Well, this is the second time i've made a introduction thread.

Where do I start... I graduate High School this saturday! At the cardinals stadium, so that's pretty cool! I joined the Navy and ship out July 23, 2018 as an MA.

Onto the miatas!
I previously had a red 1992 1.6 which I destroyed...I got the car in september of 2017 for $1500 and it was a great first car but I soon realized I should have saved more and gotten something cleaner as it was a pile of ****. Fucked paint clear coat was destroyed by the arizona sun, had no maintenance history, ran like ****, and had no ac. Yeah I know, what a great purchase


So I got the idle issue fixed. Hole in the crossover tube, fixed with duct tape for a few days then a new crossover tube came in the mail so I swapped it out. Then it ran fine for a month or two until the water pump gave out. Good thing it happened pulling into my friends driveway or I would have been fucked So I immediately called up the local autozone and grabbed a new one for like $35. Installed that a day later which took WAYYYY too long but it was my first time working on a car so that's my excuse. It was fairly straight forward though but I was just super cautious not to break anything on the way to the water pump. Got that finished at like 2am only to work that morning at 7:45am but you gotta do what you gotta do.

Fast forward I got some XXR's because the car was just so ******* ugly on stock wheels. They looked way better than stock but I got 15x8 +0 and I didnt know how to roll fenders so the car looked like ***.


Then for some reason I joined a car club. Idk don't ask the guys were cool and I was nice to know some more car people.

Then on Friday December 8th 2017 I decided to go with 2 other miatas to a local mountain road. South Mountain for some fun! (I'm a total amatuer driver btw). We went up the mountain then back down and it was interesting. Lots of rubbing due to my non rolled fenders but it was alright, not a big fan of the feeling you get when you go up then down really fast and it feels like you stomach and heart are being pulled down but other than that it was ok. Very tight and technical turns. After we came back down the turbo miata left and the two of us decided to go up it one more time. That was a mistake. Remember when I said I was an ameteur driver? Well we were climbing a like a 30 degree straight that ends with a hard right. And since it's only my second time going up I didn't know. The speed limit was like 25 and I was probably doing like 40 which is fast considering its a 200ft cliff on the left side but I was just trying to keep up with the other miata in front of me. So I take the right corner way too fast and the car begins to understeer. I overcorrected and sent the car going sideways sliding passenger side first into a boulder in the ditch flipping the car on the soft top without a rollbar and doing a 180. So I'm now upside down with my head squished between the soft top frame and the driver window sill. Good thing the window was down or I woulda been toast. So i'm in there squirming around trying to get out and realize im stuck, so then I do the only thing I can do which is honk the horn and yell for help. After about 2-3 minutes the other miata has come back and gathered 3 guys to help lift the miata off my head. They lifted it up and I free'd my head. They continued to lift till the car was on its side and i could undo the soft top latches and walk out. I then ran across the street and sad on a rock. Took my hoodie off and wrapped it around my head to stop the bleeding. which it was bleeding a lot but with all the adrenaline I didn't feel it which was nice So an ambulance comes and takes me to the hospital where i had 130 stitches and 12 staples to re-attach my ear and close the holes in my head. I also got my first ticket so that was cool. Totally deserved though.

Here's some pictures if your into that







Fast Forward to January 2018
I'm all healed up and i'm ready to get into another miata. So I drove all the way to Yuma from Phoenix. Only like 2 hours but still far for a car.

My new miata is a white 1991 1.6l with about 168k
Picked it up for only $1900 from some old guy so that was cool



Things i've done so far

• New thermostat (old one was stuck open)
• First real mod was a roll bar Single diagonal Hard dog
• Fixed e brake not working (the cable wasn't connected to the RR caliper)
• Oil Change
• Plugs and wires
• Compression Test (in order of 1-4(190,190,200,200))
• Complete timing belt, water pump and front seal maintenance.
• Lubed Power windows
• Painted grey rear finish panel to match the white
• New ignitor
• New cas
• New suspension (Old stuff was blown and instead of getting oem replacement I decided to get some Ricelands to make the car an inch lower and they were $400 shipped so it was a win win)

Car as it currently sits




Current plan for the car is to just keep dailying it and saving money until I leave for the Navy in July and when I get stationed somewhere i'm going to source a 1.8 and swap it in along with a MK Turbo setup.

Thanks for reading this very long thread hopefully you hear from me soon with news of the swap.

 

Second one looks really clean!
Good call on the roll bar, these things have no rollover support whatsoever.
Welcome to the forum

 

Car looks clean, hopefully you keep it that way and keep the stickers off! I'm struggling to understand your decision to go from a near death experience from lack of handling to racelands.

 

Thanks! I've been lurking and just reading for a very long time. Yeah I thought it would be the best first mod. Not only is it safer but it makes the car feel pretty different. Enough to notice.

 

basically same thing he said, glad your alive and welcome to the forums. I dont have a roll bar on mine at the moment... but my head sits above the windshield and above the roll bar in a local guys miata, think I would be toast in that situation either way. Thank you for serving for us, have fun, stay safe, and get boosting!

O7


EDIT: On the racelands... My car came with them installed from the previous owner, and while I'm not sure if I'd recommend them (mostly cause im not sure what they cost new) they actually handle and feel pretty good, way better (way better) than the stock stuff IMO. that being said though, i will likely be picking up a better set in the future /2cents

 

Any way you can stiffen the chassis in the early cars makes a huge difference in handling and feel. Roll bar is a major contributor, butterfly brace, rear subframe brace, and front fender braces will make it feel like a completely different car, as will a hardtop. You'll notice that the differences become less noticeable as you go unless you're tracking the car. Delrin door bushings are a cheap option as well.

 

Yeah my stock stuff was totally blown. I believe they were the original suspension so I really needed a new set but I wanted to make the car just a tiny bit lower to get rid of some of the wheel gap. So I figured since my overall goal with this car is to daily it for now it works. I no longer do anything with the car besides commute, the accident made me realize the street isn't the place to be pushing the car when you have no experience. So the racelands do exactly what I needed them to do for the time being while also being very affordable. I eventually want to push my driving skills with some autocross so when i'm ready for that, i'll be in the Navy making a LOT more money than I do now with my afterschool job, so ill upgrade to something made for autocross/racing. Seems like Xida is the best so I plan to upgrade to those when i'm ready. But yes I plan to keep the car pretty much exactly how it is besides maybe picking up a set of Advanti storm S1's (I work at discount tire so i can get them for about $110 each). My last car was the typical high school kids miata. A total pile of ****.

 

Oh for sure. I plan to autocross the car in the future and if I like it i'll possibly try a track day. But my plan with the autocross is to try it out with the stock setup and then from there decide what I need to do to make the car easier to drive and upgrade things like suspension, maybe de-power the steering rack. I might actually do that now because my power steering just started to creak and it has plenty of fluid so I might as well just delete it. I'm not a big fan of it anyways, I drove a friends miata with a manual rack and that's already easy to drive so a fully depowered rack will be even better. But yeah im just enjoying the car stock for now. Still loads of fun with the 1.6 but im itching to swap a 1.8 in

 

Oh boy so am I!! It was terrible sitting upside down in there. I don't recommend it.

I would still recommend a bar even if your head sits over it. Because in the even of a rollover (hopefully not) something is WAY better than nothing. trust me........

You can always do a foamectomy if you wanna keep your stock seat or grab an aftermarket seat and get a side mount seat mount and set it as low as possible. There are plenty of threads on here about tall people(6'2+) passing broomstick with the right seat and mount setup.

The Ricelands were only $400 shipped which is good if you have blown suspension and just want something new that also is height adjustable. I wouldn't really recommend them though because they are bouncy as **** but im only 18 so my back can handle it. Idk about curly riding around on some ricelands

 

Eh depending on what pay grade you go in as the money won't be amazing, but at least the Navy has decent food, so you'll have more than I did buying my own food.
Xida, Ohlins, Fox, and TTX are all up there as the best options, of course the're also the most expensive, but your first enlistment is a great time to dump money into your car and not worry about it since all the basics are covered.
I've got a depowered rack, I personally like it better than a manual rack, and obviously both are better than power steering. No limp wristing it though, it'll tramline more easily in road ruts and can pull erratically.
Focus on safety and control, these cars are more than capable even at stock power, then once you're a faster driver than the car, make the car faster.

 

Shiiiitt it will be like night and day compared to what I make now! I will go to bootcamp as an E2 and hopefully leave has an E3 so I'll make a good amount of money just at bootcamp alone so when I get to my duty station ill have my car shipped to me and then i'll start the 1.8 swap. Only thing i'm worried about is where i'll do it. I do everything myself on my car to save costs so idk how im going to manage an engine swap without a garage. I know sometimes bases have a garage you can rent but I don't wanna be rushed to do it. I wanna do it right the first time and be good to go. Yeah ive heard even the food at bootcamp is good so im super excited to get my career started.

I'll probably go with the xida race coilover because i don't need the extra height of the XL but I need to research spring rates before I make a purchase. What do you mean by tramline? Do you mean the car will follow the grooves in the road and pull one way or the other easier since there isn't power steering?

 

Nice, I went in E1 and came out of basic with about 3k saved up. I used the garage on base pretty often, you could keep your car there for as long as you needed, but it was like $30 a day to keep it in a bay, most people just rolled them out and parked them there instead of in a bay, which was only like $5 a week. Never had to worry about the right tool for the job too, which was a plus. Take advantage of what they have available, I still kick myself for not learning to weld there. Basic food was the best food I had in the Army, just no time to eat it. Unless you're high on power I'd go with whatever they usually offer with the coil, I think usually somewhere in the neighborhood of 500/375 depending, that's my plan at least. Yeah, tramlining is the tendency of the car to follow the road instead of steering inputs. It is usually caused by overly wide wheels and a huge contact patch, but the lack of power steering (and for me, a welded input shaft) means that every tire movement gets transmitted to the steering wheel. Great for control and being able to really feel the tendencies of the car, but bad on shitty roads with ruts like I've got locally because the car wants to ride in the ruts, so if you're not already in them, it'll tend to pull you into them. It can get exacerbated with small balance and alignment differences and things like old calipers not grabbing evenly too, so you'll definitely be able to tell if there are any issues with your car after you've depowered.

 

Oh thats not too bad at all! Yeah I'm going to just start saving my money right now. I ship out in 2 months so that way when I get stationed somewhere i'll have all the money from now through bootcamp, and A school saved up. hopefully it's a decent amount. Im sure it will be more than enough to complete my swap. Then i'll try an autocross event and if i love it i'll continue modifying the car to suit my needs. I really want to depower my rack now. Maybe i'll do it next weekend if I have the time. What did you use to plug the holes? RTV?

 

Just don't spend it all in A school, and don't marry strippers.
Yeah the swaps actually aren't that expensive, I think somebody was selling a plug and play swap kit with all the little extras you'll need. I would suggest working on the motor before you put it in if you have the chance. I used some plastic plugs from the local hardware store, I can't remember exactly what sizes and it's irrelevant because mine is different, but they're just little 10 cent black plastic caps to keep grime out and grease in. put a small dab of RTV on the lip to keep them in place, there's no pressure, so no need for a tight fit. I think I used amsoil dominator grease to repack it, had a local miata racing old timer do the welding of the input shaft.

 

How to win at being in the navy:

1. Don't buy a new truck like all of your idiot friends are going to do.

2. Don't finance anything for that matter.

3. Rule 2 includes houses. Don't buy a house until you are out of the navy.

4. Budget. This is the most important rule in my opinion.
However you think budgeting works, you're probably wrong.
You need to assign every dollar you make to a category. You can spend as much as you'd like as long as it fits in a category and doesn't exceed the amount you set.
Miscellaneous is not a category. To make it easy, I recommend using the every dollar app. Be amazed as you can actually pay cash for things while your idiot friends rack up credit card debt.

5. Don't get married. You're an idiot until 25 and you'll mess it up (even if she stays with your dumb ***). That applies to every man ever.
Some of your friends will do it for the BAH. More money is a terrible reason to get married.

6. Put 15% of your pay in your TSP and don't touch it ever. Roll it over into an IRA when you're out.

Basically, if you're a decent human being and can handle your finances, you're going to do very well for yourself. I mention idiot friends more than once because you're going to have them. They will provide you with plenty of entertainment, but they are going to have a hard time because they won't do the things I listed above.

Good luck

AWS2 Monk

 

Your 91 looks clean, solid buy. Probably doesn't need said now, but I'd stay away from driving too hard at South Mountain. I've seen way too many wrecks. High school kids playing Tokyo Drift, clueless tourists stopped around blind turns to take pictures, motorcycles hit from cars not staying in their lane or lowsiding from all the sand that's always on the road... Way cheaper in the end to just sign up for some track days.

Looks like you're on a much better path with the new car. Keep it clean and stickerless, try to keep the rubber side down

 

This should be drilled into kids heads before the branch's creed or song, probably save the military millions.

 

Yeah I plan to just get a daily that does really well on gas. Like a nice pre owned private sale. And then keep the miata as more of a fun car. And I have no need for a house. I'll just live in the barracks for the 4 years it's not the end of the world.

My only issue right now is I'm unsure of where I could work on my car. Or build an engine. I don't think the navy would like it if I had an engine on a stand in my room.

As far as the budgeting I hate spending money anyway, (anytime I spend money I think about if it's worth it in the short and long term.) So I feel like i'll do fine in that department.

 

Thanks! I got it from some old guy in Yuma that was selling 3 miatas and this was the best of the bunch. I picked it up for only $1900 and a rear finish panel. It has a new clutch, head gasket, and a bunch of other **** so it was overall a really good deal. I did front seals when I got it so the front of the engine is pretty dry. But it has a pretty bad leak(tablespoon of oil every time i park the car in the garage) coming from the weep hole in the trans so i'm guessing that it's the rear main seal so that will be fun

Yeah I never understood the hype about south mountain all the miata chats on facebook are going like every weekend for some reason. So I tagged along once and that's when I had my accident. But I was just driving above my skill level being a dumbass.

I see your from Chandler i'm only over in Surprise so If you ever need a hand with anything just message me on instagram @Inimitable_na6