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. 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.
  
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.
Has anyone heard it run?
“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?
Does it have cardboard suspension and zip ties galore ?
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”
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.
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
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.
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.
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
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.
The whole car may or may not be a lie, but what are those red circles on the big intake pipes?
Blow off valves.
LEGO part # 3005741
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.