Hi my name is Jonathan and I'm a young guy in down here in Southern California with a crappy miata. I decided to join after lurking for a few weeks and share my story.
I found this miata on craigslist for cheap. It had some damage. And the main problem was the #3 spark plug had blown out of the head. But me and the seller settled on $750 for it. It had some extras that made it worth it like the carbon fiber trunk lid, momo steering wheel, and basically brand new tires and brakes. Only 170k miles too. Low for a miata.
On the trailer after just getting home.
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The interior with the steering wheel an ripped driver seat.
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Body damage. The previous owner took the fender off because he said it rubbed on the wheel.
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First things first. A list of parts I needed. The previous owner had started to repair the car so he had the car torn down enough to have the head already off the car. I got all the gaskets related to that except for the cam seals and crank seal (I was told to do them but was feel cheap.. turns out they leaked so I replaced them a bit later). My dad bought a helicoil to rethread the spark plug and after that it was a matter of figuring out how the engine went together. After about a day of work we had the car back together and she fired up right away! (after we charged the battery.. -_- )
Next was getting it looking good. I'm in the automotive program at college so I happened to be taking a body shop class the semester I bought the car. A new fender off craigslist and a door from a junk yard did most of it. Pulling and bondoing the rear quarter panel was some good work since I had no idea what I was doing since I'd never done any body work. It also turned out that the driver side rear quarter panel had taken a hit and been filled in with bondo.. Over an inch deep in places. The car was repainted by macco according to carfax (it hid the work decently) so the same work was done on that side after the passenger side. It looks decent I'd say considering its the first body work I've ever done.
I added a dirtyimpreza.com stickers and a rally pig to the car because my wrx and that site is what got me into racing. Still have the wrx I'll have to do a tread on it too.
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That picture also shows the new roof since the old was wasn't really a roof anymore lol.
Now onto the good racing stuff. I bought the car in july 2012 and had its first autox in january of 2013. The car had a slipping clutch and I defiantly waited until the very last second to change it. Like the week before. Like.. down to the day before the event the tranny was on the ground. lol
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The morning before the event I bolted up the exhaust and with no testing other than the 25min drive to the event started racing on the new clutch. Miatas are really fun to drive 
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Shortly after I wanted to do my first track day. I needed a roll bar though. So I found a few pennies and ordered a hard dog ace single diagonal roll bar from good win racing and got it installed
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I also picked up a corbeau racing seat around that time
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And thats pretty much how the car sits today. I've done a few things here and there. But mostly just drove it. About 5 auto crosses and the track day at big willow here in California. Almost got 180K miles now and is doing great. Hardly burns any oil, gets 30mpg, and is a blast to drive. A few more pictures and I think that will do it for tonight. I got an auto cross novice school tomorrow. Been racing since 2011 but your never too good to learn more. especially since most of my races were in the wrx (AWD vs RWD).
Radio delete made out of aluminum
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Making her shine
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Front lip I got used for cheap
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Convertibles are like trucks. They can haul ladders.
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In reply to JoeyM:
Thanks you guys here are cool and I love reading build threads. Hope mine will be interesting too. I kinda went fast to catch up on a year and a half of owning the car. I'll slow up and get a bit more detail now that I'm pretty much caught up.
Heres a few more pictures. These are from my track day earlier this year at Willow Springs on the big track. It wasn't a good idea to take a completely stock 1.6 miata on a 2.5mile track with only 9 turns but it was still a ton of fun. The miata did great. I could have passed everyone in the corners if I wasn't in the beginner group.. passing was only allowed on the straights. Which meant I got passed by everyone. But then we hit a corner and I was right up on their bumper again.
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two runs 0.001 apart? Nice & consistent!
Cool track toy.
Were you down at the Novice school in SD last weekend? I think I remember seeing that deck lid in the mix of cars.
What class are you running in?
Love it. Track rats are the best.
Cone_Junky wrote:
Cool track toy.
Were you down at the Novice school in SD last weekend? I think I remember seeing that deck lid in the mix of cars.
What class are you running in?
I was. The track was a blast! Were you driving?
I got one more part to catch up in before I do a small bit about whats going to happen to the car for next year. Its looking like CSP is the class I'll be in (could use some input on whats allowed and whats not). The trunk lid will be for sale soon so I can pick up a stock one and be class legal. So far I haven't done any competition days yet because I work both saturday AND sunday... any autocrossing I've done was practice days because more runs is best if I'm taking a day off work to do it.
Kendall - lol thats my rallycross driving trait I've picked up from rallycrossing my wrx
Keep it up!
Although I would strongly suggest a taller roll bar and lower seat combo.
Can't believe they let you on the track with that roll-bar. Enjoying the build though!
What makes you guys say that about the roll bar? As far as I know it just needs to be a four point roll bar. Which this one is. It does sit a little low. And I'd prefer to have double diagonals but that made the price a bit more than I could afford.
The seat does sit a little lower now than shown in that picture. Its bolted directly to the floor in the stock locations and I'm using the side mounts on the seat. Actually had to cut a notch in the bottom mounts of the seat so the bolts that go into the floor pan didn't push the seat up.
Look at your last picture...See how far your head is ABOVE the roll bar. If the car rolls...What will hit the ground first? That's right, your head.
JoeyM
Mod Squad
10/30/13 7:26 a.m.
Yup....look up "broomstick test"
Oh ok a broomstick placed on top of the roll bar towards the windshield should be two inches about my head. I'll have to check how it is with my racing seat in the position it's in now. That last picture is with the stock seat which sits higher up.
ouchx100 wrote:
Oh ok a broomstick placed on top of the roll bar towards the windshield should be two inches about my head. I'll have to check how it is with my racing seat in the position it's in now. That last picture is with the stock seat which sits higher up.
Remember two inches above your HELMETED head.
ouchx100 wrote:
Cone_Junky wrote:
Cool track toy.
Were you down at the Novice school in SD last weekend? I think I remember seeing that deck lid in the mix of cars.
What class are you running in?
I was. The track was a blast! Were you driving?
I got one more part to catch up in before I do a small bit about whats going to happen to the car for next year. Its looking like CSP is the class I'll be in (could use some input on whats allowed and whats not). The trunk lid will be for sale soon so I can pick up a stock one and be class legal. So far I haven't done any competition days yet because I work both saturday AND sunday... any autocrossing I've done was practice days because more runs is best if I'm taking a day off work to do it.
Kendall - lol thats my rallycross driving trait I've picked up from rallycrossing my wrx
Just hanging out and giving support to a friend auto-xing for the first time. I tried to get my wife in there, but procrastinated and couldn't get a spot.
I've only done champ events this year to save my r-comps for the runs that count. I drive the burgundy 240SX in SM. But like you, I only did practice events last year to get back to speed after a year off due to mechanical (i.e. budget) failure.
Who was your instructor?
z31maniac wrote:
ouchx100 wrote:
Oh ok a broomstick placed on top of the roll bar towards the windshield should be two inches about my head. I'll have to check how it is with my racing seat in the position it's in now. That last picture is with the stock seat which sits higher up.
Remember two inches above your HELMETED head.
Well I sat in the car on the way to class this morning and I asked my girlfriend to tell me where my head was in relation to the bar (no helmet) and she said right about even just eyeballing it.
So what would you guys recommend in this case? The seat it more or less as close to the floor as it can be. The bar itself with the roof up only has a small amount of clearance between the main hoop and the roof. I'm about 5'10-5'11. Only thing I can think of to do would be recline the seat back which would ruin my perfect driving position that I literally spent hours getting with the custom seat bracket 
In reply to Cone_Junky:
My instructor was Rick who drives a dark gray STi hatchback. He was a good guy. I wish I can say I learned some from him but at the end of the day he said he learned something from me lol. I mostly did the novice school to see if I could pick up a few RWD tricks (and I did from the older gentleman who drives the black 94 miata with a supercharger, hardtop, and the giant wing) and figure out what class I should be running in the miata next year.
About a month ago I did the biggest up date to the miata since the roll bar and racing seat. Back in may I bought a set of wheels off craigslist. Some old 15x7 team dynamic wheels in flat black. I probably overpaid for them ($300 with no tires) but I think they are cool and not many people have even heard of them. They were rough around the edges with some curbing and a few chips. Then I was broke and the wheels sat in the garage until last month when I could afford the tires I wanted. The new dunlop Z2 star specs in 205/50/15.
I got the tires mounted at work
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I took some flat black spray paint and gave them a fresh coat to cover up the chips and curb rash
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This is the most recent picture of the car all ready to go to the autox novice school I was talking about above.
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These tires are racing tires only. To the event, at the event, and the drive home. Then I swap back to my other wheels. And these tires really do preform well! They are the best tire I have ever driven on after my two years of racing on whatever cheap and usually used tires I could afford. I want to say the cheap tires really helped because it took me more than a few runs to get these tires to even start to under or oversteer. And the whole car in general just felt way better.
This brings me into whats currently happening with the car. I'm going to try and autox in CSP class next year. I was told that would be a great class and I should be competitive in it. So first things first.. The carbon fiber trunk lid is for sale. Other than that I don't really know much about whats allowed in the class. I know that my smaller diameter steering wheel is what puts me in street prepared. I am missing the carpet in the trunk. And I never put all the carpet back in the rear deck after I installed the roll bar. I feel like I should get those back in.
I'd appreciate any input on what is legal in CSP and whats not that I can do to the car. Autocross rules are confusing
Be sure to put your track wheels in the best-sealed container you can get, or the tires will go crusty before they go bald. Big industrial plastic bags twisted & tied closed are the cheap option.
I want to get one of those tire stack covers with the tire brand on it but I've got no idea where to get one. But yea thanks for the tip I've got a set of bald tires for the wrx in the garage as well and I try and keep them covered in towels or with a blanket. But those tires are really just waiting to get replaced at this point lol
CSP you need the full interior. You can remove elements that are not attached (and should since they will fly around), but attached carpet elements have to be in there. I don't think anyone will protest you if you have missing trunk carpet, but they could, and the carpet in the rear deck they will see and would be more likely to protest.
You will not be competitive in CSP if there is a real CSP Miata at an event. CSP Miatas are some of the fastest cars at a national level and they run large amounts of aero (big rear wing and front splitter), usually are running the VVT motors with the 99 head and approaching some ridiculous amount of horsepower that your little 1.6 will not match (I think I've seen numbers around 170hp at the wheels, but I might be wrong).
Essentially a 1.6 car is not competitive in any autocross class, but that should not discourage you from having fun at autocross and at the local level you can probably have some good fun and not worry too much about being competitive. I run a turbo 1.6 in SSM at my local events and have fun.
You also don't need a rollbar in CSP or in any autocross class for that matter.
ouchx100 wrote:
I want to get one of those tire stack covers with the tire brand on it but I've got no idea where to get one. But yea thanks for the tip I've got a set of bald tires for the wrx in the garage as well and I try and keep them covered in towels or with a blanket. But those tires are really just waiting to get replaced at this point lol
I use to have a couple of those. I have a connection at a retail store that sells tires, so I got a couple for free. Chat up some employees at a tire store, they probably have plenty laying around that wouldn't be missed.
In fact I'm probably going to store my r-comps for the rest of the season so I can save them for a good start to next season. I'll have to see if I can track down another tire cover for myself. Advantage of having the season championship locked up mathematically. I'll be playing on street tires for the last few events.
