Never thought I'd post a build thread, but here goes. It may also be a very, very slow going build thread due to lack of time and little mechanical skills. However, my son and I are going to do this and we're going to make it happen. Long story short, his desire is to come LeMons racing with me at some point. He turned 15 a few months ago and has a learners' permit. Let's just say we have a lot of work to do before he's ready for public roads, let alone a race track. 
Knowing that we'd need a 3rd car eventually, my wife gave me permission to start hunting for a good DD for him. Thanks to an incredibly kind GRM member, about a month ago I found a '97 Lexus LS400 that we got for an unbelievable price. It had been owned from new by a wealthy suburban VA woman who took meticulous care of it, and it shows. It has 176k miles on it, but runs like it has 17.6k on it. Everything works, and I mean everything...a/c, power adjustments for seat belt height, etc... It has K-Sport coilovers on it, as the GRMer I bought it from was going to use it in the Challenge. I need to figure out how to sort those, as right now the ride is punishing on anything other than glass smooth surfaces. Otherwise, we couldn't be happier.
However, we knew this car was not destined to be a race car for him. It was going to be his DD, and with our insane schedule it will be a huge help to my wife and I when he gets his license that he can drive himself around. He is also taking auto shop 101 in high school this coming year and has expressed an interest in being a mechanic and LeMons racer. Surprisingly enough, and to her credit, it was actually my wife who pushed the idea of getting him a project car that he can turn into an autox and just maybe an HPDE car. We needed something cheap, as we wanted our son to invest his own money into it, so that it may help give him extra motiviation. It also needed to be something narrow, as it would live in our basement. It's a walk out basement and has a 21'x24' room which is perfect for a car. However, the doors are only 6' wide...if I take them off, so in reality we only have about 68-69" of width to get something in. We've been poking around GRM and CL, had a ton of possible nibbles. At lunch yesterday, I did a quick CL search and damn, an NA Miata popped up. Asking price in the ad was $900, but in the description the seller said she'd even take $650. Ad said the car ran and drove, but had title issues. Reached out to her and found out that she bought it from a guy who had obtained it from IAA. Long story short, seems she had gotten hung up in the red tape that is the GA process for obtaining a salvage title and was just fed up with it. I offered her $300 and she took it. Met up with her, and her mother and brother, at the grocery store near her house last night and put it on a tow dolly to come home. She was very sweet and everything very much seems on the up and up, just a bit of a paperwork mess. However, since our plan is to turn it into an autox and HPDE only car since he already has a DD, we don't much care about the paperwork.
I only drove it around the grocery store parking lot, onto the dolly and then one quick run up our community road, so I haven't shaken it down. But for $300, the fact that it even runs and drives is amazing. Observations so far: This puppy is rust free. I'm sure it has something somewhere, but in the quick few minutes I looked I didn't see any of the obviuos spots that plague NAs. Even underneath is amazingly rust free. Engine has no funny noises at all, sounds exactly as it should. This is my 5th NA Miata, so I'm familiar with how they sound. Has headers on it and a slight exhaust leak somewhere, so we'll have to find that. Shifter is good and crisp, but the clutch engages pretty high. Boots on the steering rack are dry rotted and completely ripped. While the engine makes no funny noises, there's a fuel or spark issue. Driving up and down our community road, with a 45mph speed limit and a hill, the engine clearly was breaking up under about 3500rpm, then would come to life around 4000rpm.
So the plan for now is to get it in the basement, put it on jackstands, get the wheels off and do a full inspection. Start with the obvious things I outlined above, then go from there. I'll get more pictures, but I only had time to snap one last night before I had to finish cleaning out the van, return the tow dolly, etc...
