mkturbo kit review
 

Mkturbo kit review.

Mods are as follows:
Mkturbo intercooled kit with oil feed lines. I did not acquire the complete kit with the ms3 or injectors from him.
Flowforcec 660cc injectors
Megasquirt 3 pro pnp tuned by NUR performance 230whp
Ebay radiator
Mishimoto fans
Eagle rods
Wiseco pistons
ARP heads
ATI fluiddamper
FM happy meal clutch
FM rebuild kit
Aem wideband
Turbosmart boost gauge
EBC
Complete block refinish and valvetrain adjustment (all new top to bottom)
New oem mazda oil pump
New oem mazda water pump
New oem mazda alternator
Resealed and flushed 5speed

car is a 2003 5speed lsd (oem vvt etc)
complete top and bottom end rebuild. everything was replaced.

machine shop: total engine concepts
builder 1kmotorsports
tuner: NUR performancec
my instagram: mx5lammed

Lars I know you will see this and it shouldn’t come as surprise….For the review of mkturbo. My opinion is don’t waste your money. I ordered the mkturbo kit about February to start piecing it with everything together. The day after I ordered the kit lars personally showed up at my door with the kit in hand, well almost all of the kit. He forgot to bring one very small piece of the kit but it was specifically noted in our deal. The piece was an intake. So not overly critical, just nice to have. No biggie he said he would throw one in the mail. Well since the car was not going to be running or a while I put it to the back of my mind and just hoped a package would arrive. I sent him a message or two that the car was about to be running and to see if he could get the intake to me and he confirmed all my details but it never showed up. At this point he had 3 months to get it to me.

The car did finally get running and on the dyno with no intake. But after 2 days of driving the turbo exploded in a fashion that my builder or tuner have never seen before. The impeller totally self destructed. I let lars know because the car had only been driven on the dyno and less than 50 miles on the street. I know that the turbo he selected is cheap and others have good success with it but I must have had the shortest life out of anyone! He said he would be able to source another one. Ok great I left him alone to do his thing, some time went by and I sent a follow up because I didn’t want it to go months again and he has not responded since then. maybe 2-3 weeks now.

Anyway as far as the kit is concerned specifically, I was initially thrilled to see everything show up in one pile but closer inspection of the kit shows it is not perfect. We know the china charger is cheap and we can decide to use one or not (needs to be ported, flapper, problems preload problems major headache). But the kit that lars creates himself that should be where your money is going right. WRONG. The exhaust vbands he sends are one time use ebay junk. The exhaust sections all have leaks because his vband couplers don’t have interlocking lips just flat mating surfaces. So everywhere a vband connects there is a leak. There is some clearance issues too and we had to bend it to clear the rear cross member. The blow off valve is junk and is one giant boost leak. The spot where he welded it on hits on the oem fans and belts It is not in a good spot. you will need a mishimoto slimline fans. The log manifold that he welded is not cleanly welded and needed to be ported. The coupler into the throttle body fouls very severely on the upper radiator hose.

So the only thing that really fits well with no modification is the intercooler piping and oil line kit, and that’s if you don’t decide to reweld the BOV.

So my bottom end did survive the shrapnel explosion. my plan is to redo the entire cold side with a completely custom version that my local builder should have done in the first place. I have already purchased a new intercooler because the mkturbo one acted a filter for impeller blades.I drop an ATP turbo to avoid any of the turbo headaches again. The exhaust will be also need to be all re welded to seal it correctly.

Hope this helps anyone looking at this kit. Its not really worth the time too much custom work is needed to fix the sub quality work. buy his oil line kit and that’s it.

of note the old oem fuel pump did fine, but i did order a dw200 as well.

You have a message.

I've had an mk turbo kit for over two years. Everything fit and has performed fine. The only problem I ever had was a leaky oil line. I use my car as a daily driver, against many peoples advise.

Early buyer here on the original group buy. No fitment problems, no leaky joints and I ran the turbo for 2 years. Sold the car and the other owner is on the back end of his 1st year with the original turbo and no other kit related issues.

You drove a turbo car with no air filter, it ate something and exploded. Your fault. Sorry.

Talking about having a shop build a new custom turbo, means you are going to spend 8k not 4. Maybe that was the direction you should have gone in the first place, if you were going to be critical of every detail. I knew I was going to be that way, and thats why I chose to do build my own turbo myself.

I say lucky for you you chose a vendor always known to do the right thing regardless of monetary cost, unlike some other Miata vendors.

Did I understand that you had the turbo in place without the compressor being connected to the throttle body inlet? Or did you mean that the compressor was connected to the throttle body but the inlet to the compressor was missing it's filtration?

If the former, then the exhaust powering the turbo with no resistance on the compressor side would cause the turbo to spin much more quickly than it was designed to operate which would rapidly destroy the bearings. If the latter, then the possibility of foreign object damage is very real.

In either case I would suggest that it was an error in judgment to attempt to operate the vehicle with a partially installed kit. This is like operating it without a functioning oil drain. Incomplete is incomplete. It was not ready to be operated regardless of your impatience with the process.

As for your complaints about the V bands, I have used previously and am currently using flat face V bands without issue. And I have found in my experience of assembling and disassembling multiple times that rotating the pipes slightly at the V band joints can significantly affect fitment. If they are not sealing for you then you likely have them at an imprecise angle. I'm not saying that the assembly as delivered was perfect, but when things are built on a jig they don't vary much at all and others seem to have had less trouble with their installations. I, for instance, have an MK Turbo downpipe-back exhaust and have no complaints with fitment.

FWIW I ran into a lot of the same issues you did with my FM kit. Things fit funny, real turbo Garret needed to be gone through, modifications needed to be made. I just figured that was part and parcel of piecing together a turbo system (even if it is a kit) on a car not originally designed for it.

The car went on the dyno with no filter, but when i took it on the street i threw a filter on. The car has no fender liners or rain tray.

The "fitment" was ok meaning not alot of cutting needed to happen. But the details is where the quality shines. My biggest gripe being the upper radiator hose fouling, the exhaust leaks, a single weld on the collector, and the BOV fouling and leaky.

The BOV required getting new fans to fit but the quity of it is sub par.

I would not expect a real turbo to need modding thats why im not even mad about having to deal with it. I knew about it before hand.

If you aren't mad, then why publicly blast the maker of the kit? The willingness to send it to the shop to have it redone, leads me to believe that you dont like fiddling around with stuff. Understandable, but also unrealistic for basically the cheapest complete kit money can buy.

lars sent me a message that he used male to female in the past but not currently due to vender issues...

the car had a filter on it. i made my own. just not used on the dyno...

this was my experience... if you were shopping for this kit what wouldn't you want to know real world experience and take away to make it work nicely?

i've stated facts that i had to deal with, and i made a few opinions to things i would change if he is to continue to deliver kits. I will re state...

One ugly weld on the collector that may or may not affect flow. He has a cast one in the works...problem solved!! and that would make it stronger and not crack like every other welded manifold on the market.

BOV quality and fitment. i would have liked a nicer one so there is no boost leaks. It didnt bolt on without modification required (fans replaced). i'm going to reroute it so it sits in a more open spot for my application anyway.

cupler on the throttle body has severe clearance issues on upper radiator hose,...different ways to approached better fitment..

exhaust leaks at all joints, due to most likely poor vband quality and flat vband surface, even though they are lined up perfectly (nicer vbands and male to female vband recommended)

chinacharger turbo... lots of info on these forums. its a risk you have to be willing to take... known drawbacks, lots of labor needed to get it to work and apparently not long lasting at all. plenty of posts about these failing in 50-1000 miles.

My last problem being a slight delay in communication... he is busy hand delivering and welding some of these kits after all.

so after all that whats really worth it? the oil lines i'm stoked about, the intercooler was fine. some trimming needed. no biggie. it Sucks the turbo failed but i guess thats not really his problem. it sucks that i thought there was something going to be delivered and it didnt happen. so for a bolt on kit to have the hot and cold side both have problems when you just spent money to avoid some headache of getting things fitted, you may want to consider just doing it yourself, or paying a fabricator locally to do it instead for your specific car...

I've had nothing but good parts shipped from him at competitive prices. All cars are not the same and fitment is always a challenge on any after market part. If you are not willing to "massage" go fast parts you in the wrong hobby.
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DON'T WASTE YOUR MONEY - REALLY POOR QUALITY
 

I kinda blame the replies on this thread defending mk miata for convincing me to buy it - a decision I've regretted ever since. I created an account just to post this review. Hopefully, someone reads it and doesn't go through the same ordeal. I've been through less than 1 yr of street driving and a single trackday, here's everything that failed so far:
turbo manifold cracked at the welds on 1st trackday, ended up replacing with cheap ebay cast mani which holds way better, it's likely due to mismatched alloy expansion rates; the welds are very poor quality even if they look pretty on the surface; still no commitment from Lars to replace the cracked mani
turbo gasket MELTED! and cracked to pieces, now it leaks and I have to take the turbo off...again
all the bolts that came with the kit either backed out or fell off from vibrations; should have used stage 8 for everything from the beginning
BOV did not seem to work - replaced it with my old Greddy one
There's a huge diamaters difference between intercooler and connecting pipe diameters, it's a small miracle the silicone couplers hold boost - same for the pipe connecting to intake, tossed that POS and used my old one that actually matches the intake diameter
Oil drain line keeps leaking no matter how much teflon tape I put on or how many times I retighten the thread

Here is everything else I had to modify to make the kit "work":
Turbo to downpipe gasket had to be cut to work with wastegate
Turbo wastegate hole needed a lot of porting to keep boost under control - expected for a cheap ebay turbo
Turbo oil feed hole needed to be made bigger to ensure adequate lubrication
Silicone intake hose needed to be relocated, the suggested position behind the headlight restricts a lot of flow and the provided filter is way too small
Had to make custom mounts for the intercooler to make it work with my setup

Overall, there are annoying problems everywhere: the exhaust flanges don't really seal well, so you will have small exhaust leaks no matter what. Intercooler and the lines seem really thin and low quality. Had a to buy additional couplers to make the connections work. The intercooler routing suggested on youtube is really stupid, so I had to modify a bit. Apart from the 3in exhaust, there's nothing else good about this kit. Did I mention no real instructions and almost nonexistent customer support? Lars acts like he doesn't want to be bothered with your questions or issues. I've been waiting to hear back from him regarding the mani for over a month. A cheap cast china manifold on ebay is more reliable than the one from this kit. Since the exhaust itself can be had for under 1k, not sure where the rest of the money went. Most of it is just resold ebay crap. If I had done it myself, at least I would have picked better quality. Really wish I had gone with FM or similar setup. It's worth the extra 1.5k, trust me.https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...1ae7ae72ba.jpg
cracked/melted turbo gasket
https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...eb9a36e2eb.jpg
cracked mani after 1st trackday