Horse 3068 - Fun > Power

Note:

I will be using the name 'Miata' for this car as the names Miata and MX-5 are used in various markets, even though in Australia it has never been called as such.

A common trope/meme/snowclone on the automotive parts of the interwebs is the acrostic poem:

Miata

Is

Always

The

Answer

This is because that invariably when any question is asked about what kind of car that people should get, Miata Is Always The Answer. I personally think that 2 people have a better answer.

While I will admit that Miata is a pretty good automotive answer to a lot of things, it isn't quite the answer to rain, cold, carrying big things like washing machines or roadside shopping, carting your lawnmower around, or taking a nap in. Nevertheless, it is a good answer to the question of fun.

A second trope/meme/snowclone on the interwebs is the suggestion that every car in the world, no matter how impractical the operation turns out to be, should have its engine swapped with a General Motors LS3 V8. Granted that the LS3 V8 is arguably one of the twelve apostles of engines (DFV, Kent, Jaguar V12, Ford Flathead V8, Hemi V8, K20A, RB26DET, M54, Cleveland 351, EJ257, LS3), it is still impractical to put into a Miata.

Sure, I like absurd amounts of power as much as the next revhead who has spend more time inhaling toxic solvents but still have enough sense to know that several hundreds of horsepowers in a car that small is a recipe for Instant Puree Miata d'Arbre. I am just sane enough to realise that wrapping a Miata around a tree because you have installed too much power, is not sensible.

So then, what if you could wrap just enough nonsense into the same package to still frighten you but not enough for God to put the Destroying Angel of Death on speed dial? The answer is not "LS3 all the things" but "LFX this thing".

I had the opportunity to drive this strange beast last week and I have to say, having driven the original which was already pretty nice, this one felt like it was the sort of this which the factory should have sold.

Firstly the what. The LFX is the 3.6L variant of the General Motors High Feature V6 engine. It was supposed to replace the previous applications that the 3800 Buick V6 was good for and it does a pretty good job at this by being more than 10kg lighter. 

LFX found its way into the VE and VF Commodore, Chevrolet Camaro and Cadillacs and turned sideways it also was put into the Chevrolet Impala and other east-west applications including the ZB Commodore where it then acquired the moniker of LGX. LFX V6 is a worthy successor to the venerable Buick 3800 V6 and I've seen enough of this engine to understand why. Most of the components like the cylinder heads, exhaust manifold, intake manifold, fuel injection system, intake valves, and fuel pump etc. are also improvements over the Buick 3800. LFX is a slightly smaller 60° V6, with 24-valves, at 3564cc and can run up to E85 fuel.

Thanks to the combined efforts of Joe Hockey, the IPA and the Liberal Party, General Motors (and Ford and Toyota) all left Australia; so this means that the price of a landed LFX crate motor has shot up inordinately. The entire dealer network which would have sold you an LFX crate motor, basically no longer exists.

If you are going to go that way and buy a virgin crate motor still in crate, then it's going to set you back at least $8500. However, if you go to a wrecker's yard and find a particularly beaten up Commodore, then a use LFX might cost you as little as $500.

From here the usual mate to the back of the engine is the Tremec-TR6060 gearbox and the Ford diff but having said that, the existing Miata gearbox and diff with happily work with LFX.

Weirdly, the engine mounts for the LFX and the Mazda L engine which were already here, are not vastly different from each other. Fortunately, this problem has already been solved that this ended up being a series of bolt-in parts for the owner. There are companies which will sell you the necessary parts for the replacement of one engine for the other. Again, mating the engine to the Tremec TR6060 box wasn't really that difficult and the issue with the diff was also pretty close to being all the shelf parts.

The biggest challenge was a packaging decision, where once installed the plastic engine cover nonsense which usually appears in the VF Commodore, doesn't fit under the bonnet in a Miata. That apparently meant taking to the cover with a saw and some sort of hot iron to smooth over the rough edges. It also meant that the lion badges disappeared.

What we have is a 3.6L V6 Miata which was already a nice handling car, paired with an engine which is vastly underrated. In this setup, it is good for 210 KillerWasps or 275 buff ponies. That's quite enough in a big car like a VE/VF Commodore but for a wee little car like a Miata that's more than enough for a particularly insane driver to run themselves through the Armco Mandolin and turn themselves into human chuck steak. 

I was only able to drive this car through Northern Beaches traffic, which also included a fun little section of expressway and I have to say that this really makes me question the kinds of people who pay tens of thousands of dollars for SUVs with Mercedes, Audi and BMW badges on them. It just seems silly to me to pay for AMG, SQ and M badges on glorified sprog buses when you could have just bought a cheaper wagon and one of these as a second car.

My friend who let me drive this (who is a client of ours) didn't want a Eurobus like everyone else in chambers; because he thought that it was a bit sad that the legal profession who has bucket loads of cash, only seems to want to buy boring things.

Miata Isn't Always The Answer but it is a pretty neat answer for the question that it's answering. My ears were telling me that this was the song of a Commodore but as we were scooting through traffic like a glowing uranium knife through margarine, this Miata with a dash of LFX insane hot sauce answers questions that you didn't even know you were asking. I would say that this was like having as much fun as a kid in a candy store except that this was instant diabetes. Driving an LFX Miata was like being Edmund in a land of Turkish Delight. While I was this, sat sitting in the passenger's seat was the owner (last week QC; this week KC), who seemed proud that someone else understood the crazy joy making abilities of his wee little baby. Money can not buy happiness but it certainly appears as though it can rent it.

There are two ways to do something. The right way and the dumb way. The existence of this car tells me that on occasion the dumb way can be the fun way.