New Miata owner
 

Hey

My name is Stephan, I am 21 and live in Mississauga Ontario, Canada. I recently bought my first Miata.

I come from a Mazda background owning two 1988 323 GTX's. I sold those two cars and have recently picked up the Miata as the new daily driver.

It's a 1991 that had 192,000kms when I bought it. I've owned it for 5 months and love it. I have two track days on it. One at Cayuga, and one at Mosport DDT. I have put a lightened flywheel in along with a better clutch. As well as I swapped in the torsen rear end, installed Megan EZ street coilovers and hawk HP plus pads.

I have also bought majority of a turbo setup. All I am missing is a FMIC setup, or an intake setup in general. However, two days at the track have proven the last thing I need behind me is more power. My car with the setup I have now proves to be great fun, as well as showed me I have a lot to learn in terms of driving. For an example if anyone is familiar with the cayuga circuit with my setup I ran a 1:30.9 on falken zeix tires.

Plans for the future:
Proper track rims/tires
Roll bar setup asap.
Turbo setup over the winter.

I am currently a student so funds are limited. I plan on picking up as many small tips and tricks to have a little bit better setup working with what I have.

I also plan on competing in a time attack series held at Shannonville in June. I hope to have some good experience and a well set up car by then. I have a few track days booked between now and then so hopefully I can be competitive.

I would like to believe my mechanical skills are pretty good. They are at the point where changing headgaskets, clutches, differentials, suspension, are manageable by me. But, I still have lots left to learn.

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Track day at Mosport.
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Hey I recognize you from clubprotege! Welcome!

I think you're on the right track with holding off on the turbo kit. The biggest problem I have with my turbo miata on the track is brakes and I cant afford to get proper track brakes right now. This is the biggest reason I haven't been to the track in a while. Try and overbuild everything else before you get into boost.

Thats exactly what I'm doing. Upgrading the clutch, and swapping in the torsen rear end was to build in 'reliability' at the track.

I don't seem to have any issues yet with braking. I put on brand new Part Source cheapie rotors, and Hawk HP Plus pads all around and seem to have NO issue with overheating/fade. I only get a spongy pedal feel which I predict is the old fluid in the system. I have a brake proportioning valve as well which is yet to be installed. I am afraid to try and crack the bleeders. I'm going to have to bite the bullet at some point and do it because the spongy pedal after 3-4 hard laps at the track isn't very confidence inspiring.

I plan on doing ducting/coolant upgrades before the turbo setup goes on as well. (Which I've been doing lots of reading on).

Man you have got to get that fluid changed. I wouldn't do a track day without changing the fluid before and after.