The Mazda Miata is one of the most sought after cars in the car community, mainly for its versatility as a build platform. We’re going over a few different variations of Miata builds from the car community so you can answer for yourself: Which Miata build is right for me?
The Mazda Miata
The Mazda MX-5, otherwise known as the Miata, started its life in 1990. Though it only produced 116 horsepower, it also only weighed 2,116 pounds, making it a light, fun little sports car. It also had a 50/50 weight distribution making it perfectly balanced and a great handling car. The MX-5 rose to popularity within the car scene not only because it had exceptional handling and was lightweight, but because they were cheap. They also became sought after because of the manual transmission that was standard in Miatas. Around 2019-2020 they were exceptionally cheap but soon appreciated in value and now sell for upwards of $10,000 sometimes. People have done some pretty cool builds with Miatas. Let’s go over a few of them starting with probably one of the more simpler ones, a stance miata.
Stance Miata
Stance culture has become extremely popular within the car scene, with people lowering their cars and cambering the wheels as much as they can, giving it a stanced look. Now it varies among owners. Some owners may stance their car to the extreme, and some may keep it more reserved. Miata owners were no exception to this group.
YouTuber Evan Shanks built a stanced Miata for his sister. You can watch his recap video here. He covers months of work in the video, starting from buying the car all the way to the finished product. He applied a body kit, converted it to a hardtop, lowered it and got new wheels and tires for it.
Another stance build was built by Morocco. His car is featured on Stance Nation. You can read about his build here. It sports Megan EZ Street Coilovers, Work Meister S1 wheels, an R-Speed Rear Lip, and much, much more. You can check out the video on Morocco’s Miata and learn all about it, here.
A good website to find anything for your Miata build is Flyin’ Miata. They have parts for all the generations of the MX-5 from the NA to the ND generations.
Offroad Miata
Now an offroad build with a MX-5 is probably the most unconventional and unnatural build for this car. Though it’s been done multitudes of times. One example of this is Gingium’s supercharged Miata. Watch the video on it here. It’s a rather simple build with him basically getting a new coilover kit and bigger tires to start. He later removes the front and rear bumper to add a more aggressive and useful push bar. It also gives more clearance. He added updated LED headlights and a new paint job. He then added fender flares for a more aggressive look. To top it all off (literally), he added a roof rack and light bar as the finishing touches.
That was four years ago. He has since swapped the engine and converted it to all wheel drive. He swapped in a Subaru STI motor for more horsepower (400 to be exact), and an all wheel drive system from a Subaru WRX. The new AWD system was installed to not only handle the power but to also handle the trails that he would take it on.
He welded a custom roll cage to the frame and also extended the front end using steel tubing. This was done so it could fit the bigger Subaru motor and give more travel and clearance for a new suspension. Watch the build video now!
Track/Autocross Miata
Now the most conventional and normal builds for a Miata would have to be a track or autocross build. They already have 50/50 weight distribution and handle exceptionally well. For an autocross build to be specific, you wouldn’t have to add a lot, if any horsepower since autocross courses tend to be shorter with more technical turns. An excellent example of an autocross Miata is from Grassroots Motorsports. Check out their video on their autocross NB MX-5 here.
A more track focused MX-5 would have to be Donut Media’s Money Pit Miata. Donut Media has a whole video series where they take a stock Miata and convert it into a track performer while being somewhat budget conscious. They have two seasons of their Money Pit series featuring their Miata. They start off by doing things like adding new coilovers, wheels and tires, a roll cage, and newer, sportier racing seats. They also do their own alignments and corrections on their own, making it more budget conscious.
You can check out their video series here. They later, in the second season of Money Pit, decide to turbo the car and put even more money into the car. If you want to watch the video where they take the Miata with the turbo to the track, click here.
Turboing a Miata isn’t the worst idea. It doesn’t produce a lot of horsepower, so turboing it isn’t a bad idea. A track/autocross build on a Miata is probably what most people go for, but it’s all up to what you want to do, and personal preference.
Which Miata Is Right For You?
So now after reading, you may be wondering what kind of build you could do. Honestly, it’s all up to personal preference. Though I would probably build a track focused or an off road Miata. There’s multitudes of things you can do with a Miata, and frankly just multitudes of things you can do with a car. Just get out there and start wrenching. That’s what we’re all about. Just go and do it. Start working on your car. Do it with friends, go wrench on something and have fun!
We’re currently working on a Miata shirt right now, but in the meantime, go check out any of our other shirts here!