First post, but i've been through many of the other builds and have gathered a lot of info and laughter from this site. I often saw problems other people were having and had solutions to fix them, but i was being lazy, honestly. Lazy no more! i have registered and will be bashing and name calling with the rest of you, I look forward to the hateful words and public shaming that only the best keyboard commando's can bring. please feel free to add your personal findings on na/nb part swapping.

this is my first nb miata. i currently have 6 na miatas at my house, 5 of which run and drive. the last "car" was a shell that i bought to flip for parts, and wound up keeping most of the parts... which will end up on this post. while documenting the build thread i plan to also make a comprehensive list of everything that did and did not fit from the na6 shell to the nb. some things will be for this swap specific: like the speedometer cable will only work because it is the na transmission and na gauge cluster. all of the na6 wiring harness that is necessary for the car to run will but swapped, but the pop up headlight controls, airbags, seatbelt warning wiring, etc will not be added. some things that don't fit directly will be pointed out right off the bat in this very post!

story time:
so, stupidly scouring the craigslist, this nb shell pops up. and the gears in my head start turning: "would be a great home for all my parts"... "i really don't need another project"... "**** it!" and here it is:



4 men lifted it onto this trailer, and it only fit tilted 35 degrees or so to one side with the rail that the jack goes on sitting on the trailer fender. safety first. the 55 miles back home were uneventful, except the few scraps of carpet padding that flew out.

separating car from trailer was a feat in engineering and luck.

and patients. and swearing. and swearing. the big problem was lifting the car higher then the trailer fenders and then having something wider than the fenders to support the car while i rolled the trailer out.

once the trailer was out, it was the slow process of lowering the car back down to more miata friendly territory.
next step was separating good motor from shitty front subframe and suspension from aforementioned "shell of a car" :


also removed gross a/c and p/s parts that will be replaced with much nicer condition parts

rolling it close to its new home:

first thing that didn't fit perfect, the last holes on the n/a subframe had nowhere to go on the n/b shell:

the second to last bolt hole lines up perfectly, which will suffice for now:

sitting happy in its new home:



the rear subframe is a direct swap, except for the exhaust hanger crunches up the nb muffler heat shield.
nb top hats are for nb cars. for a reason... the na suspension will not fit unless you have the nb top hats... but some 2x4s will work for now.

this went from shell to roller with engine/trans in 5 hours working solo. much of that time was spent getting the car safely off the trailer, the other amount of time was spent hunting for tools in my garage disaster.

one last thing: i figured out how to add pictures with out asking stupid questions! after 2 days of despair...

 

Pictures are broken ****** n00b

 

I can see them just fine.

 

Fix it by stop being a noob.

 

F my life, now i cant see them... Even added them the exact way as described in "noob section"...

 

Where are the original image files? On your local hard drive? On an image-hosting service? On a micro-SD card currently somewhere in the middle of your cat's digestive system?

 

I used tinypic hosting site, got an individual url for each picture and copied it into the post (took forever)... Help is much appriciated. Noob to mac computers. Not noob to car shenanigans.

 

Step 1:






Step 2: Paste it here into the message window, like so:

[IMG]http:\\i41.tinypic.com/5wxjlf.jpg[/IMG]




Step 3: Receive kittens:

 

Much better. Now we can all see them.

 

That was a computer savy wife, i cannot take credit.

 

you're welcome

 

NA and NB subframes should be a direct swap. You sure it's not bent?

 

Nope. Its perfect, and i double check the other sub frame too. The last holes are both about 3 inches away from the holes in the car. Other than that, every other hole on the subframe lines up.

 

Hooooooooooooly hell. 6 Miatas? Enough parts to stick into a whole shell? Jesus Christ!

 

6 na miatas, one of which was just a smashed shell i bought for the engine / trans misc parts. The nb makes #7. You gotta have one in each color