Turning a Stock, Broken Miata into a Track-Slaying V8 Monster! Stacey David's BANSHEE - FULL BUILD

a successful Automotive project takes planning and organization but instead of using an old tablet or notebook there's the gears Deluxe project planning book this was designed to help you lay out a project the parts the tools costs and keep it organized with colored tabs a pouch for receipts and even a place to attach photos if you decide to sell the vehicle it serves as a complete history of what's been done if you have a project or plan on starting one the gears project planning book is the best way to lay it out and make it happen you know over the years there have been some awesome cars that have hit the streets Fords Chevys Dodges Ferraris Porsches Lamborghinis there's a lot of cool stuff but when you start asking people to actually list the top cars that they'd like to have in their garage well you notice that a lot of the same Vehicles start showing up and at the top of just about every list is the legendary Shelby Cobra [Music] now the Cobra was the brainchild of Texas Chicken former Carol Shelby whose idea was not to build an automotive icon [Music] trap [Music] and he did just that by stuffing a massive 427 Ford engine into a tiny roadster body and a cobra was not only brutally fast foreign too with huge tires and big muscular flares hey do these fenders make my butt look big barely legal side pipes bellowing in your face and a front end that that looked like it was ready to devour anything that got in its path [Music] yeah the Cobra was one of the most Macho testosterone driven Muscle Machines ever built and every Gearhead would love to own one unfortunately this is about as close as the average guy is going to get to owning a cobra because if you want to buy an original you can figure on spending around a million bucks matter of fact Carol Shelby just sold his personal car for five and a half million dollars at auction heck even a nice replica like the super performance car that's going to run you 60 000 or more now you know that's all fine and everything but the problem is everything has gotten so far away from what the original idea for the Cobra was and that was to go really fast for a reasonable amount of money so today I'm going to show you how to build a car that's just as quick as a cobra or a Z06 vet or a Porsche or a Viper or any of those other high dollar cars except we're going to do it for around 20 grand or less and we're going to do it with that foreign [Music] are you crazy that's a that's a girl's car man [Music] we you've desecrated a whole Shelby Legend with that oh wait let me ask you a question what do you think that Carol Shelby started with he started with a British girls car an AC Ace man nobody drove an AC Ace if you wanted a real sports car you got a an Austin Healey or a Jaguar not a not an AC Ace it was a car and the reason Carol Shelby used that is because that's all he had access to and he took that British girls car putting some American horsepower and gave us the cobra so I'm going to take this Japanese girls car stick in some American horsepower and I'm going to give you a project called The Banshee because this is going to be a screaming mother when it's done the cool thing about this project is though this is something that you can build in your garage now as you probably guessed the first step of this project is to stuff a V8 into a Mazda Miata that's right a V8 in a Mazda Miata now obviously to pull this off the first thing you need is a car and what you're going to be looking for is a 90 through 97 first generation Mazda Miata you can pick these things up anywhere because Mazda made a billion of them I got this one off of eBay for 2500 bucks because the motor's bad which makes it the perfect candidate for a V8 swap bad engine good body and that brings up a point that's worth mentioning you you want to find the best donor vehicle that you can you don't want something that's got rust on it you don't want something that's been in a wreck and the reason being is you don't need to it's not like this is a 69 Camaro that you can't find you can get these things anywhere so just keep looking until you find a vehicle that's in good shape now putting a V8 into a Miata brings up a lot of questions like what engine do you put in here and what about suspension and transmission and how about the rear end and the wiring and the cooling and will it fly or will it breaking happen Whoa stop we're going to answer all those questions as I put this car together but the first thing you need to do is get hold of a place called Monster Miata they've been doing V8 swaps in these cars for years and they have got it dialed in check this out now what you're looking at here is a kit to mount a 302 Ford into a Mazda Miata and it starts out with a modified K member and an oil pan so you can drop that motor down in there and mount it and not have any clearance issues you also have a new transmission mount rear end Mount modified hubs a special set of headers so you don't have any clearance issues stronger axles for the rear a new drive shaft motor mounts front Springs to handle the extra weight all kinds of bracketry also have dual electric fans from tripac and a Saldana aluminum radiator to keep everything cool the best part is though you get this manual that outlines all of the electrical connections power steering the brakes the air conditioning everything to put a Ford into a Mazda and make it all work correctly now this Kit's going to set you back about four thousand bucks but when you take into account what it would cost you to build all this stuff and engineer it make it all fit right I think you're going to agree that this is a heck of a deal and that brings me up to the engine now the guys at monster Miata actually designed their kit around a late model fuel injected Mustang engine and they did that for a couple of reasons first of all you can pick up one of these things at any salvage yard across the United States for a few hundred bucks and then they have all the emission stuff on them so you can put the engine in and pass emissions that's a cool thing however any hot rod small block Ford engine will work and we're definitely putting in more power than a stock Mustang had we're going to talk about that here in a bit but first we need to make some room so it's time to start tearing things apart we're gonna start slow by disconnecting all of the electrical connections under the hood [Music] now make sure that you are clearly labeling them as you go because a lot of them you'll need to reuse on the new engine the next step is all the cables and the hoses and the lines once again make a note where they go to prevent confusion when it all goes back together finally we're ready to start pulling parts out [Music] [Music] now we're going to make two piles one of the things that we're going to Chuck and one of the things that we're going to keep now obviously pre-planning is very important on a project like this and one thing that's easy to overlook is air conditioning now if you're working on a vehicle that's air conditioned it is very important that you take it down have the system evacuated so there's no pressure in it before you start taking fittings off because if you don't you're going to have a heck of a mess so a little pre-planning is important here all right now it's time to get this thing up in the air so we can get underneath it now don't get nervous on me here you can actually do this project by just jacking up the car and putting jack stands underneath it but having a lift will definitely make it easier once the car is in the air the serious disassembly can begin so first we'll get rid of all the plastic shrouding cut all the hoses the air conditioning condenser drops out really easy and will definitely want to reuse that so it will go in our keep and reuse pile the exhaust of course will not be reused and will usually require a little more persuasion to get out and a Sawzall is a great Persuader while we're at it this is also a good time to get that little drive shaft out of the way because we won't be needing that anymore either wow this disassembly has been pretty straightforward now is when it gets a little interesting come here I got something to show you first of all notice that there is no transmission cross member under here I mean it's just all wide open that's because the Miata uses a system that's generally called a torque arm now what that is is this big frame that runs all the way up and bolts to the transmission and then goes all the way back and bolts to the rear end now a lot of cars have used this system over the years and it does a good job but we're going to get rid of all this stuff because we are not just putting in a V8 no we are upgrading the whole drivetrain so it's strong enough to handle a V8 that brings up the biggest question that people ask about this project is the Miata body actually strong enough to handle a V8 or is this just gonna fold up like a tuna can that's a good question those of you that are familiar with unibody cars Mustangs Camaros that kind of stuff off know that there is a subframe in the front and a subframe in the rear and the way to make the car stiffer is to weld in subframe connectors but notice on the Miata you don't just have a subframe the frame continues all the way down the side of the car so these come from the factory with the full frame under them so they're incredibly stiff and strong believe it or not that is enough to handle a V8 but you can also see why it's very important that these are not bent up or Rusty you have got to start with a good car [Music] with the torque arm out of the way we'll pop the axles loose and then unbolt the differential [Music] now here's a surprise for you I bet you did not expect all of this stuff to come out like I said we are changing everything oh no no we're not done yet now the good news is though it is finally time to pull out the motor and so we're going to get the Hoist in place and we're going to jerk that thing out of here foreign [Music] one of the key things to watch is your fingers forward keep going I think we can get it from here go ahead and roll it straight back there it is the original Mazda drivetrain now the cool thing about tearing apart a Miata besides the fact that it's fun is that these parts are actually valuable so don't just junk them put them on eBay drag them to a swap meet and put some money back in your pocket now believe it or not the stock engine compartment on a Miata is almost big enough to handle a small block Ford almost right back here is where we're going to have to do some cutting first we'll move the brake lines out of the way then take the templates that come with the kit and Mark your cuts now just cut them out using a cut off wheel an air saw or a plasma cutter now I prefer an air saw here because it's so easy to make nice Precision Cuts with it next we'll take a grinder and dress up the cuts all right now for those of you that are a little nervous you can just relax because we have not cut any structural strength out of the body of this car look at this there's your firewall here's your frame rails everything is still very strong all we did do is cut out some old corners and weren't doing anything except taking up some space so now we got some room for a V8 to shove in here now the next step is to take these plates that come with a kit and we'll fit them into these areas now make sure that you take some time to trim them down and make sure they fit good because the idea here is to make this look like a factory install not just some backyard hacker deal remember it's all in the details cool down a little bit foreign and there it is now once we get a coat of paint on that you'll never know that didn't come from the factory that way now obviously the radiator that we're using for the V8 is considerably larger than what came in your stock so all these mounting brackets here are the next thing to go [Music] now the new transmission that we're going to be using is a T5 so to make room for the bell housing this driver's side tunnel needs to go in about a half inch here in this area so we are going to use everybody's favorite tool the big fancy hammer now like I said before the new transmission that's going in here is a t55 speed so to get it to fit we're going to have to do just a little bit of minor modification to the shifter hole so out comes the saw now the good news is these modifications are so minor that you're going to be able to slip the original console right back in place and you'll never know that that's there it's going to look stock it's going to look Factory until you start slamming gears foreign it seems like there's not a whole lot left to take off this car but we're not done yet remember there is a brand new K member sitting over there on the table which means obviously the old one's got to come out and of course that means the whole front suspension's got to go too but it's not that bad eight bolts is all that holds this in so we'll take those off and wheel this whole mess out from under the car Chris [Music] now at this point you're probably thinking what a mess it looks like the car exploded there's more parts out here than there are on the car why in the world would somebody do this to a perfectly good Miata well I've got some reasons for you first of all if you build this project using a salvage yard motor like this it's very easy to roll this project in for under 10 000 bucks also according to monster Miata if you use a stock ho Mustang engine about 250 horse in that car you can run 0 to 60 in around 4.8 seconds and you can run the quarter mile in the high 12s Guys these are smoking numbers but I ain't smoking enough oh are you kidding we want to run with Cobras and Corvettes and Vipers oh that's why we are putting in a 400 horse Keith Kraft Racing Engine because we want that little sucker to really scream like a like a banshee now doing a project like this brings up an interesting problem how you take a car that's generally viewed as a as a girl's car and give it some balls well you do it the same way that Carol Shelby did back with the AC Ace you stick in a V8 and you go racing and that brings us up to where we are today now the kit that we're using to do this swap comes from a place called Monster Miata and it's designed around utilizing a late model fuel injected Mustang engine and this thing will make those cars really cook but we're going to want more heat than this so we are going to put in a 400 horse 302 that we got from Keith craft racing this engine is stuffed with Mall flat top forged pistons an eagle h-beam rods the heads are high flowing brodex aluminum heads and they're packed with stainless steel valves screw in studs and guide plates and of course roller rockers now on top we kept it simple we have a Hawaiian stealth intake manifold and a Holly Street Avenger Carburetor topped off with their high-tech air cleaner the best part is all of the engines that come from Keith craft racing come with the dyno sheets and all the documentation so you know you're getting exactly what you paid for now this engine dynoed at 403 horsepower 390 foot-pounds of torque all packed into a nice tight little package now before you go ahead and just stick an engine into your project you need to slow down a little bit here you've spent a lot of time on your engine a lot of time on your project don't just stick things in ugly no man take the time to clean them up paint them to make them look good now the paint that I put on this engine is a metallic gold Pearl that's a base clear I mean it's a real automotive paint and I did that for a couple of reasons first of all it's extremely durable second of all it just looks incredible but if you don't want to go that far just just something out of a spray can will be great that way when you go to pop the hood for your buddies and show off the project you'll be proud of it now I know that you're wondering about this blue paint inside yeah we're going to tell you about that when we get to that part of the project right now we still need to dress this engine now everybody knows that this is not a complete engine I mean there's no accessories on it so we got to put something on there now you can reuse all of this original stuff it'll pull right in place the pulleys the brackets the accessories but I'm telling you the ugly Factor on something like this is just huge that system on this engine would just kill the looks of it so what are you going to do well the answer came from a place called zoops products in what they call the positrak system and just laying here on the table it looks better in that little stock engine now basically what it is is a super compact low profile serpentine belt system and you are not going to believe how easy it goes on now the kit includes polished pulleys Billet support bracket that's got the idler pulley a polished alternator air conditioning compressor power steering pump and finally a Billet support bracket that's got the idler pulley now obviously this is a fantastic looking system with all the polished aluminum and the brackets and the components but building a car is not just about making something look good no it's got to have a function to it and I picked this system because of its size come here take a look at this notice everything is back nothing comes forward of the water pump and then the sides look how the sides are tucked in nothing comes outside of the heads this is going to be perfect in that little tiny engine compartment matter of fact if you're building a truck or a muscle car or a street rod and space under the hood is important this is the only way to go now for those of you that are thinking oh you know that's great but it's expensive and I'm on a budget and that's what I'm going to do well that's valid but let me ask you something are you really going to use a junkyard alternator and power steering pump and air conditioning compressor no you're not you're going gonna end up going down to the local auto parts store and replacing that and that and that and by the time you do all of that you're going to end up with almost as much money in that as you would have in this but you still have that which makes doing it that way not as cheap as you thought now to actually physically mount a V8 in this car you have two choices you can either Mount the subframe drop the motor in from the top and then assemble the clutch and the transmission on out in a traditional way or you can assemble the whole drivetrain on the subframe on the ground roll it under the car and mount it from the bottom now if you have access to a lift or just some way to get the front end of the car off the ground this is the best way to do it so that is what we're going to do the first step is to mount the steering rack to the new subframe now if it's questionable or your tie rod ends are bad now is the time to replace them exercise now you can see how this monster Miata subframe and pan all work together with the steering now it is tight but it's all serviceable and all functional okay with the engine on rollers and ready to go it's time for the clutch and the flywheel and for that we went to zoom because we want something that's going to perform and something that's going to last now the flywheel is this super cool aluminum flywheel that only weighs 12 pounds and this is going to allow that engine to wind like crazy it's also going to lessen a little bit of that low end torque so I don't just blow the tires away every time I launch it if you're going to run a road course that is a great setup now the clutch is just as cool because it features Kevlar friction material now the reason Kevlar is cool is that it grips better and it lasts longer than the conventional stuff the only drawback to using Kevlar is it has a longer break-in period about 700 miles before you can really romp on it that's gonna be tough [Music] [Music] the bell housing came from the guys at Summit Racing and it's this heavy duty McLeod blowproof bell housing now the purpose of something like this is to contain the clutch should it ever blow apart in a racing or a high performance situation because the shrapnel from an exploding clutch can do some serious damage to you not to mention what it'll do to the car now if you're just building the car to run on the street this is probably a little bit Overkill I mean you really don't need anything quite this heavy duty however if you're going to be running down the track this is not only a good idea but it's usually required to pass a safety inspection so make sure you're planning ahead here now the only modification you're going to have to do to it is you're going to have to take the stock me on a slave cylinder and mount it on the bell housing to actuate the clutch for and of course the bracket from Monster Miata is included to do this foreign [Music] what about a starter yeah we got one we got that little Jewel from tough stuff performance because they specialize in high performance components that look good so it's going to match what we're doing here and it just slides right into the pocket the last piece to this puzzle is the transmission and what I've got here is a brand new t55 speed that we got from Summit Racing and of course it's just going to slide right into that bell housing and fit up perfect now the reason that the T5 is such a perfect transmission for this swap is it's compact lightweight but it's strong enough to handle the 400 horsepower and 400 foot-pounds we're going to be throwing at it done just barely but it is strong enough to handle that now I know you're looking at all this stuff going man that's a lot of stuff how's that all going to fit in the car well I promise you if you hang with me here I'm going to show you how all this slides in with no cussing and no pounding with the bfh hahaha [Music] all right with a subframe all bolted up the engine's pretty much in except for this cross member now to mount that all you have to do is Jack it into place drill some holes and bolt it up and that's it guys the new drivetrain is in now I know you're thinking no way there is no way that that just slid in that easy there has got to be some clearance problems what are you not showing us now come here take a look at this you've got all kinds of room around the transmission you've got room around the slave cylinder the blowproof bell housing I clearanced that before I put that in so I know that was going to fit but take a look at this here's your headers now that is tight but there's plenty of room so when the motor rocks it's not going to come up and hit the body everywhere you look there is just enough room it's tight but I'll tell you what it looks like it came from the factory in there okay the engine is in place the transmission is in place what are we going to do about the rear end I mean how are we going to handle all that power well the kit comes with a bracket to mount a new rear end but to find the rear end that fits this bracket you get to do a little bit of hunting so we went down to our friends at Shrum Auto Salvage and picked up a rear end out of a late 80s early 90s Ford Thunderbird now I know what you're thinking a 7.5 isn't that kind of small that's exactly what I thought but the guys at monster Miata assured me that the 7.5 and the CV joints are plenty strong enough to handle over 400 foot-pounds of torque matter of fact they say they've even got guys running in the tens with these and not scattering them all over the track so we'll see now one of the good things about using a 7.5 is all you got to do is clean it up pull out the stock open differential stuff in a limited slip differential from Ford racing and you're ready to go because you definitely won both tires digging on something like this now the mounting bracket is very simple all you do is press these bushings out of the stock rear end slide them in here and go bolt this in [Music] now all we have to do is Mount the front of the rear end so it doesn't move around on us and that is where this torque plate comes in because it fits above the rear end you weld it to the cross member and then the rear end just bolts to it foreign just got a couple of things to say this is a welder that is a gas tank they make a beautiful explosion together and you get to play a harp make sure you know your surroundings before you start torching foreign the last thing that we're going to deal with are the axles now once again we are using some new and used parts take a look at this the outers and the CV joints are the Ford units that came from the junkyard but we pulled out these weaker axles and slid in these stronger axles that came with the kit giving us a much stronger assembly now to put this in that end slides into the differential this goes through the spindle and then into this modified Miata Hub that also comes with a kit and then you are ready to rock foreign [Music] and that gets all the major hurdles out of the way the rear end and axles in place the transmission and cross member in place the subframe and the V8 in place I told you a V8 would fit in this car now the monster Miata kit actually comes with a really nice spring setup they send heavier springs for the front to handle the weight of the V8 and then you take your existing front Springs cut a coil out of it and use those on the rear now if I was driving this car primarily on the street this is what I would do I mean this is well engineered It's very effective unfortunately this car is going to spend a lot of time on the tracks and road courses so I not only need something that will handle the weight of the V8 but is also adjustable and tunable so we are going to start with these Coney shocks now these are a gas shock and like I said are fully tunable to whatever driving situation that you've got and then we're going to pack them with these eibach Springs of course the spring goes right on the shock and you adjust it with the collar now obviously we're using a heavier spring on the front for the V8 and on the rear we've got a lighter spring this is how they go in hey you want to put this one in for me you want to put it in yeah that's what I thought [Music] show us a smile [Music] now you don't have to be stuffing a V8 into one of these things to benefit from a shock and spring upgrade there's a lot of guys that are spec racing these cars with the stock four cylinder in them and they're just doing fantastic so that goes to show you that there's a lot more to these cars than just cruising them all now onto the brakes obviously brakes are a huge issue on any project but especially something that's going to have the velocity of that car and brakes is one of those issues where Size Matters so we went to our buddies it bear brakes and got the system that they have for the Mazda Miata now look at this check this out what they do is convert from the tiny 10-inch rotor to this huge 12 and a half inch drilled and slotted rotor now to go with that you have a dual piston caliper and of course all the hoses and Hardware to hook it up now I know this looks huge looks like it'll never fit but believe me this will go right in place your stock breaks and that's what we're going to show you once you have your old brakes off make sure that you spend a little time in here cleaning things up making them look good while you've got everything apart you'll be glad you did when all your buddies start crawling under here checking out what you got now just in case you're wondering the control arms the spindles the steering these are all strong enough to handle a V8 so you don't need to upgrade those however ever you will need to check your bushings your ball joints and your tie rod ends because if those are bad Now's the Time to replace them okay to install the new brakes just Bolt the new bracket onto the spindle slide on the new rotor and follow that with a caliper and that is it I mean it's really that simple you just bolt them on and boom you got some brand new huge breaks matter of fact the hardest part about this particular project is going to be finding a rim to go around it you're going to need at least a 16 inch here we're going to deal with that a little bit later all right on to the rear brakes now for the rear we're doing something a little different than the front because we're staying with the stock size rotor but not the original rotor oh now we're also putting on these bare drilled and slotted rotors to give us some better braking back here now the cool thing is they just slide in place of the original rotor then we'll stick some new pads in the calipers bolt them on and we'll be ready to rock now we have spent a lot of time with the Mechanicals of this you have a new drivetrain in it we have springs and shocks and brakes on it now it's time to deal with the safety factor of a car that weighs 2500 pounds but has a 400 horse Keith craft racing engine in it yeah I'm talking about a roll bar not a show bar a real roll bar something that's not going to fold up on you and Crush you if you accidentally get the car on its lid yeah the roll bar I'm talking about comes from hard dog Fabrications and it's right over here now since we're building a car that's going to have the flavor of a 60 style sports car like the cobra this is the bar we're going to use now this is called the deuce for obvious reasons it's got dual Hoops very similar to the single hoop that you saw in the Cobra now these are built at a thick polished stainless steel so they're very strong and the mounting points were designed after years of scca competition so these guys know how to protect you and keep the car looking good of course you get all the hardware and all the brackets everything that you're going to need to bolt this thing into your Miata now when you put on a roll bar may want to think about upgrading your seat belts so we got these willins five-point harnesses to Hold Us in the seats and the cool thing about these is all the mounting points are already welded to the bar so all you got to do is Bolt them on and you're ready to go now I know your first question is how is that big huge roll bar going to fit in this little tiny car there's no room here yeah there is we just need to move a few things around first starting with this crossbar and these plastic side panels [Music] now pulling out old carpet is usually a pretty nasty experience especially on a convertible because people put dogs in there and they spill Cokes and all kinds of stuff so if your carpet's bad Now's the Time to replace it however it looks like we lucked out here because this just needs to be cleaned up check it out foreign cover out of the way you can see that all of a sudden we've got some room here I mean the floor has just dropped about six inches and right in this area here that's where the bar is going to go so now all we have to do is just move some of these wires and cables and make room for the bar now as you probably guessed there is a little bit of trimming that has to happen here this whole mounting flange has got to come off so the roll bar will slide into place now this is where you're going to be really glad that you picked up some of these Cornwell spot weld Cutters you did pick some of those up didn't you I told you a few weeks ago those are a great tool to have in your box they're not just for restoration because you never know when you're going to have to cut a spot well once the spot welds are cut out [Music] we'll take a saw and trim the rest then finish it all up with a grinder and some paint all right now comes the fun part because it's time to get this thing in place of course you will need an extra set of hands because it's a little awkward all right straight down that's it thanks Craig all right it's in man look at that it looks great now how does it Mount that's the important thing notice we're using the factory mounting points where the original brace went and we're also using the mounting point for the seat belts so this is a very strong area here but even that is not enough [Music] so here along the sides and the back we're going to drill the holes and then bolt it on using the supplied backing plates for a strong mount to the strongest part of the unibody and that's one of the main differences between a roll bar meant to protect you and a show bar which is meant just to look good okay remember when I told you a little while ago about people spilling Cokes in their cars and letting their dogs drool all over everything well obviously that happened in this car because this gas tank cover is all rusty so we just picked up another one at the local salvage yard and now we get to cut it all to pieces so we'll make some marks [Music] trim the ends and also cut some slots in the center so it'll fit around the bar then once it's bolted back in place [Music] we'll just trim the carpet [Music] and the plastic side panels [Music] to fit snugly around the bars then just put it all back together and you are done step back man take a look at this this bar looks like it came from the factory in this car and that is awesome but it's also functional this bar could save your life and that is the really big deal here now check this out you still have the use of your factory seat belts if you want them and the top still operates and clears the roll bar that is a huge issue if you only have money for one modification on a convertible you need to look into a roll bar all right now we are going to deal with something that's been driving me crazy ever since I rolled this car in and it's those white seats they're so white I mean it looks like Pimp My Shoes or something no those have got to go and believe it or not they are white leather so they'll clean up and these things will go like hotcakes on eBay so that's where they're going to go now the color aside the Mazda the Miata seat is not a bad seat it's just not a performance seat there's not much here in the side bolsters or down here on the base to hold you in the seat when you're doing some performance driving so this is how we're going to change that [Music] all right you ready for this you never quite know what you're going to find under a seat hey we got some free money we got a got a new screwdriver and whoa I don't even wanna I don't know what that is there you go wow nasty [Music] [Laughter] okay the big question now is what are we gonna stuff in the car now that it's empty well they're not going to be white that's for sure no we're putting in these Pro Car rallies that we got from scat now as you can see they've got a tremendous amount of side support here both in the back and down in the seat bottom this will hold us in the seat when we're doing some performance driving but they're still comfortable enough to drive every day it's not a full-on racing seat and of course they're fully adjustable and with the adjustable headrest which is really cool this kind of has that that old school hot rod look which is going to be perfect in that car now we also got some Universal mounting brackets which means you can put these seats literally in any vehicle from a from a Jeep to a to a sports car it just takes a few minutes to put them in you know one of the first true freedoms you experience as a kid is that first bicycle man it becomes your transportation to the world or at least the local neighborhood and in my neighborhood man we all had bikes and we'd stick playing cards in the spokes and we'd suck on black licorice make it look like we were big biker dudes and it was magic but a bike wasn't just about Transportation no it became an extension of your personality and there were all kinds of bikes out there there were 10 speeds there were mountain bikes there were stingrays there were BMX bikes and they all had their strengths and weaknesses and that's where the idea for the story of the purple bicycle came from because just like a bike might wish it had the talents or skills of another bike so do we sometimes Overlook our god-given talents and wish we had somebody else's talents skills because they seem to be better than ours it's a simple lesson but something we all need to be reminded of from time to time [Music] me [Music] okay so what's next well remember I told you that I was going to upgrade these stock seat belts with these willins harnesses to Hold Us in the seat when we're doing some performance driving so that's what we're gonna do now the cool thing about these they're really easy to put in especially if you've got a roll bar foreign [Music] and what we've ended up with is an incredibly fast reliable Miata but that's great though because all that power is tucked up under this little skin this is the ultimate sleeper I mean you pull up beside somebody with this thing they have no idea what is about to hit them and if that's what you're into if that's the kind of car you want to build man this project is done for you all you have to do is go out and build one and then go hunt down some Corvettes and depending on where you Source your engines and what kind of Parts you use you can literally build one of these things around whatever budget however this is not the Banshee this at this point it's just a V8 Miata now I know you're thinking wait a minute you're confusing me here I thought you said this was the Banshee project it is but I'm not done with it yet I really didn't think I was going to leave this body stock did you oh man you know me better than that let's take a walk now when Carol Shelby stuck a V8 into the AC Ace it looked like this not the most high performance looking thing but he didn't leave it there now he changed it he stretched it he flared it until it looked like this yeah now that's what we're talking about that's what became the Cobra so that's what we're going to do with the Banshee we're going to give it a visual punch to go along with that performance punch that it's got and the way we're going to do that is right there beside it [Music] now what you're looking at here is a fiberglass body kit for the first generation Mazda Miata comes from a place called Simpson design and he calls it the Italia now check this thing out as you can see it is loaded with all kinds of Classic 60s sports car styling I mean you can see Ferrari influences here in jaguar and Lotus and Maserati and Lister and they're all here and that's the cool thing about this kit when Jim Simpson designed it he wasn't building a copy or a replica of any particular car he just took styling from all those cool cars and built an original body style that's sweet now the back same sort of deal notice it has the big flared fenders and the round tail lights and of course the little ducktail spoiler I mean that's pure 60 sports car now the kit also comes with little stuff like the headlight buckets the round tail lights even the Le Mans style flip top gas cap I mean this kit will totally change the look of your Miata for the better now how does it go in well actually pretty simple that front clip completely replaces all of your stock sheet metal so that's got to come off so get out a wrench start the music and let's go to work [Music] once the hood is out of the way [Music] we'll move on to the headlight assemblies now like most vehicles with retractable headlights these are very expensive to replace and usually the first thing damaged in a wrecked so these will definitely go in the swap meet pile the next step is to pull out these pin or Fender Wells now make sure that you don't tear these up because you're going to want to reuse them when you put the new clip on this car came out of Florida you never know what's going to be inside these fenders whoa hey here we go a little bit of beet sand you think the guy used this out on the beach some it kind of makes you wonder what was in those seats [Music] foreign [Music] that is light that's like tin foil look at this though remember all that sand that was down on the bottom check that out no rust that says a lot for their undercoating and that's a good thing too because just like the headlight buckets Miata sheet metal is valuable so we'll set it aside to make that trip to the swap meet now I know I know it looks like we're going the wrong direction here I mean a few minutes ago it looked like this car was just about done that's okay because they always look there worse just before they start to look really cool now since I am in a disassembly mood we're just going to move on to the rear starting with this trunk lid okay there you go [Music] all right at this point it's still possible if you chicken out to bold all this stuff back on the car and try to forget about this whole thing you know get some counseling and try to ask the little cars forgiveness for for trying to tear it apart you know that ain't gonna happen here man there is nothing exciting about keeping a car stock now this show was about modifying stuff and making it yours so it is time for the saw because remember the new front end had headlight buckets not retractable headlights that means we need to make room for those buckets right here in this area so this whole corner has got to come off all right foreign part because it's time to put this nose on the car but you are going to need an extra set of hands because you can't do this by yourself the trick here is to Center up the clip and then slowly work your way down the fender and door Gap fine-tuning your mounting holes the edges and the radius of the fenders until you have it perfect foreign [Music] [Music] now I know when watching this show that it looks like we just fit this nose on here in about 30 seconds in real life it's going to take you a little bit longer than that but only a couple hours [Music] the reason is you'll need to take this clip on and off a number of times as you slowly tweak and cut and file to get it to fit perfectly but as you can see this is time well spent because now this thing is fitting like a glove all right now we are ready for the hood and I know you're wondering about the hinges what do you do well it's pretty simple you just take your stock hinge bend it in until it matches the hood line and then Bolt the hood on then all you have to do is adjust the hood and you're done now that we have everything fit and good it is time to give this thing a face so using these templates supplied with a kit we're going to make our openings for the headlights the turn signals and The Grille now make sure that you don't cut these too big because if you do your screws [Music] foreign [Music] before we move on to the rear clip there is one major change that we need to make inside here because of the style that we're building into this car that stock steering wheel has got to go that is ugly in its place we are going to put this nardy wheel that we got from BBS of America as you can see this is a work of art it's got the wooden Rim polished aluminum spokes this thing is beautiful if you think it looks like an Italian wheel you're right it's actually made in Italy by hand now you're probably thinking I'm going to tell you this is a replica of a classic 60 sports car wheel right no nardy wheels are actually what came Factory on most of your Ferraris and exotic cars back in the day so this is just a continuation of what they've been doing right for decades nardy pretty much wrote the book on classic wooden Wheels now to put this in you just unbolt the old wheel and bolt this on now I shouldn't have to say this but just a reminder when you're messing with a modern steering wheel make sure the battery's disconnected unless you want a mouthful of airbag at this point it's rear end time and that rear clip mounts completely different than the front because it doesn't bolt on it Bonds on that's right it glues right over the existing rear clip now let me just deal with some questions right now yes it's permanent yes it's strong no it's not going to come off no it's not going to look bad it's not going to look cheap it's not going to look phony yes it's going to look good but you got to fit it first with the rear of the car disassembled set the new rear clip in place on the back of the car now start checking your fit around the trunk opening a little bit of a fitment issue right there it's a little tight the wheel arches and the rocker panels just like the front you're going to want to trim and sand as needed to get this body section fit nice and snug that means you're going to be taking the rear clip on and off a number of times before you're done also notice that the new body doesn't come all the way to the edge that's so you can blend the edges with a little bit of filler when you're done to make this all seamless that's it once you're satisfied with the fit of the rear clip put on the trunk lid so you can make sure everything's going to line up this also gives you a chance to step back take a look and see what this is really going to look like this is sweet all right now we'll mark around the edge of the body pull it off and then grind a path around the fenders and wheel arches following the lines now this needs to be down to Bare Metal so the glue can get the best Bond today we'll be cooking something that the squid choked up okay now comes the moment of truth because it is time to bond the rear section on and we're using this incredibly strong structural epoxy that comes with the kit now it has 40 minutes of working time so you don't have to rush once you have the epoxy mixed up spread it on that ground down area and then set the rear clip in place get your side first try not to slide it try not to slide it now at this point it's just a matter of screwing the body in place with the supplied self-tapping screws you start at The Rocker work your way up the fender and across the top now be careful not to over tighten the screws here you just need to be snug enough to hold the clip in place until the epoxy sets up all right I love that part now all you got to do is take a break because that glue's got to set up for 24 hours then you'll come in take your screws out do the finished body work around the edges and you are done it's on permanent not coming off because that is some serious epoxy and it makes JB Weld look like Scotch tape now you may have noticed that this body kit has flared the fenders now two to three inches so what are we going to do about wheels and tires aha thought you'd never ask for Wheels we went to a place called complete custom wheel because their emphasis is on performance then style and that's important if you've got something that's going to be driven as hard as that car now what we've got here is what they call their classic wheel it's their race proven three-piece design got a polished aluminum rim satin aluminum center and the cool thing is a CCW will build your wheels with whatever backspace whatever offset that you need and that is important when you're doing a custom fitment like that now of course we're using 16 by eights front and rear because we want to get as much rubber underneath that car as possible now speaking of rubber there you go we're using the Toyo proxus t1r because it's an ultra high performance Tire got a sticky compound a unique directional tread these things will give you great handling and traction wet or dry basically you have racing Tire DNA in a street tire and that is a nice combination matter of fact this whole thing is a nice combination matter of fact wait till you see these on that car oh yeah that's sweet now with the only original Body Lines being the doors and the windshield frame the car has now taken on a classic look of the golden era of sports car racing you got the covered headlights the deck lid the roll bar they're all working together to make this thing look like nothing else on the road and it's not even done yet and that's the last that anybody has seen of the banshee and I've been getting a lot of questions about it what happened to it was all that surgery successful or well paint is what happened to it and as far as that surgery being successful well you can be the judge of that okay first things first the paint is once again a collaboration between Ron Payton at PPG and myself and it is a really cool metallic blue with a metallic silver stripe now these have the look and the punch and the sparkle of a three-stage candy color but these are base clear now the reason we do the bass clear is because it's a lot easier for a novice or a beginning painter to get good results out of these in their shop it's also a lot easier to touch up when you scratch it of course the color is called Banshee blue and it joins the rest of our custom PPG colors and you can get these colors at Auto Body color and Supply in Nashville Tennessee or you can go on our website get the mixing formulas go to your local paint store and have them mix them up for you now the paintwork on this thing was carried out by Malcolm Pritchett and his crew at West Kentucky Collision Center in Hopkinsville Kentucky and they did a fantastic job now don't let the Collision name fool you these guys do superb restoration and custom work as well as Collision work I've been doing it for 25 years my grandfather worked at Ford painting model a Model T cars my great uncles were all body men a matter of fact I have some of their hand-me-down Tools in my tools chest the body of the Banshee was completely disassembled and then worked and tweaked until every seam every opening was perfect [Music] then it was meticulously taped off to keep overspray from going everywhere [Music] with the body all prepped and ready to go Dwayne started laying on the paint after that the guys cut it and buffed it and detailed it and dropped it back off to the shop [Music] now the first thing that captures your attention when you look at this thing is that black scoop on the hood because you might remember that this body kit did not come with a scoop on the hood it was just flat I added that because first of all it makes the car look better second of all we can definitely handle some cold air going down into that engine so yeah this is functional now if you think that scoop looks familiar you're right it's a boss 302 Mustang Shaker scoop that we got from Keystone restyling products and it was blended into the Hood by Chris Dicus at Dicus Customs then to make it all really pop we painted it with a flat black brought out a nice silver stripe to Accent the body line took it all the way down into the nose the coolest factor in the nose though is the covered headlights and the round turn signals that really set off the front end giving it that classic Ferrari jaguar look under the hood you'll notice that everything has been all smoothed out and painted to match so this looks like a factory car and that is so important to do on your project because you don't want the body and the engine and the rest of the car to look like it came from three different places no you want it all to match and make sense now obviously the best way to do this is to pull out the engine and drivetrain so you can get in there and detail it out properly and of course make sure that you redo all your wiring and all your fuel lines so when you put it back together you pop the hood it looks like a factory original exotic car rolling down the side of the car you'll notice that the side Scoops were opened up and made functional for the proper sports car look and the fat curves of the body flow all the way around the back making you think this is anything but a Miata matter of fact the only things left that even hint at the Mazda Heritage is the windshield frame and the door handles now obviously I'm still in the process of putting this thing back together from the paint shop and as good as it looks there is still one major piece missing on the body and that is the side mirrors now this Italia kit doesn't come with any specific mirror and you definitely don't want to put the old Miata mirror back on because it's just big and gaudy and ugly it just doesn't match the look of the car now so to fix that we went to year one got a couple of these cool little bullet side mirrors that came on the original Shelby Cobras and the Mustangs and all those 60 sports cars and that is a look that we're after so let's get these things on the first step is to get in the seat and determine where the mirrors need to sit so you can see out of them when you're driving a car [Music] then drill the holes for the base now ideally you want to do this before you paint the car but in this case the mirrors came in after the car was painted but if you use tape to protect the paint and take your time you're not going to have any problem here and that is what this car needed look at that that's sweet and that's the cool thing about a project like this every little thing that you do brings it that much closer to being done and being a 1995 Mazda Miata means that this is very typical of a lot of the late model projects that are sitting out in garages there right now I mean it's still a good car got a lot of good miles left on it no rust on it it's just a little tired in the interior especially the carpet so we're going to fix that now putting in a new carpet is not difficult but it doesn't just jump in by itself either no there are some tricks to help you put this in to make it look right that's what we're going to show you okay the first thing you need to do to replace your carpet is get everything out of the way the seats the door seals the console the seat belts [Music] kick panels everything even the top at this point you're going to be getting a pretty good sized pile of Hardware clips and fasteners and it's really easy to get them all mixed up or lose them not a good thing the best way to prevent that is get yourself a box of Ziploc bags that way you can bag everything up and mark them so when you're ready for them they're all there together ready for you this is especially important if it's going to be a while before you put everything back together now comes the moment of truth because it's time to get this old carpet out of here it should come out fairly easily the question is what are you going to find underneath it yeah now with a car that's only about 10 years old rust should not be an issue but you won't know until you get in here what the oh no way oh check this out man a fake fingernail I told you we were exercising the estrogen out of this car it was a little bit still down underneath the scary thing is I bought this car from a guy there you go oh man other than the fingernail they were no more surprises under the carpet or Rusty floor pan the only thing left to do is clean everything up [Music] now like I said before we really lucked out with this car man take a look at the floor there is no rust on this thing now obviously if you have rust in the floor you're gonna have to cut it out and repair it before you can put the new carpet down but if you just have surface rust that's a little different thing you can get a rust inhibitive paint like a bill Hirsch Miracle Paint or a por15 or chassis saver paint all you got to do is paint it on that stuff will stop rust in its tracks then you're going to be ready for your carpet let's go take a look foreign for the new interior we went to a place called stock interiors got the whole setup for a Mazda Miata check this out this is a form-fitted carpet got your foot Wells and your cross members there's the toe board so this thing should drop right into place and just fit great also notice that the jute padding is already glued right to the carpet so you don't have to chase that around and then for the rear shelf we also got that panel got the padding in place got nice finished edges so this is going to look great in that car and the final piece is this vertical panel that goes behind the seats now anytime that you are doing a custom carpet installation you might want to pick up some extra material and some extra padding because you don't really know when you might need this now if you're putting something in that's going to create more heat like a V8 that's when you'd want to use this because it is not just a padding it's also a heat shield now it's a matter of laying the carpet in and working it to make it fit now be prepared to do some pushing and pulling and trimming here if you start in the center slowly work your way out take in your time to fit all the corners and the edges you'll have a fantastic looking carpet in no time at all okay the one thing that invariably happens when you're working with a form-fitted carpet is you're going to find that there's some creases and bends and stuff that don't really match what you're doing and some people will tell you yeah you just Mash that in and glue it down that's that's not the way to do that here's what you're dealing with you have got to reform the carpet and the way to do that is with a heat gun now this is not a hair dryer this is a heat gun goes up to a thousand degrees and all you have to do is just melt the plastic and reform the carpet next comes the rear panel and using the old carpet as a pattern we'll just trim it up get it in place using some 3M adhesive [Music] and that is it quick and easy and there is no reason that you can't do this to your vehicle in an afternoon and save yourself some serious money now take a look at this look at the difference it's like a brand new car now once you get the carpet in all you've got to do is reassemble the interior and you're ready to go down the road with your project now with this one I still got some work to do to this one now I know you're wondering about the shifter and the exhaust and things like that we'll get to that in a minute now I've got the engine back in this gives you a good chance to see just how well that engine fits and how that air cleaner is going to fit around that hood scoop that's cool now the reason the drivetrain's back in is that we need it to help fit the next components that we're going to put on like the shifter now we've been getting a lot of questions about the shifter placement on this project so let's take a look the new T5 shifter is coming up here but the stock Miata shifter came up here so if we're going to hide all that stuff with a stock console which we are we have to move the shifter back and to the right here's how we're going to do it now there's no question we have got to have a serious shifter for this car so we went to a place called Purple Hazen because they specialize in performance shifters and wild and crazy shifter stuff too and we came up with a special gear shifter that's not only going to be perfect for the Banshee but for any car that's running a T5 five-speed transmission take a a look at this the shifter is precision cut out of Billet aluminum so it's lightweight and strong this is something you can bang on for years and not damage now of course it's got a very tight pattern so you can get in and out of the gears quick and it has the shifting stops so you can't over shift the transmission and damage it then it also comes with different Springs that you can change inside that will adjust the tension on the shifter so it will feel the way you want it to feel now for the handle that's where purple Hazen started living up to their name notice they cut it out of aluminum and it looks very similar to the wheels that's really cool the best part is when you bolt it on the shifter notice it moves it back and to the right exactly what we needed it's going to come right up in the hole of the console now to go with that we've got us a nice little gears knob so we have something that we can really grab onto when we're Shifting the gears the best part is this all bolts right in place of the stock shifter foreign [Music] the next thing to go in are the seats unfortunately the rally seats that I was planning on using here are not going to work because being over six feet tall once I had them bolted in I realized I was looking right at the top of the windshield not a good thing so we're gonna have to reuse the stock Miata seeds but that's not a bad thing because remember I said the stock Miata seed is not a bad seat ours were just the wrong color and really nasty so we took care of that by shipping them off to BNG Incorporated Nashville Tennessee and they reupholstered them for us take a look at this not only are they black now so they match but we changed the look of the upholstery so it matches the look of the car the best part is now I'm gonna fit in the car foreign [Music] [Music] at this point we are ready to deal with the exhaust system so we hooked up with our buddies at Cherry Bomb laid out a system for this car check it out starting with two and a half inch diameter pipe the head pipes bolt right to the header collectors then they spend outside the frame rails up underneath the car then we weld it on O2 sensor bugs so if we ever want to add fuel injection we can then of course we have the crossover pipe which will equalize the pressure of the two cylinder Banks then we added two Cherry Bomb High Flow catalytic converters because we want to pass emissions with this car then of course it goes on out now one thing that's really important to do on a custom exhaust is to flange all of your connections so you can just unbolt the system whenever you want now I know this looks like a lot of wild bends here but you're going to be surprised how nicely this bolts up underneath there and there it is yeah now from here on back we built another couple of pipes that tuck under the rear end over the cross member and into the crowning Jewels those Cherry Bomb Vortex Mufflers because they flow like crazy and sound really good now the Final Touch of these Cherry Bomb polished stainless steel tips I'm going to weld them right onto the Mufflers they tuck into these little notches that we cut into the body and are just going to look incredible as this thing rumbles down the road I can't wait to hear this thing thank you know since we've been touching on the subject of Interiors today now is the perfect time to deal with the biggest problem that you're going to face when you're doing an interior it's the wrong color or it's faded now if we're talking about a carpet that's not that big a deal because you just get a new carpet and put it in but if you're talking about a panel or a dash oh that is a whole different deal because if you are lucky enough to find a new panel it's probably going to be black and really expensive if you go to a salvage yard you're going to get stuff that's probably the wrong color or faded so you're right back where you started oh the best thing to do is to try to refurbish your old panels provided they're not cracked or broken now I know some of you guys are going oh no I am not going to try that and that's because most of us in the past have tried to paint these kind of panels only to have the paint flake off in a week or two and you end up with a bigger mess on what you started with now the good news is there is a way to paint this stuff to where it looks good good and lasts a long time that's what we're going to show you okay the first thing you need to do is get the parts ready to be painted any gouges that need to be smoothed any parts that need to come off now is the time to do it [Music] foreign [Music] you have to prep the panels properly most interior panels have years of protectants rubbed into them and they also had a mold release on from the factory to help them pop out of the mold paint will not stick to any of that so it's all got to come off and that takes a serious cleaner now I like to use trisodium phosphate or tsp for short you can pick this up at the local hardware store it's a great heavy duty all-purpose cleaner and it'll do a great job getting all the nasty goo off these panels once the panels are clean and dry we'll give them a good wipe down with a wax and grease remover to make sure that there is absolutely nothing left anywhere on the panel that could prevent good adhesion that is why this step is important there's still some stuff on here now the real key to getting paint to stick to vinyl or plastic is you have got to use a high quality vinyl paint like this from Dupli-Color now look at that that is for vinyl now the reason that's important is because vinyl moves man it expands it contracts and this paint will do the same thing so it won't flake off now duplicolor's got this in all kinds of different colors so you should be able to find some to fit your application now wait a minute before you just start shooting paint on the first thing you need to put on is an adhesion promoter now this is basically a clear light primer that makes your paint stick like crazy finally you're ready for the paint and it's very important that you don't just glob on big heavy coats now two or three light coats are the way to go here so you not only don't get runs but you also don't fill up the grain pattern in the plastic and once it's all dried out you've got a panel that looks brand new I mean check it out look at the difference between the one I haven't painted yet now look at these pieces they look like they came right off of the shelf and they're durable this stuff is not going to flake off now when you put it all back together you can use your protectants on it and it'll last a good long time the best part is this is something that's cheap and easy to do all you need is some cleaner some DupliColor and a few hours so now you have no excuse to have a nasty old interior get out there and work on it you know one question that a guy will ask himself from time to time when he's in the middle of a project is am I ever going to finish this thing and is all this effort worth it well you're going to find that if you keep at it you will finish it and all the effort is worth it case in point the Banshee now we've already walked you through the extensive buildup of this car but now it's time to take a look at the finished product and see what we got [Music] the Italia body kit not only completely transforms the look of the car but it gives it the swoopy curvy lines of a vintage 60 sports car yeah baby [Music] [Music] [Music] however with roll-up windows and air conditioning [Music] a stereo and a real working top the Banshee is far more refined than something like a vintage Cobra and actually a car that you could drive every day to help prove that point we even took the Banshee out for a spin in the rain now the cool thing about a car like this it's based off of a Miata I don't know if you can hear that or not but it's a robot oh in trouble [Music] yeah there's only one problem it's raining hahaha [Music] all right we're done looks good there's only one problem stopped raining [Laughter] with modern breaks and High Performance Suspension the Banshee will out handle pretty much anything on the road and is an absolute blast on the road course short wheelbase and V8 power have the potential to bring the rear end around pretty much whenever you want to [Music] that blend of power and handling allows you to push the car to the very edge whether you're road racing drifting or just messing around [Music] and of course with that V8 power [Applause] [Music] [Music] the best part is you can build a car just like this one for around twenty thousand bucks if you don't do the body kit you can get into a V8 powered Miata for around 10 000 bucks and that includes buying the car guys that's a fraction of what you pay for something like this now after all this there's still some people that would question why you would want to build something like this and the simple answer is fun [Music] foreign hahaha [Music] [Music] hey welcome back to gears where we have been putting the Banshee through some serious Paces to show you how incredible a vehicle like this really is it's affordable it's blindingly fast and it handles like a mother but is it legal yeah emissions are a big deal with hot rods these days and a lot of you have been wondering why I put a carburetor on this and not a fuel injection and I did it to prove a point that you can pass emissions with a carburetor and catalytic converters in just about every state but California which kind of makes you wonder what they base their criteria on if the car is burning clean enough to pass emissions yeah something to think about so what did we end up with we ended up with a car that just about anybody can build just about anybody can afford and when you compare the cost the reliability the usability and the performance of something like this you're going to find that nothing screams like a banshee [Music] [Music] now [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] [Laughter]

Channel: Official Stacey David

Views: 559,951

Keywords: staceydavid, GearZ, Hot Rods, Trucks, mavtv, revntv, motortrend, stacey david

Id: 4gODHMvG1pI

Length: 90min 23sec (5423 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 24 2022