LumptyLump

Hello all,

I'm Forrest. I grew up around MG's and Healey's we had in the family and I've wanted a roadster of my own ever since. I finally bought my Miata new in 2000 as a mid-life toy and I've enjoyed it ever since. The car has largely satisfied my roadster cravings, but now I'd like a little more power.

I've long relied on miata.net for guidance and I gathered as much info as I could there. After looking over my options (and spending time in a Mazdaspeed 3), I've decided that turbocharging is the best choice for me. I found a link there to this forum as the best source for those serious about turbocharging so here I am. I've spent the past couple of weeks reading through various threads and I've learned a lot in the process.

My goal is not to simply make the most power I can, but rather to augment what power is already there in a way that retains very good drivability in everyday situations. My driving is mostly spirited fun on twisty back roads. Long-term reliability is a goal as I intend to keep this car. I don't plan to race.

My car is still in stock form and has about 55K miles on it now. It's clean, in good repair and has had synthetic oils everywhere since break-in. I plan to replace the timing belt, do a leak-down check, etc before boosting.

I ordered a MSPNP2 and and AEM wideband and I plan to get the car tuned and happy before installing bigger injectors and re-tuning for them. Once that is accomplished, I expect I'll buy either a BEGI or FM II kit w/o fueling in order to have a nicely-matched group of components without a lot experimentation on my part.

Thanks, all, for the information you've posted. It's appreciated! I look forward to sharing my progress and I hope I'm able to give something back to the MT community.

miata2fast

iTrader: (2)

My first car was an 1978 MGB. Good times in that car.

Anyways, welcome to the site. It can be very entertaining as well as a very good way to learn your way around your roadster.

LumptyLump

Quote: Naturally aspirated 12:1 JEs, twin Weber 45DCOE, 1/4 mile 13.38 @ 99 MPH

Well now... That sounds like a lot of fun! it's what I'd have done 20 years ago, or maybe even now, if i didn't expect to be able to get decent fuel mileage on a long trip. Might be moot point anyway, if I can't keep my foot out of the boost. What kind of mileage do you get, and what does the car weigh?

sixshooter

iTrader: (12)

He lives his life a quarter mile at a time. He hasn't driven it a whole mile in so many years that he could never tell you the mileage it gets. And it is currently disassembled.

Braineack

iTrader: (62)

Welcome, LumptyLump. Check out the Miata Gallery and post up some pics!

supercooper

Welcome! sounds like you have the right idea, and a sound plan... start a build thread ASAP, so we can see it go from stock, to rock. we like pictures if you havent noticed yet. lol

BestBritishSportsCar

welcome

BestBritishSportsCar

spend time on that tuning so you dont get that horrible starting

LumptyLump

My build will have a slow start and it may take some time to finish. It's top-down season here in Michigan and I intend to make use of it, while it lasts.

Parts are beginning to arrive so I'll do a trial install of the MSPNP soon to get communication established with laptop and software and to try out the basemap with oem sensors. If it's pretty close, I'll likely leave the MS installed and switch to wideband and tune with it.

The key is to keep the car driveable for now! In the fall, I'll be more willing to make changes that take the car off the road for a while. I'm sure I'll have answers to some of my questions by then and likely find more that need to be asked. I'll update as I go and will post pics of anything I think will interest the group.

Taifighter

iTrader: (1)

Welcome neighbor! I'm in Elkhart, Indiana, about an hour south of you.
Here's my build thread: https://www.miataturbo.net/build-thr...g-miata-70847/

Maybe we can check out each others builds once yours gets on the road.

LumptyLump

Tai, I just looked though your build thread. Your appearance mods are tasteful and the car has a nicely-finished look. Nice job! I really like the intercooler too!

Have you had the car on a dyno/Any good local dyno operators?

Taifighter

iTrader: (1)

I'm holding off on dyno tuning until I get a clutch and get enough ***** to turn the boost up past 6lbs.

I haven't even looked for local dynos or anything of the sort, but I do have a friend who is well versed in MegaSquirt that I'm sure would help me out if I asked him to check the car while its getting dyno time.

miata2fast

iTrader: (2)

When I had it all together, I guess it was perhaps just under 2000lbs, but that might be an ambitious guess. I did some pretty extensive weight reduction, but it appeared stock inside and out.

I never did any mileage testing, but it did not seem to guzzle gas compared to when it was stock. The weight reduction helped matters.

Glad to see you posting and getting more out of the site.

LumptyLump

Light is good!

The reason I asked about mileage is that, many years ago, in a different lifetime, I used to hotrod air-cooled beetles, motorcycles, and Datsun L-series motors. All came to life when fed with a pair (or trio) of Webers or Solex's, but mileage dropped to the teens-to low twenties with a built motor. Fuel injection has made tuning out the rich spots much more do-able.

As much as I loved the old carbs, I'm happy to move on. Why did you choose carburetors? - not to dump on your choice at all - I'm in awe of your accomplishment.

I did say I used to hotrod L-series motors... That '72 240 in the classifieds is tugging at my heart strings. If only I had time to do it justice!

miata2fast

iTrader: (2)

I actually bought my car new, and immediately started to modify it. I came up with the idea in the late 90s, when stand alone ECUs were still very expensive with few options. Most of the high horsepower N/A cars like what you see in E-Prod were running carburetors. I wanted to have a healthy N/A car, and at the time it was the only cost effective way to reach my goals.

I bought most of the parts I needed early on, but had to shelve the project to pursue a drag racing opportunity in the Fun Ford series. Then I started a business and had to wait a little longer. When I finally got back to the project, I simply finished where I left off.

I have spent so much time with the learning curve, and they work so well that I decided to keep them as long as I could. Also, I have a nitrous habit, and am most familiar with low pressure fuel systems to tune nitrous properly. What's ironic, is I have not put nitrous on the car yet, but it is coming this go around.

Eventually I will make the switch to ITBs, and am actually purchasing an updated Electromotive system with the fuel component. At first I will just use the ignition side until I am ready to make the switch.