I know this is miataturbo.net but bear with me.

Right now my ND Miata is prepped for Street Touring Roadster for SCCA racing. I live in Hawaii - short courses, not road courses here. My intent is to leave here in about a year and go back to the mainland, both road course and SCCA. My relevant current mods are: 17x9 6UL with 225/45 RE71Rs (moving to 245/40 after Evo driving school in January), shorty header, midpipe, exhaust, tune, lightweight battery, front brake kit with Wilwoods from V8R, roll bar from Blackbird Fabworx, and a seat/harness/etc. I daily drive my car.

I have been offered a turbo kit for a great price. Let's just say the price is too good to pass up under most conditions. If racing were not one of my hobbies, this would be a no-brainer. I'm having a real hard time deciding, hence my post here. I'll list some pros/cons my friends have listed to me that matter to me.

The kit uses a proprietary turbo, bottom mount, comes with a tapped oil pan, no cutting or fabrication. Right now makes about 210whp @ 6psi on 91 octane.

Pros:
- I really want this kit (lol)
- Price
- I've done 95% of the authorized modifications for my class already, and this keeps my "project" going (there are some cons to this as well, I'll list below)
- This will bump me to SSM class, which will open up a door for fun other mods (aero, hoosiers, etc)
- Bottom mount turbo, might reduce amount of heat in engine bay (negative later)
- Tune will be taken care of and will be reliable - confident on this one
- I feel like it will make the car more fun to drive daily, not just on the course

Cons:
- Doesn't come with heat shields
- 210whp isn't necessarily competitive in SSM nationally
- stock internals and drive train (note, I am not concerned about the "problem" with the transmission from the factory in this case, which there is a fix for or will be, I'm referring to general idea)
- Heat shields on road tracks?
- Unable to tap into the power on small autocross courses?
- Unreliable (not sure I agree with this, but several people have brought this up about their SSM cars being unreliable - granted they weren't modding a car with 6k miles)?
- The mods that I want and need to stay competitive even locally will drive up cost, although that isn't a huge deal, it's still a factor...I have dual income with my wife and no children and no debt...so I'm not rich, but I don't mind dropping coin either

My other option is potentially wait until I return to the mainland and pay for a turnkey LFX swap from V8R. Prices there are mid to upper teens depending on various factors. Much more expensive than turbo, but also probably more reliable.

What do you think? Keep competing locally in STR? Just have fun driving a turbo Miata regardless of what class?

​Losing sleep over this one...

 

Is this a custom kit or just the AVO kit?

BTW, I still haven't seen you write anything about your V8R front brakes over on m.net...

 

Folks really like the Fiata, this is what I would (will?) end up doing after a few good years of depreciation on the NDs. What does your class allow for engine internal mods?

 

I think a Fiata with a 6258 EFR swap would be the best street car possible!

 

Isn't the ND engine 13:1 compression ratio? I'd expect you to be very knock limited in boost with that CR. Maybe if you can swap pistons out to drop it some you can take full advantage of the boost with timing closer to MBT. Or if you can run e85 that should help.

The fiat 1.4 turbo is using a 9.8:1

 

The latter...oh I mean they're 8lbs lighter per corner with rotors, but they don't feel much different, as I expected.

Internal? Nothing really. STR allows everything on the intake system up to but not including the throttle body (so an intake, if such a useful thing existed for the ND), and a full exhaust + tune. But no cams, no pistons, nothing like that. Forced induction pushes me into SSM, which would then open up Hoosiers, wings, splitters, some other bracing, internal modification, etc.

As far as tuning is concerned I'm not really worried about that too much. That being said, yes, E85 would put you much higher, like 250whp, but that's not available in Hawaii.

 

I want to know about this custom kit. Give us the deets.

When things like "proprietary turbo" and "too good to pass up" get thrown around with "I really want this turbo" 9/10 times the parts are turds and the project is doomed.

 

^
It is just an AVO kit. They made a bunch of noise about it at last years SEMA show, I think, but I haven't heard much about it since.

 

I'm really perplexed by the desire to buy a $30,000 car and then drop another engine into it.

If you daily the car, I can't imagine wanting to jump in to SSM. You won't be competitive in SSM with that car still being a decent daily driver.

I started typing a number of different things, then thought better of it.

 

Gonna overnight some parts from Japan?

 

Yup, this.

That's what I ultimately decided upon, for now. I might, at some point, get the long tube header (I had canceled my order when they started running into issues) to replace the shorty header I have.

I'm not sure of the direction you'e going with this...

 

Too soon, junior.

 

The direction of some trees and a lamp post.

 

Nationally no, but you could be locally competitive in SSM with a reasonable daily driver.

--Ian

 

do it

 

>comes to miataturbo
>asks if he should turbo his car

I mean....

 

No don't do it.

 

Good thing Mazda beefed up the transmission on the ND to handle this sort of thing.

 

You are very new to performance driving, right? So just stay NA and work on your driving skills for awhile. Moving to the mainland has got to be pretty expensive and will probably end up costing more than you think, so it would be smart to not spend 10k on turboing your car, if you plan to move in a year or so.

 

You'll be entirely uncompetitive with that setup until you figure out how to quadruple the boost, add lots of aero, and super big expensive tires. It's also a brand new setup on a brand new engine that basically hasn't been tested at all for long term reliability.

Do it if you want a more fun daily and you are in for A LOT of personal R&D, breaking stuff, fixing stuff, upgrading stuff as you go.

Do not do it if you think you can strap this on and go have endless WOT fun without constantly tinkering, at best.