Finally Going to Stop Lurking
 

Hi fellow happy car owners,

I'm Alexis, and I just recently purchased a 91' Miata. I bought it knowing that it wasn't drivable. The guy I bought it from (a friend of a friend) told me that he thought it had a rod knock. He sent me some videos of the sound, and I asked some friends and family who work on cars for their opinion. They usually said the same thing. "It sounds like a bad lifter tick." So, I decided to try and fix it myself, and took apart the top of the engine. While doing so, I found some other issues, like; the spark plugs were black (bad FPR), battery doesn't charge past 50% despite being less than a year old, various plugs and hoses disconnected (going to have a friend bring her miata over so I can compare engine bays and reconnect things as needed), no exhaust (feeds straight into the engine bay), and various small issues like the window regulator needing replaced (which I have already done, but the switch panel is messed up and needs replaced.), hole in the soft top (was going to get a hard top anyways.), most wheels are missing lugs (the lugs were ugly anyways.), needs new tires (he gave me two fresh new tires with it), brakes are soft (going to upgrade them anyways, and parking brake doesn't hold.

Yes, I am fully aware that I didn't purchase the nice low mileage miata that everyone tries to find, but I did get it for a great deal, because the previous owner was desperate to sell, as the county was on him about having too many cars on the property. There are positives though, the previous owner did install a turbo and intercooler, Megasquirt ECU, came with a spare motor (so I do have a back up plan if the lifter tick fix doesn't work), it's in good condition cosmetically, and a lot of the parts have been replaced on it. So, it does have value if I wind up not being able to fix it. I'll just part it out, but I'm determined to finish what the previous owner started and make it my own.

My plan is to turn it into an autocross car, yes, very unsurprising. I've been wanting to get into motor sport for a while though, and this is a great entry level motorsport. So, I can work my way up to drift and eventually Rally. May be a little far fetched, but with enough dedication, we can make things happen we never thought possible. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Anyways, thanks for skimming or reading through my intro. I will probably be asking questions on here from time to time, as I am new, and as a lurker, I have found that not all my questions can be answered by searching through the threads... I may just be bad a searching though... so I apologize in advance if I ask something stupid that's already been asked. Also, if anyone is in the CLT area, I'm always looking for friends, so don't be shy. ^-^

Hello and welcome to the forum. There is lots of good information in the stickied threads, especially the DIY FAQ. It sounds like the previous owner of your car was a special case. Hopefully there aren't too many surprises awaiting you.

The 1.6 cars have a notoriously weak rear differential but they can be swapped with 1.8 differentials. You must also replace the CV axles when swapping.

Miatas are great track cars but are lousy drift cars because of their low polar moment of inertia. Many other cars are significantly better and easier to drift. It is more advantageous to concentrate on the things that the car will do well, such as autocross or track driving.

Thank you! And yes, he was a mechanic, but he seemed to be a... "rough" mechanic, which I expected, just hoping there aren't too many serious problems.

My uncle said the same thing, so that is on the list of things to do as well. I know the axles have already been replaced, but I will need to check the work myself. I need to get on the look out for some 1.8 part outs.

Yeah, I only plan to autocross the Miata. Later on, I plan on building a drift car. I'm still deciding on which car I will use for that, but I'm thinking a 350z, or an early 200sx or 240sx. Whichever I can get a good deal on really. Rally car build, I'd love to get my hands on the AWD Celica GT-Four/All-trac.

Lol after I joined in December. I still lurked

Agree to Disagree lol But welcome IcevsFire!
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