Hey y'all.

I'm a 23 year old electrical engineering student at the University of Minnesota (Twin Cities). I'm currently doing a stint as a co-op intern at CenterPoint Energy in Houston, TX through the middle of December. I just purchased my first miata a couple of weeks ago because I've wanted one for a while now and I finally had the means to buy a car:



I'm happy with the car and I'm having a blast driving it (compared to the mid 2000s malibu that my grandma can no longer drive - bless her heart), but a large part of the reason that I bought it was to learn how to turbocharge an engine. The miata seemed like a good platform, and a couple of google searches confirmed that suspicion. Since then, I've been trying to burying myself as deeply as I can in build threads and books on the subject - I'm sure I'll be back once I have enough knowledge to ask reasonable questions. The titles I've picked up thus far are Maximum Boost by Corky Bell, Street Turbocharging by Mark Warner, and Performance Fuel Injection Systems by Matt Cramer and Jerry Hoffman. If there are any other titles you'd recommend I read, I'd love to hear them. In any case, I'll be lurking the forums until I feel I've obtained enough knowledge to start buying parts and asking "intelligent" questions.

Nice to be here,
Jamie

 

Ask first, buy second. When going through the forum, especially the FAQ, be mindful of the dates on the advice. Some info is obsolete and you want to get the state-of-art stuff, or nearly so.

Determine your goals and then make the plan.

Nice looking car. I'm not real knowledgeable on NA's: that looks like a '95 M, but those aren't 95M wheels.

Welcome.

 

I appreciate it, will do.

The wheels are chaparrals. I realize I put bone stock in the sig, but it's got those wheels and it's on coilovers.

 

Welcome! That is a clean looking 95M! I am jellous, always loved that color.

Those books are a great start. Maximum Boost is getting outdated, but the concepts still apply. Street Turbocharging is great, as is the fuel injection systems one. I have read all three.

Between those and this forum, you should be good to go. Just note that most of the stickies are outdated at this point.

 

Thanks! I traveled quite a way to get it, and I'm really happy with it. The color is one of my favorites. My only complaint is that the coilovers are set too low for Houston's roads and I don't have any tools/equipment to raise the ride height until I get back to MN. Bummer, but I'm making it work for the time being.

Excellent. I'll hit the books and take caution with the stickies, then. Thanks for the tip!

 

The car made it back home to the Minneapolis metro from Houston a couple of weeks ago. Driving north through that winter storm - Decima I think they called it - was an... uhh... enriching experience.

I'm trying to avoid driving the car right now because I don't want to be the one to rust out this car from all of the salt on the roads. It's got a soft top on it and most of the time in the winter it's too cold to wash it by hand in MN. I learned the hard way how much the fun it is to dry out an interior after you take it through one of the local gas station touchless washes. If anyone has any bright ideas (or a hardtop fit for a college budget), I'd love to hear from you.

Anyhow, the plan is to be around here for a while, unless any more cross-country internships present themselves again, so if anyone is local - drop me a line.

 

Hard tops leak in the high pressure washes too.

Welcome to the forum. We've got lots of engineers in this forum.

 

Ahh, rough, I hadn't considered that the hardtop would have leaking issues. I guess I'll have to read up on it, but I'd hope they don't let water in like the ragtop did - over the windows where there's no seal. It was less like a leak and more like someone stuck a garden hose in.

 

There should be a seal over the windows, lol.

 

Phone doesn't have enough juice to take a picture - there are the seals between the window and the soft top's frame mechanism. The gap I'm talking about is the gap between the frame and the ragtop - the canvas is just stretched over the frame. Is that not standard? The top that's on it isn't original equipment.

 

Congrats on the Miata. I know a lot of people look for ones out of the southern region to avoid salt cars, and it looks like yours was well maintained. These cars respond well to thought out turbo setups and retain their reliability.

If you are ever looking for another Co-op program, look into the Pathways program through NASA. Johnson Space Center is quite literally in my back yard and I see Co-ops all the time coming from all over the US and they are basically guaranteed good paying secure jobs that they love. There are a lot of EE students in the program too.

 

I'll look into that. I made some friends down there last time that I'd like to see again. Thanks for the tip!

 

Nope, there should be a collapsible rubber seal that folds with the top and meets the window when rolled all the way up.



Welcome