I bought the Answer

After well a lot of cars I have bought the ANSWER. I have raced them, bought and sold them for other people but never owned one for myself.

I paid a good bit of money for it but low miles and tons of stuff like the hardtop that I can sell off. Plus it already has a NB transmission and good seats. I could sell off 100% of the cost of the car and keep the roller skate for a future Exocet once I get over the ordering hump.

I am 90% certain that this is a 94 R model car. Had manual windows, LSD from the factory and has no AC installed from the factory. Not a bad deal for about 5K with the hard top.

Car has 85,xxx miles and has been mostly garaged.

Suspension And Chassis:
Spec Miata Coilover Suspension with different front springs 450 lbs front, 325 lbs rear and additional rear tender springs.
Fat Cat Motorsports modified NB top mounts
Stitch Welding around door openings for stiffness
Largest Racing Beat Hollow Front Sway Bar
949 Racing end-links
Heavy Duty Sway Bar Mount Brackets
NB shock tower brace
Stainless frame rail stiffeners
Boss Frog Frog Arms for stiffness
All suspension bushings replaced with polyurethane
Polyurethane steering rack bushings
Polyurethane differential mounts
Polyurethane steering rack bushings
Mazdaspeed Engine Mounts
* No power steering

Wheels And Tires:
Enkei RPF1 15x7 wheels (very light) wheels with Bridgestone 205-50r15 RE11A tires
Team Dynamics Spec Miata 15x7 wheels

Safety:
Boss Frog Double Hoop Roll Bar
Custom Door Bars welded in with reinforcement brackets by Blackbird Fabworx
Sparco Racing seats on sparco Sliders
2 5-point cam-lock harnesses

Brakes: * Flyin Miata brake bias distribution valve
Steel braided brake lines
New brake disks
New brake pads
New hi-temp brake fluid

Drivetrain and Cooling:
Fidanza Flywheel
Heavy Duty Clutch
Torsen Limited Slip Differential LSD
NB (improved synchros) 5-speed with matching starter
Flyin Miata crossflow radiator
MonsterFlow cold air intake CAI (the best flowing miata intake) CARB-compliant
Jackson Racing ceramic coated CARB-compliant 4-2-1 header with relocated O2 sensor for more accurate readings
High-flow Goodwin Racing catalytic converter
Goodwin Racing Mid-Pipe
Goodwin Racing Muffler

Body and Interior: * Factory color-matched hardtop
Interior swapped from 1991 since that interior came without airbags and are lighter.
Flyin Miata Ducted Carbon Fiber Headlight Cover for air flow to intake
Custom turn signal air intake
Momo Steering Wheel with spacer.
* New battery.

Well, damn, that's pretty well kitted out. Sounds like a very solid deal.

Kind of excited, I have been looking for one for a while. It may get chopped up into a ghettocet if I part it out. I think I may just keep in in the garage for autocross days and track days where I cannot run the monster due to noise. Take to work on Fridays that sort of thing.

Only real issue I have to sork out is how to add some recline to the sparco's. They are really upright. I imagine some washers or a side mount will fix that.

TIWWOP!!

java230 wrote: TIWWOP!!

Gets dropped of on Saturday then good photos. Till then this will have to do.

It will be painted or dipped at some point. I have like 1.5 gallons of nardo Grey dip somewhere around the storage unit that I could use. I also think I have enough snakeskin green vinyl to wrap the car if I wanted to as well.

I may just sticker bomb the thing. I will be painting the wheels gold at some point I think as well and the top in black. Maybe a lace paint hardtop in black and gold would look cool.

Basically I bought this thing for what a single wheel that I cracked on the monster cost. Nothing is sacred.

I think grey would look just lovely

In reply to wearymicrobe:

I like that attitude. Should result in quite the amusing car.

thatsnowinnebago wrote: In reply to wearymicrobe: I like that attitude. Should result in quite the amusing car.

Yeah I stopped by Goodwin on the way home. They are like 500 yards from the house, its going to be bad having them that close. FYI Parts are freaking CHEAP. Like stupid cheap, like Honda B series cheap.

Already have a list of about 1.5K or so of must have's, the more I learn about these things the more they seem like car lego's. May turn into a proper build after all.

Got the car a few days back. Seriously so much fun in such a cheap little package. I have actually been driving it to work the last few days.

Couple things

Miata's have single stage paint, I did not know that going into this. I thought the car would need a complete repaint. All it needed was some SR71 cutter with some diamond paste and a a few hours with a orbital.

Went from this, were all the panels had serious marking and chalky look to them .

To this.

to this.

My RE71R's should be here in a week or so. The current RE11A's still have a lot of tread left so going to mount the new ones on teh racing dynamics wheels that I have.

Pulled all the carpet out of the car, the wipers, order the NACA ducts for the hood. Got the hardtop alignment a little better. Threw a bit more advance on the car as well.

This thing is like a lego set everything just unbolts so easy. I figured with 85K miles I would get some stuck bolts or crappy areas that I would have to fix but so far its been pretty easy.

I do need to repad the seat though, 200lb people do not fit in Sparco Junior sprint seats that well at the shoulder.

Congrats on the car.

Words cannot describe how badly I wish those wheels came in 15x9.

Duke wrote: Words cannot describe how badly I wish those wheels came in 15x9.

They would sell a lot of them that is for sure. I really like the gold konig heliums and the weird Japanese turbine stuff you can get for the miata.

Been looking on stanceworks and a few places to find a set of these in gold. In a 15x8

Congrats. Bringing it back to Laguna this year to renew that photo? :)

I know the feeling about having a shop close -- I literally drive past Trackspeed Engineering on my way to work.

I could tell by your pics that you're in San Diego. Nice pick up.

yupididit wrote: I could tell by your pics that you're in San Diego. Nice pick up.

Its gorgeous here that is for sure. Its a miata wasteland though, I looked at so much overpriced crap before I found this one.

wearymicrobe wrote:

Duke wrote: Words cannot describe how badly I wish those wheels came in 15x9.

They would sell a lot of them that is for sure. I really like the gold konig heliums and the weird Japanese turbine stuff you can get for the miata.

I love the Heliums in bronze but they are 15x6.5. The best I could do for lightweight 15x9s on a budget were Konig Dial-Ins. I wish they were available in bronze. I could get them painted, but it would be nice to have a factory finish.

Ok crazy question how much rigidity will I loose if I dump the rear hoops and the door bars. Chassis is seam welded. Cage will be done eventually.

Also does anybody have a solution for big guy seats in a Miata with no door bars. Sparco juniors are not built for someone my size. They hold me in fantastic but I swear I bruised a kidney getting in today.

The hoops are style bars and they don't do much for rigidity.

The door bars will likely help rigidity, but you can ditch them and replace them with a butterfly brace

The butterfly brace is a better solution and doesn't cut into the interior.

That said, if you're heading towards a cage, then the car will be floppier, but not terribly so until the cage gets installed.

Stefan wrote: That said, if you're heading towards a cage, then the car will be floppier, but not terribly so until the cage gets installed.

I can live with a butterfly brace and floppy if I can actually get in the car without bruising myself with the roof on.

Also is there anybody who sells a venting kit for the interior. I have come back from a drive where the outside temp is ~90-95f which is about what chatwalla is in the spring and there was a pool of sweat under me. No AC is faster but man does suck.

Congrats on finding the Answer.

A friend of mine kept complaining about how tight the custom racing seats he put in his Ranger 4X4 were. I eventually got tired of hearing him complain and asked him why he didn’t get bigger seats.

He hesitated for a moment and then sheepishly confessed “this way if I get drunk, I won’t wind up taking a heavy chick home…….again”.

We looked at each other for a while in silence and then just started doing a set of shoulder shrugs indicating “yah, makes sense, that’ll work”.

wearymicrobe wrote: Ok crazy question how much rigidity will I loose if I dump the rear hoops and the door bars. Chassis is seam welded. Cage will be done eventually. Also does anybody have a solution for big guy seats in a Miata with no door bars. Sparco juniors are not built for someone my size. They hold me in fantastic but I swear I bruised a kidney getting in today.

Corbeua fx1 was recommend to me here on the forum a while ago, but I haven't personally sat in one yet.

Being 5"10 and 300lb, the stock seat doesn't like holding me very well when I'm really beating on it.

When I first read that mod list, I said "that car's from SoCal".

No AC isn't actually faster, because it turns off at WOT to allow maximum hamster power availability It's just hotter.

Easiest venting kit is to buy a clear NACA duct from a place like Pegasus along with a piece of polycarbonate. Use these pieces in a clever way to install the NACA duct in the vent window. Plug with the top from a rattlecan when not using. Did this years ago on one of my (non-AC) street cars.

The roll bar is a legit roll bar, not just a style bar. You won't lose that much rigidity going to a butterfly from door bars.

My favorite fixed seat is a Sparco - I forget the model, it's the one with the FIA rating. Sprint? Speed? And yes, fixed seats are upright :) The Corbeau FX1 is tough to fit well, sits high and you'll need to change out the bottom padding. This is from a guy with FX1 Pros in his car.

In terms of venting, we have these on our SM. They work great, flow a ton of air. Only issue is that when it rains the driver side one blows water right at the driver's face...If you forget to shove a tennis ball in there.

Advanced Auto NACA ducts

EDIT: Keith beat me to it. Also: I am TOTALLY going to steal the rattle can top as plug idea.

I was at a Cars-N-Coffee recently that had a Miata with a NACA duct mod and the duct had a purpose designed clear polycarbonate plug that could be closed.

Neat-O except the plug had a convex shape that just so happened to produce a focal point that corresponded with the distance to the seats.

The owner pointed out several diagonal burn marks on the seats to me as he said how lucky he considered himself to have not lost his car to fire.

Something to keep in mind.

Keith Tanner wrote: When I first read that mod list, I said "that car's from SoCal". No AC isn't actually faster, because it turns off at WOT to allow maximum hamster power availability It's just hotter.

It started life as a R model as far a I know so no AC from the beginning. Same with no power steering. In retrospect it was a serious mistake. Yeah its lighter but the power rack actually feels better to me. Bet I loose 4lbs of fluid every time I take it out this summer without a cool suit.

So I was on the right track for venting then. I assumed somebody just dropped a scoop in the window. I imagine I can sell the style bar and the door bars on Craigslist. Figure I can just take the door panels out for the cage and get the room then and go for a big guy seat.

Thanks guys.