Lifted Winter Answer

In my experience, they react, umm, sportily to the slush piles between lanes. Quick handling reflexes go both ways.

84FSP said:

How are the snow manners?  I would imagine lightweight plus tires and clearance should be a really fun beast.

I think Miatas on winter tires have great snow manners, whether lifted or not.  The lift keeps it from plowing in heavy snow. This car has a torsen, which makes it a little twitchy.

Well, I bragged about how reliable the Miata has been and so now we had to fix a few things. It gets parked for the summer and when Chris got it out a few weeks ago, one rear caliper was stuck and the other was dragging. We had some used ones in our parts stash so on they went.  Then, over Thanksgiving weekend, the brake pedal travel increased so Chris brought it right to the shop and we found the hard line between the rear calipers had rusted through. Pretty easy fix, we just bent up a new line out and put it in.

While the car was in the air, we noticed that both rear springs are broken. Probably a combination of the bad shocks and stress risers from the rust/crust buildup (and maybe some hooning/offroading by college students). We'll go back to our parts stash and put some better used stuff on soon.

Chris was parked on the street and this made me chuckle. 

In reply to Carl Heideman :

Both springs?  I vote for hoonage.

The snow's about to fly, so we pulled the Miata out for Chris' last winter in college.

We've done very little to the car since 2017, so this year it finally caught up with us a little.

It had a muffler shop exhaust on it that finally failed, nearly everywhere, at the end of last winter.

No picture, but both ends of a universal catalytic converter were also rusted out.

Fortunately, we had used exhaust bits from other project Miatas and/or parts cars.

We also had a used set of rear spring assemblies, so we swapped them in. We're cheap enough that we saved the top hats and bump stops for our future selves.

Every time the car is up in the air, we spray WD 40 on fasteners we might want to unfasten someday. We also paint grease on some of the fasteners. And if we take anything apart, we liberally grease the nuts and bolts as we put it back together. That paid off when we pulled the rear springs--everything came out like butter after 6 years of salt and snow.

Changed the oil, lubed the window mechanisms as the windows were barely moving (forgot to take pictures), and a few other little things. We'll have to do some brake pads, but will probably save that for Christmas break.

Sure looks like lots of fun!

Seems like a big change in tire diameter? How does that affect acceleration, shift points, etc?

How does getting going from a full stop compare to a normal-tired car?

In reply to BoulderG :

The stock rear ratio is 4.30:1. The tire size change equates to a 3.75:1 ratio. Likely noticeable in first gear.

In reply to BoulderG :

It's doggier than stock but not too slow. And as a winter car, it rarely has the traction to be at peak performance. 

As it says above, I sprayed WD40 on some of the fasteners and stuff as preventative lube to make it easier to take things apart in the future. I've done that on rusty cars for years and it makes a big difference. While I was under there, I saw that it's really time to replace the fuel filter so I sprayed everything down, planning to replace it in a week or two.

The next day, there was fuel weeping from the fuel filter. Apparently, I had lubed enough of the rust to release the rust that was keeping the filter from weeping.

The important bolts to the body came loose. I greased them when I put it back together, so they'll come apart easily next time. The clamp bolt broke, so I just drilled it and replaced with a 10-32 and a nyloc (I know, I should have used something metric).

I'd drive it!!

also, a bit late now, but you need something far stronger and longer lasting than WD40 on that entire underside

once a year from a pressure sprayer and it would keep looking like new

In reply to onemanarmy :

This car was super rusty when we got it and I have no delusions of saving it. In the next few years, we'll deem it unsafe and that will be the end of it. But lubing the fasteners sure makes the next repair easier!

I've found that for my winter cars a routine of WD-40 and grease on the fasteners each time they're in the air/apart and frequent car washes in the winter keep things pretty good for many years. Maybe other chemicals are better, but this has worked for me.

Still had small exhaust leaks on both sides of the catalytic converter. So I NAPA'd up and found these gaskets (p/n 31336) to supplement the stock gasket and that solved the problem.

I also replaced the shifter boot to keep the cold of winter and future exhaust leaks out of the interior. 
 

And I always wire wheel and grease the bolts on a winter car. I have had these snap on rusty Miatas in the past.