My 1992 Green Monster Memorial build
 

So, at the advice of a few of the other builders on here, I have decided to start my build thread. I have been working on the car for about a month and pictures from my actual camera will follow. Here's the back story for this work in progress.

My build will utilize a 1992 Na Miata. She started life as just a run of the mill, redhead. My brother bought this car for my mother for mother's day one year, I remember driving with him to pick it up. She absolutely loved it. The paint was faded, but she would spend hours turning the cloth and her hands pink to bring back that beautiful red. I actually learned how to drive in this car.
She ran great for several years until finally, the dreaded keyway snapped in the older 1.6 snc. She went down. My mother was quite upset. My husband (a much better mechanic than myself) found another engine and we drove a ways to get it. We swapped the engines and she lived again.

Sadly, my mother was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer on my husband and I's wedding day. We had just finished getting the car back together after the swap and my mother just wanted one more drive from her. I rode with her and what a glorious ride it was. Went down some back roads and pushed her full throttle. My mom was an amazing woman. Less than 6 months after she had been diagnosed, she lost the fight to cancer. She left her so loved little car to me. I vowed I would keep the car until I died or it was a pile of rust. (would never happen)

Now, to the happier side of the story.

I drove her for a couple of years as a stock little car. 2013 rolled around and I deployed over to Afghanistan (USMC KC130 CrewMaster) for 8 months. While I was away, my husband 1.8 swapped and turbo'd the little car my mother had affectionately named "Zoom". I came home to a much faster little car. Next on my list was paint. I wanted something that would stand out and look amazing. It took longer than we intended, but we painted Zoom ourselves in the garage. Finally...she was almost perfect.

Then the idea came to us as my husband tinkered with his LS swapped RX7 FD......time for some monster power in the little car. The gears were in motion. His LS had come out of his 04 CTS-V after someone had hit him and totaled the car. He decided he would build another LS and his CTS-V engine would go to me. The T56 he had would come with it.

So now here we are, present day. I've gathered most of my parts and started tear down. I'll keep posting my progress and questions. I have truly been inspired by so many threads on here. Thank you for reading and enjoy the show.

Welcome to the site. Great story and your going to have a ton of fun with the LS swap. Look forward to seeing the build.

What an awesome story! Can't wait to see this project get going.

Added a few pictures to my original post.

Love that green color, are you gonna go ahead and finish it off now that its all apart?

What do you mean finish it off?

I think he is referring to the unflattering engine compartment finish.:(

Ah, yes. It is a work in progress and in tear down mode. A lot of grime builds up on a rattlecanned black engine bay haha. The engine bay will be redone once the dirty work (seam stitching/cleanup) is complete. It will flow right along with that beautiful green. Lot's to do before that. BUT, it is in the works. Waiting to get my husbands 700+hp rx7 fd off the lift to get her in and remove some items (like the subframe), do some test fits and then finish her off.

See above. No reason to put on paint yet while still burning and welding in there. In fact, still removing old, nasty paint as well.

Cool project and awesome tribute. Welcome to the board.

Removing seam sealer today. Cold and wet are not good motivators.

Update
 

Sorry for the long delay. LOTS of progress, just haven't been on here lately. Pics as they happened since Feb. We got first start last night!!!! Now just to finish her up. Have to give my husband mad props for working on her while I was out of town. LOTS of good things happening for the little green monster!

sorry for the upsidedown pics...dunno why it did that.

Wow. Great progress this Spring. Green paint with black fender arches looks fantastic in my book! Can you share details on the reinforced front shock towers? It's a nice look - all smoothed out and tapered towards the LSx.

PS - Pics loaded right-side up just fine!

Man I love that green! Looks great against the black!

Thanks for the update it's been waaaay too long! I'll have to say I am very impressed! When you paint an engine bay you certainly don't mess around! Great build and I have no doubt mom would be thrilled to see this!

I am terrible about getting on here gents. I apologize. The shock towers were just plates of medium weight steel welded over the braces and then everything was ground down to a happy level and smoothed over with some metal reinforced bondo. (that stuff is some awesome stuff, btw) I've put about 650 miles on her now and she roars like a tiger. I'll get some more pictures up soon. Dyno'd her out and it looks like I may need to bump up to the kooks to meet my power goal. We intend on building her up this winter for a solid 500hp na. shes at 372 now and definitely feels very very quick. Took her to the track Friday night and had a hell of a time getting my Maxxis street slicks to warm up and got a little squirelly. User error. Looks like a line lock may be in my future as well. Thanks for the support guys, it's been an adventure for sure and we are already looking at our next build. :)

what kind of times were you seeing?

Best run I had was a 13.8. We got there late and only got a few runs in. Couldn't stick my 2nd to 3rd shift and couldn't get the tires warm. Car was more than happy to go, it was all on me, I'd rather slow down than squirrel into a wall. Still learning the nuances of the t56. Gonna take a little practice to get use to all that power haha.

Update
 

It's been an exciting summer/fall for Zoom and myself. Some of you guys are on the FB page and have seen the progress. Well, been toying around with her quite a bit. End of July proved almost fatal as our garage burned to the ground. Jim and I ran into the growing inferno to save his rx7 and Zoom. Lost a lot of stuff including my color matched hardtop and a fastback top I had just picked up. We are now finishing up the rebuild of the garage. Since the last post, we have improved times at the dragstrip and even took her out autocrossing. What a blast. We even got featured in LSX mag and brought home some shiny stuff at a couple car shows. I've upgraded to some 275s in the back for the dragstrip and the tires alone dropped over half a second off our time. Picked up a fast90 intake and put that in. Just got my kooks and we won a NOS kit in a raffle, so Zoom is gonna pick up a boost once we are done this spring. Loving this little rocket of a car. I'll post some pictures once I can get them on my computer. Reworking the exhaust soon once we get the headers up. We have had almost no issues with her since we finished. Missed out one MATG this year, with all the craziness, but hope to get out next year.

Wow. Very sorry to hear about the fire and the $$ parts and tools you all probably lost that day. Glad no loss of life or project cars though.

Sounds like the V8M is under continuous improvement as you put it through its paces. Happy New Year.

Amazing story so far, I hope life settles down for you in 2017. Great looking car, love the color.