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Thought I'd start a thread as I'm waiting for the last pieces to come in (in transit from bulgaria).
I bought this car from my brother after selling my 04 STi last year. It's a 2003 ls with 120k. I've done all the standard maintenance over the last few months including timing belt, crank and cam seals, etc. Coming from a stage 2 STi you can imagine that I quickly wanted to start a plan for the car to not be so damn slow. Don't get me wrong, I know a lot of really good drivers in a stock NB can embarrass a lot of not good drivers in much more expensive cars on a track but this is really just a street car for me that will be able to autox or light track if I want to.
The car currently has coilovers (FM), swaybars (FM), frame rails (FM), flow formed 15" konigs, 225 toyo r1rs, FM happy meal stage 1 and flowforce 640's.
I started to get things rolling for the build that is about to happen last fall. Got an MS3 and read a lot. A LOT. Still need to read a LOT, but mostly related to fine tuning for heat soak. The tune is to the point where it feels great when driving the car. Got injectors somewhere over the winter and then retuned. EV14's seem to make things easier.
When it came to figuring out what I want to do for a turbo, I never could stomach the cost of the FM kit considering it's built around such an old design turbo. I just didn't want to spend that much on a new garrett when the EFR is a thing. I was going to go with an MK turbo kit but if I'm being honest, I'm not in love with China right now and trying to limit things from there in general. I'm sorry if that offends anyone and it isn't directed at chinese people in general, just their shitty government and allowance of blatant IP theft.
So I ended up with the following:
-MS3-pnp
-EFR 6258 (with low waste spring)
-Fab9 (vibrant) intercooler
-FM intercooler piping
-Kraken top mount hotside
-FM coolant reroute with turbo connection addon
-FM turbo heatshield
-FF640 injectors
The kraken stuff is currently on a plane and scheduled to be delivered thursday. I'm going to start out on wastegate tune only while I make sure everything seems solid and slowly start playing with the EBC. From what I'm reading I will probably want to upgrade to a 4 port EBC and 2 port IWG. We'll see. I also somewhat regret not buying ID1000s since I have e85 avail, but maybe next spring.
I don't really have any pictures for now worth posting except for this one holding a very beautiful turbo in the engine bay. I'll post a lot more once I start installing parts and appreciate any criticism you all might have for my build.
Nice parts list. Someone else will probably chime in and call be dumb, but E85 isn't really necessary with a stock block.. you can't hold more than about 250whp anyway, which is just when that turbo starts to wake up. I haven't had any trouble with the integrated boost controller or wastegate, but ymmv.
I did notice you don't have a radiator listed. That one in your pic is not long for this world, and you'll want a better one anyway with turbo hotness. Have fun.
I didn't want to get into details on my radiator because it's the ONE chinese part that I ordered. I was going to buy FM's but it is out of stock for a while so I figured I'd buy some garbage from ebay to hold me over due to the color of my radiator.
I have a pretty similar setup: untouched VVT engine, MS3, EFR6258, Fab9 IC, and FF640s. I previously had an FM turbo kit and you definitely made the right choice going with the EFR. The spool time is way ahead of the gt2560 and the power it makes at lower boost is insane. I'm running e85 and making about 275whp at 11psi and the injectors are pretty much maxed out, but you can't really push it more than that on a stock engine anyway. I haven't had any issues with a normal 3 port EBC with the stock EFR low boost actuator on my setup. I don't see a radiator on your list but I assume you have a replacement for that brown time bomb on the way also. It's a ton of fun at this power level so you won't be disappointed
I have a pretty similar setup: untouched VVT engine, MS3, EFR6258, Fab9 IC, and FF640s. I previously had an FM turbo kit and you definitely made the right choice going with the EFR. The spool time is way ahead of the gt2560 and the power it makes at lower boost is insane. I'm running e85 and making about 275whp at 11psi and the injectors are pretty much maxed out, but you can't really push it more than that on a stock engine anyway. I haven't had any issues with a normal 3 port EBC with the stock EFR low boost actuator on my setup. I don't see a radiator on your list but I assume you have a replacement for that brown time bomb on the way also. It's a ton of fun at this power level so you won't be disappointed
I have a pretty similar setup: untouched VVT engine, MS3, EFR6258, Fab9 IC, and FF640s. I previously had an FM turbo kit and you definitely made the right choice going with the EFR. The spool time is way ahead of the gt2560 and the power it makes at lower boost is insane. I'm running e85 and making about 275whp at 11psi and the injectors are pretty much maxed out, but you can't really push it more than that on a stock engine anyway. I haven't had any issues with a normal 3 port EBC with the stock EFR low boost actuator on my setup. I don't see a radiator on your list but I assume you have a replacement for that brown time bomb on the way also. It's a ton of fun at this power level so you won't be disappointed
It doesn't go above 210 even when it's 90+ degrees out but I haven't tried it with the AC. I don't have any ducting in front though which I need to fix
It doesn't go above 210 even when it's 90+ degrees out but I haven't tried it with the AC. I don't have any ducting in front though which I need to fix
Weird. I was seeing 220 idling with AC on yesterday without a turbo lol. I did just drain/refill coolant after installing the silicone lower radiator hose so wondering if I have an air bubble in there. Regardless, I ordered FM reroute and now have an easy way to refill the coolant with a bleed valve.
Surprised you aren't having any issues with heat on the master cylinder/heater hoses considering you don't have a heatshield. Seems like I keep reading that would be an issue.
Weird. I was seeing 220 idling with AC on yesterday without a turbo lol. I did just drain/refill coolant after installing the silicone lower radiator hose so wondering if I have an air bubble in there. Regardless, I ordered FM reroute and now have an easy way to refill the coolant with a bleed valve.
Surprised you aren't having any issues with heat on the master cylinder/heater hoses considering you don't have a heatshield. Seems like I keep reading that would be an issue.
Chad
AC dumps a ton of heat in front of the radiator so I’m sure I would get hot if I ran it. My manifold, downpipe, and turbine housing are ceramic coated so that helps with the radiant heat but a heat shield is still on my list.
It's been in for a few weeks now. Still working on tidying some things up. Have a few contact points between IC hoses and coolant hoses/sway bar. I've zip tied some sacrificial rubber in these spots for now to prevent chaffing while I fine tune the lines. Car is running pretty good. I decided to just pay @18psi to tune the thing because I don't want to **** my **** up, for lack of better terms.
I have since installed a debadge a flyin miata heat shield. I still need to make an airbox type situation to insulate the filter from heat a bit. I have installed a giant *** radiator from ebay to hold me over until I decide on a "real" radiator to upgrade to later. This has led me to only being able to fit my main fan and not my AC fan. If I try to drive around with AC on my coolant starts to creep to 230. If I am not running AC I don't really see higher than 210 just casually driving around in and out of boost. Also need to make some bumper mouth to radiator ducting and reinstall my undertray.
Great to see this thing making progress. Definitely install undertray asap. even if that's not your main issue it's a big issue. Also making an airbox for that intake should be easy. Revision as soon as I'm near my workstation
Great to see this thing making progress. Definitely install undertray asap. even if that's not your main issue it's a big issue. Also making an airbox for that intake should be easy. Revision as soon as I'm near my workstation
Yea, i have left it off because I still need to get back under there and add a small piece of stainless pipe to the FM cold side piping for better fitment. Busy as hell week as we just bought a travel trailer and are trying to get things ready for the maiden voyage with a 1.5 and 3.5 year old this weekend. I've just been enjoying driving the car even just on wastegate when I can get a chance!
Curious on what you all think about my current tune. The log (attached) has some rich spots which have been addressed for the next pull, but I don't have time to do it tonight and wanted to post an update.
I guess. I weighed multiple NB2s at 2300-2350 fully dressed and filled up, so unless I'm missing something that is really heavy, and also causing your numbers to be higher on the dyno.
I guess. I weighed multiple NB2s at 2300-2350 fully dressed and filled up, so unless I'm missing something that is really heavy, and also causing your numbers to be higher on the dyno.
Gotcha. I thought the published curb weight was 2350.
Curious on what you all think about my current tune. The log (attached) has some rich spots which have been addressed for the next pull, but I don't have time to do it tonight and wanted to post an update.
If you did the run in a higher gear the numbers would probably be a little bit higher. I find that if I do the pull in 3rd or 4th that the numbers are not as accurate at least for me. Still good numbers for 9-10psi
06-09-2020, 04:01 PM
My NB EFR build (stock block).
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