I’m looking to get back into a Miata for tracks days. Due to kids/work/life I am lucky to do 2 or 3 weekends a year. My vision is to build a car that I can HPDE now, balancing safety and streetability, and then perhaps go full bore at some point down the road and turn it into a race car.

I know the right answer if I get to that point is to buy a used race car, but I want to leave myself the option to develop this car. I understand street/track compromise cars are optimized for neither, but I cannot trailer the car to the track.

I’ve settled on a NB2 with 6 speed, Torsen, sport brakes, and ABS if I can find it. My question is what to do for roll over protection. Here are my requirements:

• compatible with soft top
• Max structural rigidity
• Upgradability to full cage
• Streetable

I was thinking of taking the car to a reputable SM cage builder (I’m in Cincinnati - Advanced Autosports in Chicago) and asking them to build me a half cage that would be upgradable to a full cage. Is that possible? How hard is it to add structure after the fact? Does the main hoop have to be shorter for the soft top - will it need to be extended for the hard top later if I go race car?

Should I go with the Blackbird Fabworx structure in the pic at the top? I like how it ties into the forward firewall.

Or simply go with a SM cage, but delete the longitudinal bars above the windows. How about the bar by the sun visors? My thought was I could install the through-the-dash bar, the A pillar bars, and terminate them short of where the soft top latches are? Thoughts?


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