Miata Wintercrosser Part Deux: The M-Edition

Some of you may remember this little build thread that I put together about two years ago when I set up a 2000 Miata for Lime Rock's Winter Autocross program: Miata Wintercrosser

I had a lot of fun with that car but I ended up selling it at the end of the season. I thought about setting up a BMW Z3 for the following winter, but I accidentally bought a car that was way too nice for that kind of thing. That turned out to be kind of a moot point, as we had a very mild winter with barely a trace of snow. Bad for wintercross, but nice for just about everything else. I don't think that we will get off so light two years in a row.

I liked the BMW, but never loved it and so I passed it on to someone else a few months ago.

I was getting the itch to play in the snow again, but I wasn't actively searching for a car. Actually, with kids and a new puppy, it was kind of refreshing not having any projects around. But then one of the guys that I work with asked me if I knew of anyone who might be looking for a Miata. Of course I did, but I decided not to tell anybody right away. And then, after thinking about it for a few hours, I decided that I probably wanted one for myself.

I've known this car for about six or eight years. He's the second owner and he bought it from his wife's aunt and uncle. He drives it to work quite a bit and has a stack of receipts from new. It's far from perfect, but since it has fairly low mileage and it would be a really easy transaction, I knew that I would regret it if I let the car get away from me. We discussed a few numbers and settled on a price that we both felt was fair.

So here it is... a 1995 Miata M-Edition with 83,000 miles.

Please forgive the poor quality photos. I looked at the car at shift change, we made a deal and then he drove the car home. I'll pick it up in a day or two. It's a running, driving and registered car. I was standing right next to it as it was started after sitting for 24 hours and there was absolutely no lifter noise. It's pretty filthy under the hood, but a good cleanup and some new gaskets should take care of that. The interior is dirty but it's in pretty good shape and should clean up too. He had the top replaced a couple of years ago and there's no sign of rust. Since it's an M-Edition, it came with a Torsen and 15 inch BBS wheels. The center caps are missing.

My only real hesitation, and the reason that the car was affordable is because about five years ago, he slid sideways on black ice and hit a stop sign. It made a mess of the passenger's side door and rocker panel. At the time, I helped him find a color matched door from another 95 M. He decided to leave the rocker panel as it was. The door closes fine and the car still drives nice and straight. I may make an attempt to pull the dent, but I don't ever expect it to be perfect. Honestly, I'm not too concerned about it.

The rest of the car looks pretty good for its age.

So my plan is to just go all through the car, change the fluids, rebuild the shifter, probably change the timing belt, maybe do the brakes and shocks and add some (preferably 14 inch) snow tires and take it to Lime Rock to play in the snow again.

In reply to Woody:

If you need 14" wheels I have a set of aluminum Escort wheels taking up space in my basement.

In reply to Wall-e:

That's an interesting idea. Do you have a photo of them?

I have a set of daisys taking up space too I'd let go cheap. Need to ship from MI though.

In reply to Woody:

I can take one when I get home.

For the filthy engine bay, I'd be interested in seeing some details on how you attack it and the results.

Looks like a good candidate for what you want to use it for.

klb67 wrote: For the filthy engine bay, I'd be interested in seeing some details on how you attack it and the results. Looks like a good candidate for what you want to use it for.

I will run the engine until it's hot, soak it down with Gunk Foamy Engine Brite, hook up a hot water hose to my pressure washer and blast the grime away.

Woody wrote:

klb67 wrote: For the filthy engine bay, I'd be interested in seeing some details on how you attack it and the results. Looks like a good candidate for what you want to use it for.

I will run the engine until it's hot, soak it down with Gunk Foamy Engine Brite, hook up a hot water hose to my pressure washer and blast the grime away.

Do you cover anything up in the engine bay? The electronics? Or do you just have at it?

Nope. I just blast away. Carefully.

The 95M... My favorite Miata, I will own one, someday. Merlot Mica... Drool.

What snow tires do you plan on? Ice racing, I'd want studded tires. Lime Rock, no stud allowed. I really need to get to an AMEC event and run exhibition (I have studded altimaxs... Not their spec Nokians).

In reply to crxmike: I had planned on running non-studded Altimaxes. I forgot about the Spec Nokian deal. Is that the only option for AMEC? It's so hard to pass up the Altimaxes when I know how good they are. The fact that Tire Rack doesn't sell Nokians is a real bummer.

User iceracer is more informed on AMEC than I am. I think studded, you have to run Nokians. Unstudded is now open to any tires.

And yes, I love the altimaxs. Great tire for the price.

Woody wrote: In reply to crxmike: I had planned on running non-studded Altimaxes. I forgot about the Spec Nokian deal. Is that the only option for AMEC? It's so hard to pass up the Altimaxes when I know good they are and that I can get four of them mounted and balanced on brand new steelies from Tire Rack in Windsor Locks for $425 out the door. The fact that Tire Rack doesn't sell Nokians is a real bummer.

Hard to pass that deal up!

I pick mine up on Friday

Looks like a perfect car. Any rallycross plans?

I have a set of those m-edition sill plates in the basement if you decide to take a crack at prettying up that dent.

In reply to cmcgregor:

I may be interested in those. I'm going to try to weld nails to the rocker and pull the dent with a slide hammer.

You should have mail.

I still haven't brought the car home yet, but I arranged to have it dropped off at the firehouse. I went down there today and took advantage of the nice weather and the big parking lot to get some dirty work done.

Buying this thing was a spur of the moment decision. I wasn't even shopping for one. I've known the car for years, but today was the first time that I really took a close look at it.

I started off with an oil change and a new (tiny) Mazda filter and some Mobil 1 5W-30. I bought some new oil plug washers at the Mazda dealership but I was surprised to find that they were too big, so I had to reuse the old one. I was pleased to find that the old filter was dated just a few months ago and there was a bottle of Cam 2 synthetic oil in the trunk.

The car needs a valve cover gasket kit and probably a cam sensor gasket as well. It was really filthy under the hood, so after the oil change, I warmed up the engine, soaked it down with Foamy Engine Brite, hooked up a hot water line to my pressure washer and started blasting away.

Lots of junk under the hood too...

The engine is running in these next photos and you can see the water from the power washer steaming off. The valve cover didn't come out as nicely as I had hoped, but I'll scrub it down when I take it off to replace the gaskets. It's probably good enough that I don't need to paint it.

I usually put NGK wires on Miatas but these wires are fairly new and I'll probably just leave them on there.

Since I had the power washer out, I sprayed the BBS wheels down with Simple Green, blasted them with hot water and then washed the rest of the car. It's still wet in these pictures, but I didn't have a chamois and it was starting to get get dark.

It's got the dented rocker, but it only has 83k miles and no rust. Not bad for less than Challenge money...

Inside the trunk, I found the top boot, the BBS center cap wrench (even though the caps are missing), a car cover and a fairly new battery, though I don't think that it's an AGM. He told me that the battery dies if he leaves it parked for a week or more. It has a Viper 300 alarm system that probably drains it. Figuring out how to remove that alarm is going to be one of my top priorities when I get the car home tomorrow. I may replace the battery with a Marathon AGM.

This whole area is going to need some cleanup. I also need to find a battery tie down.

The original power antenna either died or broke and he hacked in a cheap replacement from Pep Boys. That's gotta go. Once I figure out what I need for brackets and hardware, I'd like to replace it with an original Mazda fixed mast antenna. Actually, scratch that. That probably won't work with my newly found car cover. Maybe I'll look for a used original power antenna.

The interior is dirty, but not awful. I'll probably tear it apart later in the week and scrub everything down. I bought a Leatherique steering wheel restoration kit a few years ago to refinish a Fittipaldi wheel. I probably have enough stuff left to do another wheel.

Thanks for sharing, Woody. I always enjoy your build threads.

In reply to wheelsmithy:

Thanks!

No photos, but after I cleaned up the engine compartment and before I washed the wheels and the outside, I removed the lower front fender bolts and cleaned out all the leaves and dirt from behind the fenders. There was a lot of junk in there, but at least it was all dry.

I also ran a long bottle brush through the drains behind the seats. There was some moist dirt around the top of them but fortunately both drains were clear.

I finally brought the car home this morning, I drove it about 40 miles in the rain. There doesn't seem to be a lot that this car needs other than a good interior cleaning, a new antenna, a refresh of the shifter turret and a set of shocks. There's an annoying rattle in the interior that I have to find and I need to remove the alarm system. That's about all.

It's a good car.