Miata has landed......

[berettafan]

Gave the man $500 and drove it back to the office. One nice little 20mph turn/dip on the way back taken at 45mph in this little car was enough to tell me it is ready to rock. just over 300k on the odo and the only driving issue i noted was a miss/sputter from 1-2k under load. already have replacement motor secured but i suspect this one will last me a bit.

I have 4-5x's the purchase price of this car in my 911's suspension and i suspect my first auto-x with this car will show it to be faster, even as it sits with an old motor and 300k old suspension.

Need to get a gumball/number for the side and roll bar so i don't get hit on when driving it though.....

[dd74]

Sweet! What year? How much was the crate motor? And do you plan any mods other than suspension?

[porsche4life]

Looks good. Get ya Hard Dog bar. My folks have a sign shop if you are willing to have your gumball shipped to ya.

[masraum]

Sweet, they are great little cars. I'd like to have another at that price to strip weight-wise and see what I could come up with.

The "Pelican Part" of the miata world is miata.net. They have a great "garage" section on the regular site (before you get to the forums) that covers a bunch of the common mods and maintenance things. Also, if you do some searching in the forums, you'll find a few threads like "what's you favorite cheap mod", "what mod do you regret", "what 3 mods would you do first" etc....

Lots of good ideas. Having to hold the door handles when closing/locking the doors bugged me. There's a mod to disable that. There are lots and lots of things that can be done with these, and most of them are quite a bit cheaper than a Porsche.

Don't get me wrong, I still love Porsche's, and if I someone gave me one today, I'd drop the miata in a heartbeat (or maybe turn it into a track toy).

This is a personal preference thing. After the seats in the 911 (which fit me well and provided good lateral support), the seats in the miata felt horrible. I felt like I was sitting on them rather than in them. Also, at 6'2", the miata was a bit tight re: headroom. I performed a foamectomy on my driver's seat. Now I sit lower and deeper into the bottom and back of the seat which means I've got a lot more lateral support (as much or more than the 911 seats) and, to me, it's more comfy.

[sailchef]

Houston......The eagle has landed!

[pwd72s]

Only $500...can't lose much here..

[berettafan]

well it's more of a finch than an eagle but it's still alright!

crate motors are roughly $2200 but i found a used motor w/ 145k on the clock for $250. will run this motor till it dies then replace. also getting transmission, lsd rear and several other bits from the 145k mile car for an add'l $150.

long term plan for the car is to get it autocross ready w/ fresh suspension (possibly flyin miata package), sticky rubber and a roll bar (hard dog as mentioned seems to be a popular choice).

will be replacing air bag steering wheel w/ some sort of momo. seats may stay if i can get low enough via foam removal. arm rests are leaving. a/c will not be replaced when motor swap occurs (i'll take light over cool any day).

have some outer rocker rust repair to do and noticed the car at some point had a master cylinder leak so will probably replace a lot of the braking system.

car is a '90. replacement motor will be from a '92 (which i believe doesn't have a crank nose issue that i've read about).

[Pazuzu]

OK, the kid has a bit of ricer in him, and he pays for most of the work, but I've seen this engine and was impressed:
http://MX5 with ITBs

[look 171]

I had a red NA just like it. I purchased it from a Miata.net board member here in LA for $5000 bucks about 5 years ago, so you got a smoking deal. I sold it and bought an S 2000 from my client. Those little Miata rocks. You could slide it around all day and be in perfect control. Oh, gas it around a turn and lift and the little tail will come right back and back on the gas. Lot of fun.

Check out the crank issue and get it fix.

One Sunday morning, I was out driving my 930 up in Moulholland and come up to this little miata just like your. He takes off reving it like it was about to blow up to try and get away from me. I didn't think anything of it and let him go. we are in the big sweepers. I cach up to him in the straights without any issues. A little later, the hair pins come and I am working my 4 speed (short ring and pinion with about 460 useless horse power), shifting like crazy between first and second. He was in one gear with a glass of wine and a cig in the other. He wasn't working up a sweat at all. I get up to him as soon as my revs were up in seconds. After we went our seperate ways, I was thinking, I gotta to get one of those. I really missed my little cars. Had a MR2,

[berettafan]

could definitely dig an S2000 but i'd have to give up the 911 for that.

[masraum]

I was really surprised when I first got this miata. It's as easy to steer with the throttle as my 911 was. The TTO almost bit me once or twice. If my previous car hadn't been a 911, I'm afraind that I'd have ended up with bent suspension up against a curb or worse.

[azasadny]

Excellent project car!

[Porsche-O-Phile]

Like the color too!

[vash]

that is a fantastic deal!

[bell]

I'd drive a $500 miata......it would get a flat black paint job though

[fastfredracing]

I have not been real active in autocross in a few years, but back when I was into it, we had two supercharged miata's in the club, and they FTD'd quite frequently .

[dtw]

LeMons car?

[berettafan]

Its a thought. Don't have enough drivers tho. Maybe next season.

[Porsche-O-Phile]

Originally Posted by dtw

LeMons car?

Problem is the judges will assign a value far greater than $500 to that car and you'll be competing from a disadvantaged position.

It doesn't matter if you actually buy the car for under $500 or not. If they think you didn't, or they think there are shennanigans (e.g. me and a friend go in on a deal whereby he "sells" me his car for $500 even though it's worth more just so we can have a good car in the race) they can penalize you.

Still would be fun to try though.

[berettafan]

Ya think? It does have rust in rocker and 300k miles.