2000 Miata V8 conversion with 2000 LS1 & 6 speed & Getrag
 

This car has been sold and is currently in the Dallas metro area.

Like some others here, after seeing the YouTube video series on the Project Thunderbolt I got the itch to get a Miata and drop a V8 drivetrain into it. To that end I purchased a clean 2000 Miata Special Edition for $6000 and drove it for almost a year while researching and deciding on a plan.
After pricing the various Flyin Miata installation parts and looking at the cost of new drivetrain parts, I decided that for me and my budget a used engine and transmission and Getrag differential in combination with most of the Flyin Miata conversion pieces is the way to get it done. I will be using some misc. parts from various sources because a number of threads on here have items that in my opinion are better than the way that Flyin Miata does it.
Hopefully everybody will be able to get a good idea how the conversion works with less than the $30,000+ budget that it takes to do with all new pieces.
The end result was be a sleeper Miata with very little external cues to give away the performance potential for a conversion cost of $17,000 plus $6000 to purchase the car and spending 6 months on and off to complete in my 1 car garage.

First off is the Miata I will be starting from, a clean 2000 Special Edition with 110,900 on the odometer when the teardown began. It already has 16" wheels and new tires that will stay in place for the time being. Bought it early in 2016.
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The engine and transmission I found came from a 2000 Z28 SS with a 6 speed manual transmission with 82,000 on the odometer. The salvage bought the car at auction and claimed they were parting it out because they can make more money that way and they are in the business of parting out cars. I am a bit suspicious because the car looks clean in the pictures.
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Received the engine and transmission with all the wiring harness and hoses and accessories still attached. Everything looks visually clean but inspection and compression test will tell the tale. Paid $5300 for it with the ECU reprogrammed to disable the key interlock function and delete any emission related codes. Will still need to do a final tune after the car gets up and running. At the time of purchase I didn't know exactly what pieces I would be using so I asked for everything I could get.

Edit after the fact;
Engine has been great with no issues.
No vibration or oil burning or clatter or anything else indicating any problem.
Cylinder pressure check was great with all cylinders testing to just a couple of pound variation.
The valve covers were pulled for inspection and the engine looks well maintained with no bent pushrods.
The rear main seal did leak a couple of drops of oil every day or two but replacement of the front and rear seals made that problem go away.
The transmission worked correctly for about a month before the 3rd and 4th gear syncro's went out, which in turn forced a rebuild.
While the engine was out of the car I had the transmission upgraded to Viper specs and blueprinted to supposedly be good for something over 600 ft. pounds of torque.
Way beyond a simple rebuild and worth every penny for the long term peace of mind.
Also replaced the crappy factory shifter with a 5.0 aftermarket shifter for the T56.
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One thing I tried to figure out early on is what can be done to the car in advance of the actual tear down process. The answer is that not a whole lot can be done while still keeping the car in driving condition.
There are a couple of small items.

The hood can be modified to utilize the aftermarket hood latches and add the rods that hold the hood open if the Flyin Miata Corvette style intake will be utilized. If a normal intake tube is utilized the hood needs no modification.
If utilized, the Flyin Miata Corvette style cold air intake modifications could be made to the hood and front plastic but would just be sitting there waiting for the engine. The actual intake cannot be installed due to interference with the Miata radiator cap.
The windshield washer bottle kit can be installed in the firewall location.
The front and rear suspension bushings could be replaced and upgraded but this would require an additional alignment job.
The front fender support braces can be installed.
A shock tower brace could also be bought and installed as long as it would clear the V8 intake.
The upgraded brakes can be installed.
Upgraded shocks can be installed.
Depending on the choice, upgraded tires and wheels can be installed.
If desired, a roll bar can be installed.
If desired a gauge pod could be installed on the windshield pillar but the instruments would probably not be hooked up. I did oil pressure and voltage meter so I could have actually wired everything to work with the 4 cylinder engine if desired.

Beyond that, there is not much that could be done to the car without tearing it down.
Of course the engine and transmission and rear differential could be purchased and have all the little things done to prepare them for the swap so they would be sitting aside and ready to drop in. There are several small sensors to be installed for the final gauges and the wiring harness can be modified, depending on which front accessory drive configuration is utilized.
A used Corvette cold air intake could hopefully be located for a couple of hundred dollars to save a big chunk of change over the brand new piece I bought.

Edit: 2720 pounds on a certified scale is the finished weight after the conversion was completed with a full tank of fuel and nothing in the trunk except the spare tire and about 10 pounds of tools.
Added it here because that seems to be the most common question.

The first thing I spent money on while researching the swap was to get my tiny 1 car garage up to snuff and usable. Space is, and will always be, a problem. You can only do so much with a 1 car garage and no lift capabilities other than a floor jack. That said, I feel I gave my space as much usability as possible.
I gutted the garage back to bare stud walls and wired in 8 outlets and 6 lights. Installed insulation so it will be at least reasonably usable when it is hot or cold. Installed a new garage door with a nice electric door opener so no more hand raising the door when moving the car in or out. The old door was a wooden pivot style from the 50's that was really heavy but still worked. The new one is a nice aluminum insulated model that goes up and down real easy at the push of a button. New sheet rock and paint finished it off real pretty. Last thing was to install a gas heater to keep it warm in the Winter. Still haven't addressed a 110 volt air conditioner for this Summer but that will happen.
For tools I visited Harbor Freight and spent a wad of money. They have a super low profile jack that lifts higher than most that somebody on another thread liked real well so I got one. Bought small and medium sized jack stands and a $200 rolling tool chest that is doing a good job of holding all the tools I bought to do the project. Lots of Metric tools. I "donated" almost of my tools to a thieving former son-in-law so had to start pretty much from scratch. Didn't keep track of the cost but probably spent about $1500 at Harbor Freight and another $500 at Lowe's on tool related stuff.
At least I do have a nice concrete floor and enough light to do the job.
For the garage update and tools I am guessing I am out about $4000-$5000. Not focusing on the money but I do like to keep track of such things and hopefully to give others an idea of where and how money gets spent when doing a project of this magnitude.

The next piece I bought is a Getrag differential.
First, I checked out what Flyin Miata says is the correct differential for the V8 Roadster kit that they sell and utilize. They mention the 2005 to 2008 Cadillac CTS-V differential with 3.73 gears or the same housing is available in other GM models and can be cross shopped.
With that information I used my rather pathetic internet skills to locate a used differential. The place I contacted said "We have a 2007 differential with 3.73 gears that has about 200,000 miles on the car or a 2010 CTS-V differential with about 100,000 miles and a 3.42 gear set.
Me being the smart guy that I am, totally ignored the year recommendation and bought the 2010 CTS-V differential.
BIG mistake because it is not compatible with the differential utilized for the V8 Roadster kit. I received the differential and figured out pretty quick that something was wrong. It does not have the 3 bolt driveshaft connection and the frame connections look all wrong. Called up the salvage and begged to please take back the wrong one. In the mean time they had sold the questionable 200,000 mile differential that would work.
Ended up costing me about $240 total in shipping charges. Hopefully some others can read this and learn from my expensive mistake.
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After that mess I backed off and posted a note on here asking about buying the correct piece and somebody answered and mentioned that I could probably do well by calling LKQ online to see about buying one that would work. A very nice lady helped me out. Originally I asked about a 2007 or 2008 Differential for a Cadillac CTS-V with 3.42 gears. She checked her computer and said that that particular car only comes with 3.73 gears and is available for about $800. Since I really want a different gear set I told her I would continue looking. She stopped me before hanging up and mentioned that she can cross check for compatible parts in her data base. She checked and found a compatible Getrag differential with 3.23 gears and limited slip from some Cadillac SUV with less than 100,000 miles for $250 plus shipping. Even though I want 3.42 I jumped all over that on the presumption that for that price I am not out too much money if I don't like the gearing. Hopefully it will do the trick and I can cruise at about 1600 rpm on the highway. Who knows, I might even be able to get 30 mpg.

Edit after the installation;
In hind sight I should have bought a brand new differential.
Getrag's are known for being sloppy on the lash and mine was no different.
After driving the car for a couple of months I noticed that the internal clutches are slipping more than I would like under hard throttle.
While taking someone for a short "test ride" where I did a roll on full throttle from a first gear rolling start (first time I did it in the car) we noticed that there was some fishtailing.
That told me that the differential clutch was slipping.
A couple of weeks later a leak appeared with one of the axle seals leaking as the car is being driven down the road but not while the cat is sitting in the garage.
I jacked up the rear of the car and removed the differential to replace the seals.
When I drained the fluid the magnetic plug had a lot of small metal grindings which tells me that the generous lash situation is not going to hold up to hard use.
Time to do what I should have done at the start and either buy a new differential or get this one rebuilt.
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While waiting for some of the Flyin Miata kits to show up I went ahead and cleaned up the engine and transmission. Did not do a compression test yet but cleaned up the outside and removed the oil pan and unbolted the transmission and bell housing from the engine and the accessory stuff that will not be re-used.
It all looks nice and clean now and ready for the new accessory parts. As part of the dis-assembly I looked at the clutch plate. Other than having some surface rust from something (I have my suspicion what it is) the clutch looked great and appears to be the factory clutch with some life left in it. I will be switching it out for a new piece anyway because I don't care to be removing the transmission a year down the road to change out a burned up clutch. That (and a few other things) tell me that the car was not thrashed or modified so there is hope that I have gotten a good drivetrain.
Next I removed the transmission drain plug to get the last of the fluid out of it and inspect the fluid for junk. No junk or metal shavings but the little bit of fluid remaining dribbled out looking like Peptol Bismol. A red flag for me. I checked into it and found out the T56 is supposed to use automatic transmission fluid, who would have thought. The pink color tells me that there was some water mixed in with the fluid. Between that and the rust on the outside of the pressure plate ears I am suspicious that the car was involved in a flood. Not sure how to go about inspecting the transmission more carefully. If anybody has any thoughts, please share them with me.
When I removed the oil pan from the engine everything looked pristine with a light coating of clean oil, no shavings or metal bits or engine parts laying around. Hopefully whatever put the moisture into the transmission did not make it into the engine. I have not removed the valve covers yet or done a compression test as I decided to put the engine into my storage building to free up space so I could start tearing apart the Miata.
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You're off to a great start! Thanks for posting the build thread...
By the way, my take-out LS2 and T56 appeared to come out of a low-level flood GTO. I had a water line on the flywheel just below the rear main seal. But zero issues inside both units. I hope you have the same good fortune I did.

Building a V8 Miata is not one huge and complex project taking months but rather a series of small projects that combine into an end product. With that outlook in mind, I decided to do a simple starting project.
Bought the Flyin Miata windshield washer bottle relocation kit because it is something that can be done even before any teardown happens.
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The long necked plastic container on the right side of the picture is the washer bottle and you can see how much real estate is gained by relocating it. Definitely a real worthwhile thing to do.
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Pretty simple. You simply remove the factory washer bottle from the car and remove the fluid pump motor from the bottle to reuse in the new bottle. Once that happens you relocate the new bottle assembly into the open area behind the firewall where the windshield wiper mechanism goes back and forth as the wipers are sweeping.
The package includes wires to extend the power from the right side of the car to the left side of the car but knowing that I would be modifying the wiring in the future, I decided to leave the new bottle unpowered. The bolts and brackets in the package are normal plated bolting and bare steel brackets so I put some flat black paint on them so they would not stand out too badly against the darker engine bay color.
There is enough existing rubber hose to go across the car from left to right and connect into the factory connector but if you want to make the installation look cleaner you can remove the factory hoses and clips and flip them around so the hood mounted hose connection is on the left to make the installation look cleaner.
For those of you interested in saving a few bucks, PJ McGarvey's build threads mentions where you can buy the bottle directly from a Japanese supplier and make your own brackets for half the cost of the kit but I decided to splurge on the kit.

Edit;
After the fact I painted the bottle matte black with just a vertical stripe on the back side to visually see the liquid level.
It disappears into the background and looks much better to me than the white bottle.
https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.v8m...69a60b3d98.png


The kit installed in it's new home.
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Next up was a project that I could do completely separate from any other modification, new shocks, V-MAXX Classic coilovers.
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The old shocks were factory original 17 year old items that were in real bad need of replacement. It tool me three evenings to get them all replaced and another hour to get them adjusted at the ride height I want. One shock was defective and Flyin Miata was out of the particular one's that I had. Took a 2 week wait while more came across the ocean on a slow boat. They sent me a replacement and all ended well. A couple of YouTube video's on replacing Miata shocks were real helpful.
The new shocks made a definite difference in how the car acted over bumps.
When I called them up, the Flyin Miata person recommended a much more expensive shock since I knew at the time that I would be doing a conversion but since I am a road person who will probably never do any heavy duty performance driving I decided to go with the $695 set.

Been buying parts and noticed something odd.
Based on the Flyin Miata parts list I bought a C6 Corvette starter from Rock Auto for about $110.
I specified 2007 when ordering.
All fine and good except it looks different than the 2000 LS1 starter.
Here is a picture of both side by side.
Attachment 8587
Even though the Corvette starter is shorter and will clear the headers, the bolting support areas are different dimensions. Just one thing to know if you are using a LS1 drivetrain with the Flyin Miata instructions and parts list.
There is another thread, P J McGarvey if memory serves correct, where he compares a number of starters to find out which will work. He mentions that there are weaker starters and stronger starters. On the picture you can see the face where the serial number is put on the new starter is probably 3" lg. while the support area for the old starter is only about 1/2". The end result is that you will need a new starter bolt but (hopefully) everything will bolt up correctly and will end up with a better supported starter. From other threads I am doubtful I will be able to utilize the small heat shield.

The connector to the wiring harness is different from the LS1 starter connector but in accordance with another thread, when you remove the covering from the wiring harness, the other end of the starter connection has the correct connecter to work with the Corvette starter.

It took me a couple of days to remove the 4 cylinder engine and 6 speed transmission because I am slow and try to be careful. My original intention was to unbolt the front subframe and raise the body off that to do the removal but after checking out the amount of room in my 1 car garage I came to the conclusion that pulling the engine out in the conventional manner would be more efficient.
Off came the hood, all the various stuff was disconnected and the fluids drained and then the assembly was removed with a cherry picker.
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The final step of that process was to get everything out of the garage so the floor could be cleaned. The non-running car was pushed onto my rather steep driveway and the drivetrain was taken to my storage building until it gets sold. If anybody knows a buyer for the stuff, please have them drop me a note.
Edit: All the drivetrain is sold. Got $750 for the engine with computer and wiring and accessories. Sold the transmission for $500. Got $500 for the rear end with axles but had to drive 150 miles to meet the buyer half way.

Since I am waiting for the front subframe kit from Flyin Miata, I decided to do the fuel tank modification next. When watching the Thunderbolt video series, I noticed that Tom made a little BooBoo in doing the fuel line upgrade after doing the Lizard Skin insulation. He had to back up and grind some of the Lizard Skin in order to install the frame rails and fuel line. Learning from his mistake I will be installing both BEFORE the Lizard Skin stuff is sprayed in place.
The first picture is the Flyin Miata instruction sheet opened to the fuel system modification page and two items that are removed and discarded.
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Flyin Miata sells a real nice fuel upgrade kit but the instructions are really sketchy and had me doing some head scratching before I got it figured out.

First off, the kit includes a pretty red cap that I could not figure where it might possibly go. After doing the entire switch I figured out that it plugs one of the unused lines on the charcoal canister.
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I did not take a picture of the supplied kit but they send a real nice list to cross check against the parts. The list shows the manufacturers part numbers as well as Flyin Miata part numbers so it would be easy for somebody to get the stuff direct and save a couple of bucks if they wanted to do it the hard way. I prefer to push the easy button.
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The instructions tell you what to do to the assembly that unbolts from the fuel tank so I will leave that alone except to mention that you need to look real hard at the wiring harness that needs to be spliced due to the new pump using a different connector. Pay attention to the + and - shown on the old pump. On mine the dark blue wire is + and the black wire is -. On the new pump the + is red, which makes it easier to visually tell which is which. I had to look real hard to make sure which was blue and which was black because in the shadow they both look dark.

The kit includes three braided steel lines, one long and two short. The two short lines go between the tank connections and the filter and you MUST connect specific tank lines to specific filter connection points. Also, the 90 degree end of each line connect to the filter as best I could determine. The instructions gave no guidance. The picture shows how I ended up doing the line. Make note that the central fuel pump line connects to the edge connection on the filter and the return tank connection connects to the center filter connection. It seems backwards but the instructions were very specific in telling which ends connect together.
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The instructions simply say to mount the new filter in the same location as the original. I was not able to utilize the same mounting holes or the old filter bracket so I drilled a small hole and used a self tapping bolt to mount the filter close to where the original sat with the outlet connection pointing down. Might have to move it a bit when connecting the long fuel line but it is good for now.
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As part of the process of doing the fuel upgrade I removed the rear end housing so the fuel tank could be removed. Not necessary in 20/20 hind sight.
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If doing it over I would simply remove three fuel tank bolts and loosen the other so the fuel tank could shift enough to allow the hoses to be fed down beside the tank. The stuff being removed from the tank to allow changing of the pump can be done from inside the passenger compartment. Probably cut the time for the whole project in half and get rid of all the heavy moving and lifting. Live and learn from my mistake.

Since the drivetrain was removed from the Miata I spent about a week of evenings getting the engine compartment ready for surgery and removing almost everything from the passenger compartment.
One thing I noticed on the first couple of builds that Flyin Miata did was that they did not completely remove the wiring harness from the car (with the exception of the engine harness) so I followed suit and zip tied the various harnesses out of the way as much as possible.
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I am thinking it will work if I cover the wiring and fenders with some sort of protection but we will have to see.

Edit: One thing I should have done was to go ahead and remove the fender skins. Got a couple of small scratches during the course of the conversion and the fenders had to come off anyway while installing the fender braces.

Next on the "to do" list was to remove the passenger compartment braces so that the transmission tunnel can be enlarged. In his video Tom used a neat spot weld cutter but I took the old fashioned path and simply drilled out the spot welds. It leaves some rather large holes to be filled but I will put a thin sandwich plate between the two pieces when it comes time to weld them back in place and it should re-weld just fine. All together it took me about 2 hours and half a dozen drill bits. Since somebody on a thread I scanned mentioned getting them switched upon installation I marked them with L and R. Hopefully I can remember which is which, but you can never tell with an old fart like me.
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Congrats on the start of your build, looking good so far.

Thanks for all your help P J.
You answered many of my questions and concerns as I was planning on my build path and I am confident you will help me with many of the hurdles to be overcome as the build progresses.

Hurdles, many there will be. -Yoda

Already have a nice pile of parts, mostly from Flyin Miata, in boxes stacked in my work room but decided to order more stuff on my list so that it would be sitting around when the time comes to install anything that is still needed.

Cross checked Jegs and Summit Racing and found out that the Lizard Skin products are cheaper thru Jegs at this particular moment so I pulled the trigger on 2 gallons of thermal insulation & 2 gallons of sound insulation and a spray gun. (edit: After the fact, 1 gallon of each would have been plenty)
Also got an EGR block-off plate since I have a 2000 model with a nice hole in my intake due to the removal of the useless factory exhaust manifolds.

Purchased the CTS-V accessory drive kit and water pump from Summit but they were out of the necessary balancer so I ordered it from GMPartsDirect.

Bought a clutch kit with flywheel from Rock Auto. Not a real expensive one and I will check it our to see if it works to my satisfaction. If it sucks I will pull it back out and see about spending more money on something better. I had a buddy who bought the same kit for his TransAm and he is happy with it. Edit: After driving the car for a while I can say that the clutch kit I purchased from Rock Auto works extremely well for the 350 HP that the stock engine is putting out. Hooks up great with no slippage under heavy throttle and works smoothly with no chatter.

Something I had overlooked when ordering the subframe kit and rear differential kit from Flyin Miata was the fender braces. Lots of people fabricate their own and I considered going that route since I work in the Engineering department of a fabrication shop and could have them cut out whatever I want on our burning table. Decided to go the easy route and buy the V8 Roadster braces so I called them up since the previously ordered kits had not been delivered yet. Added them to my order and they will package them in with the front subframe kit, which is scheduled to ship out some time in the next week. (edit: shortly after receiving my V8 Roadster braces, I got a flyer from Flyin Miata showing that they sell a style of brace that looks to be substantially stiffer than the V8 Roadster braces. If doing over I would have gone with the Flyin Miata brace)

For major items, I still need to pull the trigger on whatever I will do on the exhaust system and radiator and cold air intake.
The current radiator on my Miata is a Mishimoto high performance replacement single pass with dual fans that might work with the LS if I want to fight thru the hose routing issues.
For the cold air intake I am wobbling between the Corvette snorkel style of intake or the cold air system that has the filter in front of one fender in the dead air space where it can get good cold air thru the front air dam vent hole. The Corvette snorkel sure does look outstanding but I really don't like having to cut the hood and use hood pins rather than a normal latch.
With the exhaust system beyond the headers the Flyin Miata system is sure tempting as being a bolt on system that looks and performs really well, but on the other hand, there is a local muffler shop a few blocks down the road where they will custom bend an exhaust system and use whatever mufflers I supply. They do a real nice job and would probably cost half the price of the Flyin Miata exhaust.
Those are things I will thrash around in my head and see which little voice comes out on top when the time comes to decide.
Edit: When the time came I went with the Flyin Miata cold air intake kit as well as their exhaust system. No regrets on either except that perhaps I could have purchased a used Corvette cold air intake piece and saved some money. The exhaust is outstanding and worth every penny.

Made some progress this evening by starting on the actual body surgery.
"Borrowed" some high temperature flexweave cloth that we use to lay down near welding and cutting and grinding where we need to protect some specific area or part. Since it is not the softest stuff in the world I layered drafting sized paper sheets underneath to protect the paint and glass. In my opinion this method will work better than soft flammable cardboard. Might have gotten lucky with cardboard but now I don't have to take the chance.
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Once the high temperature cloth was in place I proceeded to grind off the lip on each side rail that overhangs the engine bay as I feel it will look cleaner as well as give about 1/2" more room on each side between the engine and side rails. Guess the factory thought sandwiched and spot welded was good enough for the four cylinder. Even though the Flyin Miata instructions say it is not necessary for the 99-05, I added a small cut and bent area at the top of the tunnel. A couple of build threads mentioned doing this on their NB and since there is space available when the heating duct is installed I went ahead and did it. A buddy will MIG weld stuff back together tomorrow. We will be removing the pieces so that the corners of the engine bay can be squared off and we will weld in the Flyin Miata patch plates and do the cutting and beating to enlarge the transmission tunnel.
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Once he welds the frame rails together I will take a look and if I feel the weld quality is not 100% I will get some 1" x 1" angle to weld over the corner to add strength at the joint.

Until the V8 Roadster front subframe kit and rear differential installation kit arrive in a couple of weeks I will probably working some other small projects but I am nearly at a stopping point. Plenty of time for cleaning up everything and double checking to make sure there is nothing else that needs to get on order.

"Forceps please"

Wish I'd done that frame rail mod myself, would make the engine bay look just a bit larger and cleaner.

Lookin' good. WRT the transmission. If you just want a peek inside, and who doesnt, it's pretty easy to remove and replace the tail piece. If you go past that it's more complex, but doable. I can also recommend dropping the car over the engine. it's a lot easier to put the engine in the subframe outside the car.

I looked at several YouTube video's and didn't find any taking off the tail shaft. Anybody have a link, please share it with me.

Back to the surgery, a friend and I spent most of the day cutting and grinding and welding. Got the side rails welded but not completely ground, the two corner braces installed and welded, and the tunnel cut and beat out but not welded back up. Now it is about as far as the surgery can go until the front subframe shows up so I can do a trial fit. After looking at the corner welds on the frame rails I am definitely going to install a couple of 6" lg pieces of angle on each side. That factory sheet metal is just so thin that I don't trust it not to start cracking welds. It is a very fine line between getting the filler burned in and just burning clean thru the sheet metal.

One little thing I need to know is how to raise the windows with the dash removed and the the steering column removed. I tried laying the steering column in the interior and connecting the wires to the ignition then turning on the ignition and using the window switch to get the windows to go up. No luck. So what I need is some way to wire across the window motor to make them go up. The car needs to go outside for a couple of weeks while I clean up the garage and get the LS engine ready to install in the cradle for trial fit so please give me some direction. I can't be the first build to need to raise and lower the windows after. The wiring harness is disconnected.

Here's the manual the tail piece is section 2-1. if you want to button it back up at that point it's at the end section 4.8.1. You'll also be able to see the magnets. i'm kind of surprised you need the dash to raise the windows.you should just be able to plug in the switch and battery and woosh, but i dont have electric windows, so i can test that.

http://www.tremec.com/anexos/TRSM_T56_0711.pdf

Thanks for the transmission information. I will see about using it next week.

My lesson of the day was that I figured out about the power windows by going to the service manual, duuuu.
There are several wires running to the doors from the central wiring harness. Some speaker wires, a connector with 3 wires and a connector with 2 wires. Strangely enough the two wire connector is for the window motor. Plus is one and minus is the other. One polarity makes the window go up and reversing the polarity makes the window go down. About as easy as it can be.

Just now seeing this build as I haven't been around in a couple weeks. Looks like you have a great start so far, love those SE cars. I assume you have figured out how much you can make back by selling those factory parts? The six speed and the torsen in particular.

You should read through a couple of the popular build threads here. I saw several statements in here that have been dealt with in the past, particularly in Toysnakes and my own.

Thanks for checking out my build. I followed your build and printed out your entire build thread to use for reference.

Since my thread is using 75% Flyin Miata kits with the other 25% being used parts or stuff sourced from other places, my intent is to highlight the places where the Flyin Miata instructions are lacking. The further I get into this build the more I am finding that the Flyin Miata instructions for each of their component kits is really sketchy so my intent is to flesh out each one as I get to it in order to help out others down the road.
The Flyin Miata conversion instructions are free and that cost is reflected in the quality of the instructions.

I have had my original drivetrain up for sale over on Miata dot net but not much interest on the differential or engine. I did sell the transmission for $500. The engine has low compression on no. 3 cylinder so I suspect the engine could use a re-ring since it is not burning any oil and it runs just fine. It might come down to he having to hone and re-ring the cylinders in order to sell it but that will be a project for after my V8 project is up and running.

Making some progress in a couple of small areas while waiting for the V8 Roadster front subframe and rear Getrag install kit.

The Flyin Miata oil pan showed up so I did the necessary trimming to the 2000 LS1 oil baffle to make it fit the oil pan. It appears that there are differences in the exact size of the baffle for various LS engines and mine is shorter than the one pictured in the Flyin Miata instructions so I had to trim a bit less than what is shown on the instructions. Also, it is not shown on my picture as I was still in the middle of test fitting when the picture was snapped but I had to trim the two corners from the back of the baffle to fit the shape of the oil pan. You can see on the left side of the picture that the baffle does not fit the shape of the oil pan in the upper left and lower left corners.
Attachment 8572
The Flyin Miata purchased oil pan (Moroso, if memory serves) is the style that has the machined block for a spin on oil filter. You have the option of a remote mount oil filter but I decided to go with the attached style even though the filter is real close to the header collector. Best will be to use some heat wrap on the header near the filter if I decide not to wrap the entire header. The pan does not come with gaskets or bolts and the bolting from the factory pan are too long to work. I used the header bolts that I had previously purchased and will buy more header bolts. The length was correct and they have a build in shoulder to give plenty of support.

Edit: One item that I had to correct has to do with the oil filter mounting bracket. Don't have a picture but it is an aluminum machined bracket that bolts to the underside of the oil pan to allow the use of a spin on filter. The piece that was supplied did not come with a gasket but does have two machined grooves machined with rubber O-rings installed in the grooves. The O-rings isolate the two holes that circulate the oil thru the filter. Originally I mounted the bracket without any gasket (other than the O-rings) because none was supplied. The problem with this showed up as I was driving the car around. My best guess is that the O-rings give enough seal so that no oil leaks when the car is just sitting in the garage but allows a small amount of oil to weep past as the pressure is higher as the car is being driven. It was a difficult thing to figure out because the oil was weeping out very lightly so there was no actual dripping visible when I would inspect under the car other than general oil coating the rear of the oil pan and the front of the bellhousing cover, which made me think it was the rear seal leaking. My fix was to remove the oil filter bracket and do a thin coating of Permatex Form-A -Gasket on the mating surface between the bracket and the oil pan. One other thing this fix brought out was that I should have used studs loctited into the block with nuts rather than using the supplied bolts. Once again, please learn from my mistake.