Howdy, newbie who's learning up
 

Howdy y'all.

I'm currently driving a '97 STO.

I've been interested in getting into the V8 MX-5 scene for a while. My father's friend offered to swap an LS for me if I have it done at his shop. Since then it's been an on and off obsession.

Been slowly trying to figure out how I'm going to go about doing the swap and I figure joining up here will help me along that path :)

Welcome aboard Cullen. It can be a rough and bumpy ride, but it's definitely worth it! Read, read, and read some more.

Good Luck,
RonR

Welcome!

What do you mean he is offering to swap it? At what cost? Is he wanting to use it as shop car?

He's willing to give me the motor and trans for free. If I pay labor for the swap.

Just curious, what are the specifics on the motor and transmission?
Any way you go about it anybody offering to give you those pieces is a really good friend cause that is a lot of money.
A Miata swap needs some very specific components because the intake & exhaust & oil pan & accessory drive system from most LS based vehicles will not work.
Particularly if the donor is from a pickup none of that stuff will work.

Generally the desired transmission is a T56 manual 6 speed and those things are super expensive these days.
If you use an automatic transmission there can be some fitment issues as there is not much space in the Miata transmission tunnel.

Labor cost is also a very open ended concept.
If you spend around $10000 to purchase the various Flyin Miata parts the installation labor is much less.
Take a look at YouTube and watch "Turbo Tom" do an install using mostly those parts.

If you expect the installer to fabricate some the various stuff to get the swap done the labor cost will be higher but the parts bill will be less.
Check out "Taylor Ray" on YouTube and the swap he did into his drift Miata for an example of how he bought some stuff and fabricated others.

If the shop will be fabricating the maximum amount with you purchasing the minimum amount you should check out the build being done by "DMV Channel" on YouTube as they are doing a swap as cheaply as possible by minimizing the amount of purchased items and maximizing the amount of fabricated stuff.

Before you start on a specific path you should at the least check out the YouTube video builds where they discuss cost for the swap to give a reality check.

I've been watching a lot of the youtube builds for quite a while now. So the guy has a handful of 40-50k mile LS2s that he pulled out of a "fleet" of track vettes the shop built. The shop also has a plentiful number of 5.3s if I would rather go for something along those lines. For the tranny I've been given my pick out of a group of 4ls 5ls and 6ls and there is also a couple old GM truck 4speeds they have that they can mount with a lakewood BH thats made for mounting the 4 speeds to a LS. I don't particularly enjoy driving stick, just a preference thing. I know the 6l50 is "rated" for about 320/320 but it's also been used in trucks that put out way more power without the internals being upgraded so there seems to be a bit of confusion surrounding that. In the Yukon Denali it was paired to a L86 and in the Camaro it was paired to an L99 from what I've read.

I also have experience with the 6l50 from a 4 month stint driving my grandmothers CTS wagon and I really enjoy the feel of it. Especially if integrating the manual shift mode was something I ever wanted to do. Then it would be possible. But as you said the autos tend to be a struggle to fit into the space.

I'm not sure how well it would work because I've struggled to find much info on this in particular. But due to the area of the shop (Louisville/Cincinatti/New Albany) it's possible there could be a surplus of TR6060s in junkyards from newer vettes and camaros. Seeing as how the area is just littered with about every vehicle the 6060 was mounted in.

Tr6060 does not just bolt right in.

Yea that would be why people probably don't talk about using it very much