"Monster Miatas" -- worth the trouble?

"The 'Monster Miata' was the creation and product of Monster Motorsports, a defunct California company," writes DrivingEnthusiast.net. "The Monster was a Miata with a Ford 5-liter (actually 4.9) cast-iron block/heads OHV pushrod engine and a Borg-Warner T-5 transmission. The swap was easily accomplished - almost unbelievably the entire engine and transmission fit into the Miata as though it had been designed by Mazda for it (everything fits under the stock hood!). That and some appropriate springs, cooling, and exhaust (restrictive) made up the basic technical package and the cost started at several thousand dollars and the car. The much heavier Ford engine did add about 4 percentage points to the front/rear weight balance - and the car takes a corresponding amount of care to drive in turns.

"Somewhere over 275 Monster Miatas were claimed to be built by Monster Motorsports. A couple of hundred unofficial conversions were made by other companies, and kits remain available from them to this day. RX-7 conversions are also possible since much of the chassis is shared."