Jesus-Ninja
New Member
- Messages
- 94
- Location
- London, UK
Hello 
Arrived here after being recommended by a friend. Looking to V8 my MX5 (Miata), but instead of going down the Supra box route which I know is quite common, or the 200SX box which others do, I'm looking to use the MX5 6 speed box and TorSen diff. Both good for over 300lbft and that's all I'm looking for.
I got the MX5 as an interim track toy, and it's great in every sense, except for a distinct lack of power, hence the desire to install something that delivers twice the power right out of the box with no engine tuning.
So, being in the UK, the obvious choice of donor is an LS400. Plenty around the £500 to £800 mark. Plan would be to source a donor with tax and test and trundle around in it for a month to identify any issues before breaking it to sell the spares and then weigh in the shell (hopefully recouping most of my outlay).
Are there any particular LS400s (eg year of manufacture) that are going to make my life easier? A bit of digging on the forum here suggests that there are some tails of people having issues with losing the auto box from the ECU, but that these tend to be down to user error, or some other Lexus (Crown?), and the voice of the wise on the forum seems to suggest that the LS400 should run fine with no auto box.
I would probably trim the loom back to the essentials whilst it's in the car, and keep trying to run it up as I go until I've got a nice neat engine and loom that can be pulled from the donor as one, needing just 12V and fuel.
Any advice at this early stage of development is much appreciated!
Arrived here after being recommended by a friend. Looking to V8 my MX5 (Miata), but instead of going down the Supra box route which I know is quite common, or the 200SX box which others do, I'm looking to use the MX5 6 speed box and TorSen diff. Both good for over 300lbft and that's all I'm looking for.
I got the MX5 as an interim track toy, and it's great in every sense, except for a distinct lack of power, hence the desire to install something that delivers twice the power right out of the box with no engine tuning.
So, being in the UK, the obvious choice of donor is an LS400. Plenty around the £500 to £800 mark. Plan would be to source a donor with tax and test and trundle around in it for a month to identify any issues before breaking it to sell the spares and then weigh in the shell (hopefully recouping most of my outlay).
Are there any particular LS400s (eg year of manufacture) that are going to make my life easier? A bit of digging on the forum here suggests that there are some tails of people having issues with losing the auto box from the ECU, but that these tend to be down to user error, or some other Lexus (Crown?), and the voice of the wise on the forum seems to suggest that the LS400 should run fine with no auto box.
I would probably trim the loom back to the essentials whilst it's in the car, and keep trying to run it up as I go until I've got a nice neat engine and loom that can be pulled from the donor as one, needing just 12V and fuel.
Any advice at this early stage of development is much appreciated!
