He dropped some pretty good hints here:

• Not a v8 or turbo 4 cylinder. This means it's definitely a 6 cylinder, and likely a v6 due to miata engine bay constraints. I won't rule out a crazy 5 cylinder or something though.
• He didn't say it wasn't turbo. In fact, to meet his crazy power requirements it must be forced inducted. Wingman isn't going to do all this work to go down in power.
• Not a common miata swap. Rules out LFX, J-swap, or Jag v6's.

My guess is a VR38DE-TT (r35 GTR), Ecoboost v6, or 2GR-FE V6 + boost (E.G. lotus Evora).

 

I think it's gonna be something german. Either a VR6 or maybe even audi/VW 5 cylinder, or maybe he's serious about that audi V10 he's shared in a few places.

He's smart enough not to try to go inline-6, so that rules out BMW engines.

I love any of those ideas cuz it's gonna sound amazing, and I'm a bit of a VAG guy so that'd be fun.

 

I did think VR5 for a second, but only because my buddy's throwing one in an old Volvo 240 right now. Some quick research made it seem like those would require a lot of modification to make decent power though, so I assumed that wouldn't be the choice.

Now I'm just curious if that VW 10 cylinder he posted above is happening.

 

I vote the GM Atlas family I5 or the VW family I5 from the mk5 jetta.

 

yeah, definitely not the VR5 as that engine is super rare and to my knowledge never came to the USA. I mean the VW 07K 5 cyl, the one slow_1.6 is talking about.

 

random guess from me is the 2GR,

Fits all his checks, and is weird.

 

I don't know wingman's background with cars other than the miata but I'd be surprised if he went into a euro swap unless it's something he's familiar with. Some of those motors are so complicated there's no way you are rebuilding one in your garage, and that does seem to be more the wingman style here. But maybe that's just me and being extremely hesitant of over complicated euro vehicles in general. I have a few buddies that play with them and the more I learn about them the more I stay far away. Not to say they aren't excellently engineered and hold insane amount of power, either.

 

Maybe I was thinking VR6 instead of VR5. Regardless, either would be cool.

Iron has a good point on the 2GR, especially with the success that Frankenstein Motorworks seems to be having with them.

 

2.5l VW O7K inline 5 is super hawt in the automotive influencer spaces right now. Lots of eastern European drifters/companies with parts/knowledge/proof of abuse.

Imagine the clickbait YouTube titles "Half a Lambo v10 in MY MIATA!?!?!111!?!?"

 

Well, it's been awhile. As predicted, things wouldn't really be ready to release until February. But at last I have enough things starting to come together I feel comfortable sharing progress without blueballing everyone.


On the trip back from Gridlife PittRace last October, with yet another blown K24 and utterly disappointing weekend on the trailer behind me, I realized this K24 stuff wasn't working out. I had reached the point that to make the power I needed from them, I was dumping $4000-$6000 into a motor that would take 5-6 months to be machined, sleeved, and built. If I blew one a year that would be a brutal and unsustainable casualty rate. The accompanying issues with the K24 were just too great to ignore, most of all, the vibrations that destroyed everything on the car. Additionally, with the explosion in popularity of the K24, it had begun to lose its "cool" and "unique" factor.

The car needed a new powerplant. I decided to tackle this one differently then before. Since this car only runs in unlimited/anything goes classes, nothing was off the table. I wouldn't limit myself only to engines that had swap kits on the market- I'd build my own swap kit, with hookers and blow. I needed something that would be capable of producing north of 500whp with reasonable reliability, good aftermarket for parts, easy to source OE blocks/parts, didn't have intrinsic glaring faults, or require sourcing parts from unicorn cars or from overseas.

In short, I needed something light, cheap, unique, and powerful. Easy, right?

Lots of possible engines got thrown into the pot. VR6? Ecotech? Rotary? Viper V10? Audi V10? Atlas inline 5? Most of these were discarded after 20-30min of seeing what they cost to source, Wikipedia'ing them for known flaws, and realizing some of them don't have any worthwhile aftermarket.
But by the time I had pulled the broken K out of the car, its replacement was settled on and I started to move from despair and gloom over another broken engine, to excitement for something fresh with new engineering challenges to tackle.

To close one chapter on this car and open another, I'm giving this swap its own thread.

The K is dead.

Long live the 07K.


New thread:
https://www.miataturbo.net/build-thr...9/#post1674332