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I got started on this journey years ago. Through years of tinkering on my first miata, i would say that it's fairly reliably frankenstein turboed, tuned, cooled. It's a very much DIY build, and fun on track days:
- Trackspeed motor (former leafy motor, not using VVT) / ACT HD / 6 speed / Torsen
- DIY turbo setup, WRX td04, then later Volvo TD04-14t
- VMaxx classic, corner balanced and aligned to FM suggestions
- RS4 Porterfield
- Tuned by a local tuner, for a "reliable tune" to 200HP - I wanted headroom in the tune with some det control
The years fly by: It took me about forever to get here. Lived in three cities during this process, and at one point drove from NYC to Boston to work on the car. Never really parked the car indoors until recently, and there's a major rust issue. I ground out and replaced sheetmetal in the rear quarters, only to find that the front right (where the fender attaches to the body, is fully rusted out. I got a replacement rocker panel, but the thing that the rocker is attached to right behind the wheel is totally gone. Frame rails are all dented, I naval jellied what I could under the carpet, but there is one 1" hole that my right heel rests in as I drive in the floor-pan.
The Impulse buy: Last summer, the dealer down the street from me had a 97 M. I took it as a sign that the 97 and I were meant to be. I was always a fan of the 97 color, the 96T is white, and liked the nice interior, the 96T is standard cloth. Some minor old car issues, but in general in way better condition than mine. Frame-rails undented, super clean, super clean subframe, and a tiny bit of rocker rust only on one side (which I now have practice repairing properly). The goal was to swap all the go fast bits into the M-edition.
Fast forward one year, I drove the M-edition 3 times (yesterday for the first time in the season). Yesterday, I realized how nice it was to just leave the OEM car "as is". Super reliable, no idle issues, smooth, comfortable, enough pep around town, my wife would sit in it. A bunch of thumbs ups from the underfunded teenager car enthusiast demographic also propped up my morale.
Would I be ruining the M if i drop all the parts from the old 96 into it? I just want a casual track day driver that I can take on the road from time to time. Should I sell the M, make a little money potentially and just fire up the welder and fix up the turbo? As I get older, the time I have available is significantly less than the to-do list that I'm able to concoct. Having two toy cars to maintain is not feasible.
Last edited by chitty chitty bang bang; 04-26-2020 at 06:46 PM.
I don't think we would consider it ruining a car to build it to the way that makes you happy. It is your car enjoy how you want. From the parts you have it sounds like you have a nice collection of parts on hand to make a nice miata more suited to the style of driving you want.
Are we the only two people simultaneously on Mturbo and Mnet right now? This is probably the bigger question I need to answer before getting your fairly priced control arms.
Are we the only two people simultaneously on Mturbo and Mnet right now? This is probably the bigger question I need to answer before getting your fairly priced control arms.
LOL Well, I am procrastinating writing a paper for school so i am on both platforms.
I don't think doing the mods you suggested would "ruin" your 97m. What you described sounds like the standard miata build over here, even tame by most of the standards on this forum.
Yeah, the turbo setup is totally tame by the Mturbo standards. I think by "ruin" I mean "devalue". I picked up the 97 for 4k, which I think is pretty fair - it is 130k miles. Based on what's on the market today, I'm thinking maybe I can sell it for 4500-5000 and let someone have this nice OEM car.
Cost of the swap - pretty time consuming, the car will probably still be worth 4500-5k after the swap because it'll sell to a niche audience down the line, toss the old tub.
Sell the M-edition - get 4500 back on the M, and spent potentially less time on the frankenstein dealing with rust, and maybe use that 4500 to go into more things like: Better suspension / EFR or something, at the cost of probably fewer thumbs up on the street, and no wife ridealongs...
I guess the important question, money aside, is do you want to have a nice 97m that you enjoy to drive?
I don't know how bad your rust is on your 96, I haven't seen it, but I do know that I sold my beloved project 69 VW Bus because rust accumulated and it was spreading faster than I could fix it. So I cut my losses and enjoyed my miata more. I don't know what rust repair costs where you are for what you have to do but that is a consideration.
Is your intent to enjoy the 97M and keep it for a few years, or is it a flip car that you want to have for 6 months?
If i were you, I would buy the 97M and part out your tub and keep a stock pile of parts in your garage. 200 whp sounds tame for a stock motor. I might consider not even swapping the engine itself. Fully part out your rusty car and throw some nice parts at the M.
Me, I don't car if what I do increases or decreases the value of my car since I have no intention on selling it.
Maybe mod the M in a way that your wife will still want to go for a ride? Vmaxx coil overs aren't particularly good. I would suggest maybe a set of xida gs coil overs to give it a sportier feel and a comfier drive.
Yah, unless you are attached to that particular miata for sentimental reasons, I would consider a partout and enjoy your 97m. That looks like a whole lot of nope from me wanting to tackle rust repair.
Yes, I tend to have a problem with assigning a cost/benefit with what I want.... I think the good thing about the miata route is that even when that ratio is high, it's not high compared to other platforms. Whole lotta nope is right...
The whole "M edition as a collector's car" is pretty much past, unless the example you have is pristine. Dump the rust bucket (I have plenty of experience with rust), and do up the better chassis the way you like. As long as you don't completely bork it up, you can always put it back to stock and (mostly) recover your money.
Yah, pretty much the only thing I would say don't do is cage the car. If you want to throw in a 6 speed with your torsen then that sounds awesome. The "collector" miatas are the ones that have less than 30k miles regardless of trim level. If the price of your miata increases it won't be because the market desires high mileage 97m's but that the market wants more na flippy headlight miatas.
My vote is scrap the rusty one and throw the fun parts at your 97m.
No harm in hacking up the M edition...it's not low mileage enough to be collectible. That being said, there's a definitive life cycle of miata ownership, and a surprising amount of FI guys end up right back at (nearly) stock drivetrain cars
Thanks everyone. After deliberating my situation I decided I will go through and drill out the right rocker, put in a full rocker replacement panel, and put in patch pieces near the FR fender. After figuring how much time I will spend transferring things over to the M, and the net cost of doing so, I realized it would be more trouble than it's worth personally. The M is not mint, but there's certainly enough sale comparisons locally to justify selling it at or slightly above cost. To get around the cruiser with the wife issue, I've decided just to rely on Turo which will give me more optionality.
The old turbo car remains in better condition than what I think most american muscle tub restorations start from. With part of the 4k I earn back from selling the M, I'm going to go EFR 6758, as I have all the supporting mods, support that with a bbk, and then go into a set of Xidas or AFCO, whatever comes up on classifieds at a reasonable discount. I just went from 14x6.5 NT01s to 15x8 SM7s so that should help me on the grip front in the mean-time.
Started cutting into the car over the weekend and have the new rocker panel largely fitted. It's pretty nasty and fun as I've never done this before. I've cut out any rot and will need to weld in new cold-roll replace the cutout sections beneath the rockers. Thankfully the beams beneath the rockers have surface rust and limited rot and is reacting to Naval Jelly well.
Afterwards, based on googling I plan to embalm everything with 2K primer, and then weld the rocker on after coating it with 2K on both the inside and outside. For those of you who have dealt with rust, does this sound right? Also, Is the right approach to basically drill then spot weld through the 2K primer? I will drill new holes on the inner rocker to spray in a hefty amount of Fluid Film in the future, and seam weld the door while I'm at it.
Beams after rocker removal and before rust-treatment
test fitting the new rocker panel, lots of work to be done below first
Another look at the FR of the car beneath the fender. I intend to use 3/16" stock to reinforce the rocker lip, and extend the cut-away structure above the hole, then patch the rectangular cut-out with new metal.
Last edited by chitty chitty bang bang; 05-12-2020 at 11:11 PM.
04-26-2020, 06:33 PM
Ruin a nice 97 m-edition or?
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This is probably the bigger question I need to answer before getting your fairly priced control arms.
