V8 Miata - The Lemony way (Page 3 of 6)

Yea, I was looking at those, but I think the spline count is different.  Supposedly they are about 8.2" long rather than 7.5" like this one, which would have been about right.  We already had this transmission, clutch set up, and driveshaft sitting here, which is why cutting and welding the bell housing to fit seemed much easier and cheaper than starting over.  You'd also have to figure something else out for the clutch, which is doable but not straightforward.

Good question, I actually don't have any experience with this motor, so we're probably going to find out why on the track.  I haven't really seen any inherent design issues other than the iron heads/aluminum block and floating cylinders, but its not known for head gasket issues.  I think a big reason that nobody likes these motors is that the power capability is pretty limited due to head and intake layouts and there is no aftermarket support.

In order to keep the oil pressure up on the track, and because we had to cut the oil pan anyway, we decided to give the whole system attention. We added some capacity, baffling, and a windage tray with integrated crank scraper, all made from about $20 in 16 gauge steel from the remnants bin at the local steel supply shop.

The 4.9 came with a remote oil cooler integrated into the radiator.  We're using that system, but plumbing it to a Ford excursion A/T oil cooler.  Pics to come on that setup.

As I mentioned way back in the beginning of this post, I had all kinds of blow uppy type bottom end problems with the HT4100's in limos.  Maybe those problems only occurred because those things were always under load with all that weight and from being underpowered.

So I finally got some time to knock out the exhaust.  Turned out pretty sweet. So as I mentioned earlier, I had machined some header plates and found an old set of long tube headers from an old dodge that would be harvested for the tubing and collector.   Decided to go upwards with them instead of downwards due to space.  It was extremely tight down lower in the engine area because we had pushed the motor so low and rearward, and it would have been a huge pain to install/remove the headers if they were built normally.  They're wrapped in header wrap and there will be heat shields, heat reflective tape, and lots of venting to avoid heating the master cylinders.

I hadn't ever built headers before, but I can weld and I can use the internet.  I built PVC prototypes to get the layout right, and then built jigs with those.  Then used the jigs to build the headers with the old header parts.

Oh, and then made side pipes, because side pipes.

Very impressive work!

Love the side pipes. Welcome to the club

Dude that is crazy... I hope you go to NJMP in May. I want to see that thing

C4 Corvette Aluminum driveshaft with conversion u-joints just fit right in with no modification necessary.  Sometimes things just work out.  The front flange was from the dodge with a 1330-7290 conversion joint, and has a good 3-4 inches of engagement in the transmission.  The rear flange is from a thunderbird with a 1310-1330 conversion joint.  The driveshaft was literally $30 shipped from ebay.

I'm so excited to see this stupid thing.

LOL, 80's corvette dash, that is so comically epic, and fits the Cadillac motor perfectl!
May I suggest you replace English/Metric with English/British  as you know the British use metric..

Communism needs to be a momentary switch.

Finally got the car standing on its own feet. 

We clearanced/flared/bashed the fenders to clear the tires and I'm wondering if I still need to do some sort of fender flare to be Lemons legal.  The front is pretty well covered, but the back is less so.  At ride height, the top of the rear tire is basically even with the body, but as you can see it is more exposed as you go rearward.  Any input?

Notice the tire exposure on the Rabbit when it passes the camera car.  Seems similar to what you have.  Watch a little further in the video when the eyesore miata tries to pass.

https://youtu.be/ENUXhhV21aU