Found my Answer, now it needs suspension

So after pining and searching for a year I finally got Miata'ed

2006 GT with the Suspension package in possibly my favorite NC color. I am in love with driving everywhere now. And as luck would have it I got just enough snow on the ground 2 days after buying it to have some fun in a parking lot.

For 95K miles the car is very clean, a couple cosmetic nuances, but the mechanical portion of the car looks great. The worst thing I discovered was a missing battery hold down a a couple fluids that could use flushing. But the car does have some miles under her belt so I think the first order of business is refreshing the suspension.

It's my daily driver with some corner carving and maybe start AutoXing too to give you a frame of what I'm looking for.

I've heard of nothing but great things about the FM suspension kits, is it worth spending the extra $230 for the Stage 2 with the sway bars, or should I just stick to Stage 1? Any other setups I should look at? Suspension budget is about $1200.

Very nice. Gorgeous color. I am envious. I lust for something to replace my track rat, turned commuter '94 with.

Other wiser people will weigh in on Stage 1 vs. 2 on suspension. At least with the NA and NB, I found what I liked best was a beefier front sway bar, and a stock or just slightly stiffer rear bar. I have not driven a NC in sufficient anger to say if that pattern still holds. Probably not, since this car has a completely different suspension design from the previous two.

I was in a similar spot, my 87 Scirocco was pretty well sorted, but I wanted something newer. The NC was the only car that made me want to replace the Scirocco.

I've found a lot of recommendations for NA/NBs but the NC is such a different beast I want to enlist the opinion of GRMers that know better than I.

That thing looks great! Love the color too.

If you're thinking about auocross, you might run it as is before you do anything to the suspension. If you get the bug you'll want to build to a class. Adding suspension bits will move you, at least, to Street Prepared. No problem if you just want to run it and have some fun. But if you decide to get even a little serious, you don't want to have to run a basically stock car against a SP index. Just something to think about.

The AutoXing would be more competition against myself than anyone else. This car really felt the tightest of the higher mileage cars I was looking at it, but it is showing its age.

So class doesn't matter to me, I really just want to put a well rounded suspension setup that I'm not kicking myself later with "why didn't I do that instead while I was in there?"

NC's can be quite impressive in STR autoX trim. Its a good car. Don't know why suspension would put him in SP. Shocks/springs/swaybars/brakes/wheels/tires and some engine mods are all STR legal

The big thing I like about sway bars is the adjustment options they give you. With a set of adjustable bars, you can dial in more over- or under-steer to suit your needs and preferences. The NC bars from FM have a pretty wide range of adjustments, you can really make a big difference.

If it was my car, I'd do the Stage 2. However, you can always add sways later easily enough. They're not really part of a spring/shock install.

Thanks for the input, I think the sways really are one of those things I'll kick myself later for not doing so I'll go Stage 2.

Good call on reminding me to check class rules, new wheels are also in the works and 17x9's just fit inside STR rules.