***ONE THING THAT PEOPLE HERE NEED TO NOTICE IS THAT RYAN/MIDNITE97LX AND MYSELF ARE FROM CANADA...OUR 'LX' TRIM LEVEL IS DIFFERENT THAN THE USA 'LX', THEREFORE, WE HAVE 1.8L IN OUR CARS***

Mlahahahaha!!!!!
How eloquently put Kris. :D

God bro easy with the caps, I have been to canada ,, I know they come with that 1.8 and you guys also had the passenger side airbag as an option ,, or you could get extra storage space.. was awkward but cool.
bruce

Well, what an interesting thread ,. quite the conundrum about this subject , well i will try and put it to rest.

I am the proud owner of the protege in question that Kdawg was talkin about. it is a blueprinted 1.8l protege lx touring edition that had the intake ported, cylinders punched out, head and block planed, high comp miata pistons and solid lifters added. and yes it also has miata cams(they do fit quite nicely) as it sits i am running about 11 - 11.5 : 1 compression and in the area of 150 ish horse at the wheels with no major addons or changes other than the above listed. hope this proved a point of some kind:D

Check, mate!:D

any dyno sheets, is that 150 to the wheals or to the crank
Bruce

(He said "at the wheels" in his post...lol)

are they OE miata cams or aftermarket ones?

oe
 

they are oe cams, i got them direct from the dealership i work at
my cost was like 180 canadian a piece, so for general customers they are like 250

there is more
 

you also have to take in account that the engine has been overbored with higher comp pistons.plus both the block and head have been planed so my compression is way high, makin a huge difference. as soon as i can find and afford a dyno pull i will complete it and post to put aside any differences

Back here again. The search function is, as many people have been saying recently, fucked. Within the last week or so I vaguely remember reading something in either this forum or the first gen performance forum about someone wanting to put Miata cams in their car. To get to the point, someone else piped up saying that its really only worth using the intake cam since the exhaust cam is similar enough to our own to not make a real difference. Can someone confirm this please? I'm not sure if they were refering to the 94-97 or the 99-00 cams.
Also, before I forget, I went to A-spec after work today to see if I could find a set there and the guy I talked to, said that the 99-00 cams have whatever the Mazda equivalent of V-tec is, forget the name exactly but would this cause me any difficulties with installing them and operation??

here we go again
 

okie dokie, here we go
i have a canadian 1997 protege lx touring edition with 1.8 twin cam bp engine. my engine has been modified somewhat.
i currently have a 1997 miata cam in which has the "vtec" (variable valve timing) lobes, i also have solid lifted which were donated from the same engine as the cam. my engine has also been balanced, blue printed, overbored with high comp miata pistons (around11.5:1 compression)
its not a race engine but it is a good basis for a good hig revving all around powerplant

First I also work at a Mazda dealer (13 years as a tech) and V V T does not have "vetch lobes" it is an oil actuated advancing intake cam gear that give approx 25 deg of movement in the intake gear only. Second a 99 Miata BP cam profile is (intake) open 8 deg BTDC close 49 ABDC (exhaust) open 53 deg BBDC close 9 deg ATDC and runs 9.5 compression ,a 98 Protege BP (also 97 Miata BP) cam profile is (intake) open 5 deg BTDC close 48 deg ABDC (exhaust) open 56 deg BBDC close 14 ATDC with a 9.4 compession ratio and 9.0 for Miata . This info is from Mazda manuals part #9999-95-072F-99 and 9999-95-064F-99. Further 99 Miata BP was solid lifter MLA and 97 Miata was HLA if they are interchanged the valves are also different lenghts with the MLA head valves being longer. I also have a 97 LX with 1.8 Canadian model.

why dont u just put cam's in from an older miata that had HLA?
like the 97?
that way u wont have to change ur lifters

OR

if there is not much profile difference between a 97 miata cam and a 97 protege cam (which is probably gonna be the case cause i think theyre very similar motors) why dont you just put in aftermarket cams for a 97 miata?
its more expensive im sure, but if ur gonna go thru the work to change ur cams for an extra 1-2 hp, why dont u do it right and get 10-12?

so all you need to do to use the 99 cams is to get the solid lifters as well as the cams and u can use them in the 97 BP motor?

id do that instead....

you said you could rev higher...... but really, wouldnt the spring rate be the same as before?

and could the bottom end handle the higher revving?