turbo kits are for weenies
 

hello everyone, i just stumbled across the forum and i cant beleive i havent found it earlier.

currently, i own 2 miatas. a 2000 and a 95 m edition. i had owned one other, na 1.8 with lsd. i also own a 92 built stealth turbo (myself). i have my own welder, powdercoat, paint spray guns, a fuckload of tools, and way too much time on my hands.

my goal here is to shoot for the stars, and turbo my 95 m edition, with the least possible expensive route. lets not take this as a cheap build though, as i have a bunch of quality parts laying around i can use to cut costs.

in my possession at the moment, front mount intercooler, half size side mount intercooler, various intercooler piping from 2 to 3", various td04 and td05 turbos, more injectors than i know what to do with, a ls1 converted microsquirt, aem uego


so heres my take on turboing the miata, goal around 250hp

td04 15g turbo, 405 rated cfm, 510 choke cfm, spool fast, holds nice 18psi to redline
dsm 450cc injectors, should give about 80% idc at my target hp
xtd clutch 6 puck, with pressure plate came with my old car, new never installed. its like $120 on ebay? this im iffy about still
undo the ls1 mod on the microsquirt, create a custom harness. i can pretty accurately tune myself.


im missing a manifold, and downpipe. downpipe i can make in a few hours, not tough. i dont wanna tackle making a manifold. im looking and found cast iron manifold on ebay, good price....whats the take on these? i havent found any "bad" reveiws, usually the thin tubular ones are the crack prone and cause more headaches than normal. im also wanting to run internal gate, for convenince and simplicity. my internal gate has a 11lb spring. i dont mind running at 11lbs with no boost control if i get close to my target hp. if i make 220, i wouldnt be sad.

although ive read and researched, not just miatas but turbo system in general for a long time. im sure someone can add to my build so far. with what i have, am i realistic in my goal and acheving between 220 and 250 hp?

Welcome to MT.net. Glad you made it over from Facebook. If you're into getting educated and abused at the same time, you came to the right place.
Please add your location to your profile and post some pics!

Welcome.
Glad you found us.
If you like assholes (figuratively or possibly literally), you're in the right place.
I'm assuming you are referring to the taco taco manifold?
If so, it's fine for a street car.
It's probably easier for you to just buy some flow force (GT500) injectors.
They are good, cheap, and have lots of published info on this site.

GT500s are cool. But if hes on a strict budget and doesnt care about driveability the dsm's will do fine.

Don't expect any "good" driveability, or idle with those injectors, or the ms1. But if all you want to do is fuck off and make boost then it should be fine.

those injectors and clutch are gonna make you look silly at idle and regular/traffic driving.

otherwise you're on the right track for a haggard/janky setup. don't try to make it sound like it's gonna be high quality, cause that's just lying to yourself.

ebay taco log should probably work for this type of setup

Isn't 250whp pushing it in terms of the rods?

I don't think anyone expects the OP to get there. That info is also really easily found by searching, so.... Op should probably read more.

In addition to my last comment, do some more research on "budget turbo setups". They never work right imo. I budgeted out my turbo build for like 1600$ and I felt like a champ....only for it to end up being like 2200$. I really, really, really recommend at least getting an DIYPNP/MS2E, and then swapping in the sequential injection mod. Use the money you're saving to buy a better ECU, so you don't have to deal with the headaches of an MS1.

I'm ALL for "making it work", believe me. There are enough zipties in my engine bay to back this up

Also, I want to hear how this eBay clutch goes. I hear they're hit or miss. I'm tempted to buy one, but the hit or miss tendencies make me hesitant. I haven't heard of anything thats in between eBay clutches and FM clutches.

A long long time ago we had a group buy on here for basically eBay clutches. I know of at least 3 people who had issues with cheaper clutches. 2 of the had to pay labor twice to have their clutches swapped again after the first failed. The other was Braineack and we pulled his transmission 3 times in a week. At the end he was back to using the same clutch we originally swapped out. With the amount of annoying work that is involved with swapping a clutch it is not worth cheaping on the clutch. 949Racing, FM, and ACT are the only clutches you should be looking at. My preference now is to the 949Racing Organic clutch for a street car. I think it feels slightly better then the FM1. ACT makes good clutches, but the street ones hold less torque and are more expensive then FM/949, so I don't generally recommend those any more just due to cost.

even though its only a 2-3 hour job to swap a clutch on these cars, its not exactly how id wanna spend my weekends. ive just had good experiences with xtd before, and i have it inhand so i figured it should be enough. im considering just buying another , better clutch and selling this one off back to ebay


i did quite a bit of megasquirt research, and now i realize why you guys are saying the ms3 is much easier to tune. its pretty much an aem v2 with more options and a bit more updated. at the price, its an amazing bang for the buck.

here is the microsquirt i have in hand, might be better off to sell it and buy a ms3. LS1 24x modified MicroSquirt® ECU with Plug and Play harness - EFI Source


still looking at taco log, vs custom 304 ss welded up. i just dont want to have downtime due to cracking, and a cast iron taco seems most durable.

Hi hello,

Replying from the Land Down Under.
Like the others say I'd recommend an MS2 variant of some form as the minimum spec ECU, but would highly suggest an MS3 over MS2.
Seeing as you're in the US you've got a f**-tonne more options than myself regarding the parts market, both used and new.

If you're not in a rush I'd probably wait for a used Turbo manifold to pop up, or if nothing comes up then I'd resort to a Taco-Taco.
How reliable you want the car to be will greatly impact your budget, and if you want it to be track reliable there's no getting around spending more money.

All the regulars on here will recommend you to get EV14 injectors seeing as they perform the best, and any older tech is absolute rubbish in comparison. This isn't to say that other injectors will not work, rather that all the smaller aspects of tuning become incredibly hard to deal with. The difference between a set of RX8 yellow injectors and even no-name EV14 injectors at idle is very noticeable. Controlling injectors at an incredibly low Duty Cycle is stable without crazily fluctuating AFR's.
Flow Force injectors seem to be the way to go for cheap EV14's.

EBC, coolant re-route, new radiator if you haven't replaced the OEM one.

Welcome to hell. Don't announce your plans, or the car gods will make sure you're on the longest path possible. As said above, $1600 jank build can turn into "fuck it, what's another $1000?" Looking forward to progress pics of what you're doing!

i stumble across a real good deal on an engine, so i had to pick it up. missing a few random pieces, but looks like a recent rebuild. i will tear it down and verify. far as i know its all stock parts.

because i know you like pictures
https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...0bc0ffa603.jpg
https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...4ba141e426.jpg
https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...927342abc2.jpg
https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...f50e84e88a.jpg
https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...9d663dd2cc.jpg

so had a nice chat with aem about my stealth aem v2 ecu

since i drive the car so seldom, i can just swap the ecu between miata and stealth when i decide its time to (miata is summer car, stealth is fall/winter). i have a spare harness to use, so engine management is in the bag. anyone have some base maps from megasquirt or aem? just really need timing table and fuel table for stock injectors, and i can modify from there. would save me a ton of time mapping up a stock map.

engine cost me a total of $245 with new rod bearings and rings. its rebuilt already. waiting on oil pan/front and rear main gaskets and exhaust flange. mains at .002 and rods just a hair wider but lower than .0025. used .001 oversize mahle rod bearings.

i fabbed up a mediocre yet fully durable sc40 manifold. waiting on turbo and exhaust flange. cost is 32$ in sc40 pipe, 38$ for exhaust flange and 24$ for the turbo flange. sub 100$, but it wont ever crack. i havent positioned the turbo yet, as i dont want to modify the hood any, yet keep enough room for some heatshielding so i dont melt the driveside of the engine bay.

i scored a stage 1 fm happy meal ? clutch rated 318 tq. its purple and looks to be enough of what i need it for, and still full face so drivability shouldnt be affected so much.

$339 spent so far. still need vaccuum lines and fluids. time spent ~12 hours. going to burn at least 2-4 hours finish welding the manifold and downpipe, estimating 2 hours fab oil lines, plus the engine swap......

estimated time of completion before 8/1

let me know what you think, 200hp is def in the bag, what is it gonna put down and what boost am i gonna start getting knock counts at. the aem is awesome at retarding timing and dumping fuel in if it overboost or knocks, so im sure the engine is in safe hands

Manifold is absolutely still prone to cracking, don't kid yourself. Knock sensing is only as good as the sensor. More pics.