Agentlongwood

Hi all. I'm diving into an LS1 swap, into a 2001 Miata Special Edition. Been wanting to do this swap for about 8 years. Marriage, having a child, life, etc got in the way. But I'm in a place now where I have a garage, a boring daily car, and recent divorce so nobody to tell me no anymore, lol. So I'm taking this on as a fun way to keep my mind occupied, and do something I've wanted to for a long time.

I've got a 1998 LS1 from a Corvette. My dad is building a '67 Chevelle SS. Wasn't sure if he would use the factory motor or an LS, so he bought an LS1 with 500 miles on it. Apparently the Corvette fell off a car hauler, and was totaled while almost brand new. My dad went with the factory motor in his build, so I'm putting the LS1 to good use. Don't know if the Vette was auto or manual though... but it did come with the ECU and wire harness.

Picked up a T56 recently. Guy said it was from a 2002 Camaro, but it turns out it's actually from a Pontiac GTO. After reading about the differences between the Fbody and GTO versions, I'm not upset at all. Also got a rear end. Getrag unit out of a 2006 Cadillac CTS, with 3.42 gears and positraction. I don't have a truck, I have a 2006 Acura TL as my boring daily... and while hauling the differential home, it tipped over and poured gear oil all over my trunk. So now my TL smells lovely.

The Miata that I bought already had the FM coilover setup that they recommend for the swap, and a roll bar. Combined with a free hand-me-down motor, and I feel like I'm ahead of the game so far. Going to be asking you folks tons and tons of questions. But I'm looking forward to the project.

BGordon

Sounds like you are off to a good start.
Since you have already decided on the drivetrain the next big decision is if you will go the fabrication route for all the rest of the swap parts of if you will push the easy button and buy one of the various kits made for the swap.

If you decide to go the easier route of buying various installation kits specifically from Flyin Miata, my build will be an excellent reference.
https://www.v8miata.net/general-moto...d-getrag-3104/
Also, if you are debating on which installation route to take you can watch a couple of different YouTube video's to see how the various paths work out.
Taylor Ray does a good job of showing the Monster Miata path while Turbo Tom has an excellent video series of the installation path utilizing the Flyin Miata parts.

Agentlongwood

Thank you for the info. I'm planning on going the V8 roadsters route. From what I've read, the fit and finish from their work is superb. It also requires the least welding. I've never welded anything before. I have access to a welder, but I'd like to do as little of it as possible. All the other stuff, I feel fairly comfortable with. It's funny that you mentioned those 2 youtubers, as I'm actually subscribed to both, lol. Watched the whole project Thunderbolt series from Tom. Taylor should have won that Freedom 500 race... but he's just too nice a guy and wouldn't get aggressive enough once he got passed.

BGordon

Now that I know you are going to push the easy button via the V8 Roadster route your path becomes more direct and in line with the one I took a couple of years ago.
Something else you might want to know is that Flyin Miata utilizes the V8 Roadster front subframe, rear differential adaptor, driveshaft, axles, and some other items as part of the components they supply to do the swap.
I absolutely love the support that Flyin Miata gives when you purchase your kits from them.
I called them at least 6 times while doing my build to get clarifications. The person answering my questions had already built multiple V8 Miata's using those very same components.
Turbo Tom utilized the Flyin Miata component kits for his build and you already know from those video's how straight forward the build becomes.
Personally I prefer the Flyin Miata kits for a couple of reasons.
First, you can download the free installation instructions from Flyin Miata that will answer 90% of your questions on the installation.
Second, I personally prefer the shorty headers and the high quality stainless exhaust system that Flyin Miata sells over long tube headers and making your own exhaust system.
Long tube headers hang down further than the shorty headers and hurt the already minimal ground clearance that comes along with the Miata.
Second, Long tube headers are bulkier than shorty's and make tight space clearances in that area of the car even worse.
Third, the quality and sound of the Flyin Miata exhaust is superb, quiet at idle but very strong on acceleration without being too loud.
Fourth, long tubes are closer to the starter in that critical area where the heat causes issues with starter failure.

One of the things to understand about Flyin Miata and V8 Roadsters is that they seem to have a very friendly rivalry.
Neither one seems to care that some of the parts come from one and some components come from he other.
A couple of the places where they have different component kits is with the oil pan and cooling system.
The Flyin Miata oil pan is specifically designed to clear the Flyin Miata shorty headers while the V8 Roadster oil pan is specifically designed to clear the long tube headers.
The radiators are different. Flyin Miata utilizes two fans while V8 Roadster radiator utilizes one larger fan as best I remember.

The things that made me lean towards Flyin Miata early on in my build process were the Turbo Tom video series and the Flyin Miata free instructions that did a very good job of following his build, which in turn gave me confidence that entire process was within my skill set.

My build thread has a couple of places where I tried to learn from Turbo Tom with things I saw in his build progression where I wanted to do it a bit different for one reason or another.
One area was in running the fuel line between the front and rear of the vehicle. He put the under coating on before running the fuel line then had to back up and grind the undercoating from the areas where he bolted on the support loops for the fuel line. I also was not super happy about having the fuel line on the inside of the frame rails and very close to the exhaust piping. I ran mine on the outside of the support rails to be further away from the exhaust heat. Little things like that are how we can learn from past builds and hopefully do future builds just a little better.
Another thing I wish I had done differently would have been to order all of the swap componets and not start the build till most of the parts had actually arrives as I spent a substantial amount of time waiting on something critical before being able to move forward with the project. The one item that REALLY caused me lost time was the front subframe and motor mounts as you cannot even trim the tunnel and test the fit without them.

Hope these little tidbits help you moving forward with your build.

Bruce