mx5cartalk.com

Hi everyone, long time lurker but first time poster. I recently bought this car and thought id better make a thread for it!


As you can see it looks pretty much stock. its auto, with power steer and is a damn sight nicer to daily drive than the red na6.
i suppose you want to see whats under the bonnet too, so here you go

the engine swap was done pretty well, though It makes you wonder WHY? why would you do this to a good condition na8? why a buick 3.8?
At least its fast. I have plans to give the car a good clean up, and make it faster obviously stay tuned

That's pretty cool. I hadn't heard of the Buick motor being used. It does look very "sleeper" no one would suspect a thing looking at it! I bet it sounds nice to boot!

The questions I have, and I'm sure others, how fast? How much power? And how much weight? And how did the weight balance change?

Nice i saw this car up for sale about a month ago. Good to see different swaps like this.
Ecotec vs -vy commodore engine would be nice upgrade they are worth like $200 for a complete engine and give you like a 20kw jump in power. Tho i think the intake manifold sits a lot higher on a ecotec may stick out of the bonnet hehehe

Was their much work to fit the commodore 4 speed trans in the tunnel as it is a decent size transmission ?

Waiting for people to laugh saying why for such a low power engine but they dont realize this engine makes over twice the torque of a na 1.8 at prob half the revs hehehe

ManiacLachy wrote:I hadn't heard of the Buick motor being used.

Neither had I but it makes sense.
Advantages and disadvantages......

Buick is more compact than the LFX used in later commondoors so easier to fit and are considered to be basically unkillable. However being cast Iron are a lot heavier.
The LFX is lighter being all alloy but having DOHC rather than pushrod is much larger so more difficult to package. I'm not sure whether V8 Roadsters in the US have got their kit sorted yet.

Both motors have a huge aftermarket parts catalogue but the LFX being newer and more high tech has greater potential gains.

is that the engine which also came ads a supercharged version?

Buick? Good to see something different.
Engineered? It would need an Emissions test as it's not a local motor. Plus is 3.8 litres within the technical limits?

bruce wrote:Buick? Good to see something different.
Engineered? It would need an Emissions test as it's not a local motor. Plus is 3.8 litres within the technical limits?

Buick 3.8 = Commodore V6

The Commodore used locally made versions of the US Buick V6 from the VN right up to the VY or whatever it was.

Why doesn't he just say it's a Commodore v6. Avoids confusion.

I would assume because there have been a few different Commodore V6's in the commodore's life (esp since 2004ish)

Where the Buick V6 is pretty much only that model engine.


Prob just easier than "Commodore V6, but not the one after 2004, but not from before 1988, it's the one in between"

I'll just leave this here..

A forumite posted quite a while back that he was transplanting one of these into an NA - looked but can't find the thread/post.

Early Commodore v6 transplant.

Its funny how US cars are just crap. They do know how to build engines....and the most expensice car ever is an AC cobra. Sold for $17 million

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Any idea what they had to do to make this legal in Australia?

I was told you cannot fit anything with more than 4 cylinders in the MX-5 etc.

Just build it according to the legislation and good engineering principles and then have it inspected.

Dann