1.8L build, aiming for ~275whp
 

OK ladies and gentlemen, here is what my car is reduced to

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1350667646

What started as this: Low-End tapping & Engine Swap questions

Turned out to be this :(

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1350667646

Seemingly on only one cylinder

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1350667646

Now, my mechanic is still taking apart the rest of the block but as it looks now, and as he and I both said, if I'm this deep, go a little deeper. I'm considering building a semi-custom rig when the block and crank get remachined (if needed on crank) but I've never thought something like this out before and need some help. I'm not planning on increasing stroke (obviously ill need slightly larger bore after the block is honed), and not sure what to do about compression ratio (keep stock 9.5 or go lower). There are a few obvious things to replace, and a few things I've found so far that aren't over the top priced (no offence FM, I wish I could afford a build with your parts :'( I'll be running Megasquirt MS2

Rods (Eagle H-Beam Forged
Bearings (rod and main) (ACL Race)
Pistons (Supertech) (what ratio though?)
Headgasket (not sure on what versions available)
Oil pump (not sure if upgraded ones available or needed)
Oil Squirters (he said they are in the bottom of the block and recomended doing a new set, where do I find them?)
Headstuds (ARP)
Main Studs (lower block also by ARP)
Injectors (have 440CC but won't be enough)
Clutch (stock, need recomendations)

There are some things I am not sure if I should touch. One of them is the head, I don't know if it really needs any upgrading. I was considering going with the intake cam for the exhaust, but not sure where I can find em and how much one would cost. Also, the clutch is a question, the one in there is a stocker with 75k, looks OK but not enough for what I want to do. Valve kits aren't too expensive, but I don't know if there's a benefit.

My goal? 250+whp, somewhere closer to 300. I'm also not sure what turbo to run that will get me there. I like some of the starter kits BEGi offers that give you a manifold, turbo, and downpipe, but dont know whether to go log or tubular, and what turbo that will work best with the build above. I was considering a Disco Potato GT28. My goal is a RELIABLE, streetable, and FAST MSM. Emissions don't matter, it's a secondary car and gets exempt.

Please, I NEED help. The guy doing my build is a great tech when it comes to assembly and doing everything properly and checking it 5 times, but he usually deals with stock engines, so he can't really recomend anything specific, all he is going to do is give me a list of what he would recomend because he knows what the car means to me and wants to build it good. Have at it! I'll be taking the block and crank to the machine shop in a week or two to get checked and I'll at least know what size bearings and rings to get with my new stuff.

Also if you can post part recomendations and where to get them at fair prices, I'd apreciate it. Here is a list of the other mods on the car, some of this will be able to remain. I've got about 3 months to do this, I don't want to cut corners but using all expensive parts is not an option either.

2004 MAZDASPEED MX-5 : JoeMazda Intake, FlyinMiata Downpipe, Corksport 80mm Exhaust, CXRacing FMIC, RC SL9-440cc Injectors, BEGi/ChipTorque Reflash 12psi (to be replaced with MS2), AEM UEGO Analog WBo2, Tein FLEX 7/6, Hawk HPS, SS Lines, 15x9 949Racing 6UL, 225 45 15 Ventus RS3 Tires, TurboSmart BOV & MBC, HDHCDD Rollbar, MRSS Kit, 50lb weight reduction

Oil Pump: Probably not needed unless you want to rev a bunch, but everyone here seems to go with Boundary Engineering.

Clutch: The Flyin Miata clutches seem to be the recommendation for a street car. inb4 arguing about 6-puck clutches on the street.

Also I believe a lot of people who are not tracking/running ALLOFIT just use OEM bearings. Again probably depends on what you want to set your rev limit at.

Pistons: 9 or 8.5 on pump gas, 9.5 or 10 on E85. Usually 1mm overbore.

Headgasket: Again, I think most people just install a new OEM one, but I don't remember what years they use, as some are made of different material.

Note: I have no first hand experience with any of this, just what I have picked up from reading build threads.

My 2 cents...

Bearings : ACL works just fine
Pistons (Supertech) : I liked 9:1
Headgasket : OEM
Oil pump : Boundary engineering, critical protection for your expensive motor
Oil Squirters : Not sure why you would need new ones, clean and put back in?
Injectors : Run whatever you are running now so you can break in the motor without a new tune as well, swap later
Clutch : I love my FM clutch, pucked discs suck to drive on the street


As for the head, if it were my car I'd mostly leave it alone. Since you are on a budget, I'd just leave it stock and do the block right. Clean it up, maybe do some mild porting and polishing to get some more flow, but that's about it. Leave the cams alone, you already have the better intake cam from the factory.

The only thing I might do to the head would be to put new valve springs so I could increase the rev limit.

Oh yeah forgot about the head.

Soviet just put up 400hp on a stock '99 head, so you definitely don't need any headwork done unless you need to rev past 7500 (which you won't if you don't have any headwork done, since Miata heads flow like shit).

Any feedback on Manley H-beam rods and Weisco pistons? Apreciate all the help thus far.

I'm not sure you can make enough power in a Miata for you to care about specifically which aftermarket rods. I think any forged rod would do. You probably don't even need H-beam ones, but why not? Supposedly even Egay china rods are good for 300hp.

Should I go FM, BEGi, or somewhere else for a turbo kit? I was hoping for a GT2860RS, manifold, and downpipe that would all be premade. I already have a corksport 3.1in exhaust to mate it to.

Basically, what do I need to do to ensure the engine will hold 300whp for years and years to come? Not a daily driver for me. I also don't want to get race parts in some areas if they are higher performance but will need to be replaced often (someone said this about acl race bearing needing to be replaced every so often).

Also, what pre-kitted turbo system and which turbo within it should I use to get to 300whp. Id rather go with FM2 for this, but the BEGi S3 kit looks nice too. I can order my MS2 and get a tune in the spring cause the car is going to get garaged right after the rebuild anyway. The engine build and turbo system I need to do now since the engine is already out, feel as though it's easier and my guy won't charge me extra cause he has to reassemble everything anyway.

You should call me so I can set you straight on what you're really looking for. :party:

I would go for an ARTech Manifold and downpipe with an EFR6258 or 6758. Build the bottom end and you are set for anywhere between 300-400rwhp.

After the kind of results Soviet and others with EFRs are putting out, it would be silly to get any other turbo. You want 300whp? The 6258 should be perfect for that. Soviet made 318hp with that one IIRC. 5x the performance for 1.5x the price. And it will spool like a turbo that runs out of steam at 220whp.

Read the build threads of the guys tracking their turbo Miatas. Genesplicer, Hustler (lol his old ones of course, none of this NA bullshit), Charlie_91, Savington (never did finish his, I need to read through it again), others who I am forgetting. Tracking > streeting as far as wear and tear. If you set up yours for the street they way they do for the track, it will last a million years.

But where do I get a manifold and downpipe, and oil lines, etc. for that piece? The shop where my car is is only doing assembly, he can't make me a downpipe.

I could have him reassemble with stock components and take it somewhere else afterwards, but that means paying labor over again.

rods & pistons almost don't matter as long as they are forged and you balance them.
you probably don't have to do anything to your crank. like, at all. mine was perfectly round and worn just enough for loose bearing clearances.
you don't need new squirters. just clean the old ones in kerosene or something. maybe new copper washers.

you need billet pump
you need main studs
you need head studs
you want block and head surfaces machined flat because it's an MLS gasket and doesn't tolerate shitty surfaces
you really, really, really want an aftermarket crank pulley (ATI damper or Supermiata damper)
you really want MS3
you want ID 1000cc injectors

you also want to talk to your mechanic about oil clearances, piston-to-wall clearance and ring gap - these depend on your application.

For example, mine are:
Mains 0.0020" (loose, past the OEM spec)
Rods 0.0018" (loose, past the OEM spec)
Piston-to-wall 0.0040" (my machinist commented that this is huge clearance)
Rings filed for "Street-Moderate Turbo / Nitrous" application as per Wiseco instructions

As I said before... ARTech makes the manifolds and downpipes for our cars and his are the best. He is a vendor on this forum.

I looked up the site but didn't find much. I'll try to find him around.

My guess is I want the machine shop to assemble the block or recomend clearances based on what I want? I was just going to have the bore and deck work done and then take it back to my dude for reassembly. What clearances do you suggest for my intended purpose? Also why 1000cc injectors for a max of 300whp?

What's the importance of the pulley, as it's pretty damn expensive.

Injectors because they are Injector Dynamics, not because they are 1000cc. They have 725cc ones as well but everything about them is same (other than capacity) so why not get bigger ones? They idle same.

Clearances I'm not going to recommend anything. I only built 1 engine in my life.
So read miataturbo. Talk to the piston manufacturer. Talk to your machinist. Google. Learn.

Some threads:
Supertech p/wall clearance - Miata Turbo Forum - It's the Cat's Meow
piston to bore clerance - Miata Turbo Forum - It's the Cat's Meow
Main and Rod Journal Clearances - Miata Turbo Forum - It's the Cat's Meow

You really, really, really want to learn and figure out what clearances to run. Unless you're building your engine at Trackspeed, don't blindly trust your machinist.

It's not rocket surgery, really. I have large clearances because I'm not really concerned about how long the engine will last - and so far it outlasted a lot of other things on my car

Also BREAK IN YOUR ENGINE CORRECTLY
Proper engine break-in technique - Miata Turbo Forum - It's the Cat's Meow

Thanks for the links. I've got lots of reading to do starting tomorrow, I should really be studying for my psych test right now.

It keeps your engine together at high torque and high rpm. When you triple the power, the stock crank pulley has a tendency to shear off. It's not as critical for a purely street engine. But it's much more critical than, say, polishing your crank or getting headwork.

Talk to Savington and go with 8.6:1 pistons. Do you want to be detonation limited or turbo limited?

What do you mean by this?

I talked with TSE and might just reassemble with a stock turbo and go with their TSE kit EFR6258 when it comes out, I'll still get an MS2 tune right now and then retune for new turbo setup.

Going with the built motor now, old turbo setup, and tuning MS2 correctly is not a bad plan. Then when the TSE kit is released you will be ready to swap it on and go.

For 275-300whp, it'll hardly matter.

ftfy

I've had this car since it was bone stock for almost 5 years and want to get many more out of it. If it means waiting, I will.

Savington recomended I tap and plug my oil pan now while it's off the car and then just install the new oil lines when I get the kit. As far as the TSE Damper, it's on backorder so I'll add that later as well.

The bummer is I'll need 2 tunes, and need to install all of this turbo shit on my own or pay a shop again.

don't tap your oil pan, get a bung welded to it. it's about a million times better.
do tap it for an oil temperature sensor though....

I've tuned a few 9:1 cars and they are all det limited. In Texas we track our cars in 105*f heat, that's also where we tune them.

+1

Det limited at what, though? You're saying you can't hit 275whp in Texas on pump gas on a built 9:1 bottom end?

He's saying that the 8.6:1 motors produce more torque and have a greater safety margin than the 9:1 motors. You can run more timing on an 8.6:1 motor than a 9:1 motor, and the drop in compression and increase in timing advance produces more torque than running less timing and more compression.

Every single turbo motor we build is 8.6:1 for a reason.

You can but you're going to have to do it wtih ~17-19psi on a GT2860rs and do it with ~18* at the spark-curve peaks while I did it with 12psi at 25* of spark with at least +6* of spark-headroom becuase I never, ever head detonation in my car. That way, when it's 105* out, and you have the tach hung at 6500rpm in 6th at TWS on the front-stretch, you know you get to drive the car home.

Gotcha. That makes sense. :)

I had forgotten that AIM told me that secret to power with a BP is as much timing as possible.

Savington is correct in saying that you should have your oil drain plumbed for the oil return fitting now. You can either drill and tap it and screw in the fitting, or have a shop weld the fitting on. Either works, I think welding is actually better, but I have had mine tapped for 5 years an never had an issue.

Installing the turbo hardware should not be that bad. Plan a whole weekend for it and you should be able to get everything swapped. As for tuning, I assume that you already had the MS2 tuned for the stock MSM setup or are you doing the initial install of that to?

MS2 isn't even ordered yet, making sure he can accomodate all of my parts first. I'm gonna prep with those ID1000cc units now, again since everything is already apart. Then I'll go to Oracle Tuning, get a good tune with the stock turbo, and roll around easy a bit. Once TSE kit comes out, I'll be all prepped to bolt it on and take it back to Oracle for a revision for the new turbo and stuff.

My buddy works here: 1989-2005 Mazda Miata: JSC Speed

I'm going to get as much of the internals as possible from him. Can you guys browse through and recommend some things? I'm particularly confused on rods, some are within 2g, some within 1g. How important is that? Was also considering SCAT rods and supertech pistons (sold by 949racing). If through JSCSpeed, I was going to get the K1 or Eagle rods and possibly CP Pistons or Wiseco. How important is it to get that coating done on them?

Thanks for everyone's help thus far. It's nice to get so much information from one place. :)

Scat rods/stock 9.5:1 pistons worked fine in my build. No issues yet at 15psi but I can get 93 octane in the D.

I get 93 here as well

More photos of the old now that all is disassembled. I have not cleaned these

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1351194809

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1351194809

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1351194809

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1351194809

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1351194809

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1351194809

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1351194809

Almost all of the pistons have this small wear on the sides

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1351194809

Comparison of the bad bore next to a not so bad bore

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1351194809

This oil pump?
Street/Strip Oil Pump Assembly (1991.5-2005) | Boundary Engineering

This Damper?
Harmonic Balancer Miata

These rods?
Scat Forged Connecting Rods Miata

These Pistons?
Supertech Pistons Miata

These Injectors?
Injector Dynamics fuel injectors - Miata

Best place to get headgasket and a complete engine gasket set?

I got my complete engine gasket kit from MAZDASPEED MOTORSPORTS DEVELOPMENT - Home Page
These prices are about as good as you can get for factory/oem parts. Just have to have some race results to get an account. Oh and you usually have to call them to get the results accepted.

The only seal that I have had issue with is the valve stems. But that is a matter of cooking them rather than being bad. Also it wasn't until after I had built the engine that Viton ones became available (or I found out about them).

The stock MSM setup isn't as bad as everybody makes it out to be, especially on E85. I'm not sure you can get all the way to 300 with it. But I bet you can get close and put that planned budget into making the motor better. :)

edit for clarity. It CAN make good power but other stuff does spool quicker and have much higher power capability.

I'm budgeting the build into one project and a larger turbo system (TSE I think) in the spring or summer to another seperate thing. For up to 300whp, I don't think I need any headwork aside from a fresh set of valve seals.

After some more reading I had pretty much settled on Wiseco pistons 8.6:1, but looking at ring gaps got me wondering. Am I better off with the Wiseco or Supertech for street use? I read one expands more than the other, but if the clearances are correct it shouldn't matter right?

The 4032 alloy in Supertechs has a higher silicon content resulting in a lower thermal expansion coefficient than the 2618 alloy used by Wiseco, CP, etc. So the clearance spec is a little tighter with the Supertechs. The 2618 alloy has something like 10-20% higher yield strength but I don't think that's of much consequence on the majority of Miata builds and significant det is going to damage either piston anyway. I went with Supertechs for my street/track car because others on this forum have tracked them with good results putting down as much or more power than I plan to, so I didn't see a need for slightly higher strength but slightly more loosey-goosey clearance pistons.

Do the supertechs come with any kind of coating like the wiseco? Also are scat rods ok? They are within 2 grams I believe

New project
 

I am at the same point as Alex on a new FI Miata project, my first one is a 90 with an M45 water to air IC coolant RR, MS1 suspension wheels hard top and all.
This new car is an 80k 99 sport that just purchased, I would like to keep as a fun sporty fair weather DD without the hard core suspension and seats that i have on my NA, I want to keep functional AC, PS, no racing seats or roll bar.
I have two engines one is the original 99 motor and the other is a 2001 VVT, people seem to agree that the VVT will spool faster and have more torque and the cost of building either one will be about the same, I'm still not sure if it is worth the extra trouble to wire and tune, and that was the most difficult part of building my NA, I'm still not 100% satisfied with the tune.
I'v been collecting parts for a couple months and have a new EFR 6258 turbo, roods, light weight flying miata flywheel and clutch, Hp Plus brakes, Kony's w coilover and srings.
On my to get and or make list are MS3, injectors, intercooler parts, pistons rings, gasket sets, coolant RR, radiator, boost and AFR gauges, sway bars, and make a fwd mount tube manifold and 3"down pipe-exhaust.
I would like to tune the engine to whatever maximum power that setup will safely yield on pump gas and then back the boost to 250 to keep things together and still have the option to dial up the boost for a track day or the inevitable greedy moment.
Does anyone in the forum have a good tuner near (3 hr drive) Indianapolis that can tune the MS3 and VVT? would like a load Dyno and lots of experience, DON'T WANT TO SAVE $400 in tuning to blow up a nice new motor!
How much hp can be expected from this setup? Any other suggestions must read and warnings?
thanks! Harold
Putman Park 23 October 2011 Harold Supercharged Miata - YouTube

Oh fucking really? Wow, no way!

Btw you and mr same boat above should aim higher for power. Especially if you get an efr.

The difference between 300hp and 350 and then 400 is huge. Dont be a pussy. Your motor can do it.

New project
 

I dont want to run on the knife edge, think that if I was looking for 350 to 400hp I would be looking for an LS motor ... I want a reliable miata that is not going to granade any minute.
http://i1084.photobucket.com/albums/...023FF174DA.jpg

Pretty set on everything aside from rods, pistons, and clutch.

Pistons (wiseco or supertech) (8.6:1 compression either way)
Rods (Eagle, K1, Manley)
Clutch (Comp, ACT, etc.)

Is Boundary Engineering oil pump really necessary?

Give me some input on which rod and piston combo you'd choose of the ones I've listed and why. All are priced similarly.

If you just want 300whp I would go with the supertechs, rods don't matter (I got manley rods and they work fine), and I'm very happy with my act clutch. In response to your question about the oil pump, from what I read you either want the ati or supermiata damper or get the be oil pump if not both. If your going to stay at 300whp then just get one or the other IMHO.

Any other feedback on the oil pump and/or pulley? Was supposed to take everything to the shop this week but Sandy came and fuxed us up a bit so this coming Tuesday will be the day.

I found that FlyinMiata sells basically a complete gasket set for the rebuild and since I already have some things theyre willing to work with me so I'm getting all that stuff from them.

If you're talking to me... aiming for that kind of power is not in the near future for my BP Miata. :rofl:

Same here. I believe it gets to a point where a car becomes less and less drivable if you overload the power, that's why 300 is my upper. If I change my mind later I can always go up.

I'm just keeping within the constraints of the stock motor in my case. I'm burnt out on building cars at the moment.

^^^^ :jerkit: Pussy.

+1

400whp is a lot of fun, but not on street tires.

Sav,

What's your opinion for him in regards to the damper or billet pump gears?

at that point you have a lot of money and time into your motor. it makes no sense to not spend the money and get those items.

+1

Any recomendation for sites that I can find these parts on? Aside from fm, begi, or 949. I'm looking on jscspeed and tse as well

I mean the entire build, not the pump and pulley, I know where to get those.