Off-Road Miata Build

Three years ago, when my son was 14, I bought him a '91 Miata for $850 to learn how to work on cars and drive a manual.

We basically built it from a shell into a running/driving car. Then I found a much nicer '90 Miata with a 1.8L swap for $1300, and '91 collected dust once the '90 was on the road. I was getting it ready to sell, when I noticed a rear shock was broken. I ordered $50/pair shipped shocks of Ebay and put them in... and it jacked up the back end about 2 inches making it harder to sell.. and that got my wheels turning - why not make a rallycross replica Miata?

For Christmas, I got my son a $200 3" Paco Moto lift kit and I finally got around to installing it this week:


Sunday night I ordered some 195/75R14 All Terrain tires from Amazon for it and they showed up today. $68/Tire shipped with no sales tax. Can't beat that. I'll get them mounted and balanced tomorrow.

With luck I'll have it back on the road by the weekend. I have to hook up the steering and eyeball an alignment and then I'll Drive it to the pate swap meet.

dotheshuffle said:

AWD in the future?

Click to expand...

We aren't going to take it that far. It has a limited slip, 4.30:1 gears and 50/50 weight distribution so in theory it should do better off road than a 2wd pickup. The theme of the car is "Snow Drifter/Dirt Roadster". A bull bar with a removable winch will be the 4WD substitute. I'll probably do Skid plates on the oilpan other soft spots under the car.

We crossed Engineer Pass in Colorado a few years ago in our unmodified Yukon XL 2500 and the Jeepers though we were crazy. When we are finished with this build, crossing Engineer Pass with it may be a goal. I think it could be possible with a buddy with a winch to pull out of the deep holes, since it doesn't have a low range.

The Paco kit is definitely not for a kid who takes a car to a shop for a coilover install.

I know exactly of the clunks the kids was experiencing and remedied it before I drove the car - if you just bolt the Paco kit on, the shocks will hit the upper arms before full travel is reached and clunk on every pothole. To work, the upper arms need 1/2" of clearancing (or they will have 1/2" of interference). Longer, stock location shocks won't have this issue, so they fixed a problem he could have.

If I had to guess, it was this interference limiting front travel and keeping his nose low. His nose looks lower than mine and his tires were larger.

The torn-up axle boots are from the shock bolt hitting them at full travel - again fixable if you don't pay people to install things for you (because you'd go broke paying them to fix little things like this). I bought an extra pair of upper control arms and plan to cut/weld two together to make longer arms that will totally fix this issue and get all of the negative camber out of the rear... for $50 total investment.

Got the tires mounted on the daisies, put the new steering shaft in (G-bodies are 10 times easier), Eyeballed a front end alignment, robbed the battery out of the other miata and rolled it out. The lights didn't work so I couldn't take it out of the neighborhood, but It actually drives better than my ZR2 Blazer I put 750 miles on Easter weekend. Less squeaks and less clunks and a miata without swaybars handles better than a ZR2 with sway bars.

I Slalomed it pretty hard down the road and it felt like a pretty normal car. There was no indication it was trying to kill me and seems like it will be fun to drive. I don't anticipate any issues @ 70 mph and it will laugh at speed bumps, now..



I had to take off the aftermarket Airdam in the picture, because I could see it was going to rub a little when turning. With it off, there is zero tire rub with the 195/75R14 All Terrains. They looked to be the largest size without body mods. 205's looked like a little trimming would be necessary. Manual steering was surprisingly light.

Now to get it back driving again and fix all of the little issues.

Oh, Under the car it now has 11" of ground clearance all the way.at the frame rails (same as my Yukon XL, but the transmission Crossmember on my Yukon XL 4X4 drops to 9.5", and the muffler to 10.5 so the miata has more.

njRegal86 said:

Very cool. Think an SM465 granny will swap in? Get your low range that way.

Click to expand...

If I keep the car, I'll think about a 6 speed swap. They have a 3.73 first gear instead of the 5 speed's 3.16. The going rate on these is $450. If I have to replace the clutch at some point, I'm springing for a 6 speed.

I also found out that '96/'97 Miata springs are beefier and taller than my '91 springs, so I'm going to try to score a pair of these from the junkyard this weekend. The prediction is another inch in front. Currently its about 2" lower than back, but still has lots of downward travel, so more spring should help

Had it up to 70 mph on the highway. It was pretty smooth and effortless, but the steering is very quick so you feel like if you wanted to flip it, you could. I'm going to play with the Caster to increase the steering effort.