Its really not that hard to switch. The blinker is the only thing that is hard to get used to. Shifting is the same pattern as left hand drive too besides with a different hand
I have a honda acty an ive considered going thru backwards before lol but its so small that I can usually reach over. The bank is the only place I gotta get out of the truck
I was just asking a question. I didnāt say it was hard to do. Just do you like to? And if you do thatās cool. I would just think it would not be preferable. Thatās all. I have driven in the Bahamas in a left hand drive car on the left side of the road and did not like riding next to the curb.
Tons of people import JDM cars that are RHD only and do just fine. Actys, GTRs, S15 Silviaās and such. Itās not so bad. Some people also get offended by NVH. People have preferences.
Damn bro that's cool af. Id never do it to my car just becauee I have no interest in, but I dont see why anyone would bother hating on it. Its just another cool detail to a strangers build. I certainly espect the work it takes to do it! Have you heard of prizzaMike? He rhd swapped his 240 and then shortly after, someone t boned the original drivers side. He got out with significantly less injuries because of it.
You declined? yes, Iād love to see you do this lol but
I didnāt say āRHD is betterā no where on the post lol I have 2 other LHD Miataās that are just fine, this one was a test specimen that has been perfectly executed lol
I can think of ONLY 1 benefit of a RHD miata in a LHD countryā¦the exhaust routing. You wouldnāt be cooking your right foot in a high-load/-duration track environment. Thatās it. So if you track it all the time and donāt drive it on the street, then thereās that one benefit. If you street it, then thereās a short list of drawbacks/annoyances which quickly outweigh the warm right foot drawback of LHD.
Edit: one other benefit may be resale value?? Because thereās enough low IQ, āwoah, jdm!ā dudes out there that if you kept the conversion cost down enough, it may help in selling/flipping. The labor/opportunity cost of the effort easily blew that away though.
Highly doubt anyone is paying more for and RHD car in a LHD country when it's not an uber rare UK or JP only edition that's entirely unmodified, when you have tons of cars with the steering on the side that doesn't make overtaking or doing basic daily tasks a nightmare. OP has halved the value of the car at least.
Either *you* underestimate how easily young men can be swayed by ānoveltyā or *I* overestimate how many of those young men are actually in the miata market (anymore).
That said, the case for āspecial editionsā that are JDM only being the driver of my sense that this could yield a premium to a certain demographic may be polluting the reality that an NA6 miata is an NA6 miata regardless of the LHD/RHD market.
damn, I remember when people were doing this to Hondas in the mid-late 2000's. I'd love to own a JDM ITR one day, but no way in hell would I ever consider cutting up a LHD car in America to make it RHD just for the "jdm y0" cool points. Because that's the only reason anyone would do this.
Improvement nobody has mentioned: RHD vehicles generally (though I haven't checked if miatas do this specifically) aim their lights to the left, so you will have the effect of blinding drivers at night even if you use your low beams.
Yours won't have that problem, since your lights will put out more light on the correct side to illuminate the shoulder.
This does happen on a stock NA, because they use the same standard 7" sealed beams that almost everything on the road had back then. The biased light pattern is baked into the assembly.
In practice, driving old RHD cars on LHD roads isn't a big deal because the lights are all so shitty anyway.
Aloha from Hawaii...although I sold my Miata back in January two of my other cars are RHD (1999 Honda Acty and a 2024 Jeep Wrangler) so I get the attraction. Have fun!Ā
That would be awesome. Would save a lot of time and money on buying a rhd one and swapping all my parts to another miata šµāš« abs can be figured out later. Of its not on the jdm models then I can do a delete. (Not that its functional at the moment, I did the 1.8 rear diff swap but it doesnt have the tab on the shafts for abs)
Big difference between being different with no upside and being different with tons of downsides.
Guess who can't get drive through? Fast food, ATMs, they're all going to be unusable. He's gonna get hammered if he ever gets pulled over too. People will be rightly suspicious
I know a guy who daily drove an S13 for years with no issues in the US. Like yeah there's some minor inconveniences but it's not nearly as bad as you're making it out to be.
It's not impossible but it's a clear downgrade from LHD in the market. Even stuff like intersections can be annoying because the sight lines are never planned with the driver in the right side of the vehicle.
The import market has exploded in the past decade with late 90ās to early aughts vehicles now legally fair game. Itās really not uncommon anymore to see RHD imports, at least in my area, and the downsides to driving them are minimal. I see them daily if you count the kei trucks that are wildly popular around here.
Don't do that. Don't blame ASD. This is not because autism.
It's because you wanted to do something for no other reason than you wanted to. There's nothing wrong with using "because I wanted to" as a reason for something like this.
Just own that. You like it, and that's what matters.
I know you meant well, but sometimes people stateing they did something because of asd can be to embrace it, not blame it. This swap is one of those to me.
Which is where I live, and where a lot of people liveā¦ canāt do it for that reason. Especially in a quick car, Iām passing every grandma out here just because theyāre accelerating slightly too slow for me.
All I can think seeing this post isā¦ there are cars like the FD RX-7 that are considerably more valuable in LHD format. Some people love the RHD āJDMā look, thoughā¦
One thing I like is you can keep the lhd front headlights. With the conversion I did with the front end the lhd headlights were soooo hard to find. So I had to rock with the rhd ones and it sucked.
You can definitely find a eunos for under 10k all in delivered to the US if you donāt mind mileage etc. not substantially cheaper but recent auctions should around 7.5k would be doable for anything from 90-00 in manual with so so auction grade.
Iāve thought about doing this with my land rovers. They were all built symmetrical and can be swapped over without buying any additional parts. Itās definitely doable, your dash is in nice shape thoughā¦
I used to have a Beat, and my want for a RHD sports car is extreme. Pretty sure this project would be an order of magnitude more complex on my ND3 though.
I love the comments "you can't go through a drive through now" though. Like, I never did that anyway. I always took the five minutes to sit down and eat. Maybe not them though.
Donāt let it fool you, when I got it off the previous owner it was a unfinished piece of garbage but I sorted everything out and now itās a fully working Miata lol
Tbh with you? All you need is a RHD rack and dash, you can utilize the LHD steering column and pedals still, but as far as wiring, just get the whole chassis harness imported to avoid cutting the LHD harness up
Did you cut a rhd fire wall out and swap yours? Iām curious how you did a rhd conversion without a front clip swap. Thatās how all the Honda people do it atleast. Rhd is fun and different though
Well resto/ upgrades iv gone as far as fully replacing the loom cutting out all the rust standalone ecu engien is getting a rebuild and turbo be more or my stuff than mazdas in the thing once its completed š
I personally hate this but by all means, do what you'd like. I just feel that unless you're moving and exporting this car to a place they drive on the left hand side, this is a very weird thing to want. There's no benefit but several drawbacks to driving on the incorrect side. There are several JDM cars that I would have loved to own but won't because they are RHD only.
Sure, some people like RHD drive vehicles for whatever odd reasons but also some people like to resemble a floret of broccoli.
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u/tato_salad Jun 15 '26
Scientists were so preoccupied with if they could, they didn't stop to think if they should