Any money, ANY MONEY, spent on car modifications should be considered as having been thrown in the fireplace and burned for the warm glow.

Your question of "in what context does it make sense to spend as much or more of a cars purchase value on modifications to the car" is irrelevant.

What is relevant is "can I afford what I want to do to the car, and will it bring enjoyment to me or do what I want it to do?" The modifications for making a miata go faster are, comparatively speaking, cheaper than the mods required to make almost any other car platform go faster.

You shouldn't compare the expense of modifications to the expense of the car purchase.

You should either:

a) not care, because modifying the car is fun
b) not care, because you want it to go faster
c) not care, because the sum total you will spend to achieve the result you want with this car is cheaper than any other alternative.

TL;DR: don't modify the car if you care about spending money.

FTFY.

Modifying any car is a poor financial ROI. At least with the miata you paid so little for it in the first place and you can make excuses to upgrade things. "Oh, my bushings are getting old? Better put poly ones in. Tires worn out? Why buy new tires for these ratty wheels? Jongaladingdongs and sticky tires on the way. Need new brake pads? Why buy them for these old leaky calipers? Hello wilwoods. Burn a little oil on startup? Better build the motor and add EFR."

ONE OTHER THING.

You wreck your miata and you can typically re-shell and break even or even profit a bit (from selling old parts). Wreck a car where the value is in the car and not the parts and you're hosed, especially if it is wrecked on track without an insurance payout.

You should not be in the track if you are not financially able or willing to walk away from a total loss of your investment.
Not that it will hapen but it may and you need to be able to recover from it without loosing your job (if it is your only car) or marriage (if you are married to a b*%€¥)

I absolutely get the point, I have had the car since 97 and already has a bunch of suspension upgrades, upgraded radiator, and lately a blown head gasket led to prepping the head for a turbo with new valve springs and seats, thicker gasket, and ARP studs. But then I started to look at cross shopping with a 135I convertible 08 to 10', they are in the low 20K range. Only maybe 7K more than the final cost of an upgraded Miata with 240whp including the car. With a chip the bimmer will go to 380hp in no sweat and does not need the clutch, brakes, etc. Now maintenance and insurance is another matter. Just thinking out loud...

For every single car that you modify, there is a more expensive car that is better.

They're also fat heavy pigs.

True story... On one of my trips to Germany I rented a 1 series. On the way back to the airport I got caught up in one of the frequent Autobahn traffic jams (everything comes to a halt for many minutes while they clean up the wrecks). We're all standing around talking when a guy asks me how I like the car. I shrug 'it's OK'... He proceeds to tell me how the German male views the car as a "girls car like the Mazda Miata". On all my later visits I took care to rent at least a 3 series or an Audi.

I never mentioned having a Miata...

I drove a new 2015 WRX last night and absolutely fell in love. Drove several 2014's before and they did nothing for me, but the new car has a level of refinement that wasn't there before. Great torque, power, great steering... absolutely fantastic car. As I was heading back to the dealer (went out solo, we have a Subaru dealer in our network so I just took it out to see what it was like) I had quick thoughts about parting out all my stuff and just buying one of those.

Then I realized: If I have a 135i, or a WRX, or whatever, and I stuff it into a wall on the track, I'm out $20k plus. I stuff the Miata and I'll lose out on a bit but I can re-shell for low cost. I'm not taking a car worth that much money on the track.

If I ever lose my dealer demo though..........

Pretty sure you just need to request to transfer to that dealer. WRX dealer demo = tits. :)

Lol I'd never get that for a demo. I actually somewhat requested to transfer from that dealer over to the Mazda side about a year ago.

ANYWAY...

Cheap cars FTW.

Seconded.

I just remembered what Jeremy Clarkson said about BMW drivers....COCKS. My coworker has a 128i auto that he swears up and down is a sports car and that everyone tries to race him and he ALWAYS wins...:jerkit: Same goes for another buddy with a V10 M5 who daily drives a Saturn POS, barely takes his BMW out, and acts like a snob. He wasn't like that until he got his 135i and then graduated to the uber douche-canoe, the M5

Don't be associated with those kind of people. I'd rather be around happy homosexuals than BMW drivers.

I completely disagree.
...though you're comparing stock vs stock and that's hard for me to remember since I almost never drove a stock one lol (I custom tuned mine within days of ownership)

While I can agree with you that most BMW drivers are terrible people not all are.

I hate doing BMW auto-x events, and I don't really like hanging out with most of the BMW people in the BMWCCA (had to for the Baltimore Grand Pre)....No dude I will not pay 26k for a e30 m3 that looks like it was just pulled out of a swamp and has 260k miles on it...sigh.

Anyway the cars have nothing to do with the people driving them. My wife has a 07 335i Sedan, stick. Has a few mods on it, it's a quick car that will outrun most sports cars on the road and handles well. The car has like 126k on now, and is rock solid after some normal maintenance.

Not sure where the hate is coming from.

Do you know what those little light-up circles around a BMW's headlights are called?
Cock rings.

Most people who have them on their cars are absolute cocks. It makes them easy to spot.

People who drive OLD Bmw's generally are cool, into cars, do a lot or all of their maintenance on their BMW.

People who drive NEW Bmw's generally are douchebags or are not "car people" as we generally define them on this board.

Edit: most of the people I track with who are tracking a BMW are good people. We Miata owners have somewhat adopted BMW CCA track days as our unofficial Miata track days. Early 2000's is about the newest among that group.

Aw man... Sixshooter's sig quote didn't last long. :laugh: Mazdaspeeder

You're welcome to disagree with me, but you're wrong :giggle:

EVERYONE says the new car is more refined than the older one.

Remember too, I'm not talking at all about the STi, but the regular WRX. So far ahead of the old car stock vs. stock.

It is probably a surprise to most, but the comments on this forum do have a considerable affect on me. Sometimes it takes some effort to distinguish between a sincere suggestion by a knowledgeable fellow and some dork that just has fun repeating negative crap while knowing nothing about much of anything.

I think it is fair to clearly state that my efforts to configure the Alpha stuff came in large part from this forum. Many expressed a wish for a cast iron 4 into 1 manifold with remote gate and (optional) V-band turbo clamp. So I built it. Patterns are done and at the foundry.

Several items have been deleted at the suggestion of this forum. S4......

I do find it somewhat curious that this forum doesn't push tech stuff with great effort. Rather than the ongoing oneupmanship of snide stuff by 50% of you, why not try the details of, say, configuring a good intercooler inlet cap. If half of you that could easily do that proceeded to do so the snide half would both benefit and eventually decide to contribute rather than remain butt heads.

This group has the savvy to push new stuff, create some interesting concepts, and push the technology of making more power on less boost, better driveability, more mpgs and have great fun doing it all. Why not?

Some bh disses my "tiny facility.' Is 6,000 square feet tiny, and what difference does it make? As a group, we made some real progress there......

I give it my best shot to not respond to stupid comments, save the above. Will the response be in kind to my own stupid comments? Or does the bh half need more raw meat?

Regardless, its all still fun,

corky