you should remove the crankshaft pulley bolt, make sure it is in good condition, and then loctite it back in. The early short nose cranks had failure problems arising from the bolt coming loose, aided by overzealous tensioning of the belts. Make sure the belts are loose when you do this maintenance item.
I thought that the risk was during the timing belt service. If the key wasn't put back exactly right, or things didn't seat correctly when torquing the crank bolt, the crankshaft nose would be either damaged immediately or later as the key shaft rounded out. If you didn't touch the bolt, the damage wouldn't happen.
This was fixed with the "long nose" crank in the 1.8L engine.
There really isnt a great deal of support for the front balancer. When I worked at a race shop, it was a common failure for ones that werent taken care of.
Hey nice car. I have a 91 stock and I too get about 32.x no matter how hard I drive it. Best tank ever was 37.x in the summer driving around 50 - 60 mph around a lake taking in all the sights. Have not done any mods to it yet but love the car the way it is. Just put the hard top on for the winter. Don't drive it much in the winter because of the snow but do take it out on the nice days here and there.
I have a Z3, but I can really appreciate the clever design of the MIata. The "Power Plant Frame" is a strong but very light (either 8 or 12 lbs) aluminum ladder brace that connects the transmission to the differential. It eliminates putting the torque loads through the body, and transfers most of the thrust lift the whole way forward to the engine mounts.
It also enables a simpler one-piece drive shaft that puts the sliding splines at the transmission connection.
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