I officially drove the first time today to after unofficially proclaiming the project to be ready. The car itself felt great, Miatas are surprisingly good cruisers. But it’s been only one day and I already decided to change up the wheels. So I picked these up after work. I am a hoarder of Rotas, who […]

After exerting a monumental amount of effort over the course of a month, this Roadster Project is finally winding down. The first major phase, at least. I already have ideas on changes and additions, but we’ll get to those when the time comes. I hope to, at last, drive this car in the meantime. Earlier […]

The preceding catalyst to all this traces back to the paint job. When I got the car back from the shop, I noticed that the belt line molding on the driver side wasn’t even anymore and there was a rip in the door molding near the top corner. To their credit, the belt line molding […]

The car came with an Alpine CDM-9803, but I decided to toss it in favor of the Alpine CDA-117 I have. Out of all the head units I’ve owned, I’d say the CDA-117 is the most impressive. Most importantly, it has the very good Burr-Brown decoder. I also picked up a new center console because […]

Nardi is for kids, OMP is for adults. As classy as Nardi steering wheels look, I just loved the raw, business look of the OMP WRC. Here it is bolted on.

Got these BC Racing coilovers put on… I’ll save the introductory debrief on these, since they’re the same ones as these. For Miatas, they come with 8k/6k spring rates, but I had them upped to 10k/8k. Started on the rears first, which were really straight forward. The hardest part about doing the rear suspension was […]

I’m trying to moving fast with this build, but in doing so, a certain level of commitment is required. Since my goal is to actually drive this car, I don’t want it to linger in the whole build phase forever. I already wasted months looking and buying parts for a car that never happened. I’m […]

Okay, before you hit the back button and never come back to this site again, let me explain. I’d be the first one to tell you Rotas are wack, but sometimes you just have to settle. Given the sizing of Miata wheels, the options are very limited. Since the wheels for this car are in […]

I was debating for a while whether or not to even throw this brace on, but I figured why not. It looks to be much higher end than the factory steel tube brace, and also lower profile. This Racing Beat item has a superior mounting arrangement, with 2 mounting holes on each end and metal […]

Given that a stock NA Miata is like a wet noodle, an inherent trait of a lightweight convertible, increased bracing was a must. From what I know… the suspension components are what’s supposed to handle articulation, not the body of the car. Mazda cheated a little in obtaining the car’s low weight number; there’s a reason why […]

This son of a bitch was expensive, but a necessity. The Miata is incomplete without a lip in the front. I’m not a big fan of the Garage Vary lip, but the OEM R-Package lip is nice and subtle. I installed the lip in the evening sometime this week. What I thought would be a […]

Pulled off the stock steering wheel earlier this week… With the wheel off, I decided to tear down the interior a bit more to prep for a couple of upcoming items and the roll bar install. I also took the gauge cluster off to pull the airbag bulb and the check engine light bulb. Even […]