Well, I was visiting my son-in-law and was new to the Stuart area while a friend of his was over and he was just getting ready to leave, I saw he was driving a nice clean Miata(97). Well, that's nice I thought, but it's not much more than an old MG which were good little sports cars back in the day. Well he fired it up and my interest went through the roof as this deep V8 rumble was coming from it, like a Sunbeam Tiger, AC Bristol Cobra might have or a Griffith of the 60's, that had 289 V8's in them. He was polite enough to open the hood and in it was a EFI 5.0L Ford V8 that was very neatly implanted into this little car. I WAS INTERESTED!! He told me of the kit that he got and all the details of the build and it got me thinking about it. This was 2 years ago and it still had my interest as this was a car that had the modern convienences of the new car world (air bags) and the creature comforts, along with the thunder of the V8. About a year and a half ago I was getting tired of the Tundra I was driving and being a car guy and not a truck guy anyway I started looking for new wheels. I couldn't get that Miata out of my mind so I found a nice 2001 in great shape and low miles and bought it. Now I have a fun convertible and the wife and I have been enjoying it alot, but no thunder under the hood.
About 6 months ago I started researching V8 Miatas and found there were a solid three companies that built the subframes and had worked out the geometry of the build and started to narrow down the choices. Monster Miata, that John (owned the one I first saw) used, put only Ford 5.0L V8's in theirs and he stated he had to call them many times to explain certain details. He also had to send them the subframe and they altered it and sent it back. That means lots of down time and the car apart waiting on them. I've never been a Ford guy back in the late 60's ( really a Mopar guy) so I kept looking and found a LS1 installation that used a tube subframe and a Chevy Getrag differential. Those rears were not that solid and I didn't want to start off with a headache differential. Nobody did a Hemi Miata and that is what I would have done if time and money were no object. But my auto experience is more back yard mechanic and the thought of trying it and not being able to work out all the details from my garage floor was to much.
LS than it has to be (GM) and the next company was Boss Frog. Oh yea, the name got me first too and made me check them out very closely. They built a new boxed subframe and a good trans mount with room for the exhaust pipes to get past. Their differential was a 8.8 Ford that is a real tough unit and the frame for mounting it was just a real sturdy piece of engineering. So if I do this it will be with them.
Well many months of Googling up info and looking for the right motor with the potential to be a ultra fast and a reliable little supercar went on. I learned to use e-bay and found almost anything can be found on it including new and used engines. The prices varied from cheap with high miles from a salvage yard to super expensive and out of my budget.
Lots of articles have been writen about the LS format engine and how even the little 5.3L were being punched up to 500hp. Well, I thought that will take a low mileage motor and tons of aftermarket parts to do that. A good machine shop and all that stuff to make it happen. All that adds up to many dollars again and would I save anything needing all this machine work to build it or just put in a tired old engine and call it good.
Well, John goes to the same church that I do and is a really good friend now, he has been a wealth of knowledge for me with this project and his approach to life through Christ. Godly men are the best friends a man can have if you don't already know that. (women too)! One of his sayings that holds true is there's no replacement to displacement in engines. With that thought I started looking at the 6.0L LS motors starting with the Lq4 - Lq9's that are truck motors but use the same 6.0L block as the LS2 engine in the Corvettes. They can be altered by removing some of the external parts like the intake maniflod that is really ugly on the truck to the car intake that is a lower profile. The front accessories swap out and you have a LS2 with an iron block. Lots of rodders prefer the iron for its strength over the aluminium block anyway. If your road racing the coupleof hundred pounds could make a difference in the 50-50 balance of the car but I'm a drag racer and thats not so important as strength.
One day while looking at used 6.0L motor one e-bay I came across a new 6.0L crate motor that was the new Gen IV 2009 truck motor (LY6). It was crated from the factory (GM) and had the new L92 heads that I was reading about in many articles from Car Craft and Super Chevy. "This could be the Monster I'm looking for"! The price for a new engine with the heads already there and rated at 360hp before I even start was very good. WoW
Let the build begin!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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