While in Las Vegas at the Specialty Equipment Market Association show, SEMA, I spotted the “Lamborghini Miata” that has taken the internet by storm over the past couple of days, and the truth is: This ain’t what you think it is. But that doesn’t mean it’s totally wack, either. Check it out.
If you’ve been following the car-internet the past couple of days, you might have seen articles like “Drop Everything and Look at This V-10 Miata With Turbos for Headlights” claiming the Miata “might be the craziest [build] of the year.” Or “Shocking Mazda MX-5 Miata Transformation Is Amazing And Insane,” which called the Lambo engine the “Wildest Mazda MX-5 Miata Engine Swap Ever.”
Or you might have seen Instagram reels like this one:
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And then there’s this one, which features an interview with the builder, who does not deny the Lamborghini engine:
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But the truth is, that’s not a Lambo engine under the hood. It’s very clearly a Chevy engine, as someone pointed out while I was peeking under the hood. Here’s my look at the Miata:
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I had a chat with Brazilian vehicle builder Jefferson Marcal from Hot Parts out of Orlando, Florida, and he actually told me the engine with the Lamborghini Gallardo intake bolted to it came out of a junked 2022 C8 Corvette.
That would make it a 6.2-liter LT2 V8 (Marcal told me LT4 on the phone, though that doesn’t make sense for a C8), though as eagle-eyed friend of the site Bozi Tatarevic points out, what can be seen through the hole in the hood really looks like like a truck motor:
This is a Gen V LS/LT engine based on the timing cover bolt location and the water pump outlet leads me to believe that this is something like the 5.3-liter L84 or the 6.6-liter L8T engine. pic.twitter.com/qqWydxXCeg
— Bozi Tatarevic (@BoziTatarevic) November 7, 2024
Specifically, Bozi points to the accessory drive, which I took a photo of here:
The photo is cut off a bit, but you can still see the water pump outlet with the little 90-degree tube at the 12 o’clock position. Plus there are similar castings. Much of what you see matches an L84, as Bozi points out:
Now look at the two side by side and see how the breather and the casting marks match between the Miata video and this photo of the Chevy L84 engine. pic.twitter.com/m5oZkFbAAu
— Bozi Tatarevic (@BoziTatarevic) November 7, 2024
I called up the builder to see what’s up. “[I] needed to change the accessory drive,” he told me me when I asked about a front end that looks quite different than what you’d seen on the LT2 that was allegedly used in the build. “The accessory is from 2022 from Silverado. I needed to change because I have no space to put AC compressor,” he said.
Marcal told me it’s a Gen 5 Chevy engine with forged pistons, new rods, a VVT delete, a custom cam, and lots of other mods. Attached to it is a Tremec T56 and in the rear is a Getrag rear diff from a Cadillac CTS-V. I asked Bozi if a Silverado accessory drive would fit a C8 Corvette motor, just to confirm. “It would fit and match the photo,” he told me. He then sent me a link to the L8T accessory drive kit:
“Could bolt something like this kit to an LT2 and end up with whats visible in the photos and videos,” Bozi told me, though he notes also that the Miata motor “Could also be an L87 which is basically the truck version of the LT2 and externally the block and heads look the same.”
“Lots of options when it comes to block and head combinations there but the one thing that I can say for certain is that it’s a Gen V Chevy small block V8 and not a Lamborghini V10,” he concludes.
So the builder, Marcal, and Bozi are in agreement: It’s a Gen V Chevy small block. Whether it actually came from a 2022 Corvette and had its accessory drive swapped out, we can’t know for sure, but it seems possible, and I’m inclined to believe the builder until I know otherwise, even if it seems he didn’t exactly correct folks when they claimed this was a Lambo motor.
So yes, this famous SEMA Miata a bit of a fraud, but hey, it IS still an LS-swapped Miata, which is cool — if it actually functions, that is.
Funny part is that it’s the exact same color as Miata! (Bought it that way. Long story.) Maybe this guy would be willing to make a sticker kit I can put on my hood and pretend, too. Hey, at least mine would still run!
David – the outlet of the water pump is the engine block/pump joint. The outlet you’re referring to is the engine coolant outlet, which just happens to use the water pump casting as a manifold in order to collect coolant from the heads into a single outlet to flow to the radiator
I think you’re doing an excellent Dick Tracy approved investigation into this
New automotive mystery article series??? I’d love to see some Dick Tracy, investigative journalist content
Me too, that would make for some really good stories. I seem to recall stories like this on the old Jalopnik
My first thought before actually reading the article was that it seemed excessive to swap a Lamborghini engine then twin turbocharge it when you could just use an LS and get basically the same result.
I think this is pretty funny, it’s kind of like one of those really bad kit cars, like so bad that everybody knows it’s fake. Like the Car Bros “Enzo”. I guess it all depends on if the owner has a good sense of humor about it.
Emphasis mine to indicate my own personal take on the whole thing… but, YMMV.
And the owner says it doesn’t actually run so no, it is not functional. This thing is pure bullshit.
Anybody else spy the nice little bent/pulled out fender lip from where the tire caught it likely the first time this thing was rolled around at the show. Gotta love SEMA builds.
As someone with an identical kink in my NAs fender, I noticed it immediately. However, mine came from pushing my cars limits, not pushing my car off a trailer.
Pretty sure that’s a Lambo, dude!
It says Lambogini right on it!
Florida man doin’ Florida things
This guy should have just saved some cash and stuffed another sock into his pants…
Why do we have to constantly glom onto things that are not what they are? Isn’t a Corvette engine-swapped twin turbo like this still really cool? Why do we have to pretend it’s something “cooler” instead of embracing it? Enjoy things for what they are instead of lamenting what they are not. Glass half-full, people.
Ls swapped Miata has been done countless times.
It is still really cool, but then why did the owner put Lamborghini covers on it? *He* could have been happy with what he built too, not try to up-badge it.
Has anyone heard it run?
It is SEMA. Pretty sure it doesn’t run.
I was thinkin the same, like how does the car get this much attention from gearheads without someone hearing it turn on and immediately pointing out “well that clearly doesn’t sound like a v10”
My 16 year old son telling me that the Mustang a few cars ahead of us clearly sounded like a V6 instead of a V8 might have been the proudest moment of my life.
My dad was not the kind of person who’d manifest lots of pride in his children, but I remember him being quite astonished when he realised teenage me could ID many cars by the engine sound. I was especially good with Peugeot diesels and any Renault four banger. I could also ID Mercedes 5-cylinder engines (doesn’t seem like much of a feat now, but a teenager doing it in the 90s was very amusing for many adults). We didn’t have a lot of engine variety in my neck of the woods, but as I grew up I also learned to tell apart the various V configurations, flat fours/sixes, etc. I’m aware this is nothing special, especially in this community, but it’s one of those things non-car people see as some kind of superpower.
As a child I could also identify 80’s Renault four cylinder engines. My mother had an 11 GTL and to me they sounded so distinctive…
I still struggle to tell the difference between the sounds of any 4-stroke engine. I’m not sure what I should be listening for, but I can’t hear it.
I think there’s a specific type of rhythmic rumble depending of cylinder configuration (which turns into a wheezing sound once you get into V10s and above, as those engines tend to run smoother). And then there’s the pitch and timbre itself – 2 and 3 cylinders tend to have a more high-pitched sound than inline 4s I believe; inline 5s are perhaps harder to spot, but the ones from Mercedes are definitely more low-end and have a distinctive, naturally rough texture to it; flat 4s and 6s have a clanging to them; V8s growl lower than V6s, etc. This is only my perception, and it could be factually wrong.
Teenage me was just getting into cars when a strange sounding Porsche 911 drove by. I astounded my buddies when I said, “that’s not a Porsche sound, it’s a small-block Chevy.” I later found the car parked on a side street in my town, and someone had stuck V8 emblems on it. I was so proud.
Still a teen, I started working at a garage, so I got better at identifying engines by sound. Yes, Olds, Pontiac and Chevy V8s all had characteristic sounds that I could pick up right away. My girlfriend had a visitor pull up at her house in a Ford pick-up, and I shouted out, “Cool, a big-block!” even though I only heard it run a few seconds. My girlfriend, and her dad and her brother were all skeptical, but when we asked the guest, he confirmed that he ordered the 460 big block for towing.
Seeing as how the injectors aren’t wired up and it’s missing some coolant plumbing… I’m going to say that’s a negatory.
Honestly I’m trying to determine if it can even run well if they slapped a V10 intake on a V8 using what appears to be a log style adapter.
“I’m inclined to believe the builder until I know otherwise”
Why would we give the benefit of the doubt to somebody slapped the Lamborghini name on a Chevy small block?
Because we didn’t think of it first?
Does it have cardboard suspension and zip ties galore ?
And a Bluetooth driveshaft?
This is a great idea.
Hey everyone, this guy’s a big fat PHONY. For real though, LS Miatas have been done a lot, why slap a Lamborghini intake manifold on it and take it to a massive show with a bunch of experts where you will definitely be caught? Guaranteed to lose all credibility henceforth.
Worth it, got all that clout and clicks tho!
Who cares if any of them are real? Most of what’s at these events is fake and/or has had way too much money spent on it unless it’s a marketing exercise. It’s like the cruise nights I used to go to where some sad old guy is going on about his Snap-Tite T-bucket with a “900 hp” engine (an old junkyard 350 with tripower and a high rise and all the chrome the local distributor had in stock). At that point, though, you might as well just make shit up since the power would cost a lot of money for no purpose as it wouldn’t be deployable, and wouldn’t be usable if it were. The only reason to have it is because they think it impresses someone, so what’s the difference if it’s real or not when the only people who might be impressed are the dumber teen boys or the other BSers. I’d rather they all be fake and have had fewer resources wasted on them.
I do
In one photo, I thought the hashtag on the window said “TeamHotFarts” and then on the next it was “TeamHotPants”
One leads to the other. Especially if you draw mud.
Wait, you’re saying a vehicle on display at SEMA is deceptive and not what it claims to be? Well I for one am clutching my pearls.
Wait until David finds out about all the “track cars” at SEMA that have their rollcages ziptied onto mounting points.
And the cages are constructed of Christmas wrap tubes spray painted black.
Show me a Lamborghini with the Miata 1.6 poking out the back and I’ll get excited.
I saw it done on a FD RX-7 once
You could fit that in the frunk and keep the V12
It’s a hybrid!
I actually don’t really see the point of shoving big engines into Miatas. I think it kind of defeats the purpose. They’re not supposed to be fast and raunchy, they’re supposed to be un-intimidating little corner carvers that you throw around and have to ring out. You should be able to drive a Miata at 100% on a public road.
You can’t do that with a small block V8 dropped in. If that’s what you’re after there’s almost certainly a Corvette available for the same price as whatever Miata you’re looking at.
I’m sure there were folks who said the same to Carrol Shelby when he shoved a giant American V8s into the AC Ace.
And there’s a reason Cobras are 99% garage stored and never driven. On track it was still a deathtrap but accepted because it won races. Annoying to cut up a miata for this, they could have used a Sky or Fiero if they want a fast short wheelbase car that’s terrible to drive
If you say so. There’s plenty of non garage queen replicas out there following the exact same formula
It is immensely fun, sounds good, with limited accessories is not much heavier than a stock engine in most cases. I chose to just build and boost my 1.8Ls into the 300s instead but have considered trying a LS swap some day.
For a while, the shop that built my dad and I’s track cars built V8 swapped Miatas. I knew someone who daily drove one for a year or two. They probably did those conversations for a year or less, before refusing to do any more. Apparently the cars would just keep coming back to the shop with new problems, and it was becoming a burden for them. Apparently they were fun enough to drive, but not reliable enough for daily driver or track duty.
These days, their favored vehicles have moved on to C8 Corvettes. My dad has one and it’s a hell of a track car, though I don’t feel entirely comfortable driving it on track. I have a nicely built S2000 track car that I’m very happy with though, so I’m sticking with driving that.
Presumably for the same reason people Safari Miatas: Because they can.
I feel like it’s almost nostalgic at this point, as they were doing V8 swaps pretty much as soon as the Miata was released with the 302 powered Monster Miata.
In the early 90s when I was like 12, I even V8 swapped my miata plastic model build with a Boss 302 engine and rear axle, slicks, and exhaust from a Days of Thunder stock car.
I mean, I can get behind a bigger engine in a Miata like a V6 or even a modest small block V8. It’s not what I’d choose to do, but I get it. But a twin turbo LS is just driving away from the plot as fast as you can.
The Brian Tooley Racing logo in the picture of the accessory drive is also a dead giveaway.
I noticed that and got a little chuckle
That was one of the things that tipped me off as I was looking through the pictures originally.
Welcome to Sema.
Where’s the AMG badge on the back?
Because it’s clearly an AMG Lamborghini Miata…
/sarc
No wastegates, intercooler too small for even 400hp with no outlets for cold side pipes, super cheap rep wheels, the whole car is a lie.
tire tread looks like it could be directional… in the wrong direction based on what you would want to move water.
iirc they’re right on the left side but backwards on the right.
Like they bought 4 right tires instead of 2 rights and 2 lefts.
They could be asymmetrical but not directional. Which would look like that. But that tread patter looks very much directional for most tires I’ve seen.
These are almost certainly Toyo Proxes R888R, which are asymmetrical and not directional, but look stupid on one side of the car.
https://www.tirerack.com/tires/tires.jsp?gclid=Cj0KCQiAire5BhCNARIsAM53K1iiv1VPF2geTwvv7-Z2GosQ3xQk_E2yu9clxHLJgoB1bgwuI56JDMYaAnGUEALw_wcB&tireMake=Toyo&tireModel=Proxes+R888R&partnum=05WR5R888RXL&GCID=C13674x012-tire&KEYWORD=tires.jsp_Toyo_Proxes+R888R_Tire&code=yes&ef_id=Cj0KCQiAire5BhCNARIsAM53K1iiv1VPF2geTwvv7-Z2GosQ3xQk_E2yu9clxHLJgoB1bgwuI56JDMYaAnGUEALw_wcB:G:s&s_kwcid=AL!3756!3!!!!x!!&gclsrc=aw.ds&gad_source=1
It’s like wheel designs that look good in one direction but not the other. Drives me crazy.
I knew there were a few tires like that out there.
Edit: see my response below.
The whole car may or may not be a lie, but what are those red circles on the big intake pipes?
Blow off valves.
I’m reminded of the movie Redline… this looks like a car barely built around the engine instead of the engine being built for the car, and I love it.
Footage from the build:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iFqcbqXKNOQ
The Trans-Am 2000 in that movie goes from being 30% engine to 75% engine to 100% engine throughout the course of the movie and gets faster every time. A very literal depiction of “no replacement for displacement” indeed.