When you have several NC drop outs lying around the shop leftover from V8 conversions and you acquire a NA spec Miata roller, it's only natural to wonder what if?...Can we make all this work together using the stock parts we have on hand and a little fabrication? Anything is possible right?
Well we did. And the result was a fun, light, track car that's a blast to drive.
For its maiden voyage, we hauled it across country to Laguna Seca where we literally drove the tires off of it(old Hoosiers)

 

Information please on mounting solution, trans and other custom bits required to get this in there. A friend and I have been considering a MZR DISI into an NA as well. Seems like youve done the leg work lol

 

In short.. A mount less subframe from V8R, placed the engine, fabbed mounts, the fabbed a trans mount and diff mount since the is no longer a PPF, fabricated mounts for the NC radiator. Unless you are required to run a Mazda engine there are better options out there from a $ vs power,labor, support point of view.

The problem with the MZR-DISI is the high pressure fuel pump, it won't allow you to get the motor far enough back.

I will post more pics as soon as I get them downloaded

 

While at Laguna, Austin for tracktuned.com got some seat time and posted an article

http://www.tracktuned.com/feed/2015/...apped-na-miata

 

Can you take pictures showing the oil pan to rack clearance? Leafy has been doing a 2.5 swap - which has a lot more potential than the 2.0, but he had to move the rack forward for it to clear.

 

real question. how did you get ate blue.

 

ill go through the pictures I have and see if I can find one, but the motor sits pretty far back and the firewall is modified up top by the cowl.

 

Once we got the car back to Florida we started building the suspension. We put on a full set of control arms from V8R and took it to The FIRM for a test day and thoroughly thrashed the car, finding every piece of curbing we could as well as a few off road excursions. It became very apparent that shocks were needed as the SM setup on the car was long pass needing to be rebuilt. Even though shocks done the car performed well. It was entertaining watching other cars try to follow us into T1 at the end of the long straight as we were able to brake much later than anyone else.

 

Added CCP Fabrication's light weight hardtop, trunk lid and and front air dam for some aero help. We have a APR wing and a front splitter we made sitting in the shop but didn't have time to get it on the car before the last race.




Also stepped up the suspension from the worn out Bilsteins to Ohlins TTX's and V8R's X-Lite control arms which do well around our rough home track of Sebring

 

I bet this car is a blast to drive. In for more pictures of the swap.

 

The real question is how deep is that step you added to the firewall. I noticed it after spending an hour analyzing the pics I saw of the car in the MLRS coverage. Looks to be about exactly as far as I moved the rack forward.

For the DIZI if you're already going to section the firewall to get the timing cover behind the steering rack you might as well put a cutout for that too.

 

Lol, sorry I haven't been around the car in a few days. I'll be working on it tomorrow, I'll grab some more pictures

 

In for more Ohlins TTX on a miata action

 

Pics of the firewall mods. Could have got away with less, as you can fit your hand behind the motor. I'll take another picture once we put the motor back in.

 

the Donkey!

 

is that a 1.6L you couldn't out accelerate at the 0:35 mark?

 

Not sure what that car had in it, but we would guess that at that time we were somewhere around 140whp on a tired MZR. On the other track from the videos we were a lil over a second faster than a well built/prepared S2000, and much quicker than some slightly modded S2000's. The last motor we had in the car dyno'd at 187whp with more left in it.

 

Any pictures or details on the dry sump yet?

 

I thought they were using the NC pan like me. Without cutting the firewall like they did even the timing cover and no oil pan installed would hit the steering rack.

 

First motor was a wet sump. Then we went dry sump. Modding the fire wall and moving the motor back also line up the shifter in the stock location .