Not a Miata without Body Roll!

"Wrong Wheel Drive (41%)" (rduncan5678)
06/28/2016 at 20:19 • Filed to: None

Someone from the autox I was at on Sunday uploaded some great pictures of all the cars at the event. So now I have a wonderful picture of my car with some cones! The body roll is infinitely less than it was at stock though. It definitely still feels fun as hell either way.

There were also some other fun cars on there. Like this guy in the Noble:

DISCUSSION (9)

Probenja > Wrong Wheel Drive (41%)
06/28/2016 at 20:23

What is body roll?

Kinja'd!!!

Wrong Wheel Drive (41%) > Probenja
06/28/2016 at 20:34

I can hear the scraping in this picture.

Dream Theater of the Absurd > Wrong Wheel Drive (41%)
06/28/2016 at 20:53

Miatas are fun stock, even with the body roll.

What I found with mine was it was much more fun on an autocross course when I put stiffer springs and adjustable lower perches on it, but somewhat less fun on some of my favorite backroads (some of which are rather bumpy due to spotty maintenance).

Wrong Wheel Drive (41%) > Dream Theater of the Absurd
06/28/2016 at 21:07

Yeah, that is one of the reasons why went with the Vmaxx classics. It is just stiff enough to make things interesting without negatively impacting any of the stock characteristics for fun. Same reason for the flyin miata front bar instead of the racing beat. Sure I could get more performance with the more advanced parts but I didnt want to lose too much of the stock feel. Just a mild upgrade.

Dream Theater of the Absurd > Wrong Wheel Drive (41%)
06/28/2016 at 21:44

As I recall, those weren’t even around when I did my car. Mine has Ground Control perches with Eibach ERS springs over Koni Sport shocks. Originally they went on regular full-length Sports, but a few years later I went to the “race” spec Sports, which have a shorter body.

I haven’t autocrossed in years, and on top of that I may be looking for another Miata very soon since mine got rear-ended a few days ago. The initial repair estimate is a large enough chunk of money that I’d be better off just getting another car, and anyone who browses Craigslist regularly already knows that a decent, running Miata can be had for $5000 or less.

Even if she’s replaced by another Miata, I’ll be sad to see mine go. She’s served me very well for the last seventeen years, which is longer than I owned all my previous cars combined.

Wrong Wheel Drive (41%) > Dream Theater of the Absurd
06/28/2016 at 22:06

What a bummer, getting rear ended is the worst. Hopefully it was at least a rust bucket. Always worse to see a clean one go. It is difficult to find a clean one on the East coast that is for sure. But yeah being able to spend very little for the car leaves quite a lot of room for tires and other fun stuff.

Dream Theater of the Absurd > Wrong Wheel Drive (41%)
06/28/2016 at 23:20

My car wasn’t a rust bucket (I’m in California), but by the time this happened she was pretty banged up. But she managed to rack up a lot of miles - she had about 96K when I bought her in 1999 and currently is close to 327K. Amazingly enough, the guy who hit me managed to miss the rear bumper and the rear quarter panels, so maybe she’ll have a future life as a race car of some sort.

And by the way, during the time I’ve had her, the engine and transmission have never been taken apart other than what it took to do a timing belt service or change the clutch. As far as I know both are what she left the factory with.

Wrong Wheel Drive (41%) > Dream Theater of the Absurd
06/29/2016 at 07:45

That is awesome. Miatas are great at being reliable! Especially when people take care of the car. And yes, if the rear quarters are in tact it certainly isn’t gone! I am sure it is still in better condition than the rust mobiles around here. I consider my car pretty light on rust but I still have holey rockers and spotty rust all over the bottom.

CaptDale - is secretly British > Wrong Wheel Drive (41%)
06/30/2016 at 14:39

OMG!! a Noble?! That’s freaking awesome!! I require one of those in my life.