The perfect formula for a budget-friendly endurance racer car? We try stuffing a GM LFX V6 into an NA-chassis Miata.
We're racing our LFX V6-powered Mazda Miata at Atlanta Motorsports Park with the Lucky Dog Racing League on May 18-19.
After our most recent event, our LFX V6-powered Miata was running hot. Could the solution be as simple as adding hood vents?
Having to constantly tighten a car's wheel hubs during a race is less than ideal, so we sought out a more permanent solution for our V6-powered Miata.
The roll cage that came with our Miata was less than ideal. Here's why and here's how we fixed that problem by building a new roll cage.
Why add a hardtop to our V6-powered Miata? Better aerodynamics and more safety.
A broken CV Joint prematurely ended our race weekend, so these are the measures we're taking to prevent that from happening again.
For our V6-swapped Miata's return to competition, we headed to Carolina Motorsports Park to run with the Lucky Dog Racing League. Here's how it went.
With great power, comes a need for great downforce. So we contacted Nine Lives Racing.
As great as the stock LFX PCV system is, we'd need something beefier to handle track use–and wide-open throttle.
We need more room for our V6 Miata's wheels and tires–but is the answer rolling or pulling the fenders?
What's it like to install and use a Racepak IQ3 Logger Dash? We'll tell you.
After our brakes failed during testing, we made our setup bigger, better and cooler.
Good news: Our V6 Miata is really quick.
A required service interval is the perfect excuse to upgrade a fire-suppression system, right?
Our V6 Miata walked like a race car and sounded like a race car–all it needed was to look like one, too. Enter the vinyl wrap.
What do we need to test before our V6-powered Miata's racing debut? Pretty much everything. So, we started with the drivetrain.
Now that our LFX V6-swapped Miata runs, it was time to update the safety gear.
Does an LFX V6 really fit under the hood of an NA Miata? Depends on the hood.
Finally, it's time to fire up our V6-powered Miata.
One key step before stepping back out on track? Picking the right wheels and tires for the job.
Before we could rewire our now LFX-powered Miata, we needed to address the car's interior: clean-up, paint, lightweight steering column and Racepak display.
We knew we needed to upgrade the rest of the Miata to properly take advantage of its upcoming power increase, and two areas stuck out like sore thumbs: The brakes …
After years of developing our turbocharged endurance Miata, it was time to kick it up a notch with a LFX V6.
Endurance racing is hard. Doing it on a budget is even harder. Doing both while shooting for a podium finish? That’s nearly impossible, as we proved with our Miata.
We finish second in class at ChampCar's Daytona event.
We're entering ChampCar's 14-hour enduro this weekend. Come on out to the track!
Every race takes its toll on a car, and ours is no exception.
Going into our very first American Endurance Racing event at Road Atlanta, we didn’t have high hopes, but we left pleased.
We add stickers to our now-pretty Miata.
We're entered in an American Endurance Racing event at Road Atlanta this weekend.
We corner-weight our car the hard way.
We hit the track to see if our freshly-rebuilt Miata will explode again.
We strip the Elastiwrap off our Miata and go back to basics.
We put yet another engine into our turbo Miata.
We do a compression and leak-down test.
We had three simple goals: Finish the race, have fun, and don’t blow up the car.
Think you’ve got what it takes to best our often broken but never forgotten turbocharged Mazda Miata?
Check your fluid levels, kids
Why are our rear wheels locked?
Our low-buck racer project hits the test track with its new engine.
After getting a new engine, our turbo Miata project rolled onto the dyno.
Our turbocharged Mazda Miata racer gets a new heart.
Our Mazda racer heads to Treasure Coast Miata for a new heart.
Our race at Daytona doesn't exactly go as planned.
We transfer the fire system to our new Miata.
We swap a fresher engine into our Miata.
Engine swap and suspension revamp before our race in two weeks? Challenge accepted.
We just got a nice fresh set of track tires just in time to race at Daytona.
We have our Miata entered in ChumpCar’s RVA Graphics 14 Hours of Daytona on April 1.
What do we run on our crapcan racer?
We spent two days racing at Barber Motorsports Park in our crapcan turbo Miata.
We lay down some stickers to look like a real race car.
We add a junkyard turbo to our crapcan Miata.
We port our race car to a new chassis.
