Your opinions needed
 

Hi all,

I came to this great forum looking mainly for MS advice, but after driving a friend's STi yesterday, the turbo bug is starting to bite me. Hard. The torque and the rush is just too addictive compared to the unsatisfactory low-end of the 1.6 Miata engine.

I'm thinking of throwing together a basic DIY kit. Need your advice and thoughts on this.

Main goal is to learn the ropes of turbocharging. I'm concentrating on getting the MS to work on the stock engine first, so I think I'm on the right track: getting the fuel & ignition in place first, then think about turbo.

I have a few questions:

1) Money is thin. I mean really really thin. I want to do this for less than $500 or even less. Possible to put together a reliable kit for this money Y/N?

2) Throttle response and quick spooling setup are more important than peak whp numbers . Intended range of operation off-idle to 5000 rpm. Which turbo and intercooler do you guys recommend? I was thinking of both china-made off ebay.

3) Minimal fabricating & welding, as that is a quick way to drain money. I want to use an off-the-shelf used manifold. What is the most value-for-money 1.6 manifold out there?

4) Exhaust is going to eat a lot of the budget. Any recommendations for a low-buck exhaust. I was thinking of a glasspack with side-exit. Dont know how streetable that is, though.

with your budget and not fabbing/welding very much i think it will be pretty much impossible

1) Anything is possible. Not likely turboing the car for $500 though. Turbo, mani, oil/clt lines, DP, clutch(if needed)
2)Instead of an IC run a crossover, they're cheaper but limit the amount of boost you'll be able to run until you get an IC. Think of the BEGI-S kits.
3)The cheapest used one you can find. It could be a BEGI, FM, JGS, Homemade or w/e.
4)rmcelwee runs a straight glasspack with turn down, he did it for weight loss, says it's not that bad. For example, my car is quieter with an open downpipe than my friends n/a 91 with a trashed cat and straight through resonator. The cops won't like it when you get on the gas though.

If you already have the MS and wideband then you're ahead of the game. You could do the rest for a $1k if you shop smart and don't mind some smart ingenuitive fabbing with mandrel bends, couplers, clamps. An IC setup will cost you around $250-300 most likely. A cross over would cost you around $25-100 depending on how crazy you go blowing money.

you know the Y in DIY stands for YOURSELF, lol

well, tight budget means used everything...
looking at your goals, you want a small turbo, like a T25 dont get anything smaller..
look on various forums for stuff like injectors and turbos and check all the miata forums for manifolds and DP combos, thats gonna be your biggest exlense, then just have a local muffler shop make you an exhaust out of aluminized steel
good fucking luck to you if you can pull this off for less than 500, id say give it a G