Hi MT,

I've been lurking here for quite a while, but since I have no turbo or plans for one, I rarely have much to say. I just moved to the bay area (Richmond) with my '92 that is in pretty rough shape - it has 230k on it and has been crashed at least twice. I autocrossed quite a bit in New England, so I'm hoping to get out to a few events as time allows.

Here's a picture of my car stranding me near Devil's Slide right after I moved here - the v-belt snapped and took out the upper radiator hose while I was going through the tunnel. Deferred maintenance is awesome.

 

A bit of backstory on the car:

2 years ago, I had been working on and autocrossing my first Miata (a 1990 with badly peeling orange paint) for about a year. I had decided that I really liked Miatas, and would like a better, less rusty car as a starting point for a long-term project.

My wife was finishing her PhD around the same time, and we were trying to decide on a long-awaited, well-deserved vacation. We really wanted to take a road trip, but couldn't stomach the cost of a one-way rental from somewhere interesting, and we didn't have the time to drive a loop to somewhere interesting from Boston (plus it was the middle of winter).

I found this car listed on another forum, and reached out to the owner. He seemed fairly confident that it would survive a decent trip, and was open to working with me buying it through the mail - so armed with a plan, I made the pitch to my wife. I proposed that we buy a 23 year old car with 225,000 miles on it sight unseen from the internet, then spend 3 weeks cooped up in it driving for 3000 miles. She agreed. Clearly her brain was fried by months of thesis writing.

So, after spending Christmas with my family in upstate NY, we packed our bags (small ones!) and flew to Raleigh, NC. Our flight was delayed several hours thanks to a fairly major storm in New England. Upon arrival, we swapped license plates in the pickup line at the airport (not sketchy at all), threw our backpacks in wherever there was space that was not being occupied by spare parts, and took off.

(an uncracked finish panel in the right color was taking up a lot of space - I swapped it in my wife's uncle's driveway in Alabama so we didn't break it before making it home)
Long story short, we had a wonderful trip driving down to Fort Lauderdale for a wedding, then back up to Boston via several states and several nights in Nashville, and arrived safely home after ~3500 miles in our new purchase.

 

Since I got the yellow car, I've replaced all of the suspension components - poly bushings with grease zerks everywhere, new (OEM) ball joints, tie rods, pretty much everything that moves. I swapped my FM VMaxx EXXXXXXXXXTREMES onto it, and went from a Torsen back to a VLSD because autocross rules are dumb. I pulled about 20 pounds of sketchy aftermarket stereo wiring and alarm from it, and miraculously it still starts and plays music. Most recently, I installed a set of Corbeau LE Pro seats with RyokuRob mounts - I wanted more support and to sit lower than stock, but in a seat that isn't as hard to use as a real race seat.

 

Last post in here - especially if noone replies.

Since moving from Boston to the SF Bay area, I've been driving the car daily. I'm missing the (relative) power of my Focus ST, so I've been strongly considering scrapping my plan of keeping the car STS legal and just turning it into a decent street car. I ordered some FM frame rails during their recent sale, and have been starting to research my turbo options. I've been reading a lot in here (a LOT), and I'm sure will be posting more questions as I get closer to deciding what I want to do.

 

How cool you have a wife in for the adventure!

Send a message on facebook to kraken ni-resist turbo manifolds... He might have some intriguing options for turbocharging.

 

MK Turbo is a really good option, in that you get a full exhaust 3 inch with the kit. They now have nearly complete plug and play options. I've been running mine for ~3 years and am quite pleased with it, especially for the cost.

 

I've seen both the Kraken and MKTurbo options - both are interesting and seem like good budget options. My tentative plan is to get it running on MS before I do anything else, so we will see how that goes. I'll post up a build thread once I actually start buying parts.

 

Welcome to the forum and to the Bay Area! hopefully we meet sometime! Looks and sounds good so far. I need to get around to doing all my bushings.