Spoiler alert: It's as if David fought Goliath with a big cannon.
If we told you a 1992 Mazda Miata was going to drag race a modified Acura NSX and Jeep Grand Cherokee Trackhawk, you'd probably have a few foregone conclusions about how terribly the Miata would perform.
No matter which generation you buy, the MX-5 Miata was never built for drag races; it's an exercise in low power, lower weight, and maximum fun, more at home on a tight race track or at an autocross event. But that hasn't stopped a few people from building dragsters out of them, including Greg Peters, better known to some by his YouTube and Instagram handle TheCarPassionChannel.
Greg recently pitted his '92 NA Miata against a 650-horsepower NSX and Trackhawk in a drag race… and it did surprisingly well.
How, you ask? This Japanese roadster was built to be a straight-line contender on a prepped surface, benefitting from a light (almost) stock body, drivetrain upgrades, drag radials, and other modifications. It also has a fully upgraded, turbocharged BP6D from a second-gen Miata, generating 526 hp at the wheels.
Of note, the Miata raced at a 1/8th mile strip, the quarter mile's shorter and arguably less popular brother. It was here that the light weight, big power, and impressive grip of the Miata came to the fore, breaking the timing beams in just 7.25 seconds. Comparatively, the 707-hp Grand Cherokee Trackhawk only managed a 7.61-second run.
But the Trackhawk is big and heavy, so perhaps a modified hybrid, all-wheel drive supercar might perform better.
In facing the NSX, modded to produce around 650 hp, the Miata also won with the same elapsed time, beating the Acura by nearly two-tenths of a second. The NSX's mods are revealed to be relatively substantial, giving it similar outputs to the much rarer NSX Type S.
Interestingly enough, only barely the Miata broke the 100-mile-per-hour barrier in both runs. According to the owner and builder, the car can do 0-60 mph in three seconds. So while it's already quite fast, the graphs in the latter part of the video show that its turbocharger was a couple of psi below peak boost, meaning there's more in the tank, so to speak.
So, do you want this tiny bruiser to go a full quarter mile? Greg has promised to do just that, and we are also curious how it'll manage a longer drag run.
We'd also love to see how it stacks up against his supercharged, and very green, '99 NB Miata.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CuSN9h9J0nr/
Keyword: 500-HP Supercharged Mazda Miata Drag Races Acura NSX And Jeep Trackhawk