<http://schema.org/articleBody>
"This article originally appeared in the 1992 February Issue of Road &amp;amp;amp; Track. &amp;quot;Nice car, cute little thing, no power.&amp;quot; Greg Hoffman, a telecommunications specialist and card-carrying car enthusiast, took a liking to the Mazda Miata, but found the stock 116- bhp 1.6-liter didn&amp;#039;t have enough urge to keep his interest. Dave Lemon, proprietor of Mazdatrix, has been building ex\u00ADtremely interesting rotary en\u00ADgines for more than 10 years out of his service garage/race shop in Signal Hill, California. He has performed 12A and 13B Wankel engine swaps in everything from Jensen-Healeys to MGBs. Rac\u00ADing a Mazda RX-3 with his own warmed-over Wankel in 1982, he narrowly missed winning the Champion Spark Plug RS series, with a win at Daytona along the way and rarely a finish lower than 6th place. Dave had the know-how and inclination to do a rotary-powered Miata, and do it right; Greg had the desire to own one, the willingness to help with its construction and, most impor\u00ADtant, the cash. &amp;quot;I had a number of people call me with the idea of building a car like this,&amp;quot; says Dave. &amp;quot;You throw a number like $10,000 at them, and they go away. Quickly. Greg didn&amp;#039;t go away.&amp;quot; RELATED: An old Miata takes on the 32-degree banking of Daytona This sort of tenacity helped Greg search for six months for a crashed 1990 RX-7 Turbo that was ultimately pillaged for its engine, transmission, brakes and other pieces. Through con\u00ADnections at Mazda, Greg pro\u00ADcured a used Miata from the corporate promotions fleet. And then the real work, an estimat\u00ADed 700 hours of it, began. The Miata&amp;#039;s engine bay is surprisingly wide, wide enough to accept the 200-bhp 13B tur\u00ADbocharged engine, complete with all emissions equipment and plumbing. Down lower, the complications started, with the oil pan and turbo trying to occu\u00ADpy the same space as the front suspension subframe. After 10 hours of cutting, welding and fabricating, a new pan was made that neatly straddled the subframe and still retained the stock 5-quart capacity. The turbocharger itself pre\u00ADsented more of a clearance problem; most of the right half of the subframe had to be whacked off\u2014&amp;quot;It was in the way,&amp;quot; Dave says matter-of-factly\u2014and reconstructed around the turbo. The Miata&amp;#039;s center tunnel accepted the new drivetrain with only minor clearancing to clear the upstream cata\u00ADlytic converter. RELATED: Mazda&amp;#039;s M2 Inc. sub-brand built ultra-rare hot Miatas in Japan  After much hemming and hawing about what to do at the rear of the car to handle the newfound power, Dave mea\u00ADsured the Miata from hub bear\u00ADing to hub bearing and found the distance to be within 1 mm of the RX-7&amp;#039;s. In went the RX- 7&amp;#039;s sturdy limited-slip differen\u00ADtial and halfshafts, mated to re\u00ADbored and resplined Miata hubs. Because of space limitations, he discarded the Miata&amp;#039;s ladder like truss that connects the transmis\u00ADsion to the differential. To pro\u00ADvide support for the front of the differential, the rear subframe was extended forward. So far, so good. But during some preliminary acceleration runs, the subframe would &amp;quot;twist up like a pretzel,&amp;quot; allowing the input flange of the final-drive housing to put dimples in the fuel tank. So an elegantly simple snubber was fabricated to transfer the wind-up loads to the center tunnel. Problem solved. RELATED: This V8 Miata is the best car I&amp;#039;ve driven all year Brakes and suspension were next. With the car up on a lift, Dave points to the meaty RX-7 4-piston calipers wrapped around big vented rotors up front, affixed to the stock Miata spindles with a simple custom- machined locator. RX-7 2-piston calipers and vented rotors go in back. The suspension system was thoroughly massaged, with a combination of Jackson Racing and Eibach springs, Tokico shocks and bigger anti-roll bars. A &amp;quot;sleeper&amp;quot; appearance wasn&amp;#039;t what Greg was after, so an Aero Additions body kit was carefully grafted in place, incor\u00ADporating a truly custom touch: the two 4&amp;#039;/2-in. holes in the rear bumper that serve as exhaust-tip exits for the reworked HKS system. To complete the personal\u00ADization, Simmons 3-piece wheels, size 15x8, shod with 225/50ZR-15 Yokohama A- 008R tires were shoehorned un\u00ADder the stock Miata fender lips. The interior looks deceptively stock. The obvious tip-offs to potential within are the electric-blue Diest 5-point harnesses, an Auto Power rollbar (low enough to allow the convertible top to clear) and a couple of extra gauges for boost and exhaust temperature. More covert are the subtle center console- mounted rocker switches and dial that connect to an HKS boost control computer. There&amp;#039;s literally power at your fingertips, with the twist of the dial cali\u00ADbrating the turbo&amp;#039;s wastegate from the stock 6-psi setting to how lucky do you feel? RELATED: This menacing Miata is like nothing you&amp;#039;ve ever seen  At 12 psi (where the engine makes an estimated 260 bhp), 60 mph rushes up in 6.6 sec\u00ADonds, as measured with a stop\u00AD watch and corrected speedom\u00ADeter. As with most turbocharged cars, starting technique is criti\u00ADcal; too few revs and the engine bogs out of its powerband, too many and wheelspin creates ex\u00AD pensive Yokohama smoke, not forward acceleration. As if to spite the laws of aerodynamics, this little Miata seems to pull harder the faster it goes, charg\u00ADing past the quarter-mile marker in just 14.8 sec., a showing that puts it in the very fast company of Mustang GTs and L98 Corvettes. In the real world of freeways and surface streets, the Miata rides firmly, but acceptably. The unassisted steering (no clearance for the power rack) builds Popeye forearms in park\u00ADing lots, but is wonderfully communicative as speed builds, all the better to reap the senso\u00ADry rewards of the chassis&amp;#039; in\u00AD creased stability and grip. Thanks to the big twin HKS mufflers, the mellow purr of the rotary is quieter than the stock Miata inline-4&amp;#039;s growl. And the throttle response of the emissions-legal turbo rotary is as good as it was in the donor RX-7\u2014which is to say, excel\u00ADlent. The Miata&amp;#039;s acceleration creates openings in traffic where none existed before. Even backing off the throttle is entertaining\u2014 the sharp exhala\u00ADtion of the wastegate as it dumps off excess boost is a pro\u00ADfoundly enjoyable noise. To stop the additional 300lb. the Mazdatrix conversion adds, the big RX-7 brakes are more than up to the task, with a feel so firm it&amp;#039;s as if the brake pedal were welded to the firewall. And the additional weight, evenly distributed around the chassis, adds an ex\u00ADtra feeling of substance, not one of ballast. Would Dave Lemon build another? Yes, provided you sup\u00ADply the crashed 1989-1990 RX-7 Turbo, a Miata, wheels, tires, springs, shocks, etc., of your choice, and $10,000. Surely, any takers will be able to go away\u2014 quickly. RELATED: To hit Daytona&amp;#039;s banking, this old Miata needed extreme upgrades "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.roadandtrack.com/new-cars/first-drives/reviews/a8601/archive-dive-mazdatrix-miata/>