Hey Everyone!
Let me first say sorry for the long post and to many photos once you get talking about your cars story… I hope you all know.

Always been snooping around for info when I needed it but never made an account. My name is Lukas and I’ve been building my 1996 Montego Blue miata for about 3 years now. I bought the car when I turned 16 as my second vehicle along with my Jeep and fell in love with it (Couldn’t let this one go).
I purchased her at 162,000 miles and put 35,000 miles on her in the next year and I drove that car like it was meant to be driven, hard. I bought a red 1990 and a 1999 within the next 6 months but ended up selling them over time to continue making money.

I crashed my baby 1996 I call her Saturday (I know funny name) being stupid pushing the limits drifting around a turn late friday night in the rain and bent the rear subrframe hitting a curb. Luckily I was close to home and drove it back like a boat. I went to pick n pull the day with my buddy and had her back on the road with a new rear subframe, upper and lower control arm, and a backyard string alignment by Sunday for school the next day. Then of course how life bites you, I take my now ex-girlfriend out for a date to the city and end up crashing my baby in a unavoidable 4 car pile up on the Bay Bridge (The date wasn’t worth it). I could never let the car go so I kept it with intent of building her back the right way knowing I’d never get my money back and it would be smarter to just buy a clean title miata.

But I’m sure some of you know the feeling of being attached to a specific one that made you most happy. Spent the next few months dreading the project and wanted to spend time with friends before going off to college but i bought all the parts, new radiator support/front end, and tore the car apart before I left. Despite always purchasing all my cars myself my dad helped me out this time while I was busy away at college (Will forever be thankful for this) and had his buddy weld the front end in for me. While up in college I became a bit of a parts hoarder due to missing working on my car, I would send my Paps money to get facebook deals for me down in the bay for when I came back lol.

He started getting annoyed after the 3rd hardtop. Came back home 8 months later and proceeded to put on all the body panels and line everything up, tear apart all the seal on the engine and transmission, redid timing, water pump, yata yata yata… During summer I got a good gig working for the owner of a bigger collision company building his personal VW buses from scratch, doing a syncro drivetrain swap and 1.9 tdi conversion one one along with a 3.2L 911 swapped original be syncro for the other. In return we made a deal and he painted my car the magnificent color it is today.

I got luck and he was impressed with my work and dedication with me sometimes pulling all nighters. He gave me the choice of the color with no limits on the stage or tone and gave me a car for the entirety of summer for my daily back fourth hourly commute while the car was being prepped, full body work, and painted. So of course I chose to paint match the rarest paint job in the lot. A Nissan GTR R35 T-Spec Midnight Purple 3. With only 100 cars if I read online correctly in the world being painted with the specific paint code it took over a month to finally get the tone basically perfect.

After all the work it may have cost me about 7 times the amount I payed for the car in pay (And I was getting paid pretty damn good hourly for 18 at the time with no previous job experience in that field) but i’ve never been happier spending the money on something I love. She’s nowhere close to finished and I’ve just been enjoying her up in college for the meantime doing little maintenance getting settled in my new house and first garage.

The parts i’ve collected while the car was not in use have built up with enough to build another miata. A lot of performance parts and forced induction waiting in boxes that i’ll be installing during the winter after it goes back in for paint because even when you finally get your car looking pretty someone road rage hits you while your parked sitting in the parking lot at Harbor Freight. Selling some of the parts as well which is another reason i’ve joined the chat. I’m sorry for the long post but I guess i got caught up in writing my love for these cars. Excited to meet the community. Just started a little instagram as well where I’ve posted a bit of the car and work I do on other vehicles. Me and my paps do some tesla swap stuff and a lot of VW Syncros.

reuter_garage


The day I found my 96, I got a second job that day and bought the car a week later.


I was 16... I had a little phase of mischief never any real trouble though





Yellow hardtop can you see why it pissed people off. Thats why i loved it. Ignore the dent from someone backing into me.


When i said i drove her hard i meant i drove her hard. This was due to an oil spill in the backroads on a blind turn


Day she crashed on the bay bridge but still looking pretty


Can see a little of the pile up. "Hey, You can't park there"
My 1990 I miss this one.


Pulling her apart before college


Went through 2 sets of front ends of cars with no dents to find the perfect fitment. (Wasn't fully adjusted here)


The day i saw it.
It's not for everyone but I fell in love.



Love how it still has a bit of it's original color montego blue which is also my favorite


Going off to college again back in August taking my tools with me from my job.


Hope you enjoyed. Tried to edit it the big block of text but I Don’t know if that made it better. Sorry about that typed it up from my phone.

 

Hey, welcome to the forum. Glad you saved the car after that accident, it looks great now.

Using some paragraphs would help, that walloftext you posted is pretty brutal!

 

Yep, I couldn't get passed the wall of text. Please use paragraphs!

 

Agreed, paragraphs would be greatly appreciated. However, I muscled through the backstory still haha. Looks like you and this thing are in it for the long run!

Can you elaborate on what kind of forced induction you're going to be installing and what specific components? This thing's gonna be properly unique when you're done with it.

Some might hate on the paint but I think the midnight purple is awesome. I had the opportunity to have one of my mountain bike frames custom painted a few years ago and went for midnight purple as well lol.

 

Hey!
About a year ago I purchased an m45 supercharger kit everything for the 1.8 and the TDR pulley system to keep power steering. I Don’t have the intercooler kit you can get for the m45s but I just got a new welder added to the garage so i’ll be making my own. Not installed yet i’ll be running mega squirt pnp2. Recently though I came across a partial turbo kit so I’ve been leaning towards the snail if I’m rebuilding the block this month.

 

Nice edit! Thanks for putting in the effort, you'll do OK here. I personally love the color you chose.

As for the turbo vs m45 question, you know our answer. But what turbo kit did you come across? That is the big question if you want our input on the m45 vs turbo.

 

Welcome! Great job getting her back together and great choice of color too!

 

M45 is never really the answer for a 1.8 motor. You will hit the upper limits of it before you are near to maxing out a stock motor. You will then pull it off and replace it with a turbo so you can get more boost. As boost is addictive.