Tuckn's official Miata swap thread.

Focused on wiring today. Two pics for your enjoyment.


Pulled the wiring off the intake. Look at all the connectors! Mazda brought the wiring out of the center of the firewall and over the intake then wrapped it around and under the intake. They were cool about it and made it all clip together before it goes under the intake to the injectors and back to the coil and coolant temp sensor.


Got the Blower motor, a/c, and heater core boxes off the firewall. Removed the carpet and all the broken glass and started on the sound deadening material to get a better look at the wiring inside.

Good stuff

Keep good notes as you figure out the wiring, I'd like to do this swap in the future too.

I'm going to keep it as simple as possible I know that. Unwrap it all and pull out what I dont need like the airbag, heater control, lights/wiper wiring. Now that the tranny is out the wiring under the hood is simple. It comes out of the firewall in 3 places and doesnt even connect to each other in front of the radiator like the truck harness.

I'm going to take lots of pics.

The battery is in the trunk of this miata which is a little more work since those wires run under the car and up into the trunk. I need to trace them the whole way and make sure nothing breaks off to its own little fuse box somewhere.

Totally gutting this car this week after work. Then hopefully pulling the motor next weekend if I dont go outta town with the family.

The repair manual shows what the fuel sending unit looks like and it appears very similar to the EFI truck sending unit, if it drops right in I will be pleased. If not, I am going to put the miata tank under the bed if it fits or in the bed for now.

I measured the miata trans today and I will be able to fabricate an adapter for the crossmember mount. I dont feel too comfortable swapping tranny parts at the moment and would like to use the miata shifter anyway.

The motor mounts will be the biggest fab work. The current 1.8 mounts will sit right above the engine crossmember. I can see lots of holes in the block for a further forward set of mounts but the crossmember may need to be notched to clear the oilpan. On this motor the oilpan is aluminum and is also what the bottom 4 tranny bolts run into. You can see it in this pic:



Thats it for now, gotta get some sleep.

My first purchase has arrived! Update pics tomorrow. This car is now stripped to the bone! I have made all my money back parting the rest out. If you guys find a wrecked miata for sale snatch it up and part it out on miata.net

If there's on piece of advice I can give ya do not mess with the wiring harness. I tried the same thing. Take out only what I need. I ended up ruining the harness. Everything is tied into everything. It was a mess and I ended up ruining a 200 dollar harness. Now I'm going to run a microtec standalone.

I'm just going to cut out the lights, wiper motor, brake fluid sensor, heater wires and airbag stuff if thats not too difficult. I just wanna thin the pack a little to help get it in the truck with the truck harness. Thank you for chiming in. Do you have any pics of the motor mounts? Just curious. Thanks pimp

I'm watching this thread for sure. Love the little miatas. Lots of fun. Always wanted to see the power train in a B.

I know the Kia fe3 was a lot of fun with the truck trans. This should be way better with the miata trans and a sportier tune compared to the torque tune the fe3 has.

Depending on where u mount the motor mounts, you transmission will be a little further back than oem hole. I had to cut back about 5" s on mine. Good Luck with install, its gunna b a beast when your done.