New guy, doing a turbo Exocet build
08-27-2018, 01:42 PM
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Location: Baton Rouge, LA
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New guy, doing a turbo Exocet build
Good day everyone. I'm new here.
Currently in the process of vetting donor NB Miatas for a turbocharged Exocet build. If anyone hasn't heard of these before, this is about a 800 lb weight reduction on an NA/NB Miata with a nice cage. This isn't my first turbocharged project car, but it will be my most ambitious build ever attempted. The idea is to get a Miata running in the 200 HP range and then swap the chassis over; we can set up the Miata correctly now and then come build time we can focus on swapping the frame onto the rollerskate. Eventually the motor will be rebuilt and we'll convert to a larger Garret or Borg Warner turbo setup...going for ~350 HP at 8000 RPM on a build bottom end and worked heads.
The current love of my life is a blue 2015 Ford Fiesta ST that puts out about 300 HP in a 2600 lb hot hatch package. Home grown and garage built, this was my first real project car...doing all the work myself and learning a lot along the way. Dyno last week put it down 280 uncorrected wheel HP at the local "heartbreaker" dyno with 115+ F charge temps and no airflow on 93 pump gas. It should dyno a tad over 300 once the weather isn't 100 F everyday, and with ethanol, methanol, or both, it should dyno much more than 300.
Also I have a fiance with me, uh...she's the other love of my life. We built the Fiesta ST together and we race it together. We are going to build the turbo Exocet over the next 3 or so years. I just graduated with a bachelor's in Physics and she's going through college now. We are both tight-fist individuals financially, but we both share a passion for motorsports...so it is hard to tell each other "no" over car parts. We have living expenses down to about $1000 a month and have money set aside for the project so it won't be too hard to commit extra. Time will be the only real limiting factor in this build.
Right now, I've got my eye on a ~50k mile salvage MSM '04 Miata. Body looks like it scraped a guard rail and was totaled under insurance due to having to do bodywork and painting to 5 panels Mechanically is is in great shape and since we live in the south, road salt doesn't destroy cars. We'll see how this goes.
Budget is ~$18k USD, increasing to about 25k+ after two years. The short term plans are to aquire a stock slavage MSM and get it ready for the chassis swap. The idea is to get the MSM and immediatly trash the stock ECU for a Megaquirt 3 Pro PnP. After adding a few quality of life mods, like fixing the intake, removing the MAF/AFM, and adding a way to manually control boost...we are going to learn to tune the stock turbo. With a laptop, boost gauge, and a nice wideband, I have access to private roads and a dyno that charges $33 bucks per pull. Looking for 200 HP on 93 while catless. While doing all that we will add a bunch of life support mods: a fancy new oil pump, coolant reroute, ATI dampener, new water pump, 180F themostat, radiator, timing belt, accessorry belt, PS delete, and all new gaskets will be done while learning the car's quirks and fixing anything that pops up. Probably swap the head gasket out for a nicer piece that doesn't restrict flow to cylinder 1 & 2.
After swapping the chassis over, we will have a 1500 lb caged car that is 200-220 HP. At this step, we will probably learn to track the car as is and see how long the MSM will hold up under all the life support mods. Once the motor goes, or we get "good" with it and we have room to grow, we will pull the engine. Putting forged internals and reworking the head to survive 8000 RPM will be a fun project for a few week/months. Then, after breaking the motor in, we'll be getting an EFR 6758 or a GTX2860 Gen 2 to play with once we have the physical skill to drive a 1500 lb car with 300+ HP. Like I said, time is the limiting factor here. We may spend a year breaking in the engine in order to get more track time.
Overall an ambitious project, but we'll be doing all the work ourselves minus the precise block boring or head porting. Technically we have the budget for an LS3 V8 swapped Exocet, but I think it would be better to have a car that can grow with our skill level in a more...progressive manner. I can't fathom having a 400+ HP car that weights only 1700 lbs. We simply can't drive something like that on the track. We do not have the skill level required.
Ideally, a large (for a 1.8L) Borg Warner or Garret turbo will allow us to slowly increase boost as we get better skilled with the car...so we won't go from 220 HP to ~300+ HP overnight.
Currently in the process of vetting donor NB Miatas for a turbocharged Exocet build. If anyone hasn't heard of these before, this is about a 800 lb weight reduction on an NA/NB Miata with a nice cage. This isn't my first turbocharged project car, but it will be my most ambitious build ever attempted. The idea is to get a Miata running in the 200 HP range and then swap the chassis over; we can set up the Miata correctly now and then come build time we can focus on swapping the frame onto the rollerskate. Eventually the motor will be rebuilt and we'll convert to a larger Garret or Borg Warner turbo setup...going for ~350 HP at 8000 RPM on a build bottom end and worked heads.
The current love of my life is a blue 2015 Ford Fiesta ST that puts out about 300 HP in a 2600 lb hot hatch package. Home grown and garage built, this was my first real project car...doing all the work myself and learning a lot along the way. Dyno last week put it down 280 uncorrected wheel HP at the local "heartbreaker" dyno with 115+ F charge temps and no airflow on 93 pump gas. It should dyno a tad over 300 once the weather isn't 100 F everyday, and with ethanol, methanol, or both, it should dyno much more than 300.
Also I have a fiance with me, uh...she's the other love of my life. We built the Fiesta ST together and we race it together. We are going to build the turbo Exocet over the next 3 or so years. I just graduated with a bachelor's in Physics and she's going through college now. We are both tight-fist individuals financially, but we both share a passion for motorsports...so it is hard to tell each other "no" over car parts. We have living expenses down to about $1000 a month and have money set aside for the project so it won't be too hard to commit extra. Time will be the only real limiting factor in this build.
Right now, I've got my eye on a ~50k mile salvage MSM '04 Miata. Body looks like it scraped a guard rail and was totaled under insurance due to having to do bodywork and painting to 5 panels Mechanically is is in great shape and since we live in the south, road salt doesn't destroy cars. We'll see how this goes.
Budget is ~$18k USD, increasing to about 25k+ after two years. The short term plans are to aquire a stock slavage MSM and get it ready for the chassis swap. The idea is to get the MSM and immediatly trash the stock ECU for a Megaquirt 3 Pro PnP. After adding a few quality of life mods, like fixing the intake, removing the MAF/AFM, and adding a way to manually control boost...we are going to learn to tune the stock turbo. With a laptop, boost gauge, and a nice wideband, I have access to private roads and a dyno that charges $33 bucks per pull. Looking for 200 HP on 93 while catless. While doing all that we will add a bunch of life support mods: a fancy new oil pump, coolant reroute, ATI dampener, new water pump, 180F themostat, radiator, timing belt, accessorry belt, PS delete, and all new gaskets will be done while learning the car's quirks and fixing anything that pops up. Probably swap the head gasket out for a nicer piece that doesn't restrict flow to cylinder 1 & 2.
After swapping the chassis over, we will have a 1500 lb caged car that is 200-220 HP. At this step, we will probably learn to track the car as is and see how long the MSM will hold up under all the life support mods. Once the motor goes, or we get "good" with it and we have room to grow, we will pull the engine. Putting forged internals and reworking the head to survive 8000 RPM will be a fun project for a few week/months. Then, after breaking the motor in, we'll be getting an EFR 6758 or a GTX2860 Gen 2 to play with once we have the physical skill to drive a 1500 lb car with 300+ HP. Like I said, time is the limiting factor here. We may spend a year breaking in the engine in order to get more track time.
Overall an ambitious project, but we'll be doing all the work ourselves minus the precise block boring or head porting. Technically we have the budget for an LS3 V8 swapped Exocet, but I think it would be better to have a car that can grow with our skill level in a more...progressive manner. I can't fathom having a 400+ HP car that weights only 1700 lbs. We simply can't drive something like that on the track. We do not have the skill level required.
Ideally, a large (for a 1.8L) Borg Warner or Garret turbo will allow us to slowly increase boost as we get better skilled with the car...so we won't go from 220 HP to ~300+ HP overnight.
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08-27-2018, 06:20 PM
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Welcome to the forum.
You didn't mention a location other than the South. Put your location in your profile so it shows under your screen name when you post. Some of us may be local to you and able to help.
You didn't mention a location other than the South. Put your location in your profile so it shows under your screen name when you post. Some of us may be local to you and able to help.
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