First time engine build. Broke college kid that wants to race.
 

Hey guys how's it going. So I recently blew my motor right when I got the track bug... Well now I want to build it to handle time attack. For now the plan is just Manley H Beam rods, keeping stock pistons just re-ringed, Boundary engineering oil pump,drill the oil pan for turbo prep, and then regular rebuild stuff plus a head refresh. The thing is, I've never built a motor before. My plan is to have a reliable track car for seat time that i can get 200whp out of all day (and maybe tune up to 400 just for fun sometimes). I'm looking for any criticism and advice you guys could give. All my money belongs to my car.

Its not as hard as it seems. Especially now with the car passion video walk throughs. i must have watched those videos 10x times each when building my first motor this last off season. I did learn that the financial rabbit holes are many and you can fall pretty deep pretty fast.

One thought though .. if you're a broke college kid looking to race .. you might want to look into what class you want to compete in and what exactly the rules are before you go ahead with the rebuild. I can't imagine any class where a where a low boost minimal built miata would be competitive. Perhaps a stock class with no turbo would be a better fit for the budget. That might influence how you need to build your motor for NA vs boost.

I've edited my original post. My bad I should've been more clear. I want to do time attack. I feel like that's better suited for me as there's less risk of having to pay for bodywork XD

Coming from another college student here, buy a used motor and swap it in. It will be cheaper and just work. You can still get your 200whp with a turbo just fine. And to be honest, if you have to ask, you're not ready for 400hp.

Also, I just saw your other post. You didn't say, but it sounds like you are planning on rebuilding your 1.6. Don't do this, you will spend pretty much the same amount of money, and make less power. Do it right and start with a 1.8.

The issue with that is nowadays around here, buying a used stock 1.8 to swap in is the same price as building a 1.6. Not to mention my motor is totally fine and I could just re-ring it and have it running like new in a week, But I like going the distance.

So I have both a 1.6 turbo and a motor built to the moon that's replacing the 1.6.

You can easily run a bone stock 1.6 or 1.8 at 200hp for a long time. I vote the 1.8 swap and here is why. The 1.6 is basically weak in every aspect and will be way way harder to hit 400 ever. Let alone be reliable at 400. If you swap in a 1.8 with the bp6d head it you can still be reliable at 200hp and you could start to accumulate parts to get it to 400. But I can tell you now if you want a 400+hp motor it's going to take a shit ton of money.

Buy a 1.8 and bolt it in. Then go out and get a mkturbo kit and boost happy for a long time.

Do you know how many people on this forum have a 400whp track Miata?

None.

To be competitive in time attack, put forged rods in a naturally aspirated engine and optimize the rest of the car.

To have fun just doing track days just build a 200whp car and attempt to make it reliable with cooling, brake, suspension, wheel hubs, and safety gear. Should cost you about $4000 to get started.

A reliable 400whp track Miata should cost $10,000-12,000 if you start with a good 1.8 car and try to keep it cheap.

unless yoyu are doing big rpm's or big hp....or both this is the best advice.throw in a Cam & ECU depending on class maybe even ITB's

change your oil regular. My 1.6 did 25K miles over a period of 4-5 years in Production sports. I then put this engine into my road car. It did another 70k miles over 14 years in a road car before it told me to Fuck off. These engines are strong out of the box. If you treatyt them right.

Step one of your track adventures should be to buy a used BP 1.8, keep it naturally aspirated and start going to track days. Make some friends. Read more threads and builds where people are tracking their cars. Learn as much as you can, and focus on becoming a better driver. You're going to change your mind about what you want to do with the car quite a few times. Almost anyone that has a decent amount of experience in club racing will tell you the same thing, get the car reliable, put the money into suspension, tires, brakes, cooling, and reliability mods and get better as a driver. THEN after the car is sorted and you start getting faster and put down respectable times, that's when you add power. That is if you still want to, you could have changed your mind by then.

If you follow that recipe, you will be thankful you did in a couple years, and you will also be a better driver with more seat time under your belt and much better prepared to add power in terms of your ability but also, hopefully, better prepared financially if you finish college and land a decent job right out of the gate.



This statement for example. I said the same exact thing when I was starting out. Just gonna do HPDE days and Time Trials and Time Attack. And guess what, because I didn't keep my options open I later on had to cut out a portion of my welded in roll bar when I had a cage put in to do wheel to wheel. Keep your options open and see where things go.

This thread got kinda out of hand. I only plan on running 200whp on the track. 400hp is only what I want to prepare for just in case one day I want to hit the strip for fun. Thanks for all the advice but I’m sticking with the 1.6 as I said in the beginning.

Lol why ask advice and then ignore all of it from guys who actually have experience? Just silly...

I was asking advice on my specific engine build. I wasn’t asking if I should swap. If someone out there has advice on building a 1.6 that’s great and I’d love to hear from them. But until then, nobody gave me the answer I was looking for.

Umm.


Also don't worry, you'll see why I've given you the advice above after you've been going to the track for a couple years lol.

Most people would see that one person suggested a 1.8, saw I said I’m sticking with the 1.6, then moved on. I’m not in it for easy or big power or cheaper. If I wanted cheap easy power I’d be in the ls swap forum.

Not sure why you put "Broke college kid that wants to race" in the title then. And if you think an LS swap in a track car that will be reliable is cheap or easy then I've also got bad news for you.

You say that you're "not in it for easy or big power or cheaper". If that's true then why cling to the 1.6l? I thought you wanted to stay with that because you think it's as cheap as a used 1.8l and easy because you already have it?

The fact of the matter is that you could be on the track for less than a grand, figure $600 or $700 for a used BP, then put the leftover towards event entry, or tires, or brakes, etc etc, but instead you want to build a turbo track car.

For the price of a used BP, you can afford some Manley rods and the Boundary oil pump for you 1.6 build that you are planning and that's it. Then you need gaskets and seals for the rebuild, piston rings, bearings, have the block and head flattened and cylinders done because you said you overheated it in your intro thread, valve springs, all the other bits and pieces that go along with a rebuild, then you're going to be dropping about 4 grand to get a somewhat decent turbo setup onto the car.

By this time you could have used that money to go to like 15 two day track events in order to figure out what you really want to do, and have a much better foundation to build on.

You're getting sucked into the exact thing that happens to so many people. Get a taste, plan a build, lots of parts, huge project, but if you ask all the guys who have been doing it for awhile their advice is almost always going to be to focus on the easiest way to get on track and get seat time when you are starting out. And getting started on what is looking like a build in the $4000 to $6000 range isn't an easy path to seat time. I didn't realize that "broke college kid" meant you have like 5 grand laying around to blow on cars before you even get into the swing of things with an expensive hobby. I sure as fuck didn't when I was in school.

My motor is exactly what you want to build (stock piston, Manley H-beams, etc), and it's a total sweetheart. Burns very little oil and it's got 70+hrs on it now, so it's probably over halfway through its life expectancy.

Building a 1.6L is dumb. The money you spend buying a 1.8L core to build onto is the cheapest horsepower you will ever buy for the car, full stop. I call flaming BS on your claim that you cannot find a cheap 1.8L core in the largest metropolitan area in California.

Too bad you're in Socal. I've been sitting here in SJ on a 1.6 motor built by FM a few years ago but had little use for a track yata that I haven't finished building. Low compression forged piston, forged Carrillo rods, some head work / ect. Its a sweet motor and begging for boost but I can't get myself to spend the money to buy a 1.6 turbo kit for all the reasons mentioned above. I've been debating tearing it apart for the rods set but that also seems like such a waste of a working FM built motor! Would be willing to let it go for a set of Carrillo H beams.

Graduate college, get a decent job. then build racecar.

Sticking to the 1.6 is a waste of your time and money.

For college use:

1. Get aftermarket ECU
2. Coolant reroute
3. Better radiator

In college preparations:

1. 1.8 block
2. Rods
3. Bearings
4. Bolts and Studs
5. Oil Pump
6. Water pump

When you have the time:

1. Fit the 1.8 using the guide on this forum

I'm not a poor college student and this is basically what i am doing.
The 1.6 is not reliable enough for all of the extra stresses and 1.8s are easily available and cheap.
You will make more power for less doing the swap and end up with something safer and with more parts available (no just upgrades but repairing).