The Mazda MX5: great debate

[the4g63]

If I removed my ACD, I could still run laps around a Miata. ^ truth.

[TROLL]

miatas are pretty sweet... but this thread, and any thread similar to this one, are not sweet at all.

[CleanNeon98]

Originally Posted by TROLL

can you tell me what you mean by that because i don't follow. seems more like you mindlessly pulled a cliche out of your ass...

I spent the last few pages explaining it

[CleanNeon98]

Here is a writeup I found


Several times I have seen posts, where the little Miata is put down as a girly car. I started this post with a little bit of a mad on. People making fun of my favorite car. The more I wrote the more I realized I did the same things when I was young and then I started laughing. Please accept my humble words with the love I have intended.

Now for some mind changing. The Miata is a car that comes out of the box ready to take to the track and have fun.

The engine, no the entire car, is designed to shift at 7200 rpm every single shift, all day long. No other car can take that kind of abuse. I know, because, I have destroyed: 2 Corvettes, 1 Viper, 2 BMW’s, a couple of Porsche’s several Mopars, GM’s, and Ford’s and a Jag or two. I have a very aggressive driving style and I live in a rural area with few houses and very little traffic. Most of our houses are 1/4 to ½ mile from the road (horse and cattle country). Most of the cars I have abused, lasted about 35k and then I start having major problems and so I get rid of them.

The ignition system in the Miata cannot be improved on. There are no ignition systems on the market which will improve the stock system. Just by changing the stock timing from 10 degrees to 28 degrees produces a 12/15 Hp increase. More then enough to put down the S2k or MR2. All of the magazine comparisons use stock tuning on the vehicles during the tests. If the Miata timing is changed to 28 degrees, then there is no contest.

The lower block assembly will withstand 30 psi turbo boost plus a shot of N02 at the same time and still live for over 100,000 miles. That’s about 550 Hp out of a 1.8L for those with inquiring minds. You’ll need a six speed to handle that kind of power.

This little engine will not self destruct if the timing belt blows. It comes with a redline limiter set at 7200 which shuts of the fuel. Maita engineers say. “Bump that thing all you want”

There is nothing on the market which will improve the engine breathing except a CAI and a turbo muffler. These two changes produce about 15 Hp. The headers which are available only produce a few Hp. Yea, there are cams and pistons and big valve kits, but none of them have shown more than a 4-5 Hp gain over stock. That’s a lot of money for very little Hp gain.

The brakes were increased in size in 1991 and again in 1999. I have never had a problem with the brakes overheating or fading or failing to stop, ever. With the Miata, I have been on the track several times for hours at a time with no problem. I did change to steel reinforced hoses, it adds a better feel to the brakes. Brake fade was a constant headache on the Viper and I spent a lot of money trying to correct it. The Viper also loves to come out of a corner backwards, it should have a steering wheel in the trunk.

The stock Miata with the RS package will do .84 on the skid pad. Just add springs, adj shocks, and sway bars, and the car will do 1.04 on the pad. I am sure that could be improved on with fine tuning. I talking about out of the box install and a new aggressive alignment and go hit 1.04. I have taken 90 degree turns at 70 mph (70 going in and 80 coming out), and I’m a scared old man. A power slide in a car this light is a wonderful thing to feel and behold.

Turbo kits are available and the cost varies from $2500 to $5000. If you’re good, and know what your doing you can improve on those costs. My intercooler and blowoff valve, are Mitsubishi. My injectors are RX7. You can save a lot of money if you roam around a junkyard for a while. Try 18 psi on a Ford, Mopar or Chevy and still get 100k (gee, where is that rod and piston catalog?).

The little car weighs between 1800 - 2200 lbs. That’s almost 1200 less then most cars out there.
The highest weight difference I have seen between the front wheels and the back wheels was 7 lbs. My car running 16/18 PSI has 340 Hp @ 1821 lbs (with me in it). Calc that Dog.

The shifter is the absolute best of any car on the road today. It is like stirring warm butter, It is only slightly gated and it just seems to know where you want it to go. There is no real side to side motion with this gearshift, except for reverse. I have never missed a shift with this shifter, and I have never had to hunt for a gear. I can’t say that for the Viper and Corvette.

The little car from 1995 on comes with a limited-slip diff, which really hooks up with 10 inch wides on the back.


For those of you that want to look bad, Wings West has a sharp looking body kit for $750, that actually improves aerodynamics a small amount. I believe WeaponR has a Ninja style kit that looks AWESOME. I have the Wings stuff. The stock body has been wind tested at +200Mph, that’s 50 mph faster then the Cobra which hits a wall at 150 mph. The Cobra just doesn’t want to go faster, no matter how big the engine, it grunts and strains for every mph after 150.

Show me another car like the Miata, where you can log on the net and talk to the head engineer who designed the car.

Now, I’ll be the first to admit that nothing sounds good like a big bore V8, running dual glass packs , and a set of solid roller tappets, trying to idle off that big cam. That’s the sweetest sound in the world. That’s why a company called Monster Miata, in California, puts 5.0L ford engines in Miatas.

I have had my Miata since 1996. I have driven the pi$$ out of it. At 38,000 miles, I added the turbo, because I got beat by a neighbor with his new Mustang GT. Since that time the little car has never been beaten, and no one will even try me anymore. Now that is no great brag or feat, since I live in the middle of Oklahoma, not really the speed capital of the world. I’m sure the west coast guys have some great cars that could blow my doors off, but I bet they have a lot more money in their cars than I do. So now I just go to the track on weekends, and have fun going in a circle. I still drive the heck out of it, I just don’t race anymore on the street. Oh, I did get a ticket for 134 mph once, back in 2003. (Cost me $1700). Good thing, I was letting off the gas. The cop said he was going to go out and celebrate that night. He had the biggest s**t eating grin on his face I have ever seem.

In 1992, I sold my Cobra to an attorney friend of mine. He drives it maybe three or four times a year. After I installed my turbo, I let him get behind the wheel of my little Miata. He bought a brand new one 2 weeks later, and three weeks after that we supercharged it. He drives it to work every day. Now this guy is like me, we can buy any car we want. We both choose the girly Miata as our daily driver.

The little car has never leaked a drop of fluid on my floor, and the only maintenance I have performed is plugs, brake pads, and oil changes. A compression test at 70,000, showed the same readings that the car had when new, except for one cylinder which was 2 psi low (probably the Mobile 1).


The 1980 Triumph was just about the last two seat sports car sold here in the US (I have one). In 1989, Mazda brought out the Miata. It sold like hot cakes. I can assure you of the 700,000 that have been bought, not all of those were bought by women. It took almost six years for the other car companies to catch up and produce a two seat roadster. Now nearly every company makes one now, because of the success of the Miata.

Spec Miata racing has become the fastest growing motor sport here in the US, for the last two years. Last year alone, 24 tracks opened up season access to Miata racers. Miata SCCA racing is booming here. Most of the people I know, drive the Miata to the track and race and then drive the car home. It never enters their minds that the car may quit on them. I know two guys who pull small trailers with their Miatas, just to haul their track tires. In a six hour SCCA Enduro race at the Dallas International Speedway this year, Miata took the first five places. Corvette took 6th and 7th, and a Viper took 9th. There were no MR’s or S2K's in the top twenty. You can read and compare all you want from the mags but, the track will always offer the best proof. Don’t pay a lot of attention to these Vets and Vipers going around the track in those big races. Those cars have another $250k thrown in them to make them competitive. Quite a feat for a girly car.

There are people who sit and read about cars, and there are people who go out into the world and drive and enjoy cars. There are guys who can sit and quote Hp and handling charts and can’t drive to the Seven Eleven without breaking a half dozen traffic laws. I am the kind of guy that will ride my motorcycle when it’s sleeting, or put the top down and take a 300 mile trip during the winter, because I want to hear the exhaust. Hell, my bass boat has been clocked at 105 by a park ranger. He wanted to know where I was going, since the lake was only 5 miles long. “Chasing the biggest bass I have ever seen,” I said. Remember guys,” a boat, is a hole surrounded by water that you constantly throw money into”.

It always seems to be the readers, who have never driven a car at 160mph, or don’t know how to drive a manual shift, or have never been on a track, or the young cubs who should have been eaten by their parents, who feel they can run down someone else’s car because it doesn’t meet their approval. Every car I have ever driven has had good and bad things about them. Some of those cars, I really liked, until I drove them, and some that I hated were really fun to drive. I feel that if you haven’t driven a particular car for a couple of hundred miles, then you got no right to put it down. I don’t like Fords. But Ford has made some beautiful cars and they have produced some great engines. I just don’t like the way they feel and handle. Not that they are not good cars but, to me handling and feel is what it is all about. Looks are the last thing I am concerned with. Reading every book in the world will not make you a better driver, only seat time will do that. Everything you drive will improve your skills in some way. Now isn’t that what it’s all about?

My life has allowed me to enjoy my hobby more than most. I hope that you too will be able to enjoy the hobby as much as I have. But when you put down somebody’s car, Hell, you might as well go shoot one of their kids. You have just made an enemy. If you’re at a young age, that enemy, may the guy that was getting ready to offer you that 100K a year job you were looking for. Why do young people burn all their bridges behind them today?

So you want to drive that new BMW or that new JAG, no problem. When I was young and stupid, I used to borrow Dad’s Caddie and put on my suit and go car testing. I would pull into a dealer, park the caddy in front of the store walk in, use the best English I knew . “Hello Sir, I’m going back to college this fall and father (never say dad) is going to buy me a new car before I go, because I did so well on my entrance exams to med school. I am interested in driving you new 7000 Hp XYZ. I hear they are the finest cars being built now. Would a young man like myself be able to handle one ok?” Dealer says, “ well young man, bla-bla-bla bla, sure why don’t you test drive one now?” Get the idea? Study the car, so you can ask great questions, this impresses the salesman. Don’t mention the Hp or the engine. Talk about the radio the leather seats, and brush off any mention about all that power your just dying to get under your foot. I drove over a hundred cars that way. Only once did a dealer want me to bring my dad in. It’s a great way to spend a Saturday. Some of those test drives lasted 2 to 3 hours. I use to practice English just to pull this off. Don’t try this in blue jeans, and bring your dressed up girl friend so there’s no room for the salesman in those nice roadsters.

I have a 1956 VW that is one of the most fun cars to drive that I have ever driven. It’s slow, the shifter is all loose, the steering is really wacky, but it zips, it turns quick and is just fun to drive. I can’t drive the car without laughing the whole time. It’s never had a paint job, and looks like I just drove it out of the junk yard, and boy is it ever ugly. But when I drive by people laugh and wave and shout, and that’s just fun.

For the rest of you guys, I have watched people take an old $10,000 muscle cars, and put $25,000 in mods and upgrades, and still have a $10,000 car when they try to sell it. Me, I can take a $6000 Miata put $6000 in it, and sell it all day, for $15,000 and have a car that will out perform 98% of the cars on the road, street or track. Sure go ahead and put out $20,000 to turn a 4000 lb sled into a 12 second car. But when you need parts, jump into your $12,000 dollar turbo powered Miata rocket and head for the parts store. Heck, in your Miata you can get there and back before you leave. Who is the smart guy now?

When the Ford Mustang first came out, all of us speed freaks said “ look at that little girly car.” Then Shelby came along and installed a small block V8, and we still laughed. Then came the Boss Mustang with the big -- big block. Well nobody has laughed since, and I have grown up (way up).

Most of the Miata statements, I have made above can be found in a book written by the Miata engineering team. The book is called “The Performance Miata.” Most good bookstores have it.
Everything else is my honest opinions, Go forth into the world and roll your own.

You want to learn what cars are all about? Do you want to drive a Formula 1 racer? Do you want to know what it’s like to drive a NASCAR automobile around the track at 160 mph? Well you can. There are racing schools all over the country now where you can take a class and drive that awesome car your dreaming about. Just do a Google or Dogpile search on “Racing schools”. The cost runs from $700 to $3500. It will change you mind about a lot of things. It will move you thought processes from those of the amateur to those of the professional.

At sixty-three, I still enjoy cruising on Saturday nights, and talking to the kids about cars and stuff, and checking out the rides. Here in Oklahoma, looks and stereos are more important then speed. When I was a kid, your manhood was determined by the horse power of your car, then came, the number of watts in your radio. Thank God, horse power is coming back.

I just ordered a new 320 Hp Crossfire. It will take a couple of weeks to get here. Handling was pretty good on the car, but the shocks were weak, they’ll have to go. The V8 really takes up a lot of room under the hood and the car is really heavy. When I install the blower, (absolutely no room for twin turbos) I’ll probably have to chop the hood. I can’t wait to compare it to my Miata. Guess I just have this “need for speed”

[CleanNeon98]

Everyday, I go out climb into my Miata, cut about a dozen of those little baker circles (donuts) and then head down the driveway ready to face the world. I’m a little white haired old man, but don’t ever pull up beside me and laugh, because my little Miata might burn your butt, and you’ll feel really bad because you got beat by an old man in a “girly car”.

[sherwood]

so basically some old gay dude drives a miata? why the 3 page double spaced write up...i coulda told you he was gay.

[SpEcRv9]

Originally Posted by CleanNeon98

You have what I call a sports sedan

The difference between your buddie's Integra and a sports car is that sports cars are balanced. I am willing to bet anything that he has traction issues. My car (and im not putting it on a pedestal here) is hard pressed to break the wheels loose in a corner (mind you its boosted, and I am pushing out a bit more power than stock as well). 90 degree turn, first gear, foot down, back end only comes out a LITTLE. The car never feels unstable. If your buddy hammers his car in a corner even in 3rd gear I bet he will understeer straight off the road.

okay, so...of course a turbo integra with 300hp is gonna have traction issues....he doesnt have to hit that turn at 100% throttle.....he can prob hit it at 65% and take it just as well as you without understeering, its called knowing your car....im sure I could do the same thing...

its funny as soon as you got this miata with a turbo you've become mr preach what a real car actually was....rwd (go figure) 3 pedals, steering wheel (wtf) no traction control, lsd ect....

so I have all that except for rwd? so is that the only thing keeping my car from being a sports car/sedan?....if you exclude other cars for not having every aspect of your "perfect sports car example" its being plain ignorant...

[Scapegoat]

people need to stop ragging on the miata for not being a sports car... it really is the epitome of a classic BRITISH sports car...

and alex needs to STFU and stop making pointless threads trying to defend the miata when no one else is calling him/it out.

Alex, we were all pretty happy for you when you bought the car. But just like everything else you talk about... you've turned into a pompous assbag about the subject. You still don't know jack about cars, especially since you're asking questions in your own journal about turbo systems, you don't know jack about racing... you do not have enough experience in these subjects, or most of the subjects talked about on this forum, to be spouting off like an expert... you are, simply, not one... in anything...

[Scapegoat]

Originally Posted by SpEcRv9

okay, so...of course a turbo integra with 300hp is gonna have traction issues....he doesnt have to hit that turn at 100% throttle.....he can prob hit it at 65% and take it just as well as you without understeering, its called knowing your car....im sure I could do the same thing...

its funny as soon as you got this miata with a turbo you've become mr preach what a real car actually was....rwd (go figure) 3 pedals, steering wheel (wtf) no traction control, lsd ect....

so I have all that except for rwd? so is that the only thing keeping my car from being a sports car/sedan?....if you exclude other cars for not having every aspect of your "perfect sports car example" its being plain ignorant...

your car isn't a sports car b/c it isn't RWD... plain and simple... my car isn't a sports car either for the same reason.

[sherwood]

wait? i think i finally understand...its not a race car unless it has side exit exhaust?!

[Evo8kid]

you SERIOUSLy need to stop contradicting youself. You said that you judge cars stock becuase they can be made into anything. then you put up an article about some1 who is gonna take any modification to a miata and compares it with a stock car. His miata 'destroyed' 2 vettes, a viper etc...i bet it wouldnt do that stock.

Originally Posted by CleanNeon98

The stock Miata with the RS package will do .84 on the skid pad. Just add springs, adj shocks, and sway bars, and the car will do 1.04 on the pad. I am sure that could be improved on with fine tuning. I talking about out of the box install and a new aggressive alignment and go hit 1.04. I have taken 90 degree turns at 70 mph (70 going in and 80 coming out), and I’m a scared old man. A power slide in a car this light is a wonderful thing to feel and behold.

Turbo kits are available and the cost varies from $2500 to $5000. If you’re good, and know what your doing you can improve on those costs. My intercooler and blowoff valve, are Mitsubishi. My injectors are RX7. You can save a lot of money if you roam around a junkyard for a while. Try 18 psi on a Ford, Mopar or Chevy and still get 100k (gee, where is that rod and piston catalog?).

The little car weighs between 1800 - 2200 lbs. That’s almost 1200 less then most cars out there.
The highest weight difference I have seen between the front wheels and the back wheels was 7 lbs. My car running 16/18 PSI has 340 Hp @ 1821 lbs (with me in it). Calc that Dog.

then it goes from engine work to aero kits. comparing a miata with an aero kit to a cobra. saying a cobra cant do over 150 because of resistance, but a mita with a "weapon r kit" can!

[Spocknasty]

Sports car is such a broad term. Sports car or not, my next car will probably be a Miata.

I see more chicks in Subarus than I do Miatas. I don't think the following examples look too girly...

[CleanNeon98]

Originally Posted by Evo8kid

you SERIOUSLy need to stop contradicting youself. You said that you judge cars stock becuase they can be made into anything. then you put up an article about some1 who is take any modification to a miata and compares it with a stock car. His miata 'destroyed' 2 vettes, a viper etc...i bet it wouldnt do that stock.


then it goes from engine work to aero kits. comparing a miata with an aero kit to a cobra. saying a cobra cant do over 150 because of resistance, but a mita with a "weapon r kit" can!

Uhh..he was talking about breaking cars he himself owned. The aero part I dont agree with either, I just took the article cause I thought it had a good general message.

[Scapegoat]

Originally Posted by CRXed

what rims are those... I lubs them!

[SpEcRv9]

^^those miatas are baller.

[Spocknasty]

Look to be Panasports.

[Evo8kid]

it was pointless...there was no message

[CleanNeon98]

Originally Posted by Scapegoat

what rims are those... I lubs them!

Look like rota RB, or the real thing haha

[Evo8kid]

i never though i would EVER say this but..i would really love to hear more scapegoat right about now

[Scapegoat]

Originally Posted by Evo8kid

i never though i would EVER say this but..i would really love to hear more scapegoat right about now

peanut butter jelly time peanut butter jelly!!