thebeerbaron

One of my favorite accessories for my Miata is an original Factory Service Manual. It comes in a three-ring binder that’s about four inches thick and contains hundreds of loose-leaf pages describing in exquisite detail how to take apart and rebuild a 1994 Mazda Miata. There are fold-out maps of the entire wiring harness with every wire color clearly labeled. There’s even a book of basic diagnostic procedures included at the front.

There is something about the level of detail of this manual that appeals to me. It’s knowing the precise torque spec for every single nut and bolt on the car. It’s having every single repair, refurbishment, or replacement procedure outlined in simple, straightforward steps. And it definitely never says “installation is the reverse of removal”.

So when I stumbled across links to electronic versions of the WRX service manuals the other day, I was thrilled. At this point we don’t know what parts will be needed, but now I’m covered. I have a service manual for the 2002-2003 cars and one for the 2004 STi.

When I finally get my donor, I’ll pony up for the exact model year service manual. Just to have things “right”. But for now, flipping through the .pdfs is strangely satisfying. I don’t find them as thorough as the Mazda documents and the illustrations especially are a notch lower in quality. There is something comforting about the pedantic, logical approach to such a complex system. It feeds my inner engineer to see such complex systems exploded and reduced down to their smallest building blocks. These massively complex cars are not magic, they are just a large pile of simple systems.

The clay model is coming along nicely, and I’m working on some cool developments outside the design competition. I’m taking a vacation to Charleston, South Carolina next week, and there’ll be a fun announcement after that. You’ll get one more look at the clay model before then, but for now this will have to do.