There are (at least) two ways to join this community if you come from other instances:

1. Go to the search of your instance (there's an icon on the top-right), search for 'miata' (you might want to limit your search to communities) and from there click on the "MX-5 Miata" link.

2. Manually copy-paste the community name to your address bar. You need to add c/[email protected] to the address of your instance. E.g. if you are on lemmy.ml: https://lemmy.ml/c/[email protected]

Ladies and gentlemen, we did it. Fully paid for, 1999 NB with under 50k miles, LSD, leather, all the niceties, new wheels, recently replaced radiator and master/slave clutch cylinders, new wheels, and a top that was replaced sometime in the last few years. 5MT. Bought a Flyin' Miata shifter rebuild kit and a few bottles of unicorn tears to get everything shifting silky. I haven't had a stick shift car in almost a year, and this is my last little reward for myself as I transition to spend the the greatest part of my time, money and energy going forward on being a dad and husband. I am so grateful for everything today. A wife who signed off on this, a car in such great shape for its age, a friend willing to sell it below market value…I am the luckiest guy on earth.

Long saga. I won't bore you with every detail. But I've been driving appliances for the last 6 months after giving up my truck and performance 6MT hatch in order to rearrange our household vehicle situation into something not only mutually usable between my wife and myself, but in which we can safely transport a baby. I've recently gotten a terrific tax refund and been selling shit on Facebook so that, with the wife's approval, I can get a used, old, cheap Miata.

I went through some abortive Facebook Marketplace sales before a friend and NB owner said that he'd been considering an upgrade, and if he decided to pull the trigger, he'd sell me his car for a price I could afford. Can you imagine the luck? This isn't a lifelong buddy, but a guy I met like 6 months ago. Not only am I lucky to have made his acquaintance (he's an awesome person, not just my Miata connection), but I'm lucky the Miata he intends to sell me has low miles, no rust, and the leather and PEP packages (read: Torsen LSD and Bose).

The issue, as it were, is that he ordered a spec the dealership didn't have, and he doesn't know when he'll actually take delivery. He spoke with them today and even they couldn't give him a ballpark idea.

So here's me, finally able to buy a Miata, finally ready to rejoin the performance car world and regain a stick shift, right at the start of the convertible season, with both the money and the wife's blessing…but absolutely no idea if I'm gonna be waiting days, weeks, or months.

Please keep me in your thoughts and prayers in this difficult time.

NA have the best sun visors of any car, convince me I'm wrong.

Chronicles of Miata Ownership #4:

For safety and for meeting the requirements of some events I needed to add a rollbar. I went with a Hard Dog rollbar from Berthania Garage. Shipping and import into Canada was costly but I like the design and the well documented instructions of this model.

Comes in a nice big box:

Gotta strip out the interior to get access to the tunnels to the sides of the fuel tank:

Then I had to cut some clearance from the rear deck for the bar's rear struts. I only had some aviation snips and a file but it all gets hidden anyway so I try not to dwell on it:

With the space created the rollbar can be set in the car. I recommend having help for this part as wrangling it on my own was a pain:

The next step is drilling through the underbody of the car through the rollbar mounting plate holes. Then backing plates are installed and bolts sandwich the whole thing together. Unfortunately I didn't take pictures of this part ;-(

But I did take a closeup of the trim pieces I cut and and fit around the bar to create a clean interior:

While I had the interior out of the car and before the bar went in I sent away my old seatbelts to be rewebbed. I opted for red which I think turned out great:

With all that done I had to get it out to some more autocross!

Chronicles of Miata Ownership #3:

I've been wanting a better wheel fitment. The stock Miata wheels sit quite tucked into the wheel wells.

Cheapest way to do that at this stage is with some wheel spacers. In classic fashion didn't take any good shots of this but this is after installing 25mm wheel spacers:

It's pretty subtle in these shots but in person I think it gives it a much more aggressive stance; and we'll see, it might help with roll center.

Anyway after that I took it to an autocross at the big track:

Chronicles of Miata Ownership #2:

Time to do some maintenance!

Didn't take many great pictures during the process but I change all of the drive line fluids: Engine Oil (Rotella T6) Trans (Motorcraft Unicorn Tears) Diff (Redline Gear Oil)

Also changed the Air filter, and Fuel Filter.

With that out of the way I hit the track again and ended up with some great shots:

I had a Miata for about a month back in 1996 and have ached for one ever since. My buddy got tired of hearing me say I was going to get one (he’s been hearing it for about the last 10 years) and suggested yesterday that we go down and just check them out… I came home with a 2025 GT and haven’t stopped smiling!

Chronicles of Miata Ownership:

I picked up this Miata with aims of creating a good autocross car. It's my first "project car" and my first time working on cars. I changed all of its fluids, and checked everything. Then "personalized" it slightly by modifying the front license plate mount to sit off center. I did that by bending one of it's arms and screwing it to one of the baby teeth.

Holds better than you'd think. Then it took it to autocross! What a blast, this thing is smiles every time I chuck it into a corner.

Konig Countergrams in 15x7.5 et35, 205/50 tire.

Flyin Miata V-Maxx sport kit.

Might bring the front down a tiny bit.

Went on the Blue Ridge Parkway this week, and had a blast! The Parkway feels amazing with the top down, and all of the curves make for some interesting driving.

It was a nice day.

I'm very excited.

97, 5-speed, Torsen, 96k miles.

Something insightful.