Gas prices here have just started to make their way back down week or two from $6.50 Canadian per US gallon (regular gas) down to its current $5.10 level ($6.12 for premium), but every time there's an oil refinery issue somewhere in North America (or an oil company exec gets the sniffles), our prices shoot up immediately. It's crazy! A few weeks ago, premium was close to $8.50 per US gallon - that's why I suggested the "regular fuel only" 99-00 Miata engines!
I had a '00 Miata, and absolutely loved it.
There is ONE little thing to watch out for on the '99-'00 engines. Check the crankshaft endplay. Easy to do, no tools required - just grab onto the crankshaft main pulley (the bottom one) and try pulling & pushing it, forward into the engine and back towards the grill. You will, without doubt, get a tiny amount of travel, and that's fine (IIRC, somewhere in the neighborhood of .015" or so is normal). SOME of these engines were manufactured with improper-thickness thrust bearings, and came from the factory with endplay on the order of 1/4" or more, which quickly destroyed those engines.
The vast majority were replaced under warranty, and those that didn't pretty much all failed by 10K-12K miles, so any that are much beyond that mileage (pretty much any you'll find, now) were obviously fine. My engine had .017" endplay, which was absolutely fine....although it was disconcerting, to say the least, to discover I could push the crankshaft forward & back (in the engine of my running & driving daily driver) with an audible "click-clack-click-clack"). I panicked, got out my dial gauge, and measured it....whew!
There's a list of the serial number ranges affected, and here's a website that explains the issue: https://www.miata.net/solo/99miatathrus ... ilure.html
Just be aware that if you found, for example, a '99 engine with 3,000 miles on it, you definitely want to check for that. If it has 30,000 miles on it, buy it & have fun!
