project ride the cheekbone
 

Howdy folks.

It seems like most threads I've read start out with a bit of background, so here it goes!

Before I start, I'd like to thank ryansmoneypit, brain, shuiend, thirdgen 18psi, aidan, sean, borka, rev, and too many other people to list for being as patient as MT allows and answering questions that I had after reading old threads and posts. Y'all are great.

I started medical school in 2015 and spent some time in Asia the summer before I started. I caught the motorcycle bug in Vietnam, along with a pretty awesome case of cellulitis, but that's a story from another time. I had some money set aside for a car and ended up getting a cheaper DD to buy a motorcycle and ended up with an SV650. I had a blast with it, but I caught the mod bug. I hadn't really worked on anything before so I read lots of forums, talked to a bunch of helpful folks on facebook and ended up going from this when I got it:

https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...1ada0a175c.jpg


(Don't mind that guy. He's just some random Indian kid I found on the street. Not too hard to do in med school.)
(Okay, so maybe it's me.)
to this, broken down on the side of the road during my first road trip on the damn thing. Battery worked itself loose and I had no tools. Got lucky that a guy in a crazy dune buggy was driving by and helped me out.

https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...75f5af1836.jpg

Some street bike surgery ensued.

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...5d12f800b4.jpg
https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...cb158bbf56.jpg

With an end result of this after a front and rear end swap, rear shock swap, bar swap, and a few other things.

https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...790c6451d7.jpg


https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...4f2d6d8db5.jpg

The bike was an absolute blast to ride, but I didn't have much occasion to ride it anywhere. I'd ride it to my GF's place an hour away a few times, but highway rides were boring. To be honest, the exhaust was too loud for me and didn't really help the experience all that much. I ended up selling the bike at the end of summer while entertaining the idea of learning to drive manual and getting a car that would give a fun open air experience with my gf that refused to get on the back of the damn bike.

No miata pictures.....?

Broken already.

Patience!

Enter this NB1 base I found locally. Seller was asking a reasonable amount for a car that had been cared for, had no rust, and had 105k miles on it. Seemed pretty workable!

https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...fe406d6ed9.jpg


https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...8a941be58c.jpg


I had a shop check it out, got the seal of approval, and went for it. The seller was a middle aged woman selling it because her second son was going to college and she wanted to free up some cash. I could probably have talked her down a bit, but she came and delivered the car and I didn't want to make a futz about it. My gf was over at the time and freaked out and all of us hung out and had a glass of wine after the deal.

2005 called they want their wheels back...
In all seriousness I'm on the south shore if you need anything, always looking to meet more MT.net people

Yeah, I'm honestly not a fan of the wheels. They're pretty ugly, though similar to how the new 4C wheels look. Unfortunately, they're also pretty friggin heavy as well as being 16's... On the bright side I believe they're 6.5 wide, so they have a decent width for a street car. I've been talking to a forum member that's thinking of selling his 15x8 wheels. I'm a bit over budget right now in terms of things, but I think that it's something I should probably do.

Welp, I was out of class over this past summer (RIP final summer) and started hanging out with some subaru mechanics and misfits and started learning to wrench a bit. I daily an 02 TS, otherwise I wouldn't have been attempting this build.

https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...a819fb1a53.jpg

Subaru shenanigans:

https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...421377b63d.jpg


I'd laid out my plans for all the things I'd wanted to do in this thread: https://www.miataturbo.net/general-m...u-think-90818/

The plan was to go NA first and then take the time to assemble go fast parts and do a build at some point. Well, 2nd year of med school sucks. I take a test in April next year that pretty much determines a lot of ish. Last winter, working on the bike was an awesome way to get my mind off things and since one of the subie guys has a miata and knows them pretty well we decided that we could push up the timeline. I'm pretty grateful for his basically being a solid friend and offering to help with pretty much everything in exchange for beer and wings. No mouth hugs though, he's a bit young for me.

So since I had a base nb1, one of the first things I wanted to do when I was still in 'NA' mode, was to get a header. I bought an NB2 RB 4-1 header with the matching egr tube and got that in. The process took a week because I have shit tools and I ended up having to dremel off one of the bolts connecting the front pipe to the header.

Here's the car enjoying some air time:

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...a4b491d8f9.jpg

My folks live in the philly/trenton area, so on a trip home I decided to check craigslist on a whim and ended up going and buying a TDR heat shield, used (claimed 5-10k miles) FM clutch with a 13lb flywheel, and a 4.3 torsen to replace my open diff. Sadly, I don't think I have any pictures of us doing the torsen swap, but it was a fun affair. Was luck to have 2 friends helping and Chris had his impact so it went pretty well all things considered.

2 days after the swap I noticed diff fluid on my garage floor. A freakout ensued. Turns out we never bothered to double check the fill plug tightness... Whoops. I drained and refilled the fluid and called it a day. Luckily it wasn't running low, but that could have been ugly! Crisis averted!

Unfortunately, I had a minor fender bender in the fall, when I tapped someone cutting into my lane in one of the worst intersections ever designed. I pulled the bonehead move of not really getting his contact info and he balked when my insurance contacted him.

Damage was minimal, but the already bad clear on the front was made worse and the side of the bumper needs to be looked at.

https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...7dc4b5fad0.jpg
https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...2a5a91f287.jpg

I also bought the stuff I needed to go all 'Chris Fix' on the headlights. I think it would help a lot.

Alright, that's it for the history posts.

Here's where things start now. After Chris offered to help with the turbo build, I figured it would be a good long drawn out project for the winter that I could toy with a bit while studying.

We checked compression and it ran 170, 170, 165, 180 from 1 through 4. So the next step was to start collecting parts.

I already have a torsen and a clutch waiting to be put in. I'm hoping to be able to adapt the TDR heat shield blanket for the turbo.

Goals: I'm running stock internals. I don't know how to rebuild the engine yet, so I want to keep things safe. Hopefully I'll be able to do the rods and maybe even pistons in the next year or two. I've read that the engine and the 5 speed trans start getting unhappy past 250 rwhp/220rwtq. Is that about accurate? I'd like to stay below that, so maybe 220-230 rwhp and 200 rwtq? Should be doable on this setup, right?

So now for the turbo and other parts:

-ECU: MS3X from the man himself, Scott.
-Turbo setup: It's essential a journal bearing garrett 2560 with an EWG and Tial BOV. The manifold and DP are FM. Bought from Thirdgen. (EDIT: It's a 38 mm Tial water cooled EWG, 'SON')
-Exhaust setup: 2.5 FM setup with a resonator and cat. Bought from Borka. I've read all the 3 inch threads, but the price was right.
-Koyo radiator: Bought from Matt Miner (Wicked Matt)
-Injectors: I bought mustang take offs from a V8 on ebay and bought the force flow adapters. I figured that a running car would be a safe bet. Claimed take off was at sub 10k miles, so should be solid. My friend Chris can use the remaining 4 for his build.
-Coolant reroute: Bought from bandit
-Fuel pump: Wahlbro 255LPH-HP bought from Thumpetto007
-Intercooler: NOS FAB9 stage 1 bought from Chillicharger
-Wideband and gauge: AEM UEGO bought from Yankee.

I'll post pictures of the turbo setup I got!

https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...1b489b24f0.jpg
https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...5a92f7831d.jpg
https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...23d5b7bbba.jpg

Few questions:
I should probably buy a boost gauge and a coolant/oil temp gauge right?

Does anyone have recs for IC piping? I've read the ebay IC thread, but I don't have that exact IC. Does anyone with the vibrant stage 1 IC want to chime in and let me know what they did? Or just refer me to your build thread. I'm hoping to keep AC and PS.

I also bought a set of the front sport brakes and am planning to buy rear adapters since I've read that the stock 1.8 rears have better pad availability than the sport brakes. Ryansmoneypit provided some solid feedback.
I'm also thinking of swapping away from the stock suspension, though I don't hate it so this could wait. I've read the budget bilstein thread and I was wondering there's a go to shock for that? Is there any benefit over the stock yellows vs the msm vs the hard s? I have access to the MSM and hard S for about 200 a full set. Trying to see if it's worth building up a set of coilovers if I have to buy the shocks. Seems like most people going this route already have the stock bilsteins.

Plan for now is to get some maintenance out of the way: TB/WP and accessory belts/gaskets, install reroute and new radiator, do the clutch job, then install the megasquirt once things are running well and put a couple of hundred miles on it with the stock setup and get it idling and potentially driving a bit with the mustang injectors. After that, the car is likely going to get parked for a while as the turbo and intercooler and everything is installed. I'm hoping to keep rust away and we've started getting salt on the roads. I know going out in stuff once or twice won't destroy things, but I don't want to take too many risks!

That's it for me for tonight. Thanks for contributing advice and all the awesome help and resources on here.

Good choice on getting the car running on the MS first. Learning from my mistakes?

Definitely good a boost gauge. I have been running without a coolant/oil temp gauge, however I do have an open spot for one. Definitely get a wideband. Matt will pretty much require one for tuning, as its one of the most important gauges to have!

Thanks man!

How's your car running right now? I remember reading through your build thread a while ago and reading that you were having a bunch of issues!

Haha, yeah trying to learn anyway! I've read so many build threads it's all starting to meld together. I've even started saving posts in a word doc when I think someone does something I want to refer to later. So much information!

I have an AEM UEGO waiting to go in with the MS. I'm probably going to add the boost gauge and the coolant/oil gauge in time, but trying to figure out an order of operations so to speak. I had an issue with the CAS going bad when I was driving on the GWB with my GF. Had all sorts of weird misfire/overheating issues going on then. Trying to avoid that by being able to keep track of things. The dash coolant temp is okay to see if things are within normal limits, but I think oil temp will be a good idea.
With an EWG and a BOV, I feel like overboost or boost creep should be pretty limited since anything over the springs capacity should just vent out, right?

Woo!

Got a few goodies!

https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...ca6c1543ba.jpg

It's so purdyyy!

https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...0dbf1b2d8d.jpg

Now I have everything for the DIY FF's.
https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...c892cfa384.jpg

solid start :)

Padawon is listening. lookin good, the boost shall be strong with this one.

Thanks for all the kind words.

Next order of business is figure out what to do about suspension. I want to do a DIY coilover setup on bilsteins... except they're not stock on my car. Trying to figure out if it makes sense to buy billies to do that to or just buy another setup like used tokico illuminas and FM springs or something else used. Vmaxx's are about 650, but if the billies and required parts end up costing 500+ then I'm not sure where the benefit is.

I'll do my homework on price over the next day or so and figure out what parts would run. My stock nb1 base shocks are probably blown at 105k miles. The MSM shocks I can get for 200 have 70k miles on them. Should be a pretty big improvement from stock even if I end up not doing the coilovers yet, eh?

I should probably get a shifter turret rebuild kit too at this mileage, huh? Doubt it's ever been done before.

If you want to really cheap out, look into takenoff billies from Spec Miatas. My friend has picked up six of them for a grand total of $190.

They are the NA HD ones though, so not quite as good damping as the MSM.

The advantage of going MSM is that I can run the setup as is and still have an improvement from stock if I run out of money and run them as is. Apparently folks also like buying the MSM springs, so could sell them to add a bit more to the funds for the coilover setup.

If you can find used Tokico/FM springs for an NB I would take those over all the other ones you listed in a heart beat. Well as long as this is a street car.

Should've bought those V Maxx's...

It'll see some autocross duty, but it's never going to be a track car. It'll cost too much to do all the prep and actually run the car.

Oh hey! It's the patron saint of this build! I was wondering when you'd find this thread!

Some more things that I should try not to break showed up.

Oh hurroooo!

https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...385225fd40.jpg

Thanks brain for the MS3X!

Intercooler showed up today as well.
https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...19ace0b1b1.jpg


Hello vibrant core slash old school fab9 setup!
https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...ae5dd8d9f2.jpg


Got the exhaust today. The midpipe is MIA for now. I'm guessing that it'll decide to show up on monday or tuesday.
https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...c0fde1c6ac.jpg

Post #8 is incorrect. It's not a Tial bov. It's a Tial MV-S 38mm water cooled external wastegate SON.

That's it. I want my money back.

YOU SAID IT WAS A BOV!


(Sorry, lol. My bad.)

Thirdgen, want to explain how slash why you built the turbo the way you did?

As long as I can get Slash's autograph...and his top hat.

I had a ball bearing turbo fail and it wasn't pretty. I had 3 journal bearing turbos on my car, and they were amazingly dependable. I had a pile of SR20 parts, and I came across a blown ball bearing 2560. I took the compressor from that and the wheel, machined the sr20 CHRA to accept the 2560 wheel. I rebuilt the CHRA from the sr20 journal bearing unit, welded the wastegate on the turbine shut for external use. You now own a sr20 CHRA/ turbine, with a gt2560 compressor and wheel.

Going to try not to break these when I attempt to make DIY bilstein coil overs.


​​​​​​https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...1d7587f17c.jpg

Just matched the MT.net user with the FB profile, I can't wait to see this car finished. My car is doing ok, just picked up a hard top and fixed my whiney noise issue so hopefully I can start to put the miles on it. My build thread is pretty outdated though. Who are you going to have tune this thing? Like I said if you ever need help me, nate, and jimmy are always around.

Being somewhat risk averse... I'm really debating whether I should just learn to do the rods or pay to have them done so I can rest a little bit easy that the engine will stay happy.

Goal is to have the car boosted and running by March/April. I think that fits the timeline. And I really want to try not to break things.

I guess sixshooter was right. Maybe the thread title needs to be changed to 'RTC overthinks trying not to break things'.

Thanks man! I'll definitely reach out to you. Always a good time to make more miata friends!

If you don't learn, you'll never learn.

But, I guess if your a wrench retard, then I dunno.

It's mostly that it's completely uncharted territory and I have no concept of where to begin and how much tune it would take. That and needing an engine hoist and stand lol.

I guess it's time to start googling and reading.

I can always start low and do this when it comes time to do more boost.

I'm shooting for 2x stock rwhp right now, so 220-230. Totally fine having that as a high point and running lower boost for 200rwhp 90% most of the time, especially on hot summer days when the AC is on.

Stand and crane- The harbor of freights. Wait till a sale or something and you can probably walk out with both for $200 ish. Or borrow?

Piston engines are nothing complicated inside. Read, and post progress here and we can help along the way. Its really best to get a spare motor if you haven't yet, so you can take your time with it.

Throwing a rod through your block is a right of passage. You have to do it at least once :party:

But seriously, unless your rods are already weak from misuse they should handle 220-230hp just fine if you're street driving. Mine held up around 210hp on the track for almost 2 years until I went from 5th to 2nd on the front straight of Daytona and threw a rod.

For the HF engine hoist. Goto any local book store and head to the magazine section. Look for a Super Street, or other ricer magazines. They should all have a coupon in them for the 1ton hoist for $99. Then go back to HF separate times with the 20% off coupon to get the engine stand and engine leveler.

you're*

Do any build threads go through it if you can recall one off the top of your head... or if someone reading has done it and posted a walkthrough say hi!

Yeah, looks like the cheap stand and hoist can be had for about 200-250. The bigger issue is that I rent and my landlord has made it known that he's not happy about us working on shit down there. He's mostly worried about damage and oil stains though, so if I cover up the ground with tarp or something it shouldn't really be an issue. Planning on laying tarp under the car when working on the turbo stuff as well. He's just really obnoxious to deal with and someone from their family is always around.

I don't want that rite of passage :(

And yeah, street and autocross. Like I said, I'm okay riding around with the bewst turned down for most applications.

That's good to know about it holding up to abuse on the track for that long at a moderate power level!


Oy vey, this guy.

Jay kay, thanks for letting me bother you on facebook!

I was reading philly miata's build thread (https://www.miataturbo.net/build-thr...-thread-91515/) and there's some discussion regarding the fuel pressure regulators and return less systems.

Is the NB1 return less system going to cause issues when tuning? What's the benefit of converting this to a return system? I have a source for the eudm fuel rail and regulator and I'm trying to figure out what the benefit of doing this will be and if it's necessary for a build like this one or if it just adds another complication and headache. Thanks Sean for the heads up on this.

I already have a 255lphp fuel pump. I've read that the issue with these can be too much fuel pressure at idle. Is that still an issue with the MS3X? Was that the reason folks were considering the return system?

Here's a thread where I found most of the information I'm going off of: https://www.miataturbo.net/diy-turbo...l-style-74629/

Everything will be fine. Don't over think it.

Lol

You are seriously overthinking everything. Get the MS in and tuned. Get the turbo kit on and tuned. Then you can start adding more complex bits one at a time. If you try to take care of everything all at once you will end up having way too many changed variables all at once and diagnosing any problems will become a nightmare.

Read the forum they said... There's lots of information out there they said...

Haha, I'll chill the fuck out and stick with the original plan. I don't want to end up with this thing sitting on jack stands for the next two years because I ran out of time and motivation. I'd rather drive this thing with less power than run out of time trying to do everything.

I'm reminded of the first year medical or psychiatric student who thinks they have symptoms of every disorder they learn of...

Lol.

Hey now, I'm a second year med student. What that basically means is that I have more knowledge then sense, aka just enough knowledge to be dangerous. This is why we're not allowed to run around the hospital unsupervised yet. I'm mostly being facetious, but I have a few thoughts about medical education and I think this is one of the things they do well.

Regarding having symptoms etc. I know you're kidding, but I am the total opposite of that lol. I walked around with cellulitis in my foot for a week till I was concerned enough to send a picture to my aunt who freaked out and made me start taking antibiotics that very minute because I was in vietnam. I also had malaria when I worked in Uganda so that was fun.

The only thing I guess I did this for is for thyroid stuffs. I thought I was having symptoms and it runs in my family. Just saw an endocrine doc today and it looks like something might be going on. Oh well.

How's your head? Hope that nasty case of the spins is over.

Also, isn't 'allofit' the only reasonable answer when deciding what to do?

The force is strong with this one.


It is starting to look like it's migraine related vertigo. Possibly easily treatable.

Edit : Nope.

One hundred percent loss of inner ear function on left side due to vestibular neuritis. Likely due to a virus. Small outside chance it is from shingles due to having chicken pox in 9th grade but more likely just a local virus contracted recently. 60 percent chance of zero recovery on that side, 40ish percent virus is defeated and recovery occurs. I get to relearn how to do everything with half the inner ear balance inputs from here forward. Congrats.

Fucking hell man I'm sorry. Did it come on all at once and surprise you?

Ugh.

Sitting on the sofa having a beverage about 9pm and within a couple of minutes feel like I had several beverages more than I did. It feel a lot like being stumbling drunk all the time, minus the slow reaction times part. And it makes me fatigued because of the extra work my brain is putting in.

Shit six, I'm sorry to hear it. I must've missed where this was mentioned elsewhere. Hope that 40% chance works out.

RTC, your current goals will be fine with the stock returnless system. When you're ready for over 300 whp, look at doing a return system.

Thanks, buddy.

Good health is a gift. My issue is an inconvenience. I know a 10yr old girl with bone cancer. Perspectives change as you draw the curtain back wider.

But sincere thanks for sure.

Oh, I hear you there. My brother had bone cancer (and survived) when he was 2 years old. But it still sucks.

Bookmarking this here for future reference re: return fuel system for nb1.

https://www.miataturbo.net/showpost.php?p=1364807&postcount=78

Before coming to med school, I used to do research in a spine surgery and orthopedic oncology clinic. Anddd today I saw a little girl that had cancer at age 2 and has probably spent a good chunk of her life getting cut open and recovering from various surgeries and treatments.

That said, I think it's great to keep things in perspective, but you can still do that while being cognizant that your situation sucks too. Then again, I'm constantly puzzled by stoics because I've seen patients like this guy who had a history of cancer show up because he couldn't do his job anymore since he couldn't raise his arm. This was the first time he came back to see us. Turns out it had been going on for months. At the point of time that he showed up tumor had metastasized all over the damn place...

I'll cross my fingers for you man. Hopefully you end up having the best possible recovery.

On a more thread related note: parts have been trickling in. I got a TB/WP kit with all the fixins from ebay. The seller that usually deals in pretty high volume stuff actually took the time out to customize everything for me and added a few parts here and there that I wanted that wasn't included in the kit. Price was still fantastic. I didn't get the gates racing kit because I didn't think it was worth the extra cost given that I'd still change the TB at the same time interval and because I've heard mixed things. The radiator hoses etc also came in from Treasure Coast Miata. I decided to swap them out because pressing the front hose led to all sorts of nice 'crunch' noises. I showed the car to a mechanic friend and he said that the vacuum lines looked fine so I'm leaving them the hell alone for now.

I think my friend Chris (96morbst on here) and Forrest are heading over on weds next week to help get the car prepped. Goal is to tear down stuff on tuesday night/weds AM, then do the TB/WP/Radiator/Hoses/Coolant reroute.... Hopefully that's not going overboard with everything! I'm also hoping that we can install the wideband and megasquirt if the car starts up okay and everything checks out. I think that's unlikely, but hopefully we'll be able to do that the following week. If I can have that all done sometime in early jan, I can start learning to tune for a few months on the NA application and get the bigger injectors etc working. We'll probably end up swapping clutches at some point, but I'm okay waiting on that until after we install the turbo because the plan is to keep things running on low boost for a bit and tune and take care of issues as they come up instead of jumping from NA to 10 psi or what have you. I didn't really want to drive the car out in the winter, but I can probably play it by ear and pick a few nice days when it's not wet out even if there's some salt on the road. I definitely don't want to mess this car up with rust etc!

I haven't been doing too much research or reading too much right now because I'm in the middle of finals. Had a gnarly exam yesterday morning and I have an exam on tuesday that covers about 6 months worth of material. I honestly didn't think I was capable of working this hard. I wake up every morning wondering if my brain is going to be too damn full to do anything, but it somehow keeps absorbing school stuff. I definitely think I'm becoming dumber in every other facet of life though!

Started the maintenance part of this project with a metric ton of assistance. Thanks again Chris (aka 96morbst).

Wanted to get the tb, wp, radiator, and coolant reroute done today, but we ran out of time. Got the TB/WP done and put the valve cover back on in order to finish things up on tuesday when we have more time.

Some pictures:

https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...6ec9378139.jpgValve cover is off and away we go!
https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...e8aa87cbd2.jpgNeeded to get the undertray off. Turns out that the previous owner or a shop she took the car to cut off a panel under the undertray to get the fogs out. In order to reach the undertray bolts, I did a favor to the other side and evened it out.
https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...efb44da5a7.jpgTDC bitches.
https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...bacc1feab4.jpgChris teaching me how to do shit.
https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...7f43a0154a.jpgChris cursing at the timing belt
https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...321bb5b5bd.jpgYes, that is a desk lamp being used to light my engine bay.

So I have the fm exhaust and downpipe. A downpipe would be really expensive to have made, but I'm curious what it would run to have a local shop make a 3 inch exhaust using the muffler that folks on here love.

I wonder if it would be worth it to sell the exhaust I have and have the 3 inch one made up. I don't care about power as much as spool. I wonder how big of a difference it would make.

It was worth a decent amount on my setup. like 400rpm or something crazy.

Guess who has a mig welder :party:

I would imagine a lot of people do, including myself.

For some wheely big decisions:

What do folks think of the ND sport wheels (16x6.5) on an NB1? I found some locally for a reasonable price (~300-350 with tires). Other alternative would be avids for a similar amount in 15x8. Both sets of wheels weigh about 16lbs per wheel.

Here are the avids. Probably have about 2k miles on the direzzas:

https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...42e83ca5fc.jpg

ND Sport wheels and probably have about 500 miles on the stock ND tires.
https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...d22b2aa07e.jpg

One of the reasons I'm trying to get new wheels is because the tires on my current wheels are pretty shot. I don't want to have to buy new tires for the wheels at this point because I'll be committing to the wheels for a bit longer. I doubt they'd sell for anything and I see that as a bit of a waste of money when I could spend about a 100 bucks more and get lighter wheels and decent tires. I'm actually not even sure what the tire size is on the wheels I have now. I should probably price out tires. I can't see it being less than like 200 bucks to buy the tires and have them installed though.


I meant only the exhaust though, not the midpipe or downpipe. Local shop quoted like 1200 bucks for the midpipe and exhaust which is way too much. Price was about 300 for the exhaust. If I can get just the 3 inch magnaflow and exhaust setup was that worth 400 rpm or are you saying that it was 3 inch from downpipe back that was worth 400rpm? For a street car that sounds really awesome. I don't usually wrangle the car too much on the street, so hitting a solid amount of boost by 3-3.5k would be really nice. I guess this is also something I can do in the future, i.e. run this setup for a while and then do stuff later. Since it's not getting installed for a bit, I figured I might as well list the exhaust on craigslist and see if anyone bites. If the cost evens out then, hey... why not.

DON'T GET GROUNDED DAMMIT!

But I'm intrigued...

I went from 3" dp with 2.5(ish)" exhaust. to full 3". Gained a lot of spool

Don't put 16's on your car, especially 16's that are only 6.5" wide.
15x8's minimum is what you need. Run a 205/50 tire.

Maybe don't get boat anchor 15x8's? You have many, many affordable choices in ~12 lb 15x8's. Konigs (dial in, flatout, hypergram, wideopen, helix... probably others...), 6UL, advanti storms, Tirerack has wheels that are in that range for cheap...

The ND sport wheels would look and work fine, but it's not exactly a performance setup.

What's that tire rack wheel that some people run? That's his style, and they're on the cheap side.

c3m. Or Kosei K8.

oh never mind, C3m is 15x9 only. C1m is 15x7. K8r is 15x9, under 13 lbs, and on sale on tirerack at $105/wheel.