There's a wealth of things you can do to a Miata to make it yours. I don't mean yours as in Riced Out, but Yours as in not Stock. I considered a lot of different things to make my new-to-me 91 Miata something that was definitely mine. The first thing I did was get an official Virginia Tech license plate and frame. You can actually get a VT plate in North Carolina. It's kinda weird seeing all the writing in Carolina Blue, with the Maroon VT logo on the left side of the plate, but I am a Hokie for sure, so I had to have one.
But that was just a license plate. I needed more than that. I considered quite a bit: Steering wheel, rims, turn signal snorkels to add cooling, a cold air intake, strut brace, and so on as I perused the myriad Miata shops on the net. Then fate dictated it for me. I still needed an inspection. I got said inspection, and learned that before I could pass, I needed exhaust and tires. Well, I kinda expected that, so that became my first upgrade to this new little go-kart.
First, I needed tires. Desperately. There was still tread left on the ones that came with the car, but the fronts were worn down on the insides and the rears were dangerously low on tread, plus three of them were showing dry-rot cracks. So back home I went to get some tires. I didn't have to head back to Roanoke to get them, however My dad said he would get me a set for my birthday. I ended up with Yokohama Avid tires on my stock rims.
The difference was immediate. The ride was so much smoother, quieter, and responsive. No slipping on wet road, no worry about hard cornering, which is what the Miata is built for. So tires, a balance and an alignment and the ride and handling was vastly improved. Step one was complete, but I still needed more.
I shopped for weeks on-line, looking at various sites on the Web, reading forum posts at Miata.net, and searching Google for reviews of various after-market cat-back exhaust. Oh, and for those who aren't very car-savvy, a Cat-Back exhaust is the exhaust section that runs from the end of the Catalytic converter to the tail-pipe. In this case, it's a tube and a muffler with a tip on the end.
I finally settled on a beautiful stainless steel Borla single tip exhaust. I went with the Borla because the reviews were overwhelmingly positive, Borla has a good name, and their products come with a million mile warranty. Oh, and by buying it via borladirect.com I actually saved a couple bills on the price as well.
The exhaust arrived after some issues with getting FedEx to deliver it to my house, and off I went to the ramps to put it on. That is when disaster struck. The bolts that held the existing exhaust on the cat were rusted so badly that I ended up shearing one of them in half trying to get it out. Defeated I packed everything into the car and took it to my favorite mechanic shop, a place that has saved me time and time again. They drilled out the existing bolts and mounted everything for me and the total labor was only 70 bucks. Not bad. I could have tried that myself, but they have lifts and I don't. They also have air tools and I do not. I really need to get a compressor and a set of tools.
So now with my shiny new exhaust and my pretty new NC inspection sticker, I was finally legal. Off I went in Miata heaven taking on the back roads with gusto. I have to admit, the Internet was correct about the Borla exhaust. It was a bit louder, but it has a nice deep tone at low RPM and once you get above 4000 RPM it changes tune and sounds like a Lotus, or a Ferrari. I was grinning from ear to hear from 4000 all the way to 6500 or so listening to the new sound of thunder.
The only complaint I may have is that with the top up, it tends to drone starting at 3000. That's where the really low note starts building, getting louder through 3200 RPM and peaking at 3500. From there, it starts to quiet down and magically transforms into the proper sports car growl at 4000+. So yes, it drones with the top up, especially on the highway because the car cruises at 65 MPH just a shade under 3000 RPM. At 75 its in the 3400-3500 range so it is pretty loud. But I own a roadster. If it ain't raining, the top ain't up.
All in all, I love the exhaust. I have considered replacing the muffler with Borla's dual tip model in the future, and I may yet do that. It makes no power improvement by adding the second tip, but I am thinking that it may quiet it down a bit in the low range. But that's for another day, and that would be the only reason I would remove what I already have.
Das Aggregator!