5 Things Every Miata Owner Should Do

what is going on guys welcome back to the channel today we are talking about the 5 things you should do when you first get your Miata we're also going to be taking some time to talk about some of the best first mods to do to the car so you've just gotten home with your newly purchased Miata you looked it over the best you could while you were there and also took it for a drive but now you've got it home so what should you do now now I've broken this down into the five categories that I think are gonna be the most important obviously there are a lot of aerials depending on the particular condition of your car but this should be a good starting point for most Miata so first up and this may seem obvious but we're talking about fluids and maintenance the first things that I would do is go ahead and change out all the fluids in the car I would do in oil change a differing and a transmission fluid change this is also a good time to just get underneath the car really look over the car really well and take note of items that are gonna need replace things that are worn out you might also start planning out your modifications at this point things you want to change on the car or improve for example when I got my car it had almost 200,000 miles on it and the suspension was pretty much completely worn out I ended up replacing almost every component on the suspension Miatas can be incredibly fun to drive with the well sorted out suspension so I ended up replacing literally everything in the front this is gonna be the coil overs which I've put Megan Racing easy street coil overs on the car I also changed the upper and lower ball joints now the lower ball joints are very easy on the front of a Miata they just bolt in I then did the inner and outer tie rods and for the upper ball joint so I ended up completely replacing the upper control arms as they're not very expensive and they come with the ball joint already and so you don't have to worry about trying to press in and out that upper ball joint and you will also get fresh new bushings in the new arms the last thing I did up front was replace the wheel bearings the wheel bearing on the front of me on it is also very easy it's just remove the brake caliper and rotor and break loose the axle nut and it will slide off of the spindle the whole hub will and then that part can just be swapped out for a new one replacing these parts made a dramatic difference in the steering feel and overall feel of the suspension on the car it tightened up the steering feel quite a bit and it has zero play in the wheel turning the car feels very precise and tight and along with the coilovers and a good set of wheels and tires the car handles like it's on Rails so another common maintenance item you might want to take a look at when you first get your Miata is to check the ignition timing and also check the cam angle sensor oh ring to make sure it is not leaking the ignition timing on the Miata can easily be checked and adjusted using a cheap timing light you can get at the auto parts store or online and if that cam angle sensor overing is leaking and needs to be replaced you will also need it to reset the timing after you remove the cam angle sensor to replace the o-ring I'll leave some links below to how to is on how to check the timing and replace that Oh ring another reason you might want to check the timing especially on a 1.6 car is just to make sure it is adjusted to the correct range a common mod on the 1.6 meters is to actually advance the ignition timing a little bit now correct me if I'm wrong but if I remember correctly what this does is actually shift the power band down slightly making it feel a little bit quicker off the line now stock the timing should be set to 10 degrees most people recommend advancing it on the 1.6 to about 14 degrees I'll try and leave some more information about this down below as well now going back to those fluid changes real quick while you're in there doing the transmission I also recommend changing out the shifter turret fluid as well which brings me to my next point the second thing you don't want to do when you get me your Miata is do a shifter rebuild so the shifter rebuild is actually one of the first things I did on my car maintenance wise I've gotta say it makes a huge difference highly recommended fairly easy to do what you're gonna need to do is remove your center console shift knob and then you're gonna gain access to the shifter assembly there are lots of tutorials online on how to do this it doesn't take very long basically all you're doing is replacing all the bushings on the shifter and putting fresh fluid into the little turret housing that the shifter sits down into this is going to fix any worn-out shifter it's gonna make the feel so much more tight precise and nachi in a good way if that makes sense it'll be zero slop and the shifter and it should just be very accurate and good feeling now moving on to the third thing you should do when you get your new Miata one of my favorite things to do to any car I've just purchased is do a very detailed wash and interior clean most of the time when you buy a car the seller hasn't cleaned it up very well for you maybe the previous owner had some old air fresheners or crappy floor mats or just weird accessories or things like that you don't want anymore go ahead and get rid of any of that unwanted stuff it's gonna make it feel a lot nicer if you have an early model car with original paint it may be single stage and it may be faded I would recommend giving it a nice Bluff it can actually bring back the paint a lot better than you might think you'll see a lot of red meows with the original paint that are faded and look kind of pink most of the time that can actually be brought back pretty well with a buff all right number four is gonna be the interior I recommend getting a nice shift knob and steering wheel for you Miata these are the two things you're gonna have your hands on the most in the car and it's gonna make the driving feel a lot better if you have a nice steering wheel and shift knob then I mean I didn't really come with a very nice steering wheel or shift knob and most of the times they're gonna be old and worn out and these are also items that can just help make the car feel like your own getting a shift knob that you like the look and feel of and maybe it's even weighted it's just gonna make a nice difference in the way that the car feels to drive now for my last point before we move on to some of the best first mods to do number 5 is gonna be wheels and tires tires can make a huge difference in the way that a car performs a Miata comes taut with some pretty skinny all season tires upgrading these can drastically improve the ride and handling of the car 15 inch wheels are very popular size for people putting aftermarket wheels on their Miata it's a good size that looks good and fits well there are also a lot of good tire options for the size a good spec that most people start at and what I'm currently running on my car is gonna be a 15 by 8 wheel with a 205 50 tire this is tried and true and is a great fun functional set up on the Miata going from the stock wheel and tire set up you're gonna notice a huge increase in grip and just overall handling feel there are also a lot of good 200 tread wear tire options in this size that are fairly affordable this size wheel and tire will also fit the Miata without a whole lot of work at all I said my car is lowered on coilovers and all i've done is a mild roll to the fenders alright so now with all the necessary maintenance all the way let's get to the fun stuff let's talk about some of the best first mods to do to the Miata I went on instagram and asked you guys your opinion on some of the best mods so we're just gonna go through some of them now and talk about it I all dot mantilla says number wheels to tires three suspension for roll bar IMO in that order and yeah like we just talked about I pretty much completely agree with that wheels and tires obviously we just talked about that three suspension I highly recommend upgrading the suspension on the Miata they come stock pretty capable but I like the feel of having coilovers on there getting rid of kind of the soft body roll in the stock suspension coilovers can definitely make a huge difference and roll bar roll bar is one of my favourite mods on the car for sure this makes a huge difference when you bolt that roll bar in it's gonna make the entire body feel so much more solid everything from normal driving to more spirited use is just gonna feel better with the roll bar it just makes the chassis very solid going over bumps is less harsh cornering feel is drastically improved Dillon Owen 7 says rebuild the shifter with the mas Miata kit and a new shift knob is another one we already talked about rebuilding that shifter is gonna make it feel a lot better and a new shift knob some people like a weighted one some don't so yeah I definitely agree with this one as well wrote our 1989 says paço strong arms is a serious must now there are a few different products like this for Miatas there are the frog arms you might have heard of I'm pretty sure garage star makes some like this as well now I looked it up real quick and it looks like the Paco arms actually extend out further than previous designs basically all these are our chassis bracing that goes behind the fender and bolts up to where the front door hinges bolt now I don't have on my car but I have driven a car that has these and it makes a big difference the car seems to turn in very quickly also it gets rid of some of that cowl shake that we always have going over bumps single B says hardtop I definitely agree with this I love the hardtop I remove the soft up from my Miata I myself I'm not really a fan of soft tops I just don't like the way they look but I do understand people that want to keep them and have that versatility of quickly being able to go top down but one of the things that may be overlooked the hardtop isn't just for looks it actually adds some rigidity to the chassis I always notice anytime I take the top off and I'm driving around I can feel the car just feels a lot more jiggly and less solid part ops also a good investment they consistently sell for around $1,000 and don't really go down in value so if you have a good condition a hardtop you know you have about $1,000 value right there so yeah I definitely agree with this one I love hard tops they look good makes the car ride better definitely recommend Peaks retro says good coilovers nothing else is really needed so you can kind of see a theme here the Mian is just a really good handling car so you're gonna do mods that compliment that things like wheels and tires and suspension Noah mx-5 boy says ITV's and a serious suspension set up I've never done a car with ITV's but I've always heard it's the ultimate naturally aspirated engine mod throttle response is supposed to be amazing probably one of the best power adders for a naturally aspirated engine they also have a very unique sound definitely something I might be interested in doing down the line on the Miata so I definitely agree with all these some other things you might want to do or just appearance modifications things to just make the car feel like your own and look the way you want this to be anything from paint to lips to spoilers different bumpers there's a lot of things available to change up the look of your Miata another area you might we're looking to upgrading is the brakes the 1.6 comes with smaller rear brakes on the 1.8 a lot of people actually swap those over and for the slightly larger 1.8 rear brakes I know when I got my car I went through and refreshed the brakes new pads and rotors I also put stainless steel braided brake lines and I used BBC red brake pads a little bit more aggressive pad than stock but I think that is pretty much gonna do it for me on this video hopefully this can get you started in the right direction on your Miata build for my other Miata owners what do you think are some of the best first mods or your favourite mods to do to the Miata drop it in the comments down below and let's talk about it also want to say thank you again for all the love on the videos appreciate you guys watching I'm glad you enjoy the videos I just wanna make my videos hopefully helpful and entertaining we just hit 400 subscribers on the channel that's a hundred subscribers in one week you guys are insane thank you that's awesome but yeah that's gonna do on this one thank you so much for watching have an awesome week and we will see you in the next one [Music] you [Music]

Channel: Alex Perrucci

Views: 174,184

Rating: 4.9181662 out of 5

Keywords: best miata mods, miata coilovers, megan racing coilovers miata, miata hardtop, miata rollbar, top 5 miata mods, alex perrucci, alex perucci, lowtege, lowtege miata, what to do after buying a miata, first mods miata

Id: PAltkL2c2rE

Length: 10min 58sec (658 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 20 2020