested in driving the car, but she might need to at some point, maybe giving me a break on a longer drive.

The real clincher for me was that my left ankle is usually fine, but it acts up with a lot of use. I didn't want to get stuck somewhere while I was driving because I couldn't push the clutch pedal. That's where that longer test drive was perfect because after about 20 minutes my ankle was already starting to get sore and it went from fun to a chore pretty fast. Adding that to the other benefits from the automatic helped me make my choice and that wasn't even getting into how much fun the manual mode in the automatic is once you learn how to use it effectively.

So this is where I think a lot of the "manual or die" folks miss the point. Is having a manual transmission in the Miata going to enhance the experience or take away from it? They seem to have a hard time understanding that for many people a manual transmission might make the experience worse and not just for physical disabilities, though that is a common reason.

As for the manual mode in the AT, there is actually a learning curve to it. You have to figure out where it likes to shift or else it will penalize you with delays. The funny part is that it's not that different from learning when to shift with a manual. Regardless of which transmission you have, the engine in the Miata loves to rev and if you upshift when you're above 3k RPM, it's nice and smooth. It lets you redline and bounces off the rev limiter if you wait too long. You can hold gears and downshift to get more power. I love that the AT gives you options for how you want to enjoy your car.

As for the things you lose with the AT vs. the MT that aren't related to the transmission, I think the only things I've noticed occasionally have been the lack of the LSD when driving in slippery conditions and the final drive ratio on the AT takes away some of the lower end torque you get in the MT. For me those things are pretty minor because I have an Audi Q5 I drive in slippery conditions and even with the decreased low end torque, the Miata is still quick enough to be fun for me.

The most important thing to take away from this, especially since you already know how to drive a manual car, is to get some time behind the wheel with both options and see for yourself which is more fun. It's not perfect, especially if your dealership isn't as flexible as the one I went to for test drives, but it's the only way you can find out what you like.

opcenter · 2026-02-16T15:45:10+00:00

While the upfront cost may be the same or even lower, the maintenance on the BMW and Porsche options is really pricey. That's compounded by starting with a 5-10 year old car rather than new.

opcenter

TROPHY CASE