Emissions considerations played a role, but future viability proved more pressing.
Flyin’ Miata officially ended its V-8 conversion program in November. While the company’s initial statement pointed the finger at increasingly stringent emissions considerations from the EPA, that doesn’t tell the whole story of the backlash-inducing decision. Road & Track sat down with Flyin’ Miata’s Keith Tanner, a co-owner and the company’s chassis-tuning guru, to get a better understanding of the emissions complications and the business needs involved with the end of the V-8 Miata.
Flyin’ Miata might be best known online for its efforts involved with stuffing LS V-8s into the world’s favorite roadster, but the company’s catalog extends far beyond the modern Cobra alternative. Whether you need maintenance items, suspension components, engine parts or forced-induction kits, Flyin’ Miata has a solution available. The company engineers and develops parts in-house with a primary focus on road cars, though some motorsports chassis components have found their way into the fold. As a result of that focus on street-legal offerings, the company is no stranger to the EPA’s emissions efforts. Flyin’ Miata previously removed a number of its higher-end products from the ordering books, including its most powerful turbo kits. Those offerings relied on aftermarket ECUs and fuel system upgrades in order to provide customers around 400 horsepower in the Miata platform. Unfortunately, those aftermarket ECUs do not carry the OBD 2 monitoring equivalent to the stock ECU from Mazda. That monitoring system is required by law for a modern vehicle to pass emissions.
Well aware of the current wave of emissions enforcement taking place, the company opted to play the long game and remove any questionable setups from the catalog. That decision is not one that the company has taken lightly.
“It certainly hurt us,” Tanner told R&T. “There’s no question that changing our product catalog, it shaved off the highest power options we have because that required aftermarket ECUs that don’t have OBD 2 monitoring. We definitely lost a lot of our high-end prestige products. That certainly hurt us. It hurt our reputation because that was one of the things we were well-known for. But we’re being very conservative about it. The hard part is saying ‘where do you draw the line, when do you pull the plug on this?’”
To that same end, emissions compliance on the national level also played a role in the company’s decisions to ax the beloved LS swaps. That said, the decision wasn’t made this year, and not entirely due to emissions. Flyin’ Miata internally ended the V-8 program all the way back in 2019, but did not make the decision public until recently. According to Tanner, getting the aging LS3 engine certified to meet 2019 emissions requirements was not lining up to be a slam dunk. GM produces and sells what it describes as an emissions-compliant LS swap called the LS3 E-Rod. The LS3 E-Rod kit from GM may carry a CARB EO, but that package is specifically designed for pre-1995 vehicles without modern evaporative emissions monitoring. Furthermore, the Flyin’ Miata V-8 package as a whole would’ve had to go through a costly rework in order to even be viable in the emission testing process.
“We would’ve had to put in the E-Rod cats and the E-Rod engine management system which monitors more things,” Tanner told R&T. “It has different software and a different OS. That would’ve been a fairly significant investment, call it $5000 in just parts alone. Then we would’ve had to take it in and go through the testing, so around another $10,000 for that by the time we’ve trucked it down there and put somebody up for a while. There’s $15,000 in investment right there and it isn’t a given to pass. If you’re only selling a half dozen cars a year, you have to amortize that investment.”
Tanner specifically noted that such an undertaking could’ve proven possible and even worth the investment for a shop focused on V-8 conversion. Flyin’ Miata is simply not that kind of company, however. Flyin’ Miata is an e-commerce company that just so happens to have built some of the coolest Miatas on the planet. Unfortunately for everyone, the V-8 cars simply eat up more resources than they bring back. That’s specifically true as far as new product development is concerned, as the company’s engineers are the ones responsible for constructing the LS-swaps. Spending a month to construct a single customer car is simply not the best use of company funds. Furthermore, the LS-swap program proved difficult to square with the company’s shipping and back-end needs, ultimately impacting customer service to an extent. Combined with the uncertainty presented by the emissions requirements, the team ultimately had to choose a single path forward for the company.
“The sort of software backend support you need for a good, efficient, fast e-commerce organization is very different from what you need to build custom cars,” Tanner told R&T. “That was also part of the problem. We couldn’t use the same system for both, it was causing real problems with shipping stuff out the door. We reconfigured our internal systems to make us much faster at shipping, to be much better at e-commerce, but that really handicapped our ability to build custom cars. I mean basically we had to decide what the business was. It couldn’t be both.”
Tanner admitted that he ultimately wanted to try and spin the V-8 conversion program into its own independent business, and even went as far as to pitch that plan to some investors. Without outside investment however, the company opted not to take on that additional financial risk.
“If someone wanted to come in and throw a bunch of money at us to start it up, who knows what could’ve happened,” said Tanner.
While the V-8 swap might be absent from the Flyin’ Miata catalog, the company still has exciting plans for the future. With the next-generation MX-5 slated to arrive in the near future, Flyin’ Miata is gearing up for a whole new product development cycle. Tanner even made note of his interest in electrification, believing Flyin’ Miata has a real shot at making exciting EVs when parts availability is stronger. So while the LS3 might no longer be a part of Flyin’ Miata’s future plans, don’t expect them to throw in the towel on increasing performance for the Miata faithful.
Flyin’ Miata is aware that its initial announcement related to the cancellation of the V-8 program painted the company as a victim of the EPA. That isn’t a belief that Tanner holds however, though he understands why the public reaction was so strong. He loves the V-8 cars as much as we all do, but keeping his business strong into the future is his ultimate goal.
“Really it was a business decision and the emissions exposure was just the cap on it,” said Tanner. “The nature of our business, the sort of things that we were doing, in order to be better for the bulk of our customers, we needed to get rid of some of the stuff that were the outliers to some extent. That’s not fun and nobody likes to hear about that. You can’t get all wound up about the man coming to take away your toys when it’s a business decision. That’s the boring reality, but nobody is going to get upset about that.”
Keyword: Why Flyin' Miata Really Left the V-8 Behind