This is a recap, retrospective, and a thank you letter to a silly small car.

A good friend has said “everyone needs a backup Miata”. Which is true. Slow, reliable, and extremely competent will get you very far for actively participating in the car hobby.

At the time, I was REALLY bad about this. I was stuck in a horrific cycle of abuse and delayed gratification with an RX-8. That car hammered into me early on in my ownership an incredible level of patience and a healthy dose of cope. Constant, unrelenting engine issues consistently draining my wallet and limiting the driving experiences I could have been having is the way I would describe the 4 years of ownership with that car.

I just coped my way through it, thinking that this was just my part of the journey. It felt like everyone gets a challenge in this hobby proportional to their competence in it. As you get more competent and knowledgeable, the challenges that you face skill-match or slightly exceed what your abilities are, which is the desire to keep going and learning. As someone with a self assessed high level of mechanical competence and technical understanding from a young age, I figured that this was just the skill match that I was due for, while completely ignoring the fact that’s not how it fucking works at all.

You can dig yourself as deep as you want. With the exception of neglect in the car’s causing some unwanted headaches, you are fundamentally holding the shovel. You don’t want to have to touch a subsystem? That’s fine, you probably won’t have to. It just won’t be anything more than exactly what it is now.

I just wanted to prove that I could battle through the issues as a display of my competence, as if mechanical masochism is some badge of honor to wear. I know now what that actually looks like, and while the feedback was still positive, it was more “jeez, best of luck to you. It’s cool to see someone doing it” than anything else.

I eventually had my come to Jesus moment when I realized the anxiety of using the car was bleeding into my normal life. I had this 4 wheeled thing, that I had many hundreds of hours and tens of thousands of dollars into, that I felt I was unable to use due to it repeating the same old patterns. I had those few magical moments where it felt so worth it, but those moments were few and far between. My father and I joked that it was like dating a supermodel. The sex is great but most of the time she is a raging bitch. I knew I needed to get back to basics, because I was slowly falling out of love with cars/forgetting why all the work was worth it.

Enter the 1992 Mazda Miata. Like all my cars, it was a incredibly short time from idea hatched to car purchased, spanning approximately 5 days in total.

I saw it posted for sale about 30 minutes after it was posted, thought “wow, thats a great deal” and sent it to a few people. A couple hours pass, and after some quick boy math, I though “wait, why can’t I buy it?”. I message the dude, and he lives 12 minutes away from my job. I test drive it that day, commit to buying it that weekend, and after two truckfuls of parts (bed and cab both times, it was a lot) on top of the car, I had a 2 Mazda solution to all of my worldly woes. Thank you Devin for passing along an excellent machine.

It quickly went through a process of rapid iteration. It was so refreshing and rewarding to greatly improve basically every aspect of this car with so little effort compart to my aforementioned Doritos. This car was already incredibly competent. Xidas, IL Motorsport Bushings, Racing Beat swaybar with brace, Koyorad. Normal track Miata stuff, done with a real budget.

The first big round of changes were completed in a long day. It consisted of RPF1s, full header-back exhaust, an attempt to install an intake (fowled on the BMC), front and rear lips, and a much better drivers seat with a stock passenger seat. This was a massive improvement in basically every interaction point, and the car was great.

It remained fairly unchanged for a few months. A few little bits here and there as they would come in, but part of the experience with this car was attempting to buy everything used. The thrill of something that I wanted coming up for sale and the acquisition was half the fun.

This was the time where the driving really started to pick up. What started as a “I’ll try autoX again” turned into “I’ll run the season, why not?”. I hadn’t had the chance to compete in a competitive class points series since racing electric offroad RC at a regional level, and the necessity to perform was fun to get back into. It was a perfect scenario. Drive to Bellingham, swap wheels and tires that I had stashed at my parents, drive to the autoX, drive all day, swap tires back, drive home. The familiarity of my hometown while escaping Seattle living for a weekend while participating in a cheap and fun activity. Pure bliss.

More miles, more events, more fun, and more mods. NA8 Torsen diff, extended studs, Supermiata Competiton hubs, new wheel bearings, rebuilt axles with Bilstein grease and new boots, extended LBJs, new wheels with A052s, and a spicy alignment. Taking it seriously now.

This was also a big one. The Wilwood Dynalites and NA8 rear brakes that were on the car were more stopping power than the car needed. But they worked, so I wasn’t going to swap them. However, the 1″ master cylinder made the brake pedal an on/off switch, and that was the one area of performance that I really wanted to improve. After looking at booster ratios and MC bores, I settled on the NB2 Sport Package Non ABS Booster and corresponding 15/16″ master cylinder. This made the brakes absolutely perfect. Would highly recommend. It took a combo of NA + NB hardlines, with the Napp bracket and Wilwood proportioning valve, but it turned out great.

As the mods were tailing off, so was the season. I secured the overall season win at Chuckanut Sports Car Club in the C2 class (catchall for all the SCCA ST classes). Definitely a really fun experience, really close battles, and kept costs down vs track days.

Autocross ramped down, but life didn’t. I was dealing with the Lexus, buying my Civic, and prepping for Miata Reunion. The last big revision was the NA8 Hardtop with defrost and a headliner. Really nice OEM upgrade, and I was able to do that swap for free by jumping on a good deal, and selling my old one to a friend.

Miata Reunion was a trip, literally and figuratively. The full recap was on Instagram, which is included below:

Miata Reunion 2024: Sometimes the First One Ain’t Free.

One of the immediate revelations of the second go-around of Miata ownership was the ability to join the pilgrimage down to California for Miata Reunion. Because a track day and 1500 road miles in a car built for people 1 standard deviation shorter than me sounds like a great way to spend a long weekend. 

Torrential rain was the theme of most of the drive down. Trust in the NVH-amplifying Nexen Sur5 Sport R was mounting (foreshadowing). The highway segments flew by, and the second half of the drive spent on Highway 1 was arguably the highlight of the trip. The top 30 miles got repaved recently and it was superb. 

The check-in/car show was nice to put names to faces, and after plenty of talking shit, darkness dawned and the rain restarted. An unfortunate series of events transpired, and the dreaded scenario of getting into a traffic accident multiple states away occurred. Luckily it was very minor (the Dodge 1500 was untouched minus a slightly bent exhaust tip), but sliding into the back of a truck wasn’t on the itinerary. After prying, bending, and hammering under the light of a sketchy Vallejo gas station, the hood latched and all systems were deemed certified good enough. 

The track day was rather disappointing from an etiquette perspective (point bys, as well as keeping it off the wall), but the conditions were alright after the first session dried the track out. This was the first time chasing friends around in equally paced cars in years, and that was a fucking blast. I ran a 2:01. I wanted my sub 2, and my optimal was there, but I took a passenger final session and decided it was more fun to share the experience than drive at 106% for a number on a screen and the ego bump.

After a 3AM departure on Sunday, the 12 hour cannonball home culminated in… Nothing. It didn’t complain once.

The car is currently apart for mending. No crazy exterior revisions, but the “Patina > Perfect” plate frame may no longer be applicable to this car. 

I’ll make the trek for as many years as I can. Hopefully without the collision next time. Enjoy footage of me being a child.

T7 -> T11 Flat. So good.

I recapped all of the repairs needed after I had my little oopsie in California in a separate post linked below. Don’t need to expound on that any more than I already did.

Revival of the Fittest

After the cosmetic restoration, many of my friends called me out (rightfully so) saying that I would be too afraid to use it now that it was extremely pretty. Fueled by spite to prove them wrong, as well as attempt to have an mini summer break as an adult, the college trio plus my dad booked a trip to Cali to do Thunderhill 5 mile in the heat of the summer.

Conveniently, a week before the trip, my perfectly reliable car smelled like coolant after my drive home, along with the slave cylinder failing in that same drive. Sick. The slave cylinder was quickly bandaided with a fresh Exedy/Daikin cylinder, but the coolant smell was still a mystery.

Well shit. There it is. Emergency surgery time.

The only theory that makes sense to me, as the water pump/timing belt were done less than 30k miles ago, was that all of the times it was ran for short stints while it was being moved around without a radiator (for frame repair, paint, etc) burned up the dynamic seal on the pump. Not a huge deal, and luckily they didn’t derail the trip as I still had time to resolve it.

With a set of hand painted door cards done by my sister, and the commitment to dual drive a track day in 100F+ weather, we departed for California, no trailer in sight.

The track day went without a hitch, and was definitely worth taking the PTO. 5 Mile is amazing even in a slow car. Didn’t really take any photos, and none of the track ones were worth buying. Cali roads are still some of the best in the nation. Skagg Springs is insane. Highway 9 and Skyline are still amazing. Top 30 miles of Highway 1 is still the best road I’ve ever driven (sorry TOTD). Great food, great friends, great weather, and stacking miles for the whole long weekend. Not one complaint to be had, even if my AC can’t really function over 75F and I don’t have cruise control.

About a month later, I decided to do my first (and last) day at The Ridge, mainly to see what the car would do. Despite the nagging clutch issues, 2:01.7 ain’t too shabby out of an NA6. Great day of driving with friends and a little bit of friendly competition (sorry Carlos, had to do it to ya).

As aforementioned, the clutch issues persisted. What I though would be solved with hydraulics ran deeper, which ended in a trans removal, and the install of a Supermiata clutch and their 11lb aluminium flywheel. Perfect amount of clutch for the car, and I know it will take the abuse.

New seals for the transmission, and everything went back together perfectly. Cleaning up and tending to the small leaks was the final thing this car needed to get me to leave it alone.

Now you may be asking yourself: where is this going? Why the somber tone. Well, read on, and I’ll explain my thoughts and subsequent decision. Spoiler alert: I’m selling it.

The largest contributing factor for my decision to get rid of this car is safety. And before you say anything, no, it’s not the general crash safety. While feeling like an ant on the road compared to all the SUVs definitely isn’t helping the case, the critical safety issue is the proximity of my head to the roll bar. Being a relatively tall person in a relatively small car, it already takes some creativity and persuasion to make me comfortable in the car. Unfortunately one of those sacrifices is reclining the seat to fit under the roof, which recesses it deep into the roll bar’s area of influence. My head is less than 1″ from the roll bar at all times, and it would not take a significant impact for me to bash my head against a hard metal tube. The thought of becoming a vegetable or obituary from a benign fender bender has me seriously reconsidering what risks I am willing to take, very similar to the internal conversation I had earlier this year regarding two wheeled transport.

I have investigated other roll bars in order to alleviate this issue. The Brain Storm roll bar sits very far back, but I still can very easily come in contact with the main hoop, and in no organization would it pass broomstick test. As someone that likes to drive with the top off at track days, and already barely passes broomstick with a Zerekfab bar, I could very easily get turned around at the gate if a track day organizer actually bothered to check if I would walk away from a rollover even if I didn’t take the hardtop off.

I polled RoadRaceAutoX (best forum ever) with the question of “Has ergonomics, and to an extent the safety concerns that they pose, intruded enough on the enjoyment of the vehicle that it has forced a sale? Was it tough/worth it to admit that “this car just isn’t for me/I am not built for this car”?” and the resounding answer was yes. A lot of people I respect chimed in, stating that they would not be street driving a car under those circumstances. Its basically the equivalent of driving a car with a full cage, something I’ve been verbally against for a long time. It’s time to practice what I preach; Even if the roll bar doesn’t seem as vicious as a welded in cage, it most certainly is. This is a problem with me; other people don’t share this concern, and that’s totally cool. But it’s enough for me to consider letting the car go.

Another small, yet contributing factor is that Miata Reunion, the event that some of these cars live for, is currently indefinitely postponed as the organizers announced earlier this year. That event, while only personally attending it once, is the pinnacle of what Miatas should be: a road trip-able, enjoyable, reliable car that can drive across multiple states, do a track day, and drive home without stressing out the occupants. Despite the minor incident I had at MR 2024, the rest of the experience was so lovely that I have considered keeping the car around just for that. The track day being comprised of 100% slow cars (even fast Miatas are still slow) means the closing speeds and passing deltas are so much more relaxed than a normal track day. Thunderhill reminded me just how miserably slow NA6s are, and while I don’t mind the lack of straight line power in a vacuum, getting my doors blown off by a Lotus Elise or BRZ certainly doesn’t inspire long-term confidence in continuing to race a stock-ish NA. Even NB2s are lifting and braking in straights to let me by. My ego isn’t inflated where I feel I need to have passing power, but at some point, which this is, there is a safety concern with it. 1.8 VVT swap would alleviate some of the discrepancy with the slow stuff, but I will still be getting my doors blown off by a fast car on a big straight, and I’d like to have some “get the hell out of the way” on tap (which is why I now own my S13).

Finally, we arrive at the most first world of all the problems: a combination of “I own too many cars, and this one is the least interesting” and “I have recognized that I am underutilizing this car’s potential due to having the other cars”.

Regarding the first point, owning 4 enthusiast cars plus a truck is a lot to stay on top of if the goal is to keep all of the in use and in good condition. I am very fortunate that I own cars that are nice enough to require indoor storage, but there is an obvious associated cost with that. On top of the raw cost of the square footage, there’s maintenance, insurance, mods, and incidentals that are all constant. It’s one of the reasons I am incredibly envious of those who can genuinely pull off a 2 or 3 car solution. Fewer mouths to feed -> quality increases. Regarding the comment about it being the least interesting, it honestly is. The chassis is lovely, but the motor is agricultural (nothing wrong with that, especially for the purpose). But if I am going on a street rip, I’m going to grab the keys to my B16B EK, for the revgasmic engine and tossable chassis. If I am going to the track, I’m going to want to drive my more powerful, more capable car in the form of my SR20 S13. If I want to go drifting, my 2JZ-GTE IS300 is actually going to be able to sustain wheel speed regardless of what size of layout I am driving, while sounding crazy and being purpose built. All of the other cars are far more ergonomically comfortable to drive, and their flaws in a general scoring system make their strengths shine brighter. It is true that none of the other cars can do ALL of the things that the Miata can, but S13 will be closest. I am willing to sacrifice the Miata to 1. have the space and money back, and 2. force the use of the other cars.

Regarding the second point, this car was built, configured, and equipped to drive every single weekend, regardless of conditions or event type. It daily drives, drifts, road races, and autoXs all at very competent levels, and I have a set of tires for each. It is only missing a driver, and I am now keenly aware that while I was that person last summer, I no longer am the instigator of action that this machine needs. Between all of the other cars, I just have fewer excuses to use it in a specialized event (my local autoX, Chuckanut Sports Car Club, losing their site this year was not on the schedule, thus less driving), and my commute hasn’t improved (I really can’t justifying anything manual or cool for fatigue and crash risk reasons). This car needs someone to rack up miles and go have experiences with it. It is capable and competent in those regions, and I am not utilizing it to its potential.

I owe this car a lot. It got me though some tough times, it got me consistently driving cars for fun again, and it reminded me why I like this hobby so much. I’ll always love these silly little cars, but I’ve evolved to understand that it just isn’t for me to own personally. Miatas are going to be a “drive and enjoy, but hand the keys back” experience from now on.

With all of those previously stated factors combined, I’ve decided to put the car up for sale. It wasn’t an easy decision as this is by far my most finished car I have ever put out in terms of scorable categories, however I know that it is time to move on.

Before I had a chance to post this article, I ended up finding a buyer and the car has left. It left for the right number, to the right people, and that’s all I could ask for. I’m glad its found a new home with Hayley and Tyler, and while it wont be seeing the track or coned off parking lots, its going to be taken care of and enjoyed.

So goodbye friend. I’ll see you around. Thanks for all that you’ve done for me.

Until next time.