Exocet

There is a surprisingly low amount of Exocet content on these pages. So let's fix that.

Back in June 2023 one morning while drinking coffee at work I stumbled across a listing in the "Exocet owner's" Facebook group where someone 5 miles down the road from my work was selling a 99.9% parts sourced Exocet. I called the seller, saw the car on my lunch break a few hours later & made the illogical & completely poor financial decision to to buy the next race car before I sold the old one. Luckily, a couple months later I was able to sell my Turbo 2.5  swapped NC Miata that I just got running right. I've done lots of things with cars. I've assembled engines, made wiring harnesses, swapped engines. But this was still going to take me to places I've never been before. I'm going to try to quickly bring this thread up to where I'm at today.

Here is the list of parts from the ad

-Chassis 236, sport, with double rear diagonal addition and aluminum floors, uncoated

-RAL9005 jet black body panels, still in original foam protection, stored indoors

-SpeedCircuit deep wiring tray

-Exomotive windshield frame

-Exomotive rear wing mount

-Exomotive shock spacers

-Nine Lives rear wing

-All the necessary Miata donor parts from a NB, plus a bunch that I saved just in case. All fasteners are bagged and labeled

-Power steering rack w/ both the original power pinion and a welded depowered pinion. Aluminum plugs for ports if you want to depower the rack like I was

-LS2 6.0L V8 from a 2006 GTO

-V8R front subframe

-T56 from the same GTO

-The throttle pedal, engine harness, and ECU from the same GTO

-PSI conversion wiring harness for the LS2

-New LS7 clutch, aluminum flywheel, pilot bearing, slave cylinder, throwout bearing

-Original clutch from the GTO

-Quicktime steel bellhousing

-FM V8 aluminum oil pan w/ spin-on filter

-FM short tube headers

-V8R rear diff mount for Getrag diff

-3.23 G80 limited slip Getrad diff

-DriveShaftShop stage 2 driveline kit

-FM 4 wheel little big brake kit, including parking brake addition

-BeCool radiator for a generic LS application

-FM V-Maxx Track Pack Coilovers

-Two 17" Kirkey seats w/ covers

-Most of a Deatchwerks fuel setup, probably still a few fittings needed

-949 Racing 15x9 6UL wheels (the Exocet-specific run) wearing 245/40ZR15 Maxxis VR-1's

I was super excited to tear into it. I got everything unloaded, sorted, & organized.

I started to fit everything together to see what all I needed to do before getting the frame powder coated. Thankfully, the V8R crossmembers fit without issue.

Then I started to add suspension bits till I had a rolling chassis. At this point is was fairly straight forward, just bolting on the Miata parts.

I welded for the first time ever. With some advice from a good friend. I ground some bits off the old pedal bracket and welded on a plate to mount the GTO's accelerator pedal. Not very pretty, but super sturdy. My welding skills have since significantly increased. I also eventually went back & had to switch to a different pedal with a different mount because the Holley Terminator is picky on which DBW pedal it will work with. Thankfully, these parts are fairly cheap.

I originally tried to mount the wilwood prop valve near the brake master cylinder but decided somewhere that I could reach it from the driver seat would work much better & get it away from the heat of the header.

Once I had the column test fit & some seat brackets made, I was excited to finally see it sitting on it's own wheels & looking like a car.

Installed Fuel lines & filter. This was before the frame was powder coated, but I'm still routing them this way.

& it was about this same time on a beautiful Summer day that the other car went goodbye.

Now we're at about October 2023. I was super nervious about actually welding on the chassis. I added gas to my welding setup & spent a few hours messing with it till I was pretty happy with the results. Then I welded the first bracket on & I was really proud!

Then I welded some more. Good strong welds. Some of those ended up looking really good when the frame was powder coated.

After that it was ready for powder coating.

I used Miller's powdercoating in Lilburn, Ga & they did a fantastic job. They asked me what color. I said "red, like really really red". They called this Bengal Red. I'm super happy with it.

December 2023. Now that I had the frame back I was ready to start some final assembly. We riveted the floors in using a cheap but surprisingly effective rivet tool attachment.

Several trips to the hardware store for some pretty matching nuts/bolts & tah dah I had a rolling chassis again.

I love those things.  Is your plan to make this street legal, or track-only?

Which brings us up to how its sitting right now. Steering is in. All the clutch, brake & fuel lines are ran. I'm going to start on engine electrical soon. I changed plans from the PSI converstion harness that came with what I bought & I'm going to be running a Holley Terminator Max. I also plan to run one of their dashes although I haven't made my mind up on which one yet.

I'm really excited to hear this v8 make some noise!

nderwater said:

I love those things.  Is your plan to make this street legal, or track-only?

Street legal for sure. I want to take it to autocross & tracks but I also want to be able to drive it to car shows & meetups. I just want to have fun. I'm 100% sure I'll make it to a hill climb in the next couple years.

JahjahSQC said:

- LS2 6.0L V8 from a 2006 GTO

I had to laugh out loud and walk around for a bit. Somehow I was picturing one of the Miata powered ones and this took it to Eleven. I am a little surprised at the engine location. I thought these were more front mid-engined. Apparently not.

Have a ball!

Wow.  That's a helluva project.  Watching the thread for future updates.

I'm really curious how the V8 will work in this car when it's used for track or autocross.  The rear end is light enough that a couple of stout guys could come close to picking it up, and there's a ton of torque in that drivetrain.  Seems like it would be a great drift car.

It'll be fun, I've had an exocet and I have an LS miata - I'm not sure how it'll feel to stick them together but I suspect it'll be quick ;) 

Do you have the DSS axles? Make sure to vent the boots (brake clean straw on the little end) and ideally get in on the group buy (search V8 Miata group on Facebook) for the getrag axles using VW cvs. The DSS axles are notoriously bad for LS Miata. I cooked my boots on brand new axles the first time it went on track with nearly zero street miles.

This will be quite the teeter-toter of fun/fear. Can't wait for first drive report.

I am sure that you have done the math, but  assuming a 24.5" tire diameter, at 5600 rpm in 6th you would be doing 200 mph.  Your face is going to fly off!

jwagner (Forum Supporter) said:

Wow.  That's a helluva project.  Watching the thread for future updates.

I'm really curious how the V8 will work in this car when it's used for track or autocross.  The rear end is light enough that a couple of stout guys could come close to picking it up, and there's a ton of torque in that drivetrain.  Seems like it would be a great drift car.

Yeah, I don't really have any hopes for actually being competitive, just having fun & letting anyone who wants to drive it have a go at it. I'm going to be in such an extreme goofy class there's no way I'll match up against cars actually built for whatever unlimited type class.

accordionfolder said:

It'll be fun, I've had an exocet and I have an LS miata - I'm not sure how it'll feel to stick them together but I suspect it'll be quick ;) 

Do you have the DSS axles? Make sure to vent the boots (brake clean straw on the little end) and ideally get in on the group buy (search V8 Miata group on Facebook) for the getrag axles using VW cvs. The DSS axles are notoriously bad for LS Miata. I cooked my boots on brand new axles the first time it went on track with nearly zero street miles.

Dang. I'll take a look. I know these axles are the ones that come with the driveline kit from V8R.

I started on engine electrical. My plan is to build a charging/starter harness (starter/alternator) separate from the body harness. I laid out the Holley harness & found I need an extension for the cam sensor. No surprise there. Ordered. However, I was surprised to find out my throttle pedal isn't compatible. When I realized the plug was wrong I went back & re-read the details to find out there is only 1 DBW pedal that works. Oh well. Another part ordered.

I also ordered battery, box, wire, & some other miscellaneous parts to run the cables for the starter. My plan is to hook up the starter & make sure the electrical & grounds are good. Then add the fuel pump. I've done some wiring before & created a few engine harnesses for Megasquirt, but I've never wired a car from scratch like this. Thankfully its fairly simple & Miata stuff is easy enough to look up.

I like the slow and steady approach on the harness.

What happened to the first pics? Can only see the last one now

Piguin said:

I like the slow and steady approach on the harness.

 

What happened to the first pics? Can only see the last one now

Not sure. I had the same thing happen, but when I reloaded the page they all appeared. 

Well, I came back to update the page & all my uploaded images are dead?

Nothing but ? Here. 
I want to see the pics. 

Looks like they were linked from Facebook (https://scontent-atl3-2.xx.fbcdn.net...) which always seem to go dead eventually.

I'll go back & upload some more photos later. But this is how it started...

VS. how its going now!

I'm waiting to get the car back after sending it off for an exhaust system to be made. Currently the engine start, idle, & rev. BUT the diff & trains is empty. Also the clutch system & brake system haven't seen fluid yet.

I got the car back from a local shop with the completed exhaust & wide band 02 installed. I also spent some time working to get the sequential fuel injection working. It turns out the ICT Billett cam extension harness I had to run was made incorrectly. I de-pinned a connector and swapped the outer wires as suggested per the LS Swap facebook group. That immediately fixed the problem

I also ran the power wire from the alternator & setup the PMW alternator in the Holley Terminator, per Holley's instructions. I was pleasantl surprised at how easy this was.

I couldn't be happier with the exhaust. It separates into a mid pipe section & muffler section. 2.5" pipes into a Y pipe into a 3" pipe out. V-clamps at all connections. Sounds fantastic!

Also test fit the Nine Lives Racing rear wang.

Front pads installed. All connections to the knuckle are torqued with cotter pins installed. All I have left is to tighten the control arms where they attach to the engine cradle. After that its just add fluids, bleed brakes/clutch, & I 'll be able to have a proper test drive.

Pretty excited to finally drive my Exocet. Just down to the back of my neighborhood & back. Its pretty twitchy right now. I'm gonna tighten some things down, fix the reverse lockout & data log a drive to see what I find. But it idles & revs great!