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That's my first build thread, after several time spent reading the forum.
I've got a 2003 1.6 MX5 driven on weekends and 4-5 trackdays at year.
Performance target:
~10psi on track use
~14psi on fun/pulls/drag use
I work as mechanical designer for a luxury Italian car brand, that I can't afford, so I want to make mine faster (built not bought )
This is the currently upgrade on my car:
-ME221 (tuned by myself and didn't exploded)
-AEM X-Series Wideband
-BMC CDA filter
-Mishimoto cooling module
-Mishimoto hoses
-Meister Clubrace
-Braided brake and clutch hoses
-Exedy street clutch
-Sport Big brake with Hawk pads
-6 Speed gearbox
-Tochigi Fuji diff 4.1
-Sassa Rollbar (Made in Italy, FIA compliant)
-Sparco Sprint Seats and Sparco 4 point harness
-ATS DTC Tourenwagen 15" with 195/50 Toyo R888
And now the parts already bought for the next step, that I would like to discuss with you if you want to give some advice:
-1.8 VVT engine with 65k miles
-ARP Head Studs
-Victor Reinz complete gaskets and seals set
-Water pump, timing belt, oil filter, clutch master/slave, other servicing parts
-Fidanza lightweight flywheel and a 6-Pad clutch (stuff from a friend's abandoned project car with 20 minutes at Rjeka, don't know the brand of the clutch but I'll give it a try, could post a photo)
-Bosch EV14 550cc
-IHI VF35 Turbocharger fully rebuilt (it is unusual in MX5 build but was at good price, give it a try)
-VW BOV
-Pierburg EBC
What's in the shopping cart?
-19row 115mm setrab cooler with thermostatic sandwich. Want to locate it behind the fog light hole.
-gauges
-?
I'm waiting the welding of my complete Revent kit, 450x180 IC with piping, 200cell magnaflow cat, 14" magnaflow muffler, manifold and all the fitting parts.
All the works are done with my friend on his garage, he has a "private lab" with all the equipment needed to work on the car. So I don't have labor costs.
We've started disassembling completely the head and cleaned with ultrasonic machine.
Then we have done a valve seats grinding to obtain a good sealing, checked for planarity and decided to not machine it the head.
Next step will be reassembling the head with the Victor Reinz valve seals (opinion?) and check and adjust valve clearance.
In my country is not so easy to find a good machine shop, so at the moment the idea is to don't open the block. The engine is in good condition. When it starts to have issue I'll go to a next step with machining, reinforced rods and piston, but my power target will remain the same for track use.
I'll update this thread also for give information about the Revent kit when I'll receive all the stuff.
In the meantime, I'm open to advice on the stuff I have got and what I better buy!
Sorry for my English and for the length of this thread!
Thanks
Last edited by Daniele914; 05-03-2019 at 04:04 PM.
VF35 should be quite nice. I have its baby sister.
The EV14's work best if matched at low flows. Gives better idle. 16 Row oil cooler should be enough, easier to fit. 4-point harness should be 5 or 6 point.
I cycle through gauges. Even AFR is not really needed as TunerStudio reports during tuning, and then ECU monitors (assume the 221 has reasonable features). Boost is fun to look at, but again not needed. I have Oil Temp and Pressure ready to go in, but have driven so long without them, that I think they will prove not necessary after a short time.
VF35 should be quite nice. I have its baby sister.
The EV14's work best if matched at low flows. Gives better idle. 16 Row oil cooler should be enough, easier to fit. 4-point harness should be 5 or 6 point.
I cycle through gauges. Even AFR is not really needed as TunerStudio reports during tuning, and then ECU monitors (assume the 221 has reasonable features). Boost is fun to look at, but again not needed. I have Oil Temp and Pressure ready to go in, but have driven so long without them, that I think they will prove not necessary after a short time.
Plan some radiator ducting.
DNM
Thanks for the reply!
I live in Modena, Italy.
Oh nice you've got experience with VF series, do you think it will have a good spool at this boost level?
Thanks for the oil cooler hints, I'm happy to hear that with low boost 16 row can be enough, also for the OEM oil pump effort.
Gauges are also a lot of money, I only would like to have them to keep it under control on track or heavy use on hills. But they can be bought at the end of the build, I already have temporary/ugly gauges for boost and oil pressure for first test.
The wideband was bought because I was learning road tuning on the stock engine.
Thanks a lot DNMakinson!
Welcome! Sounds like a solid plan! I would go for a known clutch and OEM seals, but you may get away with what you have already planned.
Those are the flywheel and the clutch when on the donor engine. I can do better pics if someone can detect if it's a known clutch. I've to say that, without the cost of the transmission dismounting, and we have the car lifter, probably it's not a bad idea to try it.
The very complete gaskets kit (it also contains the two rubber "bridges" on the oil sump) was bought in order to have aaaall the gasket to full reseal the engine, but I could consider to buy OEM valves seals and head gasket.
There was only the block, abandoned in a depot without any care.
So I start searching missing parts and I found a bargain for all this stuff at half the price of a Fidanza flywheel that is included:
This is the preferred Square top inlet manifold right?
I also found the front plastic cover, the crankshaft pulley with trigger pulley, and the other missing parts will be taken from my 1.6 engine, excepting the AC that will be removed.
I'm very happy with the ME221.
It's easy, so perfect for start learning something on ECU tuning.
I've also used Tuner Studio to analyse some MS tuning and I saw the difference, the ME software is lighter and more user-friendly, but of course because it has less features. There's not the community support you can find here but they are growing and they're active on the Facebook page "ME users" where they give you solutions and also a remote tuning service through trusted collaborators.
VF35 should be quite nice. I have its baby sister.
The EV14's work best if matched at low flows. Gives better idle. 16 Row oil cooler should be enough, easier to fit. 4-point harness should be 5 or 6 point.
[...]
DNM
DNM, you said 16 row cooler should be enough, but also if 115mm matrix?
Thanks
What I know is only what Andrew from Trackspeed Engineering recommended when I told him my use case, which is virtually the same as yours. I'm not familiar with other offerings besides the Setrab horizontal flow units with -10AN hoses. I think Flyin Miata is also a 16 row, but they have -8AN.
Search in Google: site:miataturbo.net "oil cooler" for some discussions.
And also tightened the camshafts caps.
Than we measured the valve clearance and 7 valves are under the standard clearance, this is caused by the valve seats grinding.
But, the shop are closed and we have to wait Monday for buying the shims.
Bye!
The project is slowing down because of missing parts that I'm still waiting... Update will come when it'll be almost finished.
But I have a question for you, what's your opinion on using the stock airbox? (with MAF delete adapter)
I want it sleeper until I use it on the streets and the airbox will help to hide the turbo.
Update!
I switched to Kraken complete kit, with 3" full exhaust, with 200 cell sport CAT, straight through resonator and Magnaflow 12246 muffler, all on V-Bands.
Also the IC kit from Kraken. I will receive all the stuff on next week.
Now I have to find injectors because Kraken can't provide it for me, I don't want to get into the nightmare of fake RX8 injs, so I'm going to buy EV14 640ccm and DW100 fuel pump from Bofiracing.
I'll update this thread with detailed pic of Kraken kit.
05-03-2019, 03:35 PM
Low boost road & track build
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