The Miata is one of “those” cars: models with such a huge enthusiast following that every single variation has been built by now. Fast Miatas. Slow Miatas. Track Miatas. Low Miatas.
What?
No, this isn’t another tiny car butchered onto a pickup truck frame. This is still a Miata, albeit with thoroughly chopped fenders and some very special control arms.
The Paco Motorsports kit moves each wheel hub out and down to create a vehicle that’s 13.5 inches wider and 8 inches taller than a stock Miata. And this isn’t just a spring spacer job: With the kit installed, total suspension travel jumps to 14 inches in the rear and 12 inches in the front. It uses stock Miata parts wherever possible, though anybody who sees the doubled-up coil-overs and 31-inch tires will know that something is very, very different.
Why?
What started all of this? The burning desire for a lifted truck? Childhood trauma?
Actually, it was a snowy day. Company owner Mark Rivera loved commuting in his turbocharged, track-prepped 1994 Miata, but he had to park it during Kentucky’s white winters.
One day he had an idea: Build a simple 3-inch spacer lift, fit some larger snow tires, and tackle the winter commute. He followed through, and what happened next led to the creation of this monster.
“I put a few photos of the car up on Facebook, and everybody kind of freaked out,” Mark remembers. Paco Motorsports’s Facebook followers were screaming “Take my money!” and begging to order kits.
That’s when Mark realized he’d stumbled across an untapped market for Miata lifting parts. Putting the 3-inch lift kits into production wasn’t hard–Flyin’ Miata is currently selling them for $149.95. Of course, Mark wasn’t finished. As he puts it, “I’d already been thinking about a full long-arm suspension package.”
Building a Miata with a trophy truck suspension had been just a daydream, but after he saw the demand for 3-inch kits, he decided to go all out. Mark sketched his idea in a CAD program, and the concept received even more interest from the Miata community–as well as from Flyin’ Miata and Exomotive, which builds the Exocet. They joined forces with Paco Motorsports, and the three companies decided to build three prototypes, gauge public reaction, and go from there. This Miata is prototype number one.
How?
Unlike the 3-inch kit, this one would be more than just a few cleverly engineered spacers. “I really, really enjoy playing with suspension design,” Mark explains. “I spent more than a month just playing with the geometry in the computer before I ever touched a piece of steel.”
He started with a target tire size. His friends with Jeeps were always talking about 31x10.50R15 tires, so he started there. Then he went on the hunt for springs and shocks. After a lot of searching, he found tall, skinny coil-overs. Mark figured that they would provide the right stiffness if he doubled them up on every corner.
Next up: fitting the massive tires. Mark fearlessly cut away as much of the Miata’s fenders as he could while still avoiding any vital structural areas. He ended up moving the front wheels forward 2.5 inches, while the rears were set back 1 inch to clear the car’s chassis.
After some computer wizardry, a few laser-cut prototypes and some welding, Mark had a functional long-arm suspension kit. He dubbed his creation the Offroadster. Although it looks fairly extreme, this isn’t a radical conversion. The bulk of the kit centers around eight new control arms plus coil-overs, all of which bolt right onto the factory mounts. The rear axles are cut and sleeved to be 6.75 inches longer on each side, while the differential features a new ring and pinion to bring the final drive ratio to 5.38:1. The kit includes tie-rod spacers to reconnect the steering rack, and longer brake lines make up the larger distance between the hard lines and brake calipers. A pair of brackets relocate the steering rack to preserve the Ackerman geometry. To round out the package, Mark threw in some sheet-metal fender flares and a nausea-inducing set of fender-cutting templates.
Really?
Once everything is installed, the result is a Miata with 14 inches of ground clearance in the rear and 13 inches up front. Articulation is impressive, too, giving us the confidence to run the Offroadster through terrain better suited to our jacked-up Isuzu Trooper. This Miata also sports air helper springs to add a bit more static ride height, though Mark says they aren’t necessary– he was just messing around when he installed them.
On the road, the Offroadster drives like a marshmallow– though not in a bad way. Mark even returned this Miata to daily driver duty. “It’s super comfortable,” he adds. “My wife wouldn’t ride in it before, but now she says it’s more comfortable than her car.”
We ended our look at the car with one question: “Ever take it off any sweet jumps?” Mark smiles, then says he only just finished the build and hasn’t had the chance to really beat on it. “But I did do the math: It should jump quite well.” Want to find out for yourself? Paco, Flyin’ Miata and Exomotive plan to sell these kits as soon as they’re ready for production, and they’ll fit both first- and second-gen cars.
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The Miata is one of “those” cars: models with such a huge enthusiast following that every single variation has been built by now. Fast Miatas. Slow Miatas. Track Miatas. Low Miatas. Like the BMW M3, Ford Mustang and Chevy pickup, Mazda’s Miata is a blank canvas for wrench wielders to customize. Never like this, though. This Miata, built by Paco Motorsports of Georgetown, Kentucky, sports an 8-inch long-arm suspension lift. That’s the same sort of hardware usually reserved for desert racing buggies.
