Downsizing in Colorado
 

First of all, thank you for the great forum. I've already found a ton of info that's helped to take my first step towards adjusting my life to Miata. I picked up a 2002 this weekend, I believe with Appearance Package 2. It's green, slow, and is already putting smiles on my face.

A little background: I started a new job about three months ago, and picked up a 2003.5 M3 to celebrate (and also to make my 65-mile/55-minute commute more enjoyable). I spent some time looking for a good one - not perfect, but a good enough base to serve as a daily driver and to fix up to as close to factory new condition as possible. I spent a bunch of time sorting out little issues on it, but sadly, last week some baseball and softball size hail decided that I did not need the car anymore, completely destroying it:
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Heartbroken, I reassessed what I was looking for in my commuter car:

• Reliable
• Easy and cheap to fix/maintain/upgrade
• Good fuel economy
• Relatively inexpensive
• Fun
• Relatively low depreciation

After considering a few options such as an older Camry (not fun), IS300 (a little expensive to maintain, hard to find a good one), MR2 (hard to find, a bit of a pain to work on), Mini Cooper S (not reliable), etc., The Answer popped into my head. I've always wanted one, and the main two concerns I had were that I'm 6'3" tall, and I wasn't expecting very good NVH for a long highway commute. NCs were a little more than I wanted to spend for such a car, a little more modern than I like, and I'm not a huge fan of the styling. I figured NA would be too slow with a 1.6L (I live at ~6000' altitude), and too noisy for long 80mph+ stretches of driving every day. I love the looks of NB, and I test drove a couple NAs before choosing a few top contenders for local NBs. As I suspected, 1.6 NA was too slow and too noisy, but I sort of fit into them. Fit in NB was about the same, slightly better, so I looked at my top choices in person, and the winner was clear. Best-loved, best maintained, cleanest cosmetically, best mechanically, and cheapest. And it came with an OEM hard top. Bone stock as far as I can tell:
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So far it's done quite well on my commute to work the last couple of days. It's a little noisy, but not too bad, and I wish I had taller gearing. My most acute issue is that I wish the rear of the seat bottom cushion sat an inch or two lower. I guess my main options there are foamectomy and/or removing the rear seat mount perches? I will be looking into both in greater detail. Leg/knee room isn't great, but liveable. I'm forced to slouch a little for headroom and visibility purposes, so I think that's my biggest concern right now.

Additionally, I've got some good clutch shudder after about an hour of driving (original clutch, rear main leak). When the car is cold, it's nonexistent, but it feels like the diff is going to fall out of the car once it's warm if I don't engage the clutch at >2000rpm. I've got an FM Happy Meal on the way, and I'll be doing the rear main and front/rear trans seals while I'm in there, and going to braided stainless clutch line with new master and slave cylinders. Coming from 333hp and decent torque, I'm hoping to make the Miata quicker with an eBay electric turbo, so I figured I'd get the better clutch now and just do the job once.

Anyway, I am happy to be here, happy to be in a Miata, and looking forward to getting to know the car a whole lot better in the near future. Here's a picture of a good bear:
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More seriously, in the long-term I'm pretty certain I will do a stock motor turbo setup. FMII seems like a good easy-to-install option, but the more I research, the more I think I would really like the Trackspeed EFR setup (although it's definitely less plug-and-play). Obviously I will need a standalone, and having soldered and wired up my own MS2-Extra setup on my frankenmotor e30 (boost control, launch control/flatshift, and working on getting a Holset VGT working properly over CANBUS, which means I will be building an exhaust manifold from scratch), I'm not worried about getting any of the vast array of PNP Megasquirt setups up and running. I've seen some in the classifieds here, but I think it might be worth it to go with a new MSLabs/Rev unit to avoid any surprises and ensure I have good support should I end up needing it.

From what I've read so far about cooling, it seems like the FM radiators are a little less plug and play than some of their other stuff, and no one has seemed to have anything bad to say about Koyo radiators, so that's what I'm considering so far. This won't be a track car, at the most I'll be autocrossing every once in a while; mostly I'll just be highway cruising. 3.6 rear end is also pretty high up on my list.

As this will be my daily driver, whatever route I go, I want to be able to do hardware installs over the course of a weekend, so there is much research and planning in my future. I think first will be seat mod, then clutch, then standalone, then radiator, then turbo setup, each as its own separate project. I'm sure I'll find some other smaller maintenance and upgrade items to take car of along the way, but when all is said and done, I'll end up with a car that is faster and more agile than the M3, for quite a bit less investment.

Welcome to the forum. I heard about that hailstorm and saw some video. That was a good one. I used to live in Colorado Springs and we would get them too.

The Miata won't fair any better in a hailstorm.

It sounds like you've been reading this forum a lot. Keep it up.

Thank you, will do! I figure some of the first stuff I'll do besides the aforementioned mods will be to go over some of the basic maintenance/inspection stuff. Compression check (maybe leakdown depending on results), VVT solenoid inspection, general underbody inspection (bushings/mounts and other wear items). Previous owner had pretty good documentation, so I'll be going through that to make sure there aren't any obvious missing maintenance items. I think maybe I'll do radiator before ECU, since I apparently need to drain the coolant to check the VVT actuator (timing belt needs to be removed according to service manual). I've been familiarizing myself with the factory service manual since I think I found a good online copy at cardiagn.

I park in the garage at home, and at work I'm usually outside, but I can pull the car into our building if a storm is coming. Unfortunately, this was a once-in-a-career storm at our site (northeast of Pueblo) - guys who have been here for decades have never seen anything like it out here. One lady apparently ended up in the hospital due to injuries sustained while she tried to drive away. I was out testing (it's a railroad test track, ~13 mile oval), so didn't have a chance to get the car inside. We are certainly reassessing how we approach track testing when a storm is coming...

Funny enough, I grew up in Tampa :)

Compression test results: 134, 135, 137, 140. I'm at about 6500' altitude, so that corrects to 163 to 170. Not great, but not terrible. OCV resistance is a touch over spec (8.3ohm). Looks like there has been some oil seeping around the OCV, so I've got new o-rings/gasket on the way (the kit from MiataRoadster). Plugs looked good (they're relatively new). Peeked in the valve cover, nice and shiny aluminum with no signs of cooked oil, just nice fresh light brown oil in there, looks like it was just poured in.

Hooked up the scan tool on the way home, coolant temp hit 108C for a few minutes doing about 82mph with AC on climbing a long, slight grade, but stayed under 105C for the most part. Once I was back in town it dropped back down to about 101C. Radiator top is slightly brown, so maybe I'll throw in the Koyo radiator sooner rather than later...

Jeebuz!! Your poor M3. I was smashed hard in Laramie (WY) and then again in Louisville (CO), worst I've seen in 20 years in colorado. Luckily my miata is in the garage in a million pieces. My house, Tundra and CX-5 didn't fair so well...

What the... really sorry for the poor M3. Your plans already sound promising. Also, since the name rings some bells; you were with the Columbia University FSAE team back in 2009/2010?

I was indeed!

Small world after all; although a good percentage of the fsae.com forums has migrated over here :P

Such a bummer :( our FJ62 Cruiser got hit pretty good, luckily not as bad as the M3. This summer has been nuts, weather-wise.

Welcome, sorry for the M3.
Bunch of usable info and great people to learn from and work with in here.

Yo! If you are in FB, please join the Colorado Miatas FB group!

Welcome aboard!

You definitely got me for a second there with the ebay electric turbo bit!

Thanks everyone! I'm now [insert anatomy of choice] deep in the clutch replacement... Got a late start today, allllmost ready to pull the trans out. Definitely a good way to get to know a car quickly. Those starter bolts were not super fun, but the header to downpipe nuts, yikes! I think the worst of it is over now, assuming I can get to the top trans bolts.

Well, made it to work on the new clutch! A bit shuddery, but better than before, and shifting is so much nicer now. Used the Motorcraft gear old, and with the lightweight flywheel it is so much nicer between gears now (it wasn't bad before!). Probably doing engine mounts next (really looking forward to that...)