Help/Advice with a 1990 miata

[Mr. 4500 RPM]

OK i am now looking into getting a miata as a second car...and well itl mainly be a weekend/summer car since i live in the great white north and i found one which i am interested in, but i need some advice...here is the description of the car...

i am selling a 1990 miata with a cartech turbo kit with FMIC. the car runs great but has a little hesitation in first gear up to about 2000RPM. car has a lot of miles but i recently did a compression test and all the cylinders check out to be ok. the car also has an exhaust, rollbar, RCI 5point harnesses, autometer boost gauge, air/fuel meter, fuel regulator, timing retarder, KN filter, headlight conversion and has recently been painted. the car is blue with black cloth, 5 speed, manual windows, no hardtop, pioneer cd player and more

i am worried about the hesitation, i am thinking that its just in need of tune probably? also the car has 217,000 miles on it, has been recently repainted blue i beleive. was wondering what everyone thinks. its somewhat of a fixer upper so yeah who knows..any ideas/opinions?

 

[MiaTurbo]

my opinion on the hesitation: timing. Most people pull timing a little if there isn't an aftermarket ECU installed. When you retard the timing you lose low end.

 

[Mr. 4500 RPM]

so it shouldnt be bad? or should i look for a stock one?

 

[MiaTurbo]

well, when you buy a modded car, it's always a gamble... I'm not saying it's a no-buy, but obviously there may be additional work ahead. If the price is good, and you have the time/money to work on it, go for it. Where in CT are you exactly? i know people that may be availible to help you check it out if you need help. I'm on another forum with a bunch of CT folks active on it. if you want, details, PM me

Also, I don't know if Cartech still supports the Miata kit since they don't sell it anymore.

 

[SilverBulletES]

My 1990 hesistates (power-wise) a bit at low RPM's from a totally cold start. But after it's warm (about a minute) it has no problems whatsoever. Mine has 194K miles, one engine rebuild about 30K ago. I figure once I bump the timing up this will alleviate the "problem".

 

[Mr. 4500 RPM]

ok two more questions, should i be worried about the mileage on the engine seeing as how its 216,000 and what engine management should i consider?

 

[Shinsen774]

ok two more questions, should i be worried about the mileage on the engine seeing as how its 216,000 and what engine management should i consider?

That is a lot of miles for any engine, even for a Miata. Depends on the price I guess.

 

[SilverBulletES]

The guy I bought mine from was a nice old engineer (75ish?) who was basically a rocket scientist (he helped design missiles). He'd fixed up and sold 20 Miatas in various states in his day. He told me he sold a '90 that had 210K miles once. It ran well enough to be a daily driver-- but was noticably in serious need of a rebuild by then. Mine had a rebuild at 165K miles. So just from those two data points I'd say a rebuild even for an extremely reliable car like a Miata is naturally eminent by 200K miles and almost 17 years of use. I know someone here has one with 220K miles though. Rebuilt motor? I'm not sure.

 

[MiaTurbo]

yeah, 200+ is pushing it. Mine was still ok at 204k miles, but unfourtunitly a tank of bad gas+WOT at the track+no ECU to control fuel/timing+boost=boom!

 

[Mr. 4500 RPM]

thanks for the advice all, and the hunt continues for one....i might push it back till next summer or fall/winter, just trying to find the right one...