Joseph Conley

I've been around the forum for a little over a year and this thread is a couple months past due. It's been hard to work up the courage to start this thread because so many of you have amazing builds and honestly mine is pretty ghetto. I've made a post in the meet and great and it was pretty unspectacular. I don't expect much out of this one either.

I have watched many of you build simple DIY turbo'd cars and it's always something I thought I could do. So I figured I would give it a shot.
This past winter my fiancée at the time bought me the AHP AlphaTIG 200X on my recommendation after seeing the great results many of you had here.
I wanted to model my build after the MKTurbo as much as possible because of all the wonderful results documented here. Mine is based on a T25 over the T3 because I wanted to go with an SR20 turbo and since I still have a 1.6 I wanted the spool to be as good as possible. My exhaust is a full 3 inch without a cat or resonator and paired with everyone's favorite muffler. Aluminized steel with stainless vbands. Photo dump incoming.

Joseph Conley

Next set of photos is the intercooler piping. Its all 2.5 inch aluminized steel because I still suck at welding aluminum. Using the recommended Vibrant intercooler.

Joseph Conley

Here are some rough layouts of how stuff is run.

Joseph Conley

Custom wrench for water lines on turbo.


FM1 clutch

Joseph Conley

Before I swapped the clutch I ran with the SR20 turbo for a bit with the wastegate open and quickly learned it needed rebuilding. I didn't want the car to be undrivable during this time so I bought an ebay turbo. The spool is ok. Will post logs later.
Here is what it currently looks like.

Joseph Conley

My plans for the future are to continue driving the car as is for the rest of summer slowing tweaking and adjusting things as needed. Build an MS3x this winter. Next summer search for VVT motor and turn up the boost until the 1.6 breaks. So many things I will change on the next go around. I opted to stay with the 1.6 for now because I wanted to learn how to do things and it made sense to learn on a motor no one cares about.

ryansmoneypit

iTrader: (6)

Great work dude. Was this your excuse to learn to tig? What are you using for fuel control?

shuiend

iTrader: (24)

Looks good. Hopefully you found it easy to copy my setup. This is exactly how you DIY it and do it on the cheap.

Joseph Conley

Thank you. I wanted a turbo Miata, that was my excuse. Used MS2e currently, cause cheap. Looking back I should have just bought an MS3X but I was worried about getting over my head and it seemed like the easier path if I wanted to get out.

Thank you. I did, I basically saved all the photos from all the threads involving an MKTurbo setup and looked back at those while building mine. One major advantage is the Vband on the turbo, so much simpler than the T25 flange. I really appreciate all the effort you when through because it made my life so much easier.

Joseph Conley

Here is a virtual dyno I did yesterday. I am guessing on the weight of the car. No ps/ac, roll bar, kirkey seats, torsen, 6uls.



I attempted to attach the log of the pull. If it didn't attach or don't want to open the here is some spool data:
I had trigger logging enabled and the set point was 60% TPS. At 65% TPS I was at 1739 RPM and was at full throttle at 1800 rpm, was shooting for 2000 rpm but clearly, I was excited.
1800 : 105 kPa = 0.7 psi
2046 : 115 kPa = 2.1 psi
2379 : 122 kPa = 3.2 psi
2665 : 129 kPa = 4.2 psi
2794 : 136 kPa = 5.2 psi
2914 : 143 kPa = 6.2 psi
3016 : 150 kPa = 7.2 psi
3126 : 157 kPa = 8.2 psi
3259 : 164 kPa = 9.2 psi
Boost tapers here until 4229 RPM when I start to creep.
I creep to 191 kPa (13 psi) and stay there for the remainder of the pull. I have already ported this turbo wastegate once but left plenty on the bones because it was my first time doing so. Looks like I need to revisit that.
Overall I think I can be pretty happy with the spool for a 1.6 with a turbo that's probably a bit too big. I'm using basically a stock ignition map.

18psi

iTrader: (76)

I honestly wouldn't bother porting any more. In fact, I'd probably just turn up the boost and even it out so it's 13 everywhere.

Joseph Conley

Ok, I guess I was just worried that if I turn up the boost more, Ill get even worse creep.
Is that logic flawed?
If I creep to 13 and boost holds there does that basically mean that's the upper limit of my creep?

18psi

iTrader: (76)

I've seen rare occasions where what you're proposing happening, but rarely and only if there's another problem too. But for the most part, and according to design, it shouldn't. An MBC, or properly tuned closed loop EBC specifically works around a problem such as this. Plenty of small turbo 1.6's to 14 even 15psi without any issues, because look at how little power/torque you're actually making.

Joseph Conley

alright cool, thanks for the info. I'll do some more research and give it a shot.

Joseph Conley

So I finally wired up sequential injection. I know I should have done it from the start but was too scared of messing it up. I figured if I could turbo the car, I could add two freaking wires. It really was quite simple. In case anyone who hasn't done it yet comes across this, this is what I did.
I bought two of these Injector Connector Kit. Ballenger Motorsports is awesome and has a compiled list of Miata connectors. I found it in the connector witch-hunt thread but gonna post it again here. Also borrowed a from work for the connectors in the kit. I have an MS2e so I needed to switch some stuff around for it.

The car idles so much better now, and smoother. The AFR also walks a considerable bit less now. I was expecting all of this but was still surprised. Haven't got much road time on it yet to dial in the tune.

Joseph Conley

I decided I hated my ugly TPS bracket and hi_im_sean was gracious enough to give us his design so I figured I would print one.

Joseph Conley

Installed some sport brakes this past weekend that I got from turbofan. I knew they were gonna be bigger than my stock NA6 brakes but damn! The new rear rotors are bigger than the old front rotors.

mj1176

Great thread, very helpful for those of us trying to DIY our way to a turbo 1.6. I'm thinking about a T25 too, are you planning on a dyno visit once everything is done? I'd be excited to see.

Joseph Conley

Thanks. Turbo'd 5000 miles+ and I do not plan on visiting a dyno. I would rather put that money towards an MS3x or K series. Not worth it on a 1.6 IMO.

Schroedinger