Small disclaimer up front. We ain’t perfect and are human. So we made plenty of mistakes on this trip, One of them was possibly having too high of expectations of the car’s condition. Not to mention being 1,200+ miles from home in an unfamiliar city unsure of how you’re going to get home can add stress that’ll make you think irrationally, yet you’ll rationalize it while in the moment. Also, I assure you the pictures are making the car appear to be in better condition than it really is. We also failed to get some pics of things we really should have gotten. The following story is also quite long. It could be shorter and more to the point, but I feel that if it’s going to be told, it should be told in it’s entirety to the best of my, and Zach’s, memory. I’ve tried to get things in the correct order while including the facts as well. I’m also writing it to the best of my ability, though I’m no writer. Anyways, hope you still enjoy the story. Oh, and there’s a ton of pics.
So, where to start? The beginning of course, but where is that? You could say it started when my friend first discovered the car for sale on the Houston Miata Club forums and had been lusting after it since. But let me tell you a little background info first. My friend Zach loves Miatas. Nothing really compares for him. Nothing else meets his personal qualifications that a car must have and meet. Two seater, RWD, manual, convertible, good handling, cheap, reliable, fun, easy to work on. One could argue for other cars, but as far as he is concerned, nothing lives up his standards as well as the Miata does. He has had a few over the years, NAs and NBs, and he strongly favors the NB. For him, it’s the hips the NB has, the more aggressive lines overall, tighter chassis, and ever so minor improvement in power. Or, to quote him, “the curves of the NB have me by the short and curlies.” All car guys have a dream car, a grail if you will. Zach’s dream car has been a Velocity Red MazdaSpeed Miata. For him, Velocity Red just does it for him. It’s one of those things that’s hard to describe, but if you know the feeling, you get it. But not just any VR MSM, but one that has been massaged and had the known wrinkles of stock MSMs ironed out. He’s looked for quite some time to find the right car, the perfect car. I learned of the car he wanted about 2 months ago. A car that has history, pedigree, and just about everything he himself would want done to a MSM.
The car is a 2004 Velocity Red MSM previously owned by Flyin’ Miata, the most well known and respected tuner for Miatas. Not only did FM once own the car, but it would be built for a magazine article in Car & Driver. You may have read about it some time ago, it was in the November 2005 issue and the feature was the Superfour Challenge. Or maybe you read the post about it on Miata.net. It was also a test bed car for parts development for their line of MSM related parts. So there’s a good chance that if you have some MSM related FM bits, they were developed and tested on this car. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. We’ll get to more about the car in a moment.
Right, so, 2 months ago this car was listed on eBay for sale to the highest bidder. I talked to Zach extensively about the car. He told me how the car had been listed previously on the Houston Miata Club forums but got no replies. He went on to tell me everything he knew about the car. That it was a Velocity Red MSM that had only 25,000 miles, a built short block, FM II turbo kit running Hydra 2.5, Afco coilovers, Wilwood big brake kit all around, 5-spd trans, the claim of being FM’s MSM test car and everything that came with that, and many, many more small mods/add-ons. After talking to him several times about it, I told him if it’s what he’s always wanted, he should go for it if it won’t affect him financially. Yet, he can be incredibly indecisive, so the auction ended and he hadn’t bid on it. The car was seemingly gone to a new owner. He had missed out on possibly the best example of a VR MSM. You can imagine that if such a car was your automotive everything and you missed out on it, you’d be a bit heartbroken, possibly lose sleep over it, which he did. But wait, a miracle happened! The car was mysteriously re-listed on eBay by the same seller. The same ad as before, with the same pictures and description. He would not miss out on it twice. We spoke about the car for hours and days. See, the ad only had a few pictures, and they weren’t all that great. And while the description was direct, it lacked detail. He made the decision to contact the seller to get as much info and pictures as he could.
From contacting the seller he learned that his name was Dan Bond, that he had worked with Flyin’ Miata in the past during development of their turbo manifold and their attempt at building a 200MPH Miata. Dan had owned the car for the past 5 years and it had been sitting for a spell since he hadn’t gotten it to pass Texas’ safety inspection. From what we were told and was our understanding, the stock ECU and injectors had been installed to get it to pass inspection but it had never gotten around to doing so. Passing TX inspection was not a concern for Zach. But what did worry Zach was that because of that, the car’s title had yet to be transferred to Dan. If you’ve ever bought a car with a title that isn’t a simple transfer from the seller to the buyer, you know the headaches that come from even the most minor of extra steps. Well, after getting what extra info and pics Zach could, even though we both felt it wasn’t quite enough (while direct, Dan was also short on answers), he made the decision to have Dan end the auction for the listing cost of $140 and agreed to a purchase price of $12,000 bearing inspection, which would require flying out to TX. I let my friend know that if he needed some help, I’d be glad to go with him. To be honest, I had become curious about this car myself and wanted to see it with my own eyes. We were both convinced the car was going to be the prime example it had been built up to be. So much so, only one-way tickets were purchased. We’d have to fly out to it as it was currently in Galveston, TX and we live in eastern NC, a distance of around 1,200 miles. You may think that’s a bit foolish, and I’d agree with you, but we both thought, “hey, this car only has 25,000 miles on it, it was owned and built by Flyin’ Miata back in the day, THE Miata tuner, what is there to worry about?” Our plan was to fly to TX, inspect the car, Zach would buy it, we’d re-install the 550 injectors and Hydra ECU, change the oil, and be on our way back to NC. It was going to be a road trip neither of us would forget we thought… if we only knew why though.
OK so it’s the 28th of Dec., a couple of days before the trip, and I get a call from Zach around 7PM. Turns out he got an alert on his phone about a ‘04 Velocity Red MSM in our area that was for sale for $2,000 with a blown head gasket and a bunch of aftermarket bits. The call is to ask if I want to go look at it and help pick it up as him and our friend Kyle are on their way to it and my place is on the way. Huh, sure, why not, “this should be interesting,” I think. What are the chances? Right? ON our way there the closer we get to where the car is at the more we realized it’s in Bumfuck Egypt, more or less, out in the boonies of New Bern, NC. It’s dark, it’s been raining, the two conditions you never look at a car in. But at the asking price, why the hell not? Well, after thoroughly examining the car we come to the conclusion he should offer no more than $1,500. Zach goes over to talk to the guy and then comes back over to us and quietly tells us he offered $1,400 and the guy came back at $1,500. Well damn, talk about a pretty sweet deal. Granted, the car is a complete basket case. For example, it’s been resprayed twice and some fool did a shit job of installing the NB “tupperware” onto the car. While Zach and I were away Kyle began tearing the thing apart and it only got worse as he went. For example, 9 qts of fluid poured out of the engine when he drained the “oil.” And I rather not say what all was found in the carpet. Still, it’s one hell of a deal. I’m sure once that car gets running and driving again it’ll be a $4k car. It’s a ‘04 MSM with a clean title and just 137k miles on it after all. I swear, Zach has some pretty good luck.
$1,500 ‘04 MSM
Zach stands with his late night pick up. Unbelievable. Even with it being a long way from running and driving it was a great deal.
Like a Boss… or a Captain
Kyle and Zach pose for another picture.
You can see more pictures of this car here.
Alright, it’s now Dec. 30th around 11AM and we’re waiting to board the plane to go to TX. This. Is. Happening. Once we get on the plane, there’s no backing out. Maybe we should have been suspicious of the possible omen when it was announced our flight was delayed for a “maintenance issue” (translation, broken plane). No worries from us though, just a typical thing, so we’d get there a little bit later than was planned. We let the Dan know as he was picking us up from the airport. No problem on his end. The flight itself was non-eventful and went smoothly. I actually ended up chatting with one of the flight attendants at the back of the plane about cars and the such. I learned that he enjoyed the weird side of things, that he liked the old Caddy hearses and was looking to get one to drive around in again. You never know who you’ll meet on such trips. 3 hours later, about 4PM, and we had arrived in Houston, TX. Not too much longer we got in contacted with the Dan and he was at the airport to pick us up in a few minutes. For what ever reason, we thought nothing of the red Prius he drove, or it’s condition. At a glance you didn’t notice anything, but the longer we looked at it later, the more we realized how things added up. On the ride to his house we talked about his history as an engineer, what he worked on, what he’s driven, and how he got involved with Flyin’ Miata. It was a semi-informative hour long drive to Galveston, TX. And there we were, after a 3 hour flight and a 1 hour car ride, some 1,200 miles, we were just a moment from seeing the car for the first time.
The door of the garage the car had been kept in started to rise. And there it sat, the car we had come so far for. The “pristine” car that was going to be epic and the start of grand road trip. But upon first sight, instead of being awed, concern started to set in. The car was absolutely filthy, inside and out as the top had been left down for some time. We knew the car had been sitting for a while, which was roughly 3 years, but surely, we thought, a car of this caliber would be taken care of if it was garaged. Thus, we began to thoroughly look the car over.
First 3 pics I took of the car
The top was actually down when we first saw the car, but it's up in this pic as we were inspecting the top's condition.
Here's how the engine looked at the time. Noticeably different from it's set-up for the Car & Driver feature. Which we knew was the case.
And the interior. These pictures make the car look better than it actually did. In person it was just filthy, so much so you would think twice before sitting in it.
Zach’s inspections pics.
Front lip was pretty chewed up for a 25k mile car.
One of the worst examples of corrosion in the paint. This one had been touched up.
Look closely enough and you can see some pitting in the Mazda M logo on the steering wheel. Also, the panel under the steering wheel was gone and no where to be found.
Well, at least it had the knob from FM’s attempt at building a 200MPH Miata.
And that’s just a few examples of said pics. Zach took quite a lot of pictures of the car for inspection purposes. So many that it’ll be easier to just post a link to imgur album for them.
Here’s the link to all those pictures.
Going from bumper to bumper looking over the condition of the body and paint, examining every inch of the engine bay, and every crevice of the interior. The more we looked, the more disappointing and depressing the car became. Everywhere we looked, there was corrosion either in the form of rust or oxidation of aluminum. From the roll bar to the badges, to the control arms, to the FM aluminum radiator, corrosion was all over the car. And that’s without mentioning the number of small dents/dings we found. Plus, all of the flaws/damage in the paint from deep scratches, paint chips, and complete lack of basic car care. Under the hood we noticed lots of small, minor leaks, mostly what you might expect from a modded car, but we still felt they shouldn’t be present on THIS car. Looking the chassis over we found that the rear shocks of the Afcos had been leaking a bit as well. It was just one thing after another it seemed, the more we picked the car apart the worse it got. But, we pressed on, convincing ourselves that the car would clean up and most of the flaws would buff out. We’d looked at it, now it was time to hear it, and hear it we did. Upon start up the car had us worrying even more. A noticeably loud and consistent ticking that followed the revs was coming from the engine. It sounded like the lifter tick NAs are known to make… but NBs have solid lifters, so…?
Tick, tick, tick
Taken after injector & ECU swap.
Not only that, but the car’s idle was surging and it would be slow to rev and come back down from the revs. But that ticking, that ticking was scaring the hell out of us. Knowing the car should have solid lifters, we started to think of and list the possible reasons for the noise. Regardless, we decided to pull the valve cover for inspection. We couldn’t do much besides look and feel things as we didn’t bring much in the way of tools,. Just the basics of wrenches, sockets, screwdrivers, pliers, allens and random assortments. Just enough to fill a small bag just in case something went wrong on the trip back.
The valve cover was off and we looked over everything and could see nothing that stood out. Everything felt fine, no glaringly obvious problems like a loose valve spring, damaged lifter or lifter shim, wiped out cam lobe, or any other such problem. Then Zach saw it, something that we both looked over after staring at the cams and lifters for 10 minutes or so. We don’t know how it got there, we don’t know why it was there, all we do know is that is was there, Sitting at the base of the head, on the passenger side, next to a valve spring was a steel washer. A steel washer that had likely been inside the engine since it left FM’s hands.
Quarter for scale
Took these pics while sitting in Waffle House. We regret not getting one of it while still sitting in the cylinder head. But when Zach saw it he instinctively reached out and picked it up out of the head.
We believe it to be a cylinder head bolt washer. We looked everything over again and could find no evidence of any damage that the washer could have caused if it had been tossed around inside of the valve cover. As far as we knew, it had been sitting in the same spot for 5+ years. Upon finding the washer we were just at a lost for words. The ticking was bad enough, but a piece of hardware that could have been floating around for all that time? It was getting late and we weren’t sure what we were going to do. We had full intentions of getting there, buying the car and being on our way that same day. But now we knew that wasn’t happening. It was the day before New Year’s Eve, getting plane tickets back home had limited options, but we had come so far. So we decided it best to sleep on things, that we’d get a cheap motel room and talk it over. See how we felt the next morning and at least try seeing how it ran on the 550 injectors and Hydra. We looked up our options and decided on a Super 8 that was a quick walk from a Waffle House. We had no way to get around with exception to Dan giving us a ride. We could have rented a car but we were trying to keep unplanned costs to a minimum. Thankfully Dan didn’t mind at all dropping us off and picking us up the following morning from the Super 8. He was a nice enough fellow the entire time we were there and was as accommodating as one could be. But short on answers to questions about the car. Nice as he was, “I don’t know” was no less frustrating of an answer to questions about the car. That night we grabbed some food from the Waffle House, talked about what we had found and what should be done the following day. One thing was for certain though, if Zach was to still buy the car, he wouldn’t do so at the previous agreed to price.