Lanceam24

Been lurking here for a few months now, mainly because boosting my car was nowhere near capable. Fast forward to now just sold my truck and I have the cash to build a kit.

Bought a fairly clean 1991 Miata about 4 months ago for $2500. Ran decent. Previously supercharged but most of those goodies are removed. I started removing other FI band aids like the msd timing retard thingy and an apexi afm... Just a bunch of useless crap on a stock car. Ran crappy after that and everyone at the other forum (don't know if yall get along or anything lol) just told me to put everything back how it was. Why would I? Im going to find the problem.

Long story short, I found the timing to be way off at 10 degrees not -10. got that all squared away and now it runs good other than the occasional surging idle.

I am now ready to turbo. I plan on borrowing the blueprints from a few builds here which utilize the taco bell manifold and t3 ebay turbo. If I can find something for a down pipe and exhaust fine but if not I plan on spending that money on a decent welder and fabbing something up myself. It will be a daily driver so im keeping ac and ps. Hoping to make between 175-200 hp. That's plenty power for a Miata. (CBR 954 sitting in living room)

Already purchased a few parts to get me started; a mspnp1 and an aem wideband good noob right? haha

Anyway expect to see me around asking questions, buying and selling in the classifieds, getting flamed

heres a pic


btw, not my first mazda or turbo car... My first car was a 1996 1.5 Protégé (92 hp)

Sold that and got my first turbo car, a 2001 mazda MP3. I didn't do the work but it ran good and made around 190 hp (basically a mazdaspeed protégé)
I know how turbos work just never built a turbo car

Braineack

iTrader: (62)

Welcome to the site Lanceam24, thanks for joining up!

Lanceam24

Torn between just buying a begi shanghai s kit or trying to piece together a DIY kit. I can save money with DIY but I like how everything is already sorted out with the kit. Decisions decisions...

Nagase

iTrader: (6)

If you didn't do the work on the last car, I'd recommend starting a kit. DIY can be a very very very long road to go down if you're not clear from the start.

Lanceam24

That's what I'm finding out the more and more I read here. Thanks for the input

turbofan

iTrader: (1)

how much do you have to spend?

welcome.

Lanceam24

Well I was trying to stay under 2k but mspnp and aem wideband quickly made me realize that won't happen. Someone just listed a Jackson racing supercharger kit that I'm interested in. I want turbo but I'd settle for any boost right now. I eventually want both.

turbofan

iTrader: (1)

get the MS on there and get it running while you put a few more dollars together.

I'd recommend the FM no electronics kit, then ask them to leave out the intercooler. That'd get you to a little over $2k. Buy an ebay intercooler, or one from someone like Fab9 tuning, and you'll be good to go.

On second thought......

You're on a 1.6.

Swap in a 1.8 and THEN move forward. Yup. No personal experience but everyone else will tell you the same thing.

OR I'd say buy used. No sense in dropping that kind of money on a 1.6 IMO.

Lanceam24

I actually found a guy selling a begi shanghai complete kit with a blown chinacharger earlier but he backed out because he "didn't know how to use PayPal and didn't want to ship it..."

At this point I'd take a cheap greddy kit if I could find one. I don't need a hp monster just a bit more get up and go

Monk

iTrader: (3)

No. You won't be satisfied, and you'll throw away a lot of time and money only to want to redo it all later. If it were me, I'd swap in a 1.8 and tune it with megasquirt before doing anything else. That alone will give you more umph than your 1.6 and you can put together a kit afterwards. Don't forget that you are also going to need to upgrade you clutch and diff as well.

Twodoor

iTrader: (2)

Truer words have seldom been spoken!

At 5.5 psi from an M45 the Miata felt like it should have felt from the factory. Right around the peak power level of an MSM (164 WHP), but with a much better torque curve. Stock MSM power wasn't enough. At 9.5 psi of boost the M45 was lots of fun (201 WHP), but really just enough to wet my appetite for more power, and the M45 is being over driven to make even that much power. I wish my co-worker had never decided to sell him M45 so I could have avoided wasting all that time, effort, and $$$

Keith

Lanceam24

Yea I think I'll pass on the sc kit. I really want to turbo it. At this point I may just opt for the DIY method so I can piece everything together while I install this mspnp and aem wide band and get familiar. Also tackle a few maintenance items like timing belt. The taco manifold/brain t3 chinacharger combination seem to be getting more popular so I'll probably go that route. I was looking at begis website and they have a very detailed how to for their turbo kit install. That along with the countless build threads I find every day should be enough for me to try and tackle the turbo task

Girz0r

iTrader: (1)

If you have long term goals, swap in the 1.8 and learn to tune with megasquirt.

You'll allow yourself room to grow with 1.8 drivetrain upgrades, suspension, etc... Basically the small things that allow you to go faster without taking a hit performance wise if your motor is already running good. Boost later & boost it right!

But, efff teh B0000st is what you're cravin, I'd highly recommend the begi s kit over DYI to get started. Little bit more cash and you'd have a solid setup, no fuss or hidden surprises. But you would still be held to the 1.6L limits... Many sad pandas, much cry.

turbofan

iTrader: (1)

If it were me, and I were wanting boost badly, I'd probably do the taco taco cast mani and ebay churbo and DIY ghey it up and boost it til it blows.

How old are you? That's something I would have done just after high school. So if you're that age... perfect.

Lanceam24

My age doesn't matter. Not planning on boosting til it blows but if does then I'll start a 1.8 swap. I guess it's impossible for a noob to put together a successful diy set up that lasts. I guess it's never been done...

shuiend

iTrader: (24)

Fast, Reliable, Cheap. Pick two.

You can put together a cheap DIY setup, but you need to have time and knowledge. Expect to spend $1000 on MS and a wideband, $400-500 for a clutch. Then $200 or so on injectors. Then you actually start buying turbo parts. You seem to be in a hurry which means you won't wait and shop for the correct cheap parts, you also seem to not have all the knowledge that is needed to build it all yourself.

My suggestion would be get in you MS and install it and run that for several months and learn how to tune your car in stock form. Simply installing that, removing the stop AFM, and getting a decent street tune will pick up 10hp up top and a ton of mid range on your stock car.

turbofan

iTrader: (1)

Nope, never ever ever.

I was typing up a post saying "if you have fab skills, then just build it yourself, why are you asking for our advice"

but I guess you never did directly ask for advice, just kindof offhandedly said you were trying to make a decision.

Do as you please, post pics of fail or win. Entertainment either way.

Lanceam24

Yea I bought a mspnp1 a while back and an aem wide band. I'll be working on those for the time being. The thing that attracted me to the begi kit was that it came with every piece I needed to install and run it (already had standalone, missing ic but that's not hard to source)

I was going to use the kit as a foundation to learn with. I really don't want much but I know about the boost warnings of how 6psi turns into 9 and then 15.

I don't have all the knowledge and probably never will but I'm here to learn. I appreciate everyone's opinion on here because this forum is the authority when it comes to a turbo miata. So flame or help, thanks because that means you actually took the time to read it and provide criticism

Monk

iTrader: (3)

Well ****, I forgot you already had the megasquirt. I would still upgrade to a 1.8 first, but go with a begi s kit or something similar to save yourself from a lot of diy headaches.

Lanceam24

I'm leaning towards the Shanghai kit. I was trying to stay under 2k but the kit plus ecu plus wide band I'm over that. I can save some cash by having them keep the fmu since I'm going standalone... But I'll need injectors, intercooler and piping and I'll probably opt for the stainless lines instead of rubber.