ozbrock

Greetings fellow turbo Miata owners. My long search for a Miata finally came to an end back in February of this year. I have been looking for the right one for a couple years now, actually signed up on this site back in 2010, but haven't posted until now. I had test driven a couple of turbo NA's, which were fun, but they were mostly all done being built, and I wanted a blank slate I could make my own. I decided to start searching for MSM's, and was holding out for a Lava Orange with the GT package, which I luckily eventually found locally.

I picked up my bone stock 2005 LO GT on Feb. 22nd, here it is next to my DD. The previous owner had added Clearwater component speakers and an IPOD integration to the stock Bose unit, which sound pretty good actually. The car also had a brand new factory canvas top installed a couple months prior to me buying it.


The first things to go were the headlight covers and front plate frame. First thing to go on was a faded red hardtop with headliner and defrost off a '99 I scored for $700.


Which was soon plastidipped black by me, along with the gas door and hardtop striker plates.



Next I added a 320mm Sparco wheel and an Autometer boost gauge to the a-pillar. Also sourced some OEM Mazdaspeed floormats since my car did not come with them.



Went to Miatapalooza and ended up winning 3 dyno pulls from BSI Racing in Holly Hill, FL. You can also see the Llumar Airblue 80 tint I had installed on all windows including the windshield in this pic.


Then I went over to BSI Racing and proceeded to get some baseline numbers. the car seems to have some serious heatsoak issues. Hopefully a bigger intercooler will help with this down the road.



I then ordered and installed a MAF relocation intake kit put together by a member over on Mazda-speed.com, and went back to BSI for another dyno run. The car picked up an extra 26hp and 25tq at the wheels from the intake kit. Drivability improved with the kit as well.



BSI quoted be a pretty reasonable price to install the Hard Dog hardcore roll bar I had sitting around, so I decided to let them do it!


The Hard Dog looks great, and I could tell a big difference in chassis stiffness after it was installed. Especially going in and out of driveways, and driving on uneven brick streets.


Future plans include a 2.5" ebay stainless downpipe, a brake overhaul, then probably coilovers and new smaller/wider wheels and tires.


Thanks for looking!

Ryan_G

iTrader: (8)

Where in Florida are you located? I am pretty sure I met you at Miatapalooza. I was with FrankB and we had the 2 MSM's, silver and black, that were sitting in that long row to the right of your car.

18psi

iTrader: (76)

Welcome. Clean car good choices with mods so far. Get EMS and unlock all the power you're missing out on with the stock ecu.

ozbrock

I am located in Downtown Orlando. I remember meeting you guys, which one of you bought my NRG short hub? lol

ozbrock

Thanks, EMS will be added depending on if/when I get tired of ~200whp.

Ryan_G

iTrader: (8)

Frank bought the short hub. I suggest you get a new EMS even if you don't want more power. It is not really the top end that benefits as much as the mid range. The stock ECU is a pile of ****. The MS2 was the best mod period for the car. No more bog, no more afterburner at 5.5k, you get a higher redline than 6.5k, and much more reliable AFR's. The stock ECU is lean for quite a bit of the map in boost.

EDIT: If you look at your dyno plot you can see how the stock ECU keeps you in the high 12's until about 5k rpms. You hit max boost long before that. With the EBC hooked up I am hitting 14 psi by 3.2k rpms and holding it until redline. I'll have to link my virtual dyno for you so you can see what I am talking about.

18psi

iTrader: (76)

If only that 200whp was over a broad rpm range and not the last 1500rpm it'd actually be fun. But its not.

ozbrock

Hmm, you guys are making some very strong points!

Ryan_G

iTrader: (8)

Here is a virtual dyno from when I was still trying to tune the car which is why the boost has that dip at 3200 rpms and the AFR's are not smoothed out and fully tuned in in this graph either. This has since been fixed but this graph still gives you a rough idea of the difference an MS can make.

ozbrock

Does that virtual dyno reflect all of the mods in your sig as well? Also, are you tuning it yourself, or did you take it somewhere? Those graphs look pretty tasty.

Impuls

iTrader: (1)

+1 on a standalone next.
My engine is an 04 MSM.
I was running 15psi and reaching fuel cuts but it was such a blast to drive.

Braineack

iTrader: (62)

Welcome to the site ozbrock, thanks for joining up!

Ryan_G

iTrader: (8)

Yeah that does reflect all the modifications in my signature. You don't have an aftermarket exhaust yet so that will present a restriction from what I have there but you will still notice a significant gain from the megasquirt.

Doppelgänger

iTrader: (12)

Welcome.

If you're looking at exhausts, I'd HIGHLY recommend Enthuza products over eBay crap.

ozbrock

Well, I already have the Ebay 2.5" downpipe sitting in my garage, but I wasn't planning on using anything else Ebay as far as exhaust goes. I plan on swapping out all the hardware that came with the Ebay pipe with some grade 8's from Ace Hardware. As far as the rest of the exhaust goes, I haven't made a decision yet. I have browsed the Enthuza site and everything looks nice, may have to go that route if nothing used pops up on the forums.

Doppelgänger

iTrader: (12)

I will also warn you that you need to make sure you get something pretty quiet/deep. If you go with something that is too open, you will start to have issues with exhaust leaks at the manifold/head. I've seen first-hand that loud exhausts on MSMs cause the nuts on the manifold to come loose over time. It's something about the heat and design of the manifold/turbo/exhaust that creates a resonance which causes the nuts to come loose.

ozbrock

Thanks for the heads up. I would like to keep it on the quieter side of the spectrum because i do a lot of highway cruising here in Orlando. That and I'm not a ricer.

ozbrock

New brakes


New air vents


...and new wheels and tires coming next week.

FrankB

iTrader: (4)

That would be me. I haven't been able to make it work with the horn or clock spring though. Good to see you joined the the forum.

ozbrock

Thats why I ended up buying the Daikei plug n play hub.