Modest '99 daily driver
 

Well, here we go. I posted some rough ideas in the Meet 'n Greet forum a few weeks ago, but now, after a bunch of research, I've just about refined my plan for this car, and I've started to buy parts, so I guess it's time to start documenting it over here in a build thread. I'll be posting all my pictures over in this photo gallery, but notable photos will be posted here in the thread too.

I bought the car completely stock, with 98k miles. My eventual goal is roughly 200 rwhp, but I'll be starting with maybe 160. I'd just like the car to offer at least comparable performance to the 2011 Mini Cooper S it's replacing.

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1407436533

I know my Enkei wheels aren't the lightest, and unsprung weight makes a big difference on Miatas, but since I've got the wheels, and I had just put new tires on all four wheels before finding the Miata for sale, I went ahead and moved the wheels over to the new car.

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1407436533

I'm going the MegaSquirt route, and as everyone recommends, I'll be tuning the car naturally aspirated first, before moving on to the turbo kit. I'm splitting my upgrade plan into phases to help mentally keep track of things, and I'm calling the MS3 install "phase 1" of the project. I ordered a Basic MS3 from Reverant a few weeks ago (with the serial wideband module he offers), and hope to receive them in another week or so. In the meantime, I also ordered an AEM wideband and installed that.

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1407436533

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1407436533

I also dug around in the attic and found the old Greddy boost gauge I had left over from my Supra 10 years ago (hell yeah, hoarding!). I went ahead and installed that too, because I expect that having a way to see what the vacuum is doing will help me tune the car. Hopefully I won't look like too much of a ricer driving around with a boost gauge in an N/A car.

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1407436533

(I've got a RoadsterTech DIN gauge plate on the way too :) )

So that's where I am so far. I've already run a vacuum line in through the firewall to the driver's footwell (capped off so far, of course), so once the MS3 arrives, I should be able to just plug it in and start tuning.

"Phase 2" is going to consist of the FM no-electronics turbo kit with the 2560, hard oil/water lines, and the inconel studs, along with the FM stage 1 clutch kit. I'll also do the timing belt, water pump, and front and rear main seals, while I've got everything off. I'm planning to run at wastegate boost to start, with the stock injectors. My understanding is that the factory injectors are good for around 6-7 psi of boost at 80% duty cycle, which is right around what I should be seeing at the manifold after intercooler losses with the 2560, right?

Once I've gotten the car running smoothly and reliably that way (and after the wallet has recovered a bit), I'll be moving onto "phase 3", which will involve ordering injectors (most likely ID 550cc or 725cc) and the DIYAutoTune EBC solenoid, to raise the boost to maybe 9-10 psi. If I've been struggling with cooling, then I'd add a radiator upgrade as well.

Later still (call it "phase 4"), I'll probably upgrade the exhaust, since I know the stock exhaust is quite restrictive and will be hurting my spoolup etc.

So here we go. I know it's not the craziest build on here or anything, but it should be exciting. Join me on this adventure! Follow along as my well-structured "phases" hilariously fall apart! No plan survives contact with the enemy!

Combine Stage 2 and 3.

Sounds fun, though!

Yeah, if funds were unlimited, that'd certainly be the route I'd take. And actually, I just saw that Amazon just dropped their price on the ID725's from $480 to $445... That's a big chunk of change, though, and it's going to push the turbo back even farther if I do that.

On the other hand, I definitely like the idea of doing things the conservative way, laying the groundwork and doing all the supporting mods BEFORE the "fun" stuff you really want to do. Although it's not as fun :)

I'd feel less conflicted about doing RX7 550's -- I see them in the $120 range on eBay, and then $109 to get them cleaned at RC puts it under $250. Much better. But I know that injector spray technology has improved in the last 15 years, and the ID's would be "better." I'm just not sure how much better, and whether it justifies the doubling of price. I've seen the mentions of EV1 and EV14 etc, but don't understand exactly what that means, and what category the 89-90 RX7 injectors would fall under. More research to do, I guess.

RX7 injectors are EV1s.

A good middle ground if you can't do the IDs now would be RX8 Yellow 420cc injectors. Dirt cheap brand new on Ebay (Less than $200) and should keep you going to 12psi or more with the FM2 2560 setup.

Think of EV1 as a turkey baster full of fuel dumping into the cylinder. EV14 is more like a nice fine mist in a tuned spray pattern.

Don't think that the waste gate will give you spot on boost numbers. Take into consideration boost creep. You can easily over run those stock injectors into static flow quick fast.

Porting the turbine housing is a good start but most still see boost levels over the waste gate rating.

Good points. Ok, you've convinced me -- injectors before turbo. And thanks for the explanation on the spray patterns.

I hadn't looked at anything smaller than 550s -- RX8 injectors sound like a great intermediate option. If I got the RX7 550s, I'd have a hard time justifying the upgrade later just for the improved flow pattern and slightly increased capacity.

On the other hand, I've got a "turbo fund" I've been building up, so I DO have the funds for the IDs -- it would just push the turbo farther back. But I think I'm leaning towards that option -- do it right the first time and not have to worry about it again.

There's 550cc-ish RX8 injectors as well. Everyone just buys the yellow tops.

I wouldn't mess around with installing them while n/a. Doesn't take much to scale a map to account for injector changes, and you'll have to re-do the map at that point for turbo anyways. :)

Well, at this point I think I'd prefer to go with new RX8 injectors for now, but I haven't had any luck finding those sub-$200 ones you mentioned -- at least not ones that look like they're genuine Denso. I see stuff like this:

Complete Set of Brand New Fuel Injectors for Mazda RX 8 | eBay

Which says it's "built to meet or exceed exact OEM specifications," but I don't know if I'd expect it to have the EV6 spray pattern etc. Are those the kind of thing you were referring to? That's certainly a great price for a solution that'll cover me for a while, if I can trust them.

As far as ID's, it appears the ID1000's are available a good bit cheaper than the smaller sizes -- I guess because they're so popular? Amazon's got them for $398, which is cheaper than I see them sell for used a lot of times:

http://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B...=A9RDENN5BCAU5

But is it dumb to go with 1000cc injectors on a 200 rwhp car? I know our power goals tend to stretch over time, and I'm sure I'll be no stranger to that, but I can say with 95% confidence I won't ever want to take it to the point where I'm building up the internals etc. I know these EV14 injectors can idle very well, even in the larger sizes, I just wonder if I'm being silly considering something so big when I'm pretty sure I'll never use even half of its capacity.

While the Tim Taylor in me is tempted to go with the id1000's and be done with it, it's going to take a very real $450 chunk out of my turbo fund (between the injectors and the adapter pigtails), which will take me another month or two to make back up. If those $160 RX8 injectors will give me the performance and factory-like idle I need, it's kinda hard to justify spending 3 times as much. Thoughts?

Well, after a bunch of internal debate, I decided that the whole point of upgrading my injectors preemptively is to give myself the peace of mind of knowing my system will be protected even if I accidentally overboost or something. I couldn't convince myself that those RX8 injectors of unknown origin would give me that peace of mind, so I pulled the trigger on the ID1000's. At least this way I know I won't need to buy another set of injectors for this car.

Of course, they'll just sit on a shelf for now, until I get the MS in the car and tuned reasonably well. Now I'm just dying for Rev to finish with my MS3 so I can get started :)

I like this noob. He uses his brain.

Trust me, you will never regret purchasing proper ev14's.

You would have DEFINITELY regretted getting crappy old rx7 ev1's

Injectors arrived. So pretty!

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1407963192

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1407963192

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1407963192

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1407963192

I found a good deal on the injectors on Amazon, but there wasn't an option to add-on the PNP pigtails, so I had to source them separately. I searched and searched and couldn't find anywhere who sold them for less than $60 or so on their own, which is so much to pay for some wires. There's cheaper options on eBay, but I'm wary of going there for anything crucial like injectors.

I thought I was clever when I found a set of 8 adapters for $57 shipped on Amazon -- I could use 4 and sell the other 4 for like $40. Aww yeah!

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1407963192

...Except these are backwards -- I needed female EV6 to male Denso, but this set of 8 was male EV6 to female Denso. So much for my clever plan.

So now I've ordered a set of the proper pigtails on eBay. I picked a vendor that seems reliable, and I'll examine the adapters when they arrive to be sure they look like they'll stand up to the elements.

The 3-gauge DIN place from RoadsterTech arrived, and was quickly installed. Ahh, no more floppy gauges. This is a nicely machined piece, and it looks great. Very solid.

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1408072241

The battery voltage gauge is just there to fill space for now. Eventually I'll get something more useful -- most likely EGT or oil pressure -- but in the meantime I just threw whatever I had in there, to avoid an ugly empty hole.

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1408072241

I really, really, really like my Roadster Tech panel. Its damn near my favorite thing in the interior of my car :bigtu:

Voltage is useful on an NB, in my opinion.

how much do those bad boys run? (RT panel)

Yep, Rick was great -- lots of communication, and letting me provide him exact measurements of my car so he could make everything fit clean and flush. I'm quite happy with it. My radio DIN sleeve isn't held quite as securely as it was in the plain Metra dash kit I had it in before, but that's just a consequence of the way the Miata's dash opening works. I don't know how I could improve on the design at all, so it's certainly not a shortcoming of the RT plate.

Hmm, is there something particular to NB's that makes voltage more important to monitor? I haven't come across anything like that in my reading, so if there are any quirks related to the electrical system, I'd certainly like to be aware of them.

Here's the page: NB Miata Gauge Plates

They have various options at different price points. I paid $50 plus $6 shipping for mine.

I've also been realizing that now that the car will have a standalone, big injectors, and a clutch, there's little reason to keep my goals "modest". I guess that happens to all of us, eh? :) I definitely still want to keep the car reliable, civil, and streetable (for fairly conservative values of "streetable" -- not "6 puck clutch and no A/C" streetable), but it sounds like 220-ish rwhp would still be comfortably below the range where I have to worry about breaking stuff. So I guess that's my new target. Of course, I'll still be going in stages -- get the car tuned on the MS while N/A, then install the turbo and get the car tuned on mild boost, and then finally cranking the boost.

your clutch will absolutely not hold up past 200tq
otherwise pretty much yeah, good plan

Alternator output is controlled by ECU, and the alternators themselves don't seem to be as long-lived as the NA units. When going standalone, if you keep that same control system, it's nice to be able to glance and see what's going on.

While actively tuning, not a big deal, since you'll be logging voltage anyways. The rest of the time, it's not the worst thing in the world to be able to glance over and see what's up.

I may have forgotten to mention it above, but when I install the FM turbo kit, I'll also be installing their level 1 clutch. FM rates it at 318 ft/lb, so I think that should cover me (until the day I inevitably change my mind about the "no upgrading engine internals" thing :) ).

Ahh, gotcha. That's a good point -- I'll consider retaining some sort of voltage readout if I replace that cheapo voltmeter with something different.

lol I don't know what you're smoking with that 1st part, but it aint true unless you have a self-built ms and didn't set up the alt control properly.
Rev and Brain built ms' all have zero alternator issues, and nb alternators are not any worse than na ones even one bit.

I think you shoulda start with the last part: it wont hurt to have that gauge. but its more or less useless.
fantastic clutch. highly recommend

That's why we have people with their ECUs in the thread for Frank's board, right?

Even in stock form, i've seen a few threads where they fail in a bad way, and overvolt the shit out of everything.

I'm in the same boat, i wouldn't go out of my way to add one, but i wouldn't call it "useless."

1) re-read my post about self built
2) I've yet to see these threads you're talking about. Stop being a drama queen. Just be the regular queen that you are.
3) Agreed :)

Towards the end of September, after a two-month wait, Rev's MS3 finally arrived!

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1414096231

I'm not a patient person, so that two-month wait was probably the hardest thing I've ever done :) On to the installation!

I had already tee'd off a vacuum line, which is shared with the sender for my boost gauge.

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1414096231

I had ordered the wideband serial CAN bus interface with the MS3, so I soldered together a serial cable for the AEM wideband's serial output.

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1414096231

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1414096231

As long as I'm digging around under the dash, I'm going to eliminate the godawful rat's nest that the previous owner (or the dealer?) left when they installed the alarm.

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1414096231

Ahh, much better:

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1414096231

I ordered a 10' USB cable with a right-angle connector at the B end, since I knew space would be at a premium under the dash. I removed the factory ECU, and got the MS3 mounted up there with zip ties.

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1414096231

The serial wideband interface was fastened to the steering column.

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1414096231

I routed the USB cable under trim and carpets to the center console. From here, I use a 6' USB extension cable to connect it to my computer.

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1414096231

I also ordered a Switchcraft USB jack which would make for a pretty slick install in the little removable plate on the right side of the center console by the passenger's knees, but I'm not sure if I'll install it, because the existing setup is working quite well, and doesn't require any irreversible cutting.

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1414096231

Base timing set:

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1414096231

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1414096231

Now time for tuning. The car is still totally stock other than the MS3. Rev's base tune worked fairly well, but I decided to enable the Incorporate AFRTarget option, which required retuning the whole table. I used a spreadsheet to rescale the AFR target table to the same dimensions as the VE table, and to factor out the AFR from the VE values. From there, I've been running VEAL for about a week, and learning a lot about the process.

The first thing I learned is that you really need to be sure the car is in a fully steady-state condition before using VEAL. I knew VEAL has a filter that prevents it from working while the coolant is below 160 F, so I figured once it reaches that filter, it's fair game. So I'd tune during my 20 minute drive out in the morning, and it would do a bunch of leaning out of the table. Then I'd tune on the way home a few hours later, and suddenly I'd be running 18:1 AFRs and it would have to richen things back up.

Eventually I figured out that the morning tuning must be inaccurate -- better to wait to tune until I've been driving around for quite a while, and then tweak the warm-up enrichment etc to deal with the cold morning drives.

After a few weeks of tuning, here's the tables I'm at so far. I kept Rev's supplied tables which span up to 240 kPa, because the intention is to add the turbo kit within the next few months. Of course, that means that for now, I'm operating in just the bottom half of the table.

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1414096231

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1414096231

The AFR target and spark tables are completely untouched from Rev's initial base tune:

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1414096231

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1414096231

At this point, the car drives quite well -- feels great in all driving conditions I've encountered so far, and the AFRs are on target or a little rich. VEAL hasn't been having to make very significant changes lately, so I'm considering this close to done. I've now got my EGO control set to 20% authority, to help stay closer on target, and I did a little tuning of the PID EGO PID algorithm too.

I'm still keeping an eye on morning drives -- the WUE may need a little more attention, but it's not bad.

The only thing I'd still really like to improve is the initial cranking. With the factory ECU, it cranked for maybe a second and then started with confidence. With the MS3, it cranks longer before it catches (maybe 2 seconds), and then it kind of burbles up to idling speed over the next second or so. It has never failed to start, but it sure doesn't sound as good as the factory ECU did. But I haven't found much discussion of tuning cranking settings, so I'm still trying to do more learning before I fiddle with those settings.

As I continue saving up for the remaining parts (turbo kit, clutch, timing belt kit, new seals, etc), the next step will be to install the ID1000's I've already got on hand, and get the map retuned for the larger injectors. I understand this should be as simple as adjusting REQ_FUEL and doing some minor VEAL -- it'll be interesting to see if it's really as easy as they say :)

Winning! I like your little USB panel mount thing. It'll probably come out cleaner than mine:

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...1&d=1414097892

Round hole is going to be much easier to pretty up than my square one. Then again, I have no radio in my car so plenty of dash real estate for install.

I'm doing the same, running on the bottom half of the map for now. Also, you are going to need to change more than just req_fuel and VEAL if you are jumping from stock injectors to the 1000s, but I'm sure you knew that ;)

Good progress, keep moving forward!

Sweet build. Only thing I see, would be to ziptie the vacuum hoses. Use a zip tie like a hose clamp, it will help guarantee a hose never pops off, especially if the engine were to ever backfire or high boost. Ask me how I know....

Ah, nice, that's a good solution too. Yours actually might work better -- mine is just an adapter that needs a cable plugged into it, and based on the measurements I took of the space behind that little panel, I'm not totally sure there will be space for all that. Maybe with a 90-degree USB cable if I can find one. But your solution might be more compact.

My understanding is that the Injector Dynamics injectors are so well matched that they work well even down to low duty cycles, so it should work about the same as factory even down at idle. What else should I expect to have to tweak when I install the ID1000's?

Ah, interesting, I hadn't considered that. Did you zip tie every single vacuum connection in the engine?

Yes I did, on my miata and my subaru. Vac hose to fuel pressure regulator is super important for obvious reasons, and pops off on subarus at high boost all the time. It was literally the first reliability mod I did. I've done several since but that's basically easy and free. Did all the ones on miata of course, because 28 PSI

Well, I guess I'm wussing out. I've been battling the tune on the MS3 for a few weeks, and haven't been able to get it to behave in all conditions. That's not all of it -- I'm sure eventually, with a bunch of troubleshooting and research, I could get it sorted out, or I could take it to a professional tuner. But I've just been realizing the Miata really doesn't fit me so well. I'm a larger dude, and don't so much get into the Miata as I put it on. And of course with the Miata's minimal adjustability (steering wheel, seat height, etc), there's not much room to make it fit me better.

My Mini Cooper, on the other hand, fits me perfectly (it's one of the few cars I've owned where I don't have to move my seat all the way to the farthest back position, and still wish for more), and as a factory turbo car, it's already sorted out and runs smoothly with no issues. It's not quite as nimble as the Miata, and it's not quite as fast as the Miata would have been once I installed the turbo, but I've finally come to terms with the fact that I'd rather have a car that's 70% as nimble and 70% as fast but is comfortable and doesn't need any work :)

I still love driving the Miata, and in a perfect world, I'd keep the Miata too as a project/autox car, but my wife and I are gearing up to buy a minivan next year (tun tun tun), so I'll need to sell the Miata to put together a down payment for that. Hehe, so it goes. Selling the sports car to buy a minivan -- a story as old as time :)

This weekend I'll be returning the Miata to stock and then I'll be listing both it and all the parts I've accumulated (Rev MS3 w/digital wideband interface, AEM wideband, new in box ID1000's, compact subwoofer, etc) for sale. Feel free to message me if you're interested in any of those parts, no need to wait till I post a sale thread.