Daily Slideshow: This Miata is Definitely Not Your Hairdresser's Car

All Things

Canadian Brad Ruiter wanted it all. He wanted a car capable of showing, drifting, dragging, and attacking time. And he wanted to drive it to every place he'd be doing those things. So what's a guy to do? Well if you're the type to take things into your own hands instead of waiting for someone else to make something happen then this car will be right up your alley. 

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Hot Road

If your dad's a veteran hot-rodder, the answer to that question becomes a bit clearer, and probably includes the letter V and the number 8. That was the case for Brad since his pop Richard was indeed a hot-rodder, one of his hot rod deeds being the Ridler award entry 1955 Chevy Xvette.

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DIY

True hot-rodders build things rather than just bolting them together, so Brad made up his mind to follow that path, intentionally eschewing the use of a swap kit. Brad strapped his Miata to a frame table, and built a jig to fix the key chassis location points, and began surgery. The operation removed everything from the firewall forward, including the firewall itself. In place of the original subframes, Brad welded in 3x4 inch mild steel rectangular tubing, triangulated with more 3x4 inch tubing. From there he used round-section tubing to construct the strut towers, fabricate a 6-point roll cage, and tie the frame rails into the existing body structure.

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Dressing it Up

Brad figures he put about 350 hours into the engine compartment when it was all said and done, including the time, spent forming all-new sheet metal everywhere under the hood—from the firewall to the radiator shroud, to the air intake. And in the center of it all sits that V-8 he knew he had to have, in this case, an LS3, painted and tidied to match the sleeked-out engine bay.

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Enter LS

As Brad found out, it takes more than paint to make it around the track, and when the oil pressure warning message he read on his Stack cluster signaled serious starvation issues, out came the LS. While it was out, the LS3 received a balanced bottom end with Mahle pistons and a Howard cam. The stock cylinder heads were ported, polished, and decked, and ARP fasteners make sure everything stays together. Brad built his own long-tube headers and fabricated an aluminum (aluminum!) exhaust system for them to dump into. The revamped LS, which Brad estimates makes 500 horsepower, mates up to a T56 transmission via a ZR1 clutch pack. Out in the back, an aluminum Ford 8.8 rear end, with a 3:27:1 final drive ratio and Detroit Trutrac limited slip, transmits the V-8's power to the rear wheels.

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Outside Again

Holding those back wheels to the ground is the job of that sizable rear wing—when Brad wants it to. When he doesn't it can be removed and a second complete tail panel fitted in its place. Rounding out the aero is a custom splitter up front and a custom diffuser out back, both mounted to Brad-built tube structures behind the Racing Beat front,  and factory rear, bumpers. The Miata also features the hard-to-miss carbon fiber trunk lid and doors, as well as side skirts Brad formed for the build. Tuckin99 N2 flares house CCW LM5T wheels (16x10F and 16×11R), wearing 245/45R16 Toyo R888 tires at all four corners. Since its completion, Brad’s been doing his darnedest to achieve his multi-pronged plan of attack for the Miata—and he’s been successful, the car winning ‘Best Engineered Street Machine’ at the 2015 Ontario Motorama show. To those who told Brad, “you can’t have it all,” his reply is an equally emphatic, “if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself.”

>>Join the conversation about this LS3 powered Miata right here at the LS1 Tech Forum!

For help with service of your car, check out the how to section of LS1Tech.com.