Hello! After being bullied into joining by my friend Paul I have decided to post here! I am curious what the best entry level coils will be for getting into autox and the occasional track day (road America) for a 93 Miata. I only spent 500 on the car and it's sort of high miles (190) I'm currently looking at FMs Vmaxx extremes but they are out of stock until further notice. Thanks!
Sam
Pick a class first. If you're getting into autocross, you're a noob. Miata Noob should start out in E street. So don't change anything. Leave it as is and buy some good tires. Drive it like that for AT LEAST a season. Then decide what class you want to go for.
I would concentrate on fixing all the other things that a $500 28-year-old car needs. Definitely shocks before springs. And probably a radiator and brake lines and other critical, high-stress parts.
I trophied for the first time in a Miata with a stock suspension and a set of eBay sourced Sensen shocks. I think I paid about $100 for the set, new.
Don't start by modifying the car. It won't be any faster until you get faster and the modifications will also put you in a class where it's much harder to be competitive unless you spend a lot of money on the car.
A stock Miata is a very capable car and will teach you a lot.
Hey I know you.
I had a chance to drive it over the weekend. He doesn't have stock suspension, it's aftermarket garbage shocks and springs that appear to be mostly sagged down to bump stops. Stock suspension would be a drastic improvement in my opinion. So in this case, "fixing broken stuff" and "new shocks/springs" are the same thing. It doesn't have stock wheels either, not sure what the size is relative to stock wheels.
I'll say though, a miata on bump stops is still better balanced than 90% of cars i've driven
Not sure if you can see the lack of fender gap from photos of fender rust, but here goes:
It's got 1 non rusty fender. Only one. That photo is not that one. Plenty of welding in the future, but i got practice patching similar rust on his last miata. This time i'm making him order patch panels so i don't have to fab them up. Turns out i'm not great at getting those body lines to line up when i have to make the thing lol
"Rough" is the key word for this car
Some of that dirt is dirt, some of it is the crappy black overspray coming off and revealing primer over white paint over more primer. The trunk lid is essentially free from paint (weight reduction? we'll call it that)
Runs beautifully, shifts beautifully. underneath doesnt look very rusty, but the fenders are swiss cheese in the usual spots
In reply to Rufledt :
I agree with this. My '97 came on maxpeedingrod coilovers. It was so low in front the tires couldn't turn lock to lock. I went to stock suspension with new shocks and never looked back.
I've owned both FM spec VMaxx coilovers and the FM Koni kit with their springs. I think both are great and I wouldn't hesitate putting them on a track focused Miata again. Not sure about autocross as that tends to be more of an afterthought for me.
One other option to consider that might be more autocross classing friendly is to source a set of used stock NA shocks & springs and replace the shocks with something like this Koni STR.T kit from FM. Pretty much all stock struts will have worn out shocks at this point so you'll have to replace those anyway. I'd also recommend putting on new top mounts at the same time as those are likely dead as well.
I covered a miata a lot like this in my daily beater build thread if you want some cheap & quick bodywork tips:
It works as long as you're not looking for perfection :)
I'm with BoxheadTim - I've driven most of FM's catalog and you can't really go wrong. I was totally happy with the Vmaxx I had for a few years on a 91, and I took them on track. It would be tough to choose between those and the Konis, as that was a great streetable setup that was pretty good on track/autocross.
But yeah, +1 to figuring out the class goals first, if you have them.
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