Hi all,
I don't even have a miata yet, but I've always been a fan. I'm looking at getting one for some weekend fun. Current weekend car is a bolt on evo8 so doing research on power mods in advance. Doing a lot of browsing here and google searches to gather as much info as possible. So far seems to be a fairly knowledgeable crowd here and not nearly as harsh with the newbs as I've seen on other car forums. Thanks for that.

 

Welcome to the forum. Don't ask stupid questions without doing research and you'll be fine.

 

Dude if you think we arent that harsh with the newbies then you havent been here long enough. Just wait....

Welcome.

 

Ace, fill out your signature and your location... and welcome.

You'll find a repository (suppository) of quality information here. I don't provide any, but others will help you out.

Let us know your goals, both in power and performance, your budget, and your skills... and we will absolutely be able to point you in the right direction.

What years of Miata have you been looking at and what did you want to spend on the purchase? Were you looking to start out stock? If you'd like to buy an already modded one, what level of mods are acceptable?

You can get some pretty ******* awesome deals right now in th $4k-$5k range.

 

hi Sam,
I've been browsing cl a lot lately. I'm looking to start out stock with a solid platform. Most of the early year miatas for 'cheap' are really beat up looking. It seems the 95-97 miatas are a better value. I'm going to take a look at a 97 tomorrow. 130M on it, the body looks straight in the pictures and the interior looks pretty clean.
Eventually I'll be aiming at about 250-300whp. In the past I had an s2000 and liked the handling, but it was majorly lacking in power. I didn't like having to rev the car to the moon to get the car to move. Currently I have an evo8 that's pretty quick. I've been considering a larger turbo and upping the ante but I'm pretty much at the reliablity limit of the stock motor.
The miata would be a diversion of sorts to keep me from going overboard with the evo.

 

welcome aboard.

 

Thanks 18psi,
Your thread is one that I'm following. Very clean looking ride you have.

 

Howdy. I ditched a 12sec Talon to get into my 16sec Miata. All my Evo/DSM friends laugh at it until they have a ride, and even though it's still na they are grinning ear to ear when they get out. Glad to see you appreciate the little gay cars, too.

Grab an Evo9 turbo and cams have a little more fun with the Mitsu. A friend of mine has an 8 with a 9 turbo and 272s, and went 11.7sec on e85 and a stock bottom end. You've still got some room in there for more fasterness. Just don't blow your Miata budget haha.

 

Hi Matt,
I had 272's but switched to milder cams for a more pedestrian idle. Right now I have the old fpgreen and it's pretty maxed out. My turbo manifold just cracked recently, so I was contemplating replacing it with a better tubular manifold and upping the turbo size....which would cost about same as a used miata....
I'm thinking the miata will be money better spent. I hope to learn a lot more along the way in terms of tuning and more indepth engine work. Mistakes on a miata will be a lot less painful(money-wise) than mistakes on an Evo.

 

Makes sense. I see a surprising number of Miatas on CL around here for less than $2K, and with some patience you can assemble a decent turbo setup for surprisingly little...I have about $1100 invested thus far and with any luck I'll only need a couple hundred more by the time I've got it in the car. Good luck with your search.

 

So I picked one up last week. Its a 97 completely stock, and mechanically pretty solid. The shocks need to be replaced and yesterday I did the cas o-ring and valve cover gasket. The valve cover gasket seemed to be pretty fresh but I changed it anyways for peace of mind. The cas o-ring was definitely bad, it cracked when I took it off.
The vacuum hoses and wires in the engine bay were still pretty soft. I was expecting a lot more brittle pieces under the hood. I'm going to avoid the power mods for as long as possible and just focus on the suspension. I didn't expect these cars to be as peppy as they seem to be.

 

Congrats on the purchase. Trust me, even though the miata feels peppy, it is slow. Put some power into that thing.