Goodbye Churbo Hello EFR
 

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I have been on this forum for many years now and have never posted a build thread... Shame on me!

Now it is time to make things right with the world. I am decommissioning my trusty old BEGI “Shanghai” S that I pieced together while I was a college student back in 2009. It was a stout little setup that despite 50xxx miles of primary-DD/Autox/Trackday/Drag abuse has never left me stranded. It has always been a bit laggy in transient throttle performance but it seemed to fit the car quite well.
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I will cover some of the other basic setup mods later because now I am sure you all want to see the new pretty car porn.
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The new turbo is the “baby” EFR6258. I didn’t go with a larger one because I want the fastest spool up possible for autox and also because it has way more than enough power capability to turn my transmission into confetti. Abe at ARTech (being the welding god that he is) was commissioned to make this beautiful equal length top-mount manifold that is compatible with my A/C and PS, 3” downpipe, and 3” full exhaust with exchangeable test pipe/cat center pieces.
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I took the turbine housing off the center section and sent it in to Swaintech for their “white lightning” ceramic coating along with the turbo manifold. I did not send in the downpipe on the theory that the gasses would drop in temperature right after the turbine. Temperature drop equals pressure drop which will hopefully help with spooling up the turbo since it is immediately after the turbine.
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The charged air I am not doing anything fancy with. I am reusing my old intercooler, rebuilding the mounts for it, and am taking the old silicone connected charge pipes and having them welded together to fit the new turbo and by-pass valve configuration.

oh snap that is very nice

did the coolant inlet/mixing manifold interfere with the exhaust manifold?

i've got the same setup lined up, but have to perform a motor swap first. I'd be interested in a bunch of sound clips ^_^

I like your choice of size. Does the EFR6255 not actually exist? that's the one I really want to see on a miata.

Getting an air filter to fit the turbo in this location is a little bit of a challenge. The power steering reservoir is in the way, so I welded new mounting tabs on it so it can sit as far back as the lines will allow. This K&N filter fits pretty well now, but does contact the PS reservoir slightly with the filter mesh.
https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1389965431


Oil and water lines are being reused from my BEGI setup. I now have the oil feed going straight to the turbo now instead of making a stop in the BEGI Oil/Water line mount. This was so that the water lines could be moved up one hole on the mount as the lowest line would have interfered with the wastegate actuator. The oil feed and drain line actually have much better routing on the new EFR turbo than I was ever able to manage on the BEGI turbo. The water lines are a bit long but that is not really an issue so I see no reason to fix it now.
https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1389965431

The front left brake line was in the way of the downpipe for the installation. I bent is slightly to get the DP installed but it was still quite close. So I cut an inch of the hard line and re-flared the end so it will be a little further away.
https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1389965431

As for the WP inlet mixing manifold... Yes, in the stock configuration the lower portion of the #2 runner does barely touch the inlet tube.
https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1389965431
At the moment i have the rubber wrapped in a piece of EGR heat shield wrap that i had laying around from a diesel truck. It is sufficient for now, but i have another solution that i will expand on later when i get a chance to put it in.

Nice setup!

one 90° coupler would solve your problem, and getting a filter that hasn't contracted elephantiasis of the balls.


That brake line near your DP, I wrapped that one in reflective heat wrap material...

Nice upgrades.

While i was setting up this turbo hardware i replaced the timing belt, water pump, and swapped the crank trigger for a 36-1.
https://www.miataturbo.net/adaptroni...r-wheel-76831/

After that saga was sorted out and the I/C pipes were connected i did a few light footed drives and logs to see just how different the two turbos are...

Holy shit what a difference!

Here is my fuel map on the old setup.
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I still have a lot of tuning to do, to get the AFR closer to target but here is my current EFR fuel map.
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I currently have the target boost at 145kpa and it pulls harder than the old churbo did at 170kpa!
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Soviet already heckled me for a dyno last week on facebook. I will get to it soon, but i still have a few more things to sort our before i pay for dyno time. This is also on a stock 120xxx mile block that i DD, so i will tell you all right now that my target is to keep it under 250whp.

Nice to see another EFR with PS/AC!!!!

Stock block? Hmmmm......Should I start building you a forged setup? I have all the parts that I was going to use for the wife's car but that bitch left so......

Seriously though, I think on waist gate pressure alone you are playing with fire.

Brain,
if the 6255 existed, i would have bought it... what i really want is a 6255 in twinscroll, but that will never ever exist.

I see nothing wrong with my filter setup now. The contact is mild and i am not worried about it. so you can lick my elephantitis ballsack filter and like it.

The heat reflective wrap idea for the brake line sounds awesome! Where did you pick up your reflective material from?

I did go and buy the low pressure WG actuator from full race. You can see by the pics, that it has very little preload (3mm). I am pretty confident that i can keep the itch for power down for a little while. I also set an ignition cut in the ecu for 160kpa just to make sure i don't get greedy.

A built block is indeed in my future, but for the sake of my wallet i want to hold off for a while.

but for curiosity sake, how much for the built block?;)

Nice build

Manifold and DP, etc. look amazing


eff me and my stupid car/build

of course there's something wrong with your filter setup: it's a huge filter in front of a radiating heat source, instead of being placed ontop of a fresh air source. not that it really matters if your IC is as good as the worst ebay IC.

High 5 for the EFR on tubular manifold and swain coat allthethings club. I swain coated my downpipe to help with under hood heat, foot cook, and in theory the hotter gas in the down pipe would be moving faster at the turbine exit. But honestly coated or not in the downpipe isnt going to make much difference in power deliver.

you need to dyno so you know what power your block will explode at.

:werd: Put the filter behind that headlight and box it up, so it's pulling from the OE cold air source (yeah there's hole under that headlight.)

Since you're also running Abe's manifold, did you end up using a gasket for your turbo between the manifold and housing?

I know most people don't, but when I look at the flange, I'm not too confident that the surface is flat enough to run without a gasket.

I'm not sure if I should remove the studs and have it surfaced.

It is snowing this week. I am looking into scheduling some dyno time when I can drive the car again next week.

So far I have put about 1000 miles on this setup. All of the hardware is performing flawlessly. Except for the turbine-downpipe v-band. It worked great until I tried to take it off to work on the brake line. The nut shaved a few threads off the t-bolt when I backed it off. I just tightened it back up as is and will replace it later.

Driving impressions:
The recirculating bypass valve allows the turbo to spool up at light load (50-90kpa). That is amazing for having boost immediately on tap as soon as I press the throttle down far enough to close the BPV... But it is annoying as hell! The air recirculating around the compressor wheel makes constant noise on the highway.

The exhaust sounds like the song of the gods in a massive orgy when at full throttle. It is also barely louder and more baritone than stock at idle. But it is loud and drones a bit on the highway. I am thinking I will put the high flow cat on in place of the test pipe to see if that quiets it down a bit in normal driving mode.