skidude

I'm sure it's "easy" to dump in a bare engine, but what sort of work needs to be done to get power steering and AC to work on an LS1 miata?

Do you have to find a way to make the miata pumps work on the chevy engine, or make the chevy pumps play nice with the miata systems, or do you have to fit some whole chevy system into a miata?

And what about cruise control? I assume that one is pretty straight forward.

-Skid

skidude

i am sure somebody has done this stuff, yes?

waterwellwizard

Dude, check with the guys at Flyin Miata. They have done it. (to my NB conversion and probably several others) both a/c and p/s work great. They've got it figured out. WIZ.

ls1miata

Most use chevy PS pump hooked up to the Miata rack. Some put the miata pump on the GM engine. There is a big debate over whether PS is needed. I do NOT have it and love the way my car drives. PS is more $, complexity and will fail at some point, especially if you track the car.

AC is nice to have and can be down with GM compressor, custom lines with the rest being miata parts.

Keith

Yes, we have it all working on our builds. The difficulty depends on the model year of the car, but the short form is that everything attached to the engine is GM (not necessarily Chevy), everything attached to the chassis is Mazda.

There's no reason to be scared of PS. I think most people who are arguing it's not necessary are mostly worried about the effort The end result is no more failure-prone than the factory PS setup. Mounting the Miata pump on the GM engine is more difficult to do well than using a GM pump and bracket, though.

MRM331

Unless you're going to ONLY track the car I would go with PS. Non-power may be fine while you're moving but parking a car with 225 width tires and no PS is a pain.

We Ford folk have been using the Mazda PS pump for years with no problems. Some have also adapted the Ford pump to the Mazda rack with custom lines, again no reliability problems. We usually use the Mazda one due to it's small siza and weight when compaired to the huge Ford one. I don't know what the GM pump looks like though so that advantage may be negated in your case.

-Jason

RotorNutFD3S

I'm glad you said that, I remember riding in your car. I've been trying to decide if I want to keep my manual rack for my build, this made up my mind.

skidude

Is the effort sans PS any greater with the V8 than with the stock engine? I've got 225 tires and I've played with and without PS, and honestly, I don't know if I'd bother going through the effort if it's not any harder than stock.

As for AC, I will have to see what sort of duty the car will see before I decide on the effort I will put in for that I guess.

wkeeling

Keith, how do y'all to the A/C

Keith

We use a GM compressor and build custom lines to attach it to the Miata system. As with the PS, the basic rule is that anything attached to the engine is GM and anything mounted on the chassis is Mazda.

Carlisle

Hey Kieth, I used a 07 vette C-6 drive and find the A/C bracket will not fit. I have the GM comp and the 01 Miata, any sugestions on a bracket for install in the upper right instead of lower right boss?

Keith

No specific recommendation, sorry. We don't use that configuration.