O.K., you’ve found your way to our Miata project page. My wife Terri or I must have given you the link or one of our other Miata enthusiast friends passed it on to you, either way we’re both happy and proud to have you check out the progress we’ve made on the car so far. The car is a 1990 Miata originally acquired in June of 2000 for family fun and our daughters to enjoy and learn to drive stick. It was purchased from the 2nd owner, Rich Conover, a Del-Val member from Pennsylvania who kept it in excellent condition. It had a little over 115,000 miles showing at the time and got very little use that first summer. The kids said they were afraid to take it into “harm’s way” and claim they didn’t want to bring it home with dings and Terri didn’t think it made for a very good grocery getter for a family of 4 (6 with the boy friends which is most of the time).

So except for the occasional joyride it mostly sat in the garage, a nice clean example of a stock ‘90. Then we saw an article in the August 2000 Sport Compact Car where a guy named Stephen Goode had turbo charged a ’91 Miata and added a Racing Beat body kit. We were hooked; we were now on a mission! He had done all the right stuff including a stiffer clutch, rear, under carriage and strut tower bracing, lowered springs and adjustable shocks, bigger brakes all around with 16” rim/tire package, roll bar and improved seats, additional gauges and ...you get the idea. That silver car in the article had the aggressive looks and the scary fast performance improvements that inspired us to embark on this project which remains a DIY, or better put, a do it ourselves work in progress.

We decided to tackle the body kit install and cosmetic make over first since I enjoy paint and body work (I’m a detail freak, which is a carry over from building and flying large radio control scale model aircraft) so 2 weeks after the phone call to Racing Beat 2 large boxes were in our driveway. The install of the side skirts, all prep and paint work to this point (that picture above and the one just below and to the left) took 14 months of spare time. That whole time the car was out of commission.

 To clarify, the side skirts were glued onto and molded into the rocker area, all badges shaved and Racing Beat logos filled, the stone guard texture on the doors was sanded flush, every nick and 2 small dings filled with polyester filler and feathered. Thanks go to Rich for so few dings and pretty much the straightest 10 year old body I’ve had the pleasure of working on. The whole car while still together was then  primed with 2 part primer and sanded again, a sealer was then applied to prevent the break throughs to the old red finish from bleeding through to the new white stripes. The sealer coat was then nib sanded and the white base coats for the stripes were applied well beyond the width of the stripe area from the front of the car to the rear. The stripes were then measured twice (and then checked again) and masked off so the first base coats of red could be applied. Doing these steps while the car was still roughly assembled assured us of an accurate line up of the stripes.  We then took off the doors, Racing Beat bumpers, hood, deck lid, and rear license panel so we could sand the first color coats some more!

As an aside, I should mention that all of this sanding is a necessary evil when working without a booth. No mater how hard you try to prevent it you WILL get dust and dirt in the finish. We’ve found that the trick to preserving ones sanity is to expect the nibs and keep your rubber gloves and wet sanding bucket handy, in the end it will all be worth the extra effort.

Continuing on, we now had a dull first color coat car in pieces on jack stands and various holding fixtures/saw horses. The white areas were now thankfully solid and usable so after color sanding we re-masked the white stripes and shot the final red and clear coats. That sounds easier than it actually was; due to lack of space in the 2-car garage we did this in a number of painting sessions. First we shot the core of the car on jack stands with the final red then clear coats/wet sanded and buffed. The doors were then placed on saw horses, we shot the jambs red first then the clear coats, followed by wet sanding and buffing. We then masked the jambs off, flipped the doors over and shot the red/clear coasts, wet sanded and buffed them out. We hung the doors back on the car and dropped it on the garage floor with the stock wheels/tires and after not running for 11 months, we did an oil/filter change and added a  new Westco battery. It fired right up and ran perfectly! Now we had to jockey the car in and out of the garage for another few months of spare nights and weekends (to avoid over spray) while we shot red/clear, sanded/buffed the hood, deck lid, bumpers, mirrors, and rear license panel a few pieces at a time.

At this point we still have to prep and paint the Racing Beat deck lid wing and the factory hard top with the same process and matching white stripes painted on. Oh, and the kids just gave me a set of turn signal induction units that have to be baked to get the mold release agent off and prepped/painted as well. At least we’re driving the car now on new tires/wheels to some events where we’ve had the pleasure of meeting some of you folks and seeing alot of other great cars. It sure is fun to talk with people who share a common interest in such a fun little car.

Feel free to take a look at some of the photos of this project so far included below. They start where we were about to shoot the final color and clear coats. The last images show the products we’ve collected for the complete interior upgrade including Katskin leather seats, matching shift and brake boots, drilled pedals, Hard Dog M2 Sport roll bar etc. We’ll be installing this stuff as time permits this summer (2003), and updating this page as we go along.

In the winter of 2003/2004 we hope to start on the performance upgrades with better brakes first and then move on from there. We would love to duplicate all the performance/handling mods that our friend Howard Marder did to his 1990 Miata including the FM2 turbo install. Howard’s car is truly beautiful and meticulously kept with a show worthy all original Classic red finish. And by the way, his car always looks great, and he drives it, and its not a garage queen! Terri and I recently had the privilege of trying to keep up with him on I95 south coming home from the Del-Val picnic. Let me tell you that thing moves and stays firmly planted on the road. It’s amazing what a properly moded car with an excellent driver can do within the speed limit . Bravo Howard! And thanks to the guys at Flyin’ Miata web site for the use of the picture of Howard out in front of the Vipers.

So, thanks for visiting. We’ll try to clean up the pictures to make them easier to view as soon as we get some time.

Terri & Ed Candelora.....May, 2003.