Need DFD's help narrowing which Miata is right for my situation

Brothers of brub and brap, this is your safe space.
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Acid666
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Detroit wrote: Thu Sep 13, 2018 5:59 am Caliper covers are an instant disqualification. If the owner deems that to be a good "mod", there's no telling how screwed the car is in more important ways.

:nope:
Lol. I have no idea what was going on with that dude to put those on. But the rest of the car had legit mods that I'd do myself. And it was clean. It sold anyways.
So back on track to the white one. No biggie.
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goIftdibrad
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Detroit wrote: Thu Sep 13, 2018 5:59 am Caliper covers are an instant disqualification. If the owner deems that to be a good "mod", there's no telling how screwed the car is in more important ways.

:nope:
:dat:

unless its nearly free.
brain go brrrrrr
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Johnny_P
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Detroit wrote: Thu Sep 13, 2018 5:59 am Caliper covers are an instant disqualification. If the owner deems that to be a good "mod", there's no telling how screwed the car is in more important ways.

:nope:
Do they even sell those at pepboys? Where does one acquire something like this? :lolol:

https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss ... per+covers

Holy shit they're $200 :lolgasm:
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Acid666
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:plac: time today. Hopefully
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Acid666
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So here it is. It's a 20 footer. Lol. It's great tho. LOTS of cleaning to do. I started today with pressure washing as much as I could get to. It's burning oil from the front of the engine somewhere. I need to pinpoint it. Starting a laundry list of odds and ends for parts to get.
Overall for $3K I'm happy with it. I hid it in the back corner of the backyard where the wife wouldn't see it. She managed to find it during the day as we were in and outside the house repeatedly while doing a massive deep clean.

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Wheels half pressure washed
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The pinch welds for the hood bracing underneath are all broken, so the hood flops around a bit. It's got a misalignment issue so I need to figure if it's the hood itself or the front bumper that's off. I adjusted the hood bolts yesterday but I need to spend more time with it. That pass front side doesn't go all the way down either.
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The wife loves it. We've been in the middle of fighting about money, so I thought it would be bad to let her know now that I spent the bike money on the car, but when she saw it she went nuts and was so excited about it.
She hasn't complained about one bit of it, she's got the wheels turning in her head for how she wants to mod it and is totally ready to race.
So the first thing is to possibly find that leak, and figure out what's causing it to have trouble starting. Me, and the previous owner think it's a bad or corroded wire to the starter. Because the battery is brand new. Also, new clutch, 3 of the 4 brake cylinders are new. New master and slave cylinders, Tires are from 2013 but decent shape. Tires will be the first mod for autocrossing along with shocks and a sway.
I pulled the hard top off and tried to get the convertible up, but it doesn't reach the front. I think that it's been in the down position for so long that it needs to be stretched a bit to reach.
When I leave ES in autocross, I plan on removing the convertible top anyways for weight.
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troyguitar
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IMO skip ES and go straight to STS - but ignore power mods at first. ES cars are so damn floppy it's annoying. The extra tire life you get out of having wider wheels and real springs will pay for itself in a year or so anyway... plus it's way more fun.
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Acid666
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troyguitar wrote: Sun Sep 16, 2018 7:50 pm IMO skip ES and go straight to STS - but ignore power mods at first. ES cars are so damn floppy it's annoying. The extra tire life you get out of having wider wheels and real springs will pay for itself in a year or so anyway... plus it's way more fun.
I totally agree with you, and I'm on the fence with letting the wife learn one mod at a time, but I'm leaning towards only spending my money once and going straight to sts like you're suggesting. I think I wanted to let her learn the car from scratch and feel how floppy it is (and trust me it's full flop mode now)

I think I'll honestly be taking your advice and doing mods once.
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troyguitar
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The one thing you could do is to get :225: rivals and a sway bar now and run ES with the rivals pinched on the stock :ramz: since that's what everyone in ES already does - and you'll want the tires and sway bar for STS anyway so they'll still be useful.

After you see that ES sucks, have the tires remounted on some 15x7.5s and get some flyin miata coilovers to make the car fun.
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Acid666
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troyguitar wrote: Sun Sep 16, 2018 8:58 pm The one thing you could do is to get :225: rivals and a sway bar now and run ES with the rivals pinched on the stock :ramz: since that's what everyone in ES already does - and you'll want the tires and sway bar for STS anyway so they'll still be useful.

After you see that ES sucks, have the tires remounted on some 15x7.5s and get some flyin miata coilovers to make the car fun.
Well right now it's got 14s I think. So if I buy tires, I'll be getting rims as well so I don't have to spend twice.
We might daily these stockers and break out the nice wheels for autocross.
I just took it to Lowe's to get some new bolts to hold the hardtop on, and the seat popped out of the socket on the right side when I dogged it through a wicked slider turn. So I need to find out if there's a bolt or something missing on that side. When the seat sunk back all I could think was how aggrivating it was when that bracket broke on my vette seat.
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troyguitar
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Ballz, 14s are useless these days. I guess just get the 15x7.5s to start - buying 14" tires is kind of a waste.
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Johnny_P
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I approve! Nice pick up, Acid!
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D Griff
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Acid666 wrote: Fri Sep 14, 2018 9:20 am :plac: time today. Hopefully
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:troywax: :fuckyeah:

Congrats man! This is really awesome, seems like a great pickup for the bargain basement price. Really :neat: that your wife wants to autox and mod the car with you, seems like quite a fun project.
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Acid666
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troyguitar wrote: Sun Sep 16, 2018 10:38 pm Ballz, 14s are useless these days. I guess just get the 15x7.5s to start - buying 14" tires is kind of a waste.
I just zoomed in on the pic, 14X6.
I just need to do a little more research on wheels to make sure whatever size I end up sticking with for STS will work with coilovers and the NA fender without having to roll it if possible. The fronts are missing the wheel liners, so ideally I'd like to put some back in to keep the underside a bit cleaner.
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goIftdibrad
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Acid666 wrote: Sun Sep 16, 2018 7:43 pm So here it is. It's a 20 footer. Lol. It's great tho.
Awesome, congrats!
brain go brrrrrr
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