I once heard " You know, your car looked much better when it was on fire."

 

I had one guy in a 2000ish purple monte carlo tell me in rush hour traffic one day that Miatas are for child molesters.

 

^ lol!!!

 

It's true. There are OVER NINE THOUUUSAAAANNNNDDDD of us with Miatas, all molesting little children.

 

Ive had a few random ppl yell *** and **** like that

but naywa, this **** is may too m.net for me... sooooo goodbye

 

being right hand drive, i get all kinds of ****.

Where is your steering wheel?
Why do you want such a weird car?
Is your car from Europe (its japanese btw...)

once i was boosted I was asked "holy ****, really...a miata?" after taking a friend for a spin.

 

"My Goldwing's engine is larger than your Miata's"

My dumb neighbor keeps asking, "Do you ever win money racing that thing? Seems like a waste to me. You'll never get half your money back when you sell it. I don't know why you waste your time with a lawnmower engine when you could buy a Camaro for that amount of money." I then explain that my life doesn't revolve around sinking money in a 20-year old $1600 car as an investment.

 

Yeah you tell him. My miata is a 20 year old $3000 investment.

 

yes it does

 

Is that a go kart or a race car?

 

Honestly I do see the allure. A 13B will rev to 9K and make decent TQ from 4k on up. It will make decent power NA too. The engines are relatively cheap and the right people can make them very reliable. Not having a valve-train to speak of/deal with is pretty sweet. And in a light car like a Miata, having a broad but progressive TQ band is a very good thing. You doint need massive tires, but you can run the lower gears a lot when racing for great TQ multiplication and acceleration. Basically the Honda philosophy of high-po vehicles untill recently.

But, you have the huge hassle. You do have the fact that it should probably be rebuilt before you bother putting it in. It will sound like a weedwacker wide open. Rotary transmissions seem to need to ride a bit higher do to the fact that the crank is basically in the center of the engine rather than the bottom (which is part of why an LSX goes into an FD or FC so well.) And for all the coolness of the powerband of a rotary, an LSX plowerplant is going to womp it overall. The aluminum 5.3 engines are starting to show up on ebay lately, and they are cheap and will make high 200s WHP at an absolute minimum considering the headers you will be running with any swap. Save up for later, throw in a built bottom end and cam with the (very good and slightly better than LS1) 5.3 heads and mid-high 300WHP is dead relaible on an engine that can go right to 7K and makes TQ at 3K.

Rambling. Sorry.

 

^ I get the "Hey you drove your Go-Kart" all the time

 

I would then point out the wonderous 10 bolt rear ends breaking at 300WHP(basically stock LS1), the fact that that chassis is roughly as stiff as your neighboors dick (over-cooked spaggetti), the absolute crap rear suspension (which combined with the chassis makes subrame connectors more or less nessesary for any sort of racing) and the fact that with the exception of late 70 and 80s F-Bodies, they are over-hyped and over priced. All the normal non-rich people are flocking to the Novas because the late 60s Camaros are all bought up and being sold to gold-chainers for 40K a pop. The LS1 cars are just so magical to fanboys because they make about 300WHP and theoretically can run high 12s stock so they get sold for way more than it costs to make a 300WHP car.

I looked hard at LS1 F-Bodies for a long time, and never could justify the cost for a car that more or less sucks at anything other than drag racing. For a drag **** I will just run some gutted Nova or Vega or Maverick or RX7 or Z or Mustang or any one of a dozen other options that are cheaper and lighter and are easy to setup properly.

Great engine, possibly the best available for most folks. Pretty good trans too. Crap everything else. Corvettes exist for a reason. F-Body guys hate hearing that, which is funny to me.

 

The most entertaining thing for me is the typical z06 or gt3 owner giving you the look when you are lining up in the pits for your first run group of the day, like O god I'm going to have to sit behind that guy. then the rest of the day after you have lapped them at least once per session they will completely avoid eye contact with you, and or grumble about how they are having some imaginary problem with there $100k car.

 

^funny you say that. Smaller scale but my first autocross in the miata I ran right with a Carrera. The owner was talking the car up big time before the race and was pissed off with it after haha.

 

"is that one of them kit cars or sumthin?"

"why do you have a huge radiator?"

 

I get the FWD thing alot, from mechanic's ( family and friends i do my own work ) its partly forgivable since there are only a handfull where i live.

"Oh, ur driving ur girlfriends car today?"
"Why would u turbo that? 13B swap it"
"Why would you want a rollbar? its not like u can flip it" - from my wifes father.. u would think the litlte extra safty for his daughter wouldnt be a bad thing.

 

Quoted from a buddies FB page that has a pic of me and him working on my miata:

 

I ALWAYS GET THE IS IT A MIATA OR AN MX-5? i then just stair at them. like wtf then they always go is it RWD? guys say i am gay and girls always say its cute. so i consider that a WIN on my part!

 

This morning while filling up:

"What does that tiny thing hold?"
"You mean the tank? Around 12 gallons."
"WOW! Doesn't look big enough to hold 5."

The guy was actually really nice. Just wanted to chat.

For some reason, I get random old guys asking where I got my Triumph. Several times a year for as long as I've owned the car, I get the Triumph question.