Mona’s First Mods

Prime Returns!

Weather is conspiring to keep me from making any meaningful content to do a blog with… but in the meantime, here’s a few tiny things that I did for Mona a few days after she came home.

LED on top, Stock on bottom

Everything in the car is modern and LEDs and incredibly awesome, right? LED headlights, LED signals, this OLED gauge on the left and the huge TV screen in the center of the dash. So modern.

I noticed right off that the dome light seemed decidedly NOT-modern. And further – it gets HOT if it’s on for more than a minute. Surely it’s not one of those old fashioned festoon bulbs in there, right?

A quick (and careful) pry with a screwdriver revealed the answer – It’s old. It’s fashioned. It’s a filament bulb. That had to go.

Now, they make tons of festoon-style LED bulbs with the little circuit board and a bunch of SMDs installed. They’re fine, but when I found this little string of LEDs on amazon, I knew I had to try it.

The stock bulb

The LED

To be honest, the lighting difference is quite minimal. If anything, the LED might be the tiniest bit dimmer than the (fresh) stock bulb. But… it’s using far less power, not getting hot, and I don’t have to worry if my daughter leaves the door open and the light is burning all night.

If anyone wants to try some of these little LEDs, you need a 31mm festoon style. The maker of this one is WeiXuan and it’s “warm white” in color balance. I really like it as it’s not a daylight-balance 5500k bulb. It gives that OEM feel without the burning filament.

Side note – if anyone wants these bulbs for an NA Miata, you need the 27mm length festoon.

Stock Antenna

Stubby antenna!

The next tiny mod – getting rid of that stock whip antenna.

Sharka has always had the power antenna, and it’s down almost all the time. Bucky has as well. But power antenna tech is now considered antiquated. And it’s heavy. I can imagine the ND engineers sneering at the idea of a 4-5 lb antenna motor hanging inside the fender, doing nothing.

So they put that whippy thing. Yuck.

Stormy had a Stubby, so I went straight to amazon and ordered another for Mona.

The Stubby.

It’s simple but really lovely. Nicely made, beautifully powder coated, and it blends into the antenna base perfectly. What more can you ask for? Well… I could ask for a power antenna like Sharka has, but… this weighs far less and has a nice modern look.

Well done Cravenspeed! Sorry I didn’t order directly from you. I only recently discovered you guys were fellow miata.net sponsors.

A shift knob.

Lastly, a shift knob.

I’ve built up quite a selection from Rich over the years. I seem to add one to my personal collection every shipment or so. This Lignum Vitae Teardrop knob seemed to fit Mona perfectly. It’s a bit lighter than the stock knob, but it feels so much nicer in my hand.

As always, there’s a few knobs carved of the finest exotic wood hanging around in my store.

well… that’s not quite all of the mods…

BAM!

Once the weather cooperates and lets me take some pretty finished photos, you’ll see Ramona’s next mod.