Subaru WRX Swapped Miata Review! Backyard Engineering At Its Finest

some project cars just don't make sense in your head you have to see it for yourself this is jinjium's rally miata and it's an absolutely absurd frankenstein it has an ej boxer motor from a subaru and has all-wheel drive with big meaty tires and tuned suspension this thing is an off-roading monster i was way too curious not to take this opportunity and i wanted to see what it was like not only driving a miata with a subaru engine but also driving an all-wheel drive miata in general so does this crazy frankenstein even work let's go for a drive and find out mr caleb oh we're back back again we were in your turbo volvo about two months ago it's been about three years since i've seen this car in action and you just moved down here to georgia we thought it was the perfect opportunity to show off in my opinion one of your biggest like engineering or home engineering yeah so what we have here guys if you don't know caleb which by the way should you should subscribe to caleb if you haven't especially if you're into weird unorthodox stuff caleb managed to get an ej boxer motor and a miata while also keeping it all wheel drive and that is fascinating to me nice ride to the point that when you ride behind this car you can see the drivetrain all working yeah right off the bat you will tell it better than me how did you get the motor in this miami i bought a blown up uh bug eye wrx from uh a fan of mine i built a jig off the subaru chassis and then i used that to make a new front half of the car for the miata so i had to cut the front frame rails off the miata because they weren't wide enough to fit the flat four right so i cut the frame off and then i built this new uh tube chassis with this roll cage tied into the rest of the car easiest way to get it all wheel drive you wanted all wheel drive you got the motor in and even you kept the top mount which was interesting too i could have sworn you're gonna do front mount intercooler like everybody does but you're like yeah it works it has the room and you get the scoop to make it a wrx kind of look and i love how you have an sdi badge on the back that makes it for me it's not an sdi motor but oh wow but i think to the untrained eye if you're sort of into cars you'll still understand why you have the badge there yeah to be like wait why does that not sound like a miata exactly because i love how you have played you know rally be out of the everything's ready to go you turn heads like crazy in this thing i know like we were driving i was in your other miata and i was behind you and everybody would take us like stop and then wake up wait a minute turn around and go what did i just witness second gear [Applause] dude that was like fake popping a wheelie like the whole for you were kidding that roll on the whole front end dominic torettos who needs a wrx when you got family also one thing i want to add is that the scoop is so big that it's actually kind of hard to see yeah it's pretty difficult yeah you take it off during events yeah but you have to drive oh turtle no you avoided that so that was good i think that's going to be a common question of why didn't you take the time to go off-roading at it for this video and you're like no just like feel what the drive train feels like normally and then later we'll go do something fun yeah it's hard to enjoy all the power on on off road yeah you're probably like isn't it neat i'm spinning yeah the trains is also the five seat from the temporary x which is awesome yeah the subaru engine sits really far forward because it's still super suspension and stuff so the tires are as close to the firewall as they can be without rubbing that's why i had to put the engine so far forward with that then i couldn't fit the radiator up there so i had to put the radiator in the back which wasn't too challenging but he added more you know more minds more fabrication more all that kind of crap it's very much like i mentioned before uh i drove this ls swap s2000 and you looked down and you saw the honda logo and you're like why is it loping you know it makes no sense interesting to me also high off the ground in a miata yeah and when i say high off the ground i mean that loosely right in comparison like a stock suv everything's said and done it still only weighs 2 400 pounds that's pretty awesome like a wrx that weighs a thousand pounds lighter than a wrx yeah i had to literally ostrich now yeah you're like oh yeah the front lifts up even more when you uh get into boost [Applause] that feels good accounting for everything else it just has that feeling of a little bit of uneasiness but you know you're fine it's just it's a weird feeling because with these big tires you're kind of unloading and loading and unloading and loading i love how like it has so much character like i love the [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] is noise weird like a miata that's all wheel drive yeah so i'm expecting the rear to kick out more and it's like no it's so strange like not in a bad way it's just something that have you've driven miatas for years and years and years like you have yeah and you're like wait a minute i'm sure when you get in your normal be out here like wait okay i gotta recalibrate some stuff [Applause] what is this thing it crab walks like a fast sti yeah that's so nuts it's a i'm not gonna lie to you i kind of like it yeah it adds that thrill factor like it gives you this false perception of yeah i can control this beast in reality it's it is very controllable as long as you do these minor inputs right i feel like if you were somebody who did too big of over corrections you can make a big mistake yeah so the one thing that you can't really tell from just driving around it actually has a steering quicker so there's a gearbox on the steering shaft really that multiplies the input so i wasn't happy with how you know how much input you had to put into the wrx steering rack so i put that in so every one full rotation of the steering wheel is one and a half rotations down at the steering rack wow yeah but the problem with that is it adds a little bit of play in the steering so sometimes when you are kind of crab walking it's a little yes not as as long as you stay relaxed you're okay you're right it's just i can see if you're like hey bro you want to drive my miata and they freak out yeah they used to have a two to ones doing quickener and that was too bad that was too much pretty long gearing yeah especially with the big tires high speed yeah but yeah you don't really think about that either when you go to a bigger tire your gear ratio basically changes in a nutshell because of the resistance on the surface you're like hey i have an all-wheel drive ej miata and you're like that's freaking crazy and that's amazing but then when you get into the nitty-gritty of it you're like oh my god so much isn't all have you had any um like transmission issues or anything no i haven't had any issues knock on wood uh because obviously the wrx 5 speed is like glass deal but this does weigh a thousand pounds less than a wrx do you have so much less load on yeah i think that's part of why it's not blowing up yet feels like it has no play in it also you've did you found this up yeah a little center console the other thing that actually was challenging is that the shifter linkage is like a foot longer than it is in the wrx okay so that was a little interesting so is that why you ended up having to make this tunnel yeah and that's why the shifter might feel a little weird but i don't think it feels weird it's not too bad no it feels nice and notchy i like these style shift knobs too yeah like make me feel like i have a dog box without having yeah i wish this thing had a dog box that would take a beating so nuts it's a weird build that you know in essence is a really cool technological party trick yeah but the benefit is is that you made it actually work yeah you know project like this a lot of the times you'll see it get towed to a car show and like yeah we've been building this for a while we've been figuring it out but unfortunately it doesn't run we just wanted to show the concept of what we want yours is utter proof of i did this and i can do it and the only thing that gives it away is a big meaty tire you know also the clutch is a little tough at first yeah um it's not catastrophically tough but wait it's a single disc you said yeah it's single disc clutch masters your gauge clusters from a wrx isn't it that's amazing so when it comes to wiring how was that done just took the entire harness from the subaru did you see it right there and just popped it in no way yeah so is that also why you use those cages yeah it's because it's easier just to mount them in yeah did you do a switch panel for everything else like yeah the blinkers the headlights exactly did you just use like a paintless setup yeah painless kit yeah do you like it by the way i use like some amazon kit but uh yeah it works great the blinkers are a little annoying but it's it's whatever yeah i mean you know reminds me of back in the day when clarkson was like the four or five beats blinkers are stupid because they're on the steering wheel oh i didn't know that yeah yeah so his quote was the problem with blinkers or the problem with steering wheels is that they move and um and when you drive a 458 it's very exaggerated it's not that bad right but you i can see all the muscle memory of reaching down can get a little in your right because i i went like this with my hand i went like this for a blank trip it didn't work out too well had to get it that was another reason why i chose the ej is because that external wastegate sound i love it so much it's pretty great yeah i will say though the tires do grab every groove in the road yeah you got to be a little self-aware of that but it's not bad it's just you even know it correct all right well on that note is how can people find you caleb check out my youtube channel it's gingium that's about it i mean i've got instagram and stuff too it's all ginger it's all the same yeah if you like unorthodox stuff homegrown stuff that actually works yes check him out he's a good dude and at the same time let me know what you guys think it was miata i'm excited to read these copies but on that note i upload on tuesdays thursdays and sundays and have a wonderful day goodbye see ya if you guys like these videos and want to support my channel make sure to head over to pattersoncarcare.com it is my original formula detail brand that makes life so easy washing your car everything from cleaning your wheels in just around a minute or any other product that is just as easy to use thanks so much for watching this video and i will see you guys next [Music] time [Music]

Channel: ThatDudeinBlue

Views: 139,434

Keywords: thatdudeinblue, that, dude, in, blue, gtr, plasti, dip, 240sx, mazda, rx8, car, need, for, speed, nissan, documentary, ford, taurus, sho, hellcat, project, cars, spray, paint, 300zx, r32, lexus, is300, focus, st, how, to, pontiac, g8, rx7, mitsubishi, evo, adamlz, adam, lz, tj, hunt, evan, shanks, 1320video, cleetus, mcfarland, subaru swapped miata, gingium miata, lifted miata, lifted miata offroad, subaru wrx swap, subaru wrx swap kit, mazda miata review, mazda miata mx5, rally miata, rally miata build gingium, lifted mazda miata

Id: kd-oqez-lJE

Length: 12min 16sec (736 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 03 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/BenTheHat3]

Bruh

[u/Comfortable_Stock942]

I wish the Miata One company kept up with their website for the EJ swap kit:

https://www.roadandtrack.com/car-culture/a28339815/miata-subaru-flat-four-engine-swap-kit/

[u/[deleted]]

Finally a Miata that isn't slow.

[u/Vince0815]

Its the car from the GINGIUM youtube channel. This build is sick and very well done and also getting upgrades over time. He also hase some other very nice builds. I recommend checking out his youtube.

[u/84_ferrari_f40]

Sumiata wrx-5