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"There&amp;#039;s a coiling stretch of two-lane just outside Grand Junction, Colorado, that scrambles its way off of the desert floor and into the aspens swaying in&amp;amp;nbsp;the Grand Mesa National Forest. It&amp;#039;s a proper climb from the muddy banks of the Colorado to the flat-top summit, covering 6000 feet in 30 miles.  It&amp;#039;s 100 degrees in the valley, but up here, the oxygen&amp;#039;s thin and the temperature&amp;#039;s cool. I&amp;#039;m hammering on Flyin&amp;#039; Miata&amp;#039;s newest creation: a 2009 Mazda&amp;amp;nbsp;MX-5 with a 430-hp General Motors LS3 V8 under the hood. Flyin&amp;#039; Miata, based in Grand Junction, specializes in V8 Miata conversions. For reasons I won&amp;#039;t&amp;amp;nbsp;go into here, they call this one Atomic Betty. It&amp;#039;s the best car I&amp;#039;ve driven all year.  The little-car-big-power recipe is one the minds at Flyin&amp;#039; Miata know well. While the company made its bones building and selling turbo conversions for&amp;amp;nbsp;Mazda&amp;#039;s darling roadster, V8 swaps hit the menu in 2009. Until now, that meant shoving LS engines in first- and second-generation Miatas. This is the first&amp;amp;nbsp;third-gen car that&amp;#039;s gotten the full V8 treatment.  From the parking lot, the car looks like any other modestly modified retractable-hardtop Miata. Plastic fender flares borrowed from Mazda&amp;#039;s Super 20&amp;amp;nbsp;Concept snug down over meaty Dunlop Direzza ZII rubber thanks to FM Stage II lowering springs and adjustable dampers. There&amp;#039;s a windshield banner&amp;amp;nbsp;proclaiming cylinder count, but this is otherwise a subdued machine.  Until you hit the key. The cockpit rocks with the labor of rolling over that big V8, and when it fires, I feel imp horns grow through my skull. That sound&amp;amp;nbsp;in this car is deliciously illicit.   There&amp;#039;s a Tremec T56 six-speed manual bolted behind the LS3. The big, milled-aluminum shift knob clicks through the pattern with the paced deliberation of&amp;amp;nbsp;a Southern judge, and the clutch pedal is barn-door stiff. The gearbox feels like it was plucked from the Trans-Am glory days. I don&amp;#039;t spend my time&amp;amp;nbsp;kicking in stables, so my first act behind the wheel is to stall the car. Twice.  With the heroics out of the way and a clear stretch of road ahead, I plant the throttle. There are 19 years of chassis development between a 1990&amp;amp;nbsp;NA-chassis Miata and this 2009 NC, and you can feel every second of that time when you start clicking through gears. Unlike first- and second-gen cars with&amp;amp;nbsp;V8 swaps, this NC feels like it grew in the womb with this much power. It doesn&amp;#039;t ripple beneath you. It&amp;#039;s solid, even as the speedometer needle swings past 120 mph.   Parked next to a first- or second-generation Miata, the NC looks positively massive, but it&amp;#039;s that size that makes the third-gen a perfect platform for V8&amp;amp;nbsp;swaps. Flyin&amp;#039; Miata stuffs the whole driveline into the car without cutting any sheetmetal\u2014required work on the earlier cars. There&amp;#039;s even room for tubular exhaust headers. V8 Roadsters supplies cradles for both the General Motors engine and the Ford 8.8 rear differential. Aside from a few small&amp;amp;nbsp;modifications, everything bolts into place.  This is the heaviest car Flyin&amp;#039; Miata has ever assembled. The power retractable hardtop, power heated seats, and V8 driveline push the curb weight to&amp;amp;nbsp;2821 lbs. Even so, Atomic Betty has a power-to-weight ratio that&amp;#039;s within spitting distance of a Porsche 911 Turbo S. The car goes.  Still, it&amp;#039;s not just a straight-line punching bag. The big Tremec is the heaviest part of the driveline swap, and since it sits in the center of the car,&amp;amp;nbsp;the Miata&amp;#039;s famed balance remains unsullied. Mazda graced the roadster with a 52:48 split. The V8 car makes do with 52.7:47.3.   Barking up the mesa, Atomic Betty feels like a Miata that&amp;#039;s finally found maturity. There&amp;#039;s pull everywhere. Pick a gear, use the throttle like a slot-car&amp;amp;nbsp;trigger, and enjoy the ride. It still feels like Mazda&amp;#039;s little roadster, there&amp;#039;s just more of it. The car still rotates with each mid-corner throttle lift and turns in like a weapon, but the acceleration is sublime. The V8&amp;#039;s low rumble tickles the arch of my foot through the firewall, and the navel-pull of&amp;amp;nbsp;torque has me turning super-legal speeds before I realize what&amp;#039;s happening.  This car wears Flyin&amp;#039; Miata&amp;#039;s first Little Big Brake Kit for the NC, which pairs stock front rotors with meaty Wilwood Dynapro calipers. FM replaced the&amp;amp;nbsp;back discs with larger rotors from a Mazda 5 and paired them with a set of Powerlite calipers. The pedal feels firm and confident, even after an hour of thrashing up the mountain.   I could do this for days. Or at least until the fuel runs dry. Flyin&amp;#039; Miata just wrapped up a 2800-mile drive to Atlanta and back. At highway speed, the&amp;amp;nbsp;engine turns just over 1100 rpm, around 26 mpg. I managed to drain the car&amp;#039;s 12-gallon fuel tank in under 100 miles of hammering. Your mileage may vary.  This isn&amp;#039;t a perfect car. The GM engine management system won&amp;#039;t chat with the factory gauges, so Flyin&amp;#039; Miata turned to a set of aftermarket pieces that&amp;amp;nbsp;look like they belong in a half-baked street rod. It&amp;#039;s the only sore point in the cabin, but given how cohesive the rest of the build is, it&amp;#039;s a big one. The car feels factory, as if Mazda and General Motors joined forces to create the one Miata to rule them all, but those off-putting gauges stare you in the&amp;amp;nbsp;face every time you glance down from the road.  In a word, this car is sorted. A turn-key conversion will cost you $42,995 for warrantied crate GM driveline components, plus a donor NC. That&amp;#039;s big money&amp;amp;nbsp;if you don&amp;#039;t already own a 2006\u20132014 Miata, and it&amp;#039;s a hard sell when a new Corvette convertible starts at $58,995.   Of the two, there&amp;#039;s no question which one I&amp;#039;d rather call mine. And unlike FM&amp;#039;s previous V8 Miata conversions, the NC is a cohesive, comfortable package&amp;amp;nbsp;that doesn&amp;#039;t sacrifice modern convenience for blinding speed. You get your retractable hardtop and heated leather seats. You just happen to have the&amp;amp;nbsp;exhaust note of the gods and thrust to match. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.roadandtrack.com/car-culture/features/a8196/flyin-miata-v8-nc-miata/>