91 Miata Ka-T project

[el tigre]

Just a few pics to start out...









Yup! A 91 Mazda Miata with the power house 1.6...

[el tigre]

Coolant hoses packed full of corn from some measly rodent....



Lot's of work, but it sould be fun!

[koukidriver]

Can't wait to see this thing done it like a s2000 with a 2JZ it should be rocket

[tom550]

HAHA i sat there for at least 10 min looking at the photo tryin gto figure out what you did to the s13

ha i was like it must be the roll bar that makes it look different.haha wow

but looks like a fun build

[sdaigle240]

staying na or boost?

i love mx5s

[el tigre]

Welll, i have all the stuff sitting around to turbo it, so thats the plan.

50 trim .48 A/R, ANOTHER custom manifold, megasquirt, blah blah blah...


I think it would be fun to try and autocross it with the stock Ka, it would be nice to have a little midrange in a miata, i'm not a fan of the BP or the B6.

Goal is 300 whp, 300+ lbft.

[trk240sx]

I kinda hate Miatas....but with a KA...This might be like a scary death ride....esp with turbo...

[sloka-t]

a miata is probably the only car i would put an SR in...

ka shouldnt be bad though.

[el tigre]

Just a teaser.

We actually have the KA in the engine bay now. I did some measuring and found out that the KA is 2 inches taller than the B6 that was in it.... Should be interesting getting the engine low enough to get the hood closed.

Also started fabbing a lower intake manifold just because I had the material sitting around. Next weekend the plan is to fab up some mounts and get started on the oil pan and pickup tube, all of which I would like completed before the end of the year.

It's hard to fit it all in because the car is over 200 miles away, but we'll get it done by spring. Should be a pretty straight forward project, except for: DSM CAS install, oil pan, pickup tube, rearend, etc.

I'll try and get some more pics next friday.

[supakat]

what if you fab the motor mounts to sit lower...question is did you modify them already?

[el tigre]

what if you fab the motor mounts to sit lower...question is did you modify them already?

The mounts are going to be completely custom. The problem is that the Ka has the sump for the oil pan in the front (crossmember in the back), and the Miata has the sump in the rear (crossmember in the front). So, the oil pan has to be fabbed from scratch, as well as the pickup tube, which has to be low enough to not get hit by the crank when the engine is running.... So the options are to either hack up the factory Miata crossmember, or find a way to increase hood clearance...

[Jordan Gladman]

If I ever blow my F20, I'll have to throw a KA in my S2K

Cool swap idea, you can show all the monster miata V8 lovers how its done.

[supakat]

i would vote for hacking the ka pan and extending the pickup at slow decent to clear...i dont like cowl hoods so that would be a now in my book...i wonder if you use hood risers that will give you enough clearance...how many inches are you looking at...[/code]

[Jmcc]

would there be enough room to make it a rear sump??

edit:
i just thought about it you think you could use one of the front cross memebers thay use for the v8 swaps?? you could go to miata.net under forums there is power adder section you might be able to see if sombody had already done it. may help some.
i have a seen a v12 packed it the same style miata before.

[Jordan Gladman]

You should be able to get an inch by cutting away the underside of the factory hood, you could get the other inch by modifying the pan or shimming the back of the hood. You could always space the subframe off the unibody and space the mounts from the subframe to get clearance, you would just have to drop the suspension to compensate.

[el tigre]

You should be able to get an inch by cutting away the underside of the factory hood, you could get the other inch by modifying the pan or shimming the back of the hood. You could always space the subframe off the unibody and space the mounts from the subframe to get clearance, you would just have to drop the suspension to compensate.

That was my exact train of thought. I thought about spacing the subframe, hopefully I won't have to. I plan on hacking the hood supports up, but Miata's have aluminum hoods, so I don't want to take too much out. I need to fab a whole pan anyway, so it should be ok, may have to remove some material out of the subframe/cross member like the V8 guys do. We'll see what happens in the next month or so.

[el tigre]

Finally an update. Did some work on the subframe.



















Now time for a custom pan, need to take 2 inches out of th pan at the least....

[xlitalianstallion]

I did a ka swap into an 85 s12 and the motor sat a tad too high so u could always do what we did which is the easiest way to do it lol.. just make two little spacers that u put under the hood hinge... itll lift up the top of the hood closest to the cab sit a good bit higher... surprisingly its actually a nice efficient way to do it because i think cowl induction is fugly and ghey lol. this actually allows air flow under the hood of ur car and the heat has somewhere to escape... and its actually stylish.. lemme know if u like the idea.. u can use washers or little hard plastic tubes whatever

[TinyT]

I did a ka swap into an 85 s12 and the motor sat a tad too high so u could always do what we did which is the easiest way to do it lol.. just make two little spacers that u put under the hood hinge... itll lift up the top of the hood closest to the cab sit a good bit higher... surprisingly its actually a nice efficient way to do it because i think cowl induction is fugly and ghey lol. this actually allows air flow under the hood of ur car and the heat has somewhere to escape... and its actually stylish.. lemme know if u like the idea.. u can use washers or little hard plastic tubes whatever

hahahahha wtf. fail

[TanManS14]

bwhahahahahahahahah^

Dude this car is gonna be reallly sweet. Liking the cross member. A miata with torque? Say whaaaaaaaaaa. You gonna run megasquirt 3?

Ayyy bra, donchoo know da ish aint formula d legal dawg, days be all, ay mayne, you cant cut dat crossmemebers, bu make sure dats got da flashy litesees to be originaile.

[el tigre]

Plannin on an MS2 PNP for a 91 Miata and just modifying a few circuits in the factory harness, we'll see how that works out.... I kind of hate the wiring stuff, and just like fabbing. Hopefully a buddy of mine will get the harness sorted out.

Time to get working on the oil pan and rear end swap....

[TanManS14]

Hell yea, good deal man. Im interested to see what you're gonna do with the baffling for it. Especially if you plan on road coursing it its gotta be pretty spot on.

[nismo_dreaming]

Keep up the great fab work. This thing should be quite the animal once completed.

[el tigre]

Finally some progress....

Fabbed up some solid motor mounts, got the pan completed ( except for the baffling), bought a bunch of parts, blah blah blah. It's going to be a lonnnnngggggg spring.















sorry for the crappy cell pics....

[TinyT]

Alright, Im trying to hold back, but I cant. What exactly is a weld process engineer? Are you actually one?
Some of those welds look, well lets just say interesting.

[el tigre]

Well, instead of Manufacturing Engineers, where I work, we have Process Engineers....

I have a BS in Welding Engineering Technology, hence the welding part....

Also, I was stranded at my friends shop with only 7018 and a Thermal Arc 95S, so I was actually pretty happy with the outcome, I haven't stick welded in quite some time... lol.

[katrecipe]

I like the project i hope everything works..

[turbonola]

i love this idea, i wanted to do this also but i always dump my money into the 240. lol

[el tigre]

Alright, Im trying to hold back, but I cant. What exactly is a weld process engineer? Are you actually one?
Some of those welds look, well lets just say interesting.

OH! And a guy at work tig'd up the pan, lol.

[SoulGuardian]

interesting build ... can't wait to check the end result