High School Kid Attempts to Do Something Right
 

After reading multiple build threads, I've been inspired to start my own. Beware, this most likely will be a slow moving build but I'll attempt to keep things moving.

A little background about my car and myself, I bought my car during July 2016. It's a 94, R titled, C-Package with around 148,000 on the dash. The R-Title came from a hit in the rear left that was repaired nicely. I was 16 at the time and was super excited since growing up I've always been interested in first gen Miatas. I'm 17, live in Western PA and am a senior in High School. After I graduate I'll be attending Mount Aloysius University with a major in Nursing.

Pic of when I first brought my car home:
https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...4109b15efd.jpg

Not long after I bought my car I ordered Tein Basic coilovers to replace the blown ebay ones it was currently on, slapped on some cheap wheels I had lying around, and installed a hard dog roll bar.

Next comes the winter of 2016. I bought some Klutch SL1 wheels (16x9 Rear, 16x8 Front) from my buddy that were on his BMW E30. Instead of just rolling and pulling my fenders I decided to buy a widebody kit from Carbon Miata so I could cut off the rear quarter that was hit when it was R-Titled. I took some different pieces of 2.5 in piping and welded the different bends together to dump it out the driver side in front of the rear tire. I bought a front lip and made some angry eyes out of electrical tape. I also repainted the rest of the car with the fender flares.

https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...196750dcda.jpg
https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...ba2fa68c7a.jpg

The current parts I've bought:
Garrett T25 from an SR20 motor
RX8 Yellow Injectors
MTX-L Wideband O2 Sensor
Begi Mani and Downpipe

Parts I'm Planning to Buy:
MSPNP2
Boost Gauge
IC Piping, other hardware, fittings
Piping for a new exhaust
Tial BOV
Clutch
Other things that I'm forgetting

So my initial goal is 200 whp then go from there. I compression tested my motor and got an average of about 180 psi with no more than 5 psi difference between cylinders so I'd say it's pretty healthy. After lurking on here for almost a year now, reading many many build threads, and reading the MS manual I'm confident that I can safely boost my car. My budget started out at 2000 becuase I planned on using a tacotaco manifold and some other cheap ebay stuff. After seeing what happens when you go cheap, I've upped my budget to 3000 and decided to do it right the first time. I've also recently picked up a hardtop that needs a little spot putty work and paint for 750 bucks.

Honestly, I really wanna faster than my dad's 07 Mustang GT, partly because I wanna be able to brag to him about it, and partly because I wanna shame him into supercharging his car.

I appreciate all constructive criticism and will try to answer all questions that anyone has. Sorry again for what will most likely be a slow build.

I am also 17. Welcome!

That is love.:love:

Where did you get the injectors?

Welcome to the forum. ^As he was about to tell you, the rx8 550 injectors on the market are very often counterfeit, don't flow 550cc, and don't flow similarly one to another. Unless you have them tested for flow, I would be cautious or you may damage your otherwise healthy engine.

I have a buddy that's big into racing RX7's and RX8's and sold them to me for a decent price. Honestly I should have just waited and bought EV14's but live and learn I guess.

Real possibility for sure. Not a lot of Miatas around, but I'm in Pittsburgh.

Yeah, I've seen multiple threads about this. My buddy races RX7's and RX8's, when I told him that RX7 and RX8 injectors are plug and play on Miatas. He had a set from a few years ago that he never used so I bought them since they weren't discontinued until recently

Yeah, the very few miatas I've seen around are completely stock. I'll probably be going to Carlisle in May so maybe I'll see you there if you're attending.

It's my car, I like it so that's all that matters right?:bigtu:

nope. I'm surprised you don't want to add webber side carbs and make the car even slower.

My car was beating 4.6 mustangs at the 1/8th mile by 2 car lengths at 200whp at the test and tune. They weren't prepped drag cars and neither was mine.

But road courses are more fun.

Last weekend-
Here's an expert in a lower powered Miata:


And here's my less-qualified ass in a higher horse turbo Miata with less prep:

Just a heads up, this forum doesn't embrace the "No fucks given" or "Instagram build" mentality. Many folks here are in technical fields and are fact/data driven. So building something for style just isn't what we do. We typically have a goal in mind. That being said, we were all young once and done dumb things. We learned from our mistakes and others and were better for it. Try not to let some of the folks get under your skin and you'll learn a lot here.

My dad and I agreed we'll go against each other at the drag strip as well as an autocross event. I'm not entirely interested in straight line speed but it's all for fun. I'm really excited to start autocrossing next year since I've never done anything like it before.

I totally understand, everything isn't for everyone. If people don't like my car they're entitled to their opinions. Me getting upset over it isn't going change anything

Welcome to the site. Seems like you're off to a solid start as far as collecting parts. So nice to see young people come to the forums with reasonable comprehension and communication skills, it's scary how rare that is.

I'd focus on the megasquirt next. Getting it installed while n/a will allow you to get some hands on tuning practice with a lot more room for error than trying to learn on a newly turbo'd car. Plus you'll be able to ditch the stock AFM and tune to squeeze a little more power from the car. It also helps when you can start prepping for the turbo; installing injectors and building intercooler piping (if you're going the DIY route).

Yeah, I'm going DIY with my IC. Would you recommend installing megasquirt first by itself or would you do the megasquirt with injectors right off the bat? I've seen people do both and was wondering if you or anyone else would recommend doing one over the other.

since you'd be new to it: get the MS running first, then add injectors. depending on the injector it might require a good bit of fine tuning after the change. if youre initial map isn't setup correctly, you could struggle to even get the car running.

I'll go that route then. Thanks for the advice

+1 to what brain said.

Also, I'm a jr member here for all intents and purposes, but my opinions is that I don't really care thatttt much what the outside of your car looks like as long as you don't fuck around with the mechanical shit.
You're 17 so your tastes are very different than those of many on here.... but if you listen to anything, you should listen to folks telling you to build mechanical/technical things a certain way.

The fact that you are open to doing the injectors and doing the megasquirt the right way is encouraging.

Say hi to punxy phil. I did a summer course at IUP back in the day.

I just want to do things the right way the first time. So I'll try my best to listen to the veterans as this is the first time I'll be adding FI to anything.

BTW, I used to walk by IUP on the way home from school everyday lol

I'm not among the most experienced here and I've been modifying my Miata in substantial ways since you were 8 yrs old. Time keeps moving.

The really good news is we figured out all the weak points in the cheapest and easiest ways to make things awesome.

I've been on this forum since I was your age. I'm 28 now. Crazy stuff! Good luck with the build, you are off to a much better start than me at your age!

Enjoy the manifold/downpipe!

Well it's been awhile and I haven't updated this so here we go.

I got my MSPNP2 and hooked it up along with my Innovate MTXL Wideband and injectors. It idled decent but with some reading and tweaking I got it pretty steady. Also, i registered for the paid version of tunerstudio. It seems pretty scary at first to tune but I got the car to run just slightly richer than my targets (like within .5 afr) and let VE Analyze Live do the rest.

After that 2 week or so break in the weather it got real bad out so I decided to park it in the garage and start putting my turbo parts on.

My updated list of parts:
Innovate MTX-L Wideband
Begi Manifold and DP
Garrett T25 Turbo
Ebay 2" IC piping kit (also some Misc things from Siliconeintakes.com)
TurboSmart Kompact BOV from Flyin' Miata
MSPNP2
Mishimoto Z-line intercooler
RX8 Yellow Injectors
GM Temp sensor
NGK Spark Plugs

I started my IC piping and am very close to finishing both the hot side and cold side. My intercooler is hung. I'm waiting on a few silicone pieces right now so I can mount my BOV as well as hook up my final pieces of piping to my intercooler. Once my piping is finished I'll determine where to drill and tap for the temp sensor and Idle control valve. I began pulling of my EGR system and used block off plates from Miataroadster to seal everything off.

And with that, that's where I'm currently at. I'm having trouble with the rest of my EGR because I'm not sure what all I'm pulling out. Is it only the piping on the back of the motor and the this g on the back of the intake manifold? There are two vacuum lines (one with red on it, one with blue) that ran to the EGR and to the Intake manifold. Those vacuum lines go down to some plugs and then another line runs to the big round plastic cylinder that has a vacuum that goes near the front of the intake mani. Do I pull this all out? I'm kind of confused with it, any help would be greatly appreciated.

Sorry for the slow progress everyone, I've been trying to wait until I see parts on sale or on the forums for a good deal which has taken a longer but I've saved a ton of money over going new for everything. As soon as I finish my IC piping I'll post some pictures of everything. Thanks for reading!

Have you picked up that Begi manifold yet? Have you looked into the Kraken setup?
What are you doing for an exhaust? That was my biggest holdup. I fucked around with my exhaust at first.
I had my custom made (flux core +2.5 mild steel) downpipe mangled onto my stock exhaust.

I then bought the Speedway Motorsports 2.5 kit. It came with a lot of bends, good enough for 2 Miatas. Building an exhaust is hard as all hell if you can't bend tubing.
Anyways, figure out your exhaust stuff before you annoy your entire county with an open downpipe.

Yeah I already have the Begi mani downpipe and outlet, I've decided to either weld together an exhaust or just go to a shop near me that will do it for about 50 bucks. I'll look into that Speedway kit though. I'd prefer to do it myself since I've only ever welded an exhaust together once.