CX Racing 1.6 Turbo Kit - Worth it?
 

Hey guys,

I saw another thread over in DIY that was a mess. I want to say first and foremost, I am aware that this is nowhere near ideal and that with a cheap kit, you get what you pay for. I also have done some research and am not asking to be spoon fed, I am just asking for opinions.

Being a broke kid in college, I obviously like to find the cheapest things to do to my car, however, I do have a little common sense that won't let me ruin my car.

I saw this review of a CX Racing Turbo Kit for a 1.6 that really piqued my interest:
He paired his kit with an MSPnP2 and went into a little detail of self-tuning. I know that besides that, he has the Wideband O2 and a few misc items that he needed to complete the kit.

I found the kit here (at least the main part of it) and it comes out to a nice and cheap $978 (+ tax). So that, plus the price of an MSPnP2 (~$800 depending on where you get it), and then a wideband O2 with gauge (~$150-$200) comes out to around $2000, which... isn't bad considering my budget.

When I first got my car, I really wanted to turbo, so I learned from everyone about how I should spend my time researching and get quality parts, which I know is the best thing to do, there is no doubt about that. However, as a budget option that will allow me to learn the basics of turboing and tuning (especially if I can re-use the MSPnP2 eventually), this kind of thing is really appealing, especially if I can find an extra 1.6 to drop in (and run N/A) if this thing blows.

My goal is only around 8 lbs of boost, which from my research, yields about 160-170 HP. I know the stock open diff doesn't like a lot of power, so a torsen has always been on my list, as well as getting an NB 6 speed if I can find one. Also, I would likely pick up Rx-8 injectors, or something around 250-300cc.


[SIZE="3"]What are your thoughts on this? Is this a path worth considering or is this just another tempting purchase that will be my demise?

[SIZE="1"]P.S: Why is there a filter where mods need to approve posts? Why don't they just let the post go up and then deal with it afterward? Just curious.

[SIZE="4"]I responded after the 4th post but my post is still awaiting confirmation. Is this just for noobs or what? By the way, if I don't see it publish and I miss the chance the edit it, I realized that I did email you, Lars, my bad, lol.[/SIZE][/SIZE][/SIZE]

his TS project name is cumstain. that's all you need to know.

If you can afford a CX kit, you can afford an MKTurbo kit, which would be a safer bet. :)

you're ignoring that common sense right now, if you have any that is

Basically this. For less then $500(because shipping will cost some on CXRacing setup) more you can get a manifold that won't sucks balls and crack, a turbo that actually is sized correctly, and a full 3" exhaust.

The only downside besides cost is that I can be slow to make the setup, verse CXRacing probably has them on the shelf.

At least I didn't blow my summer money on this kit without any knowledge and blow up my engine. ;)

Okay, I'll read up on that. It's this kit right? I remember seeing the site and, I think, I emailed the guy a little while ago about it. He gave me some insight on what to do before I even think about turboing. I forgot I messaged Lars.
So it does include the exhaust, but does it include intercooler and piping, as well as misc. items like the oil feed and return lines or BOV? I know the ECU and Wideband O2 (and injectors and what not) aren't included.

Or you realize that you are broke, and just stick with NA. Maybe just swap the 1.6 for a 1.8 and get a real nice 30 hp bump. Bonus points for a VVT swap. cheapest most reliable power possible, IMO. Then again, your 1.6 diff wont survive ANY power increase (turbo 1.6 or 1.8 swap), so account for that. More thinking on my end... all signs point to sell the 1.6 and buy a 1.8 car.

Broke college student builds a turbo Miata = "I'll take poor decision making skills for 100 Alex."

If you're really set on trying to turbo on a budget there are better ways to do it than the cxracing kit. Browse the 240sx forums like zilvia.net for a little while and you can pick up a real garrett 2560 for less than $100 off of someone who upgraded. After that a begi or fm log manifold and downpipe, and an ebay intercooler and charge piping can be had for probably $500 total. With the money you saved there you cam afford rx7 injectors, a stronger clutch, and a 1.8 diff, and you will have a much nicer setup than the cxracing kit.

You won't find a 2560 for less then $100. You can find the 2554 for around that price.

You're correct, thats what i get for trying to have multiple conversations at once. Still better than the t28 chinacharger in the cxracing kit

Also, please stop recommending RX7 injectors.
I know it's in the FAQ, but it is very outdated info.
The new cheap standard at this point seems to be GT500 injectors, which you can get from trackspeed.

lol this aint 1990

Hell, you can just buy the mustang injectors and the FF adapter kit... Nigel showed his data from from flow testing them all and theres very little variation. Obviously getting the FFs means that you get a set that's been flow tested and matched, which is awesome.

Doing just the mustangs is still loads better than the rx injectors...

Also, huge +1 to everyone recommending the 1.8 swap and torsen swap. Your money goes much further that way...

Sure, fuck over Nigelt who's just trying to make a buck and buy ebay Mustang injectors...

I bought 4 GT500 injectors from a "respected ebay vendor" before Nigelt got going and 1 of the 4 didn't work. Wasn't worth the assache.

flow matching is what you're paying money for. it's what let's you get better gas mileage, efficiency, consistency. un-matched, the OEM "spec" variation can be as much as 6% to be deemed acceptable. This is per Ford. 6% is a pretty large swing in fuel in my book, and even then OEM's have per-cyl fuel compensations, and most Miata ecu's don't.

folks' definitions of "it works" varies wildly. to pay 300 bux for a matched set of ev14 pnp injectors is pennies

here i'll fix the problem.

https://www.miataturbo.net/useful-sa...21/#post126318

How exactly is that fucking over nigel? I bought his kit for the adapters, which he sells likely specifically for this purpose. I'd guess that his profit margin is likely higher because of this. Since then, I've convinced at least 2 other people to buy his adapters when they were thinking of buying RX8 injectors instead. From what I recall, he even said in one of his threads that the variation between injectors was low enough based on his data that the flow testing was likely unnecessary and people could get away with doing that. Folks buy his stuff for the peace of mind. I bought 8 used injector takeoffs from a guy that was upgrading his mustang. They run great. I know others that have bought remanufactured injectors, which may have caused them issues.

Like 18psi said, people pay the money to get closely flow matched injectors. I thought I was safe because I bought 8 from the same car and they came in two baggies, i.e. one bag per fuel rail. I bought all of this when I was just starting out. If I had to do the same now, there's a good chance that I'd have just spent the money to get flow matched ones especially because I'm not running a wideband for every cylinder. I also got the advice to do what I did from a respected poster on here, which is one of the reasons I did it. I likely wouldn't have bought 4 random injectors on ebay. (Edit: I also didn't know about the 6% accepted variation as Vlad just said above. 6% @640 is ~600-680cc range at the extremes. Yikes!)

Caveat emptor as always. Still worlds better than buying rx7 injectors that are old as dirt and are likely not going to be flow matched as well. And there's no doubt that nigel is the man. If this is the dumbest mistake I make in my build, I'll be happy. If my 'good enough' advice makes a noob not buy ancient injectors, then I'll consider that a win.

TLDR; Nigel sells the adapters so folks can do this. If he thought it hurt his margin, he likely wouldn't sell the PNP adapters...

Hahhaa, yes!

"Not buying from Nigel" isn't the same thing as "fucking over Nigel."

Let's get some logic going on here.

For $300, his stuff is great. It's an easy button for injectors that are matched across a single point that drop into your car.

The big deal with EV14s is not the 90%DC flow match, but the low-DC match, down around 2ms. I prodded Nigel to push his matching process down to 2ms when I first started selling them. You idle around 2ms, so matching them there makes a big difference. 6% at high-duty sucks, yes, but 10-12% deviation at 2ms sucks a lot worse. For the minimal extra money and zero headache, I have no idea why you wouldn't just buy the full FF640 kit.

Chill, if i'd used the :rofl: or :giggle: then you'd have known i was fucking with you.

See above...

Hahah dammit you got me.

As someone who bought a set of 8 on ebay to split with a friend, and now has a lumpyish idle likely due to one injector being way out from the others... Spend the extra $80 or whatever it works out to....

guess i shouldn't feel too bad about the ev1 flowmatched 540cc injectors I installed.. at least they are flow matched, and at $80 shipped the price was right. when i blow up my oem engine, i will rebuild for a higher hp goal, with more $$$, but i cannot afford to do it right the first time.

EV1 is utter crap

You should most definitely feel bad about running 540cc crap.

They're not even able to be matched as close as 14's because at a certain point they can't even decrease pulsewidth, because they were made in the dinosaur era.

Don't do it at all ? :dunno:

Pickup some FF injectors. Win at life.

Budgeting and creating a realistic timeline is also important. Damn... do you have any additional resources that support your criticisms? I do understand the technology is old, but from my research in finding comparisons between ev1, ev6, and ev14 i found a lot of qualitative analysis but not much quantitative data. I'm all about data. So i asked the big HP guys and was told ev1 is fine and the difference in HP would be maybe 1-2% if your lucky. So long as you have quality flow matched ev1 injectors. And this wasnt the person I purchased the injectors from lol

take peak power numbers, and throw it away.
nothing frustrates me more than when people say:
"do I really need xxx ecu and xxx injectors for ONLY 200hp?"
better technology is better at everything, at all times. peak power numbers are irrelevant and anyone bringing that up in a discussion about good injectors or ecu is a mor0n. it's about startup, idle quality, throttle tip in, cruising loads, etc etc etc. you can run a stock 90's car on 90's technology, but when you heavily modify it, you need modern technology to achieve good outcomes, because you're altering numerous things and increasing output. so either you run junk and suffer bad efficiency, or you pay for good stuff and enjoy the benefits.

he's what I'm saying in a nutshell, cause I'm not digging up data I collected in 2008 on my '00 miata when I wasted time on ev1's for all of a week or two:

they're old. they're not designed for efficient low pulsewidths. they can't open and close fast enough to control a stable 14.7AFR smoothly and efficiently. so you either run em fat and throw away efficiency for smoothness, or vice versa. often you can't even go vice versa because they'll cause misfires. the bigger you go, the worse it gets.

Do they work? sure. for most people that's good enough. but that's a far cry from work good/efficient.

You aren't budgeting.
You are trying to cheap out as much as you can.
This is going to cost you quality and performance in the short term and money in the long term when you eventually do it right or have to sell your non-running pos.

this guy knows

Naw, its still budgeting. ;~P

Running perfect 14.7 idle. Great tip in response. Was really hoping for data but flaming is really what I expected. Thanks yall!

Ya'all are really riding the MT.net train real hard right about now.

Heaven forbid you find out dudeman isn't running Xidas. Or an EFR.

https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...6f410790aa.jpg

Let's see logs of perfect, since you're so scientific.

and I, likewise, expected questioning collective wisdom and experience, expectations to dig up and spoon feed data, and moaning about it should the hard work not be provided on a silver platter.

this isn't m.net. we're not gonna go do your research for you just because you don't believe ours

big difference between a 2k set of xidas and 300 set of injectors.

It's 300 vs 150 to go from jank to legit. I've even seen numerous sets in the classifieds for 200

:dealwithit:

Hey i'm not about that EV1 life, I have EV14s.

But he clearly said he paid $80, and i've personally run many sets of EV1s that idled just fine at even low 15s AFRs. It's not WRONG, it's just that there's better options if you choose to spend the money, and that's really it. We all drove, modified, and tuned cars for years before EV14s existed.

Again, EV14s are better, but the MT.net witch hunt is a bit blown out of proportion in this case.

It's not a witch hunt. It's a standard. The actual standards will always be lower than the set bar. You let n00bs read in various threads that "EV1 is OK" and suddenly "EV1 is the hotness".

I don't even know why I try anymore. Those that wanna be cheap and use junk will continue to do so, regardless of logic.

I'll just stop caring. :)

That's my boy!

people today, still read my threads from 2006 and take it as gospel...

​​​​​​​I thought you were infallible.

the times have changes, and trends moved on, but the the spirit of youth i still carry on.

Is that a Corky Bell quote?

Rofl! Sorry to have thrown the thread off course, but honestly anything is better than another "can i cxracing my miater?" thread

it's from this song:



You know who you are you insincere,
Straight edge last year,
Drinkin' a beer,
Have no friends,
No heart or soul,
Playing the roll,
Full of shit.
Before you go waving flags you better know what you stand for.

Please listen to 18PSI and the likes of those who discourage going the cheap ass route. I myself thought of going that cheap route, but realistically, if you don't have the money or commitment to go all in financially with your Miata, you shouldn't be anywhere near forced induction.

There is smart budgeting where you slowly piece together quality parts....versus buying a POS kit that you could easily invest 25-50% more and get something you can put in, set it and forget it, as Ron Popeil used to say.
Not putting them on pedestals, but I'm glad I listened to their advice. I guess now we're all equally annoyed when we see another "broke but want boost" thread. Worse are those that want advice but then do what they want anyways. It's like saying I want to live in upper Manhattan but don't want to spend too much money. The two do not go hand-in-hand

I also play the role of the "broke college student", and almost ran a similar course to you.
The way I would do it, is just to amass your parts slowly after getting your MS. I bought a lot of turbo parts and then halfway through got an MS. Start with your MS, also don't get a MSPNP2. Just get a DIYPNP, with the sequential injection mod. Building your own MS is way easier than it seems if you can follow directions.
My setup was the classic "Taco Taco" cast manifold, and a cheap random T25 chinacharger that I picked out of the pack at random. If you don't like deciphering eBay turbo specs, ask someone on here, or just get the MK Turbo kit AFTER your MS.

Itemize your setup in an excel sheet. With price, link, purchase date. That way you can keep track of what you've bought, what you need to buy and how much money you're going to throw into this. Building a turbo car takes research, lots and lots of googling and money.
Certain websites make it seem very easy to just slap on a turbo with an MS and call it a day.

Then there is the exhaust:
I've yet to find a prebuilt downpipe that isn't incredibly expensive. I bought one of those pre-bent exhaust pipes that has a U, and a 135 degree bend. Buy a welder if you can, it'll save you SO much time and money.
For my setup, I couldn't afford to build a full exhaust, so I attached my downpipe to my stock midpipe. It cost me like 50$ in parts for the downpipe, and another 140 for the HF welder and mask.

Its definitely possible to boost your car right being a broke college student. Just do it right the first time. Don't be dumb like me and run no coolant in your turbo, or testing the limits of your turbo (I hit 21 PSI). Be patient.

Jeez I thought you hit 14 and made everything unhappy. But 21 on that thing.....