MKturbo Fun
 

Its been a while since I've posted anything about my build and now it's pretty much done. . To tell the truth I've been driving the S%*T out of this thing since finishing it up a couple months ago. Thanks Lars for a great fitting kit and thanks Braineack for a well sorted ECU which has taken minimal effort to get what I believe to be running very well. Of course tuning is a big llearning curve but I have been able to search this thread and pretty much answer any question I was having. Only issues to resolve is the infamous hot restart problem for 30 seconds and my valve guide seals apparently don't seal very well (smokes like a chimney until fully warmed up).

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Ive been to several auto cross events already, tons of 13psi pulls in Mexico!!.. and tomorrow if the weather cooperates I'll get in my first night at the drag strip. So far any problems I've had have been minor. I thought I blew the turbo several times but twice I blew an intercooler pipe off and at one point developed such an Exhaust leak I thought the turbo was coming apart. Each problem was easily fixed and this little thing keeps going.

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So so what have I learned doing my first turbo build?
Number 1 is don't skimp on parts. Almost everything I bought that I thought would save me money I've replaced already.

Number 2 and equally important as #1 is reasearch this site and if you don't find exactly what your looking for change the way you ask the question. Every and I mean Every problem I ran into that I thought I'd never figure out I eventually found the answer I was searching for including pictures. I guess I'm not the first person around here to turbo a miata!!.. haha

Number 3 Take your time and don't overreact when something doesn't work right. Nine times out of ten it's something stupid I did or didn't do or over looked and was solved simply by taking a deep breath and thinking through it. I didn't want to get yelled at for asking a question that was asked 100 times before so that motivated me to find the answers myself!!! Several times I ran into problems and assumed the worst, thought for sure I was screwed and nervously searched the forum only to freak myself out more by seeing the many problems that could relate to my current issue. In the end it was usually something simple and if I had just taken the time to do it right the first time I would have avoided the extra grey hair.

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This car is such a blast to drive and brings a smile to my face every time Im in it. I learned so much building it and truly enjoyed the process thanks to so many knowledgeable people on this forum and the relative simplicity of this car. It's not the prettiest or the fastest but I built it myself and it sure is fun.

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Built - not bought... good on you.

Well made it to the drag strip for the first time. The good..... had an absolute blast the bad...........I think I hurt the motor.
My first pass was ok. Completely screwed up the launch and spun through first gear, had a hard time finding third gear and even with my 15x9 sticky Hankooks ran 14.8 (12psi) once I passed the finish line and let up noticed a lot of blue smoke. I lined up again after letting it cool down and had a better launch no spinning but went slower 15.2. Again once I let up had even more blue smoke and I figured I hurt something since it seemed down on power. Full disclosure I didn't do a compression check before installing turbo since I figured I would be rebuilding the motor this winter and haven't had it tuned on the dyno yet so I know there's much room for improvement with the tune, cart before the horse I know but I don't care since I'm just having fun and AFR,s are pretty safe as is.

I went ahead and did a compression check today and I'm at 100/95/105/105 dry. I'm thinking I may have done something wrong so I'll check again tomorrow as well as test wet since it pulls pretty strong still so I can't believe my compression could be that low. Depending on what I find I might just change out my valve seals since smoking is mainly on decel and when cold but if compression numbers come out crappy again it looks like I'll get to do the rebuild a little sooner than I thought. Either way this car is a blast and fun to wrench on.

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A leakdown test is roughly an infinity times more useful than a compression test.