Mazda may have created the perfect Miata with the 2016 edition, or it may come in a future Mazdaspeed version of same. But for those of us with modest means and a taste for more analog cars, the second generation Miata seems to me to be a good place to start. With that in mind I purchased a low mileage 2002 LS in Delaware a few weeks ago and picked it up last week. Now comes the fun part...taking this pretty good car and making it perfect.

Of course perfection, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. My idea of the perfect Miata is somewhat soft but still sporty. I got my fix on hard-core (modern) sports car ownership with the AP1 S. And the NSX fed my need for speed. Now I am leaning more toward a nice roadster that is fun and forgiving, and that does not punish me for driving it over our less than perfect streets or bore me too much on our straight and level roadways, yet one that will let me wag the tail on rare occasions when I visit more twisty roads.

To make the car perfect, it must first and foremost be clean and shiny and straight. The one I bought was fairly clean, pretty shiny and laser straight. But there are needs and I plan to address these as follows:

1. Clean-up.
2. Paint correction.
3. Interior reconditioning
4. Clutch replacement (more on that in a later post)
5. Handling upgrades, maybe...I have become very much sold on the superiority of maintaining a car as the engineers who designed it intended. But there are tweaks that might appeal.
6. Power upgrades...but see #5.

With that in mind I plan to do sort of a build diary in this thread. But I also hope to get feedback with ideas and possible solutions to problems I might run into along the way.

So, on to step 1.

 

I agree with your approach. Modestly beefing up the engine without over stressing a sports car's already great handling makes good sense to me. And, it's work for me in the past.

 

Will we be able to see it in Bethany beach???

 

Clean-up

After a long rainy drive home from Delaware, job one was a simple wash and vacuum. That happened within an hour of rolling into the driveway. I only used a single bucket, as paint correction is on the horizon. Sorry, Ray.

This afternoon I got a start on cleaning the engine bay. I would like to say "detailing" rather than "cleaning", but the engine bay includes a good bit of light corrosion and pitting on brackets, washers, a few bolt heads and nuts, and worst of all, the valve cover. This is especially a problem on parts that are zinc coated or anodized, as I can't really solve the problem without ruining the finish. I am trying to locate replacement OEM fasteners and brackets but unlike Honda which sells every nut and bolt through their parts departments who, in turn, provide great web sites to locate and order those bits on line, Mazda only seems to offer major chunks of the older Miatas. Go to an online parts ordering page and nuts, bolts, and brackets are not order-able.

Fortunately, the engine bay has been kept reasonably clean by the previous owner, so there is no massive buildup of grime. And with only 26,000 miles on the car, most parts are still in nice condition.

Using a combination of Griot's waterless car wash, 409, Dawn, toothbrushes, queue tips, and many, many microfiber rags, I dove in. Today I managed to complete most of the bay on the driver's side of the engine. This involved removing the strut brace, intake system up to but not including the throttle body, cruise control control module, power steering reservoir and a few brackets. This provided pretty good access to the interior engine bay panels on the driver's side so those are now spic and span, as are the removed and reinstalled bits. Since I am cleaning and not detailing, I didn't pull the brake booster or the clutch master cylinder. So there is a bit of dust and dirt around and under these. Just did the best I could with toothbrush and cloth.

Biggest issue ahead? Valve cover. Surface corrosion is easily dealt with but pitting makes thorough cleaning tough with the products I have tested so far. Any thoughts? I would really LOVE to NOT pull the valve cover and have it media blasted but that may be in the cards before this is over.

 

Much as I would love to have the car at Spring Fling, I don't think another three day drive is in my immediate future, Emile. L' esprit est bien disposé , mais le dos est faible.

I will have the company of a wonderful group of car nuts to console me, though. And maybe I can at least rent something interesting.

 

cough... cough...
excuse me my good sir, a clean car is important I grant you but have you attended to the more fundamental exercises of exchanging out all of the fluids.
a brake flush ( clutch too) as well as antifreeze changeover would be prudent.
and well done before you engage in all of that cleaning fiddle faddle.
You might not be able to see any of it but your car will like you better for having done so.

and I heartily agree with your premise that the engineers knew what they were doing in the first place.

 

The fluids were recently refreshed. Coolant looks new and brake fluid (and the brake fluid in the clutch) is still in very nice condition. I do plan to change the transmission gear oil and attend to the diff.

I do plan to attend to all routine maintenance items. Just didn't mention them because this seems to go without saying.

I am doing the fiddle faddle now because the shop I trust is closed until Monday. And I really need to look everything over and make some decisions like plugs, TB/WP, etc. At least the Miata engine is non-interference, I believe (but will be checking just to be sure.)

 

I am curious about the mechanics of acquiring a vehicle 1200 miles from home.
how did you find the vehicle, ebay? bringa trailer? other?

once you had discovered it, how did you validate the sanity of buying it?
how did you register it?

 

If the coating is silver in color, you can remove the hardware or bracket, buff off the corrosion with a wire wheel or 3-M pad, and recoat it using this:

http://www.eastwood.com/eastwood-s-t...ng-system.html

This inexpensive kit works pretty well. Preparation is key. After buffing, I used some heavy duty degreasers to make sure the hardware was really clean, followed by a spray of Paint-Prep to get off any de-greaser that remained. You have to buff the part when it comes out to get rid of the whitish look. If you have a bench grinder, buy a buffer wheel for it. It will do the job much faster than trying to get off the residue with your fingers and polish on a towel. Truth be told, I was able to clean mine up with a soft wire wheel. Then add the polish for a real nice shine. I got to the point that I was plating just the bolt heads if I was concerned about adding zinc to the threads.

If the hardware is gold cadmium plated, and you want to keep the original appearance, you need a different kit. This one from Caswell and seems to be popular. I can't attest to how well it works as I never used it. But if I was restoring a newer vehicle that uses the gold cad plating, I would not hesitate to try it.

http://www.caswellplating.com/electr...ting-kits.html


I did a lot of plating when I was reassembling my Austin Healey. My so-called restorer managed to lose a good bit of the hardware I needed to complete my car. I had a good supply of old English hardware in my nuts and bolts collection, but I still had to source some of it elsewhere. Bottom line is, it can be done at home by the hobbyist and it holds up pretty well.

 

I found the car on Autotrader.com. I couldn't find what I wanted in the Southeast after a two month search. Since a trip to DE was already planned, I changed my search to 100 miles from my sister's zip code.

Bought the car sight-unseen from a used car dealership in St. Georges. However, the dealership had been an Olds/Chevy dealer until GM folded the tent on Olds and until the feds folded the tent on many small GM dealerships after taking over control post-bankruptcy. I have found that small-town dealerships tend to be a bit more upright than big-city places since word of any bad business behavior spreads so quickly and completely. I also spoke with the sales manager on multiple calls and got a LOT of pictures and, of course, a clean Carfax. Carfax won't show everything but what it does show is pretty reliable and it is good for mileage verification and ownership history since it includes vehicle registration data.

By the way, I would NOT recommend buying cars sight-unseen, although I bought the NSX the same way from a private individual. But that person had enough history on nsxprime.com to trust, and in that case I did test drive the car before handing over the check.

In the case of the Miata, I am waiting for the title. The manager runs all the dealership's transactions through a Smyrna/Dover Chevrolet dealership with which he is also affiliated. That way he can sell new GM cars in his local area. I think the owner (who is very much a vintage person) owns the dealership in Smyrna as well since the name is the same. Meanwhile the manager pretty much runs the store in St. Georges. had the title in hand but it was the copy where the seller (who traded in the Miata along with an older pickup for a new pickup) transferred title to the Chevy dealership and there was no more room to document another transfer. So the new title document will come from the Delaware DMV. I will have to pay Mississippi sales tax when I register the car and get a tag here. Meanwhile I have a temporary Delaware tag that is good for another week.

I know there are plenty of warning bells in this transaction but the fact is I have the car and I have seen the title to that VIN showing it to be the property of a reputable GM dealership. So I am not too concerned. And the condition of the Miata is everything the manager represented.