The V8 Miata project

The engine looks so much better with the coil covers in place.

Now, should we paint them blue?

We added some Corvette "fuel rail covers" to our engine to clean it up underhood.

These cover a lot of ugly wiring. Since we'd flipped our fuel rails around to adapt to the Miata's fuel feed location, we had to trim the passenger's side cover to clear the pulsation damper as well as our throttle cable bracket.

Keith and Brandon took Elvis out for a little exercise.

18 runs later, they agreed that it was a whole lot of fun on the autocross course. The venue was a race put on by the local Corvette club - it seemed appropriate!
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Steam fitting!

There is a steam vent for the heads which has to plumb into the top of the radiator. Being the lazy type, I just drilled an upper fan mount bung all the way through and tapped for a hose barb.

Elvis has a bad Friday night.One of our neighbors was moving out and one of her friends backed into Elvis with a ford expedition.

Were they planning on telling us? Noooo. But they were stupid enough to come back with the same vehicle with Lotus metallic blue paint on their bumper. Busted. Poor Elvis.

One of the nice things about this swap is how tidy the engine bay is.

A set of Corvette coil covers and it'll almost look like someone stuck a non-functional engine mockup in there - but it's far from non-functional!
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Track test!

The first time Elvis left the building, it was down to the alignment shop so we could make sure that all of the wheels were pointing in the correct directions. Then it was straight to the track for a day of pounding around. We like to baby our cars here.
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The compleat engine bay.

Well, almost. The car's running happily and is ready for the track day, but we haven't hooked up the HVAC yet. Will it behave tomorrow? We'll find out soon enough.
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Elvis didn't quite make it on to the track for the Open House.

He was together and functional - self-propelled, even - but running really rich. It appears there were some documentation problems with the wiring changes we made or else we made some, ahem, undocumented alterations. We're troubleshooting now, and we're hoping to have him out for the track day this weekend.
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No, it's not staying.

Keith really shouldn't be allowed around the vinyl cutter.

After a quick cornerweighting job, the cross-weights are much better.

The front/rear didn't change, of course, but the car is better balanced now.
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Time to hit the scales.

As you may remember, we weighed the car when we started this project. At that time, it was 2349 lbs with 51.4% of the weight on the front wheels. That's with a naturally aspirated engine, no turbo.
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We did a lot of work without taking a lot of pictures.

The wiring is all tidied up, the interior is back together and everything underhood has been stashed away. The shifter looks completely stock. We could even use a factoy knob if we wanted.

Time for a cooling system.

We're using a Miata radiator - one of our aluminum race units - and it all hooks up easily with some formed hoses.

It's alive!

After discovering that we needed to plug in the ignition switch (whoops) and put a jumper in the diagnostic box to trigger the fuel pump (we'll sort that out later), the car burst into life.
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The steering column is back in.

We installed a little bit of wiring. Not a whole lot, just enough to start the car. Start the car?

The intake system is very complex.

An air intake temperature sensor and a MAF. The air filter is the same size usually seen on a 90 hp Honda.

This is the sort of problem that the GM specialists know already.

If it was a Miata, we'd know it! The thermostat from our Firebird donor is different from that on our Corvette LS2 water pump. The good thing about using a GM engine is that we'll have one tomorrow from NAPA.

The rear end is complete.

The new hubs are installed as are the halfshafts. The rear end kit also comes with extended, high strength ARP studs.

How do we get the power from our new differential to the wheels?

With our new halfshafts! This is the high-power version that comes with beefier ends and new hubs. We'll also have a less expensive, easier-to-install version that won't handle quite as much power.