Hi miataturbo. I've been a long time lurker/occasional poster. Ive never posted anything about my current build, but being the attention ***** I am, why not now.

Ill start the story here, the car was a rods only build with a 2560r and every self made bolt-on part I could think of. The dyno runs put it a 285whp/285 torques with near instantaneous spool.




Its was fun but it was time for more power. The original plan was the goto standard: EFR and a fully built engine. I spent time shopping around and got everything for the motor (pistons, valves, springs...) As I was shopping around for the oil pump and the turbo I slowly realized that the money I was spending could buy me a ls v8 drivetrain. So everything went up for sale and a month later I drove home with this:




It was an 04 GTO that was rear ended. 120k miles on it and a bunch of domestic rice mods. $3500 and a 300 mile drive into the Virginia mountains and it was mine. The car got stripped down and cleaned and all the standard v8 mods began. Since fabrication and welding is my thing, the plan was to build everything for the swap.



I based my subframe on the v8r subframe with some changes to make it a little simpler and in my eyes stronger. The subframe put the motor about .5" further back than the v8r kit and a little firewall clearence was in order. I decided to go a little different on the tranny mount. I went with the same approach that kmiata did with their tranny swap. The new crossmember lines up directly with the reinforcement channels inside the cab which hold the front of the seats. I figured that this is the stiffest part of the chassis in that area and bracing it across the tunnel would make things even better.

 

I went with a holley oil pan. It needed a little bit of clearencing to fit a power steering rack in the location I wanted. This location put it about .5" above stock to help with bump steer at the ride height I am planning on:





I decided to get creative with the radiator. I wasnt happy at how the available options either put it too close to the motor or dropped it so low that it was a speed bump detector.




And I made engine mount adapters. LS1 block to old chevy 350 bolt pattern mounts:

 

This is where the money began to flow like water.




I built a skidplate as a little bit of extra insurance for the oilpan:



The subframe got powdercoated and the front clip was done:

 

Then one day I was shooting the **** in te shop with a friend. We were talking moto bikes and moto bike suspension. He was holding a hayabusa shock I had laying around and for some reason said that this would be so cool:


A light bulb went off and I had to have it.

A serious amount of measuring, design, and FEA analysis later I had this:


The goal was stock like travel with a proper spring rate. The setup gave me a rising rate that went from ~550lb-in to about 700lb-in at the wheel and ~6.5" of travel at the wheel.

 

After a little powdercoat there it was:



I knew there was going to be a little hood interference but wasnt sure until i got the hood back on. I needed a bigger holesaw:

 

At this point I needed to make a pair of pushrods:



I wanted to keep the valve cover mounted coils the LS1 had but the stock location was a no go with the suspension. I moved all the coils to the back of the covers:


and added a little lipstick to the valve covers:

 

The LS's tend to run pretty hot so cooling is very important. Im a big fan of plastic undertray under the motor for that reason and so it was time to get that solved. Im also a big fan of Cardboard Aided Design:





And time to transfer to aluminum:

 

So this brings us to where Im at now. The car is spun around and Im working on the rear end. Im using a 3.23 cadillac getrag diff out of a srx. I decided that I wanted to build a rear subframe to match the front (the rear will also get a cantilever setup). The subframe is designed around the getrag diff and puts it as high as possible. I need as much clearence below because I want to do a single 4" exhaust. a single 4" has a cross sectional area only a little smaller than dual 3" but is way, waaay lighter.


I build a Jig around the stock subframe both for assembly and to use for measurement:


And this is where I am today. Making tabs and notching tubes:






Sorry for the potato photos. I'm waiting for the galaxy 10 to upgrade.

 

Oh my.

 

Dayum this thread is awesome!!!

 

So did all of our facebook banter convince you to swap the qa1s for something deserved of this masterpiece?

 

"Since fabrication and welding is my thing"

No ****. That's some beautiful work.

 

Not yet. I'll see how they do. Internet hearsay is just that so I'll try them for myself. Afterall they are fairly cheap so no big loss. Plus qa1 now has these and a link and instructions on how to beg for sponsorship
https://www.qa1.net/suspension/street-performance-racing-shocks-struts-and-pro-coil-systems/custom-mount-shocks/mod-series-shocks

 

God damn. Subbing the **** out of this build thread.

 

Title should be Not Just another LS1 Build. I love how you just saw it and went for it lol.
Subbed.

 

This guys fab skills are incredible, really great work here.

Between ITOzann, shifti, hf-mx5t, and 4gordeev we've got some great out of the box build threads going on these days at MT.

 

Wow.

 

Yep, I need to go back to ground zero. Start all over.

 

Holy ****! The craziest build I've seen in some time.. so glad I clicked on the thread!

Do you mind briefly explaining the cantilever suspension setup and what you believe it's benefits are in a miata application?

 

Mostly because no one else has it. This isn't a track car so I'm not concerned much with any cg effects. It does get me much better travel than traditional coilovers and a rising rate which I like but I'm not going to make any claims that it's better than a set of xidas or the like.