Mazda Miata: It may officially be called the MX-5 now, but in our hearts, it will always be the Miata. And there will always be a place in our hearts for the Miata, the most perfect car that any company has ever produced. If you don’t fit in a Miata, that’s understandable, but if you don’t like the Miata you’re wrong. While the Miata is a blast to drive stock, it’s also a fantastic platform to modify. Like if, for example, you decided to swap in a motorcycle engine that revs to 13,000 rpm such as the one the Drive recently found.
A while back, YouTuber Reed Make Car decided their Miata needed a motorcycle engine. Instead of grabbing one out of a Hayabusa and calling it a day, Reed chose the engine from a 2008 Honda CBR1000RR that makes about 180 horsepower. That’s an insane amount of power for a bike and, coincidentally, also almost exactly the amount of power needed for a motorcycle to fix me.
Compared to the current Miata’s output, it’s more or less a tie, and it’s only about 40 hp more than you got out of a stock NB motor. When he took the finished build (as if any build is ever truly finished) to the dyno, it reportedly made 160 hp at 11,500 rpm, while torque peaked at 80 pound-feet at 9,200 rpm. So it’s going to be quicker than an NB but still not exactly fast.
What it doesn’t have in raw power, though, it more than makes up for with its ability to rev to an astronomical 13,000 rpm. Even the Honda S2000 didn’t come close. This thing’s got revs for days, allowing the car to reportedly hit 60 mph without even shifting into second. Can you do that in a regular Miata? No, you cannot.
If anything, just give the video below a listen. I promise you won’t regret it.
