Driving Flyin' Miata's Corvette-powered Mazda Miatas
Since man first descended from the trees, his brain has been hard-wired to understand two things: the desire to go fast, and the enthusiasm for placing large objects inside slightly smaller objects.
The bipedal primates at Flyin' Miata follow their knuckle-dragging instincts by stuffing 6.2-liter Corvette LS3 V8 engines with as much as 480 hp into, well, the Mazda Miata. Flyin' Miata calls its LS3-powered Miatas the Habu -- which refers to a family of small, venomous snakes predominately hailing from Japan. The Miata is small and hails from Japan. Get it? Don't call it a Cobra.
The Miata's wheelbase is a full 14 inches shorter than the Corvette's. With the latter's engine, the Miata weighs just 200 pounds more than stock -- still some 500 pounds less than a 2013 Corvette. Flyin' Miata claims that the conversion only adds 1 percent more weight to the nose. Testers have clocked 0-60 times in the upper 3s.
Does this sound like fun to you? It ought to. It sure did for us.
The blue car, a 2004, is named "Elvis." Mazda donated it new when it was damaged before it was sold. Well, not donated, per se -- Mazda charged them a dollar. The shop used it as a development car and has torn it down twice, the second time repainting it a Lotus color, Laser Blue. Over its life, it's had four engines.
The red model is the current-generation Miata, "Atomic Betty." Out of the three generations, newer Miatas are reportedly the easiest to shoehorn the big V8 into -- the frame rails are farther apart. Getting the newer car to play nice with the electrics is a challenge, however. General Motors is surprisingly cooperative in this endeavor: since the shop uses a crate motor under warranty, if there's a problem it can be fixed at any GM dealer worth its salt. GM supplies wiring kits, fuse boxes, and a harness that Flyin' Miata swears is "idiot-proof."
Both cars have the latest LS3 crate engine from GM Performance, but the blue car has the "hot cam—" no, really, that's what it's listed in the catalog as. The hot cam boosts horsepower to 480 and sounds lovely -- a raucous burble that comes alive, emanating from the back through twin FM exhausts. It sounds like you're being tailgated by a >Cheetah race car. It is raw, unvarnished, decidedly impudent. Watch the drivers give you berth when they see a Miata -- a Miata, fer Chrissakes! -- coming towards them, sounding like God gargling mesquite chips.
Atomic Betty doesn't have the hot cam; she's a classy lady. Being newer, it also packs on a few more layers of sound deadening, thicker doors, and the overall benefit of six years of engineering development. It also hasn't been torn apart twice.
As a result it's more docile, but also tighter as a whole. Elvis's steering, while light and balanced like a second-generation Miata's should be, has a noticeable dead spot in the center where there's drastically reduced feedback. On Atomic Betty, the steering is accurate throughout. It's great to see how different the characters of the two cars are: both have surprising amounts of traction, never proving to be a handful on the roads of western Colorado. Step out the rear with a firm foot and catch it just as easily. Yet the blue car has that anarchistic hot-rod streak going. It's something I've been saying for years: the only way to make a Miata sound good is to put a V8 engine in it. Sometimes, it's refreshing to see your own validations justified.
Buy a V8 conversion and Flyin' Miata will include what they call the "Big Mama Jama": a Wilwood Stage 1 brake setup with 6-piston calipers up front, 4-piston rears, slotted and drilled rotors and Wilwood pads. The slight squealing tells you that they're working. And they do work well -- pedal modulation is an on-off switch, but a readily controlled one at that. The T56 6-speed transmission, found on both cars, is so tight you might as well reach in between the seats and change cogs with your bare hands. Elvis refused to get into fifth gear, protesting the entire time. Atomic Betty did so, but reluctantly; I nearly needed both of my skinny arms and hands to push it. A little guy, in a little car, with a big engine that -- despite its stock instruments, stock seats, stock gauges, stock sense of cognitive dissonance -- still reminds you of its outrageous power.
Flyin' Miata's entire ground-up conversion costs $43,000. That entails driving or shipping a formerly pristine Miata to its Palisade, Colo., garage, past the neat rows of vineyards. They will immediately set to work installing subframes, chassis bracing, the Big Mama Jama brake kit, a V-MAXX coilover suspension, custom exhaust, and seam welding the frame. Since opening the order bank in 2009, about 19 people have sent their car for conversion -- as we spoke, No. 20 had just signed up.
The price comes with a lot, but it won't cure the lingering notion that there's another Corvette-engined performance car available for the same price. It's called a Chevrolet Corvette.
Yet, Flyin' Miata estimates that of every person that brings their Miata in for a build, three or four people have bought the subframe kits (which they sell for $1,950), scavenged an LS engine from a nearby traffic pile-up, and built a V8 Miata themselves. You know, the American way.
So yes -- for the mechanically unmotivated, the Flyin' Miata Habu is not a cheap option. But ask Flyin' Miata founder Bill Cardell about it, and he has a different response.
"Lots of people want that V8, can't afford it, but don't get the turbo they could afford," said Cardell. "For $5,300, you could get the FMII system, make 250 hp. I worry that you get a young guy who wants that $45,000 V8 he's been dreaming about, but he doesn't get the turbo kit."
Seems in this case there is a replacement for displacement.
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