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For the past 2 years I got into road race. My track car is a 1997 currently with full suspension and some decent aero. After 2 years and many track days I got tired of being passed during the straight aways. Being my first turbo setup I originally opted for a FULL kit from Kraken. My engine is relatively fresh, an OEM 1997 with 19,000 original miles. I wanted to keep cost down so I opted not to build the motor (kinda regret that after I finished the project). The goal was to push around 225whp reliably keeping the stock trans and motor from self destructing. The car is a very low mileage little guy and so far has lasted more than 25 hours. I would like to keep it that way and will share how I installed the kit to keep the little thing running strong. Hopefully it lives up to the goal.
My kit consisted of:
- Garret 2560R - Top Mount w/full 3" Exhaust - No AC Not Side Piping - 7" Height Intercooler - Simple Intake - Lines and Fittings
Install: First I started with the full 3" exhaust. Using the provided hangers I easily swapped the exhaust. It all fits very well. I only had to cut the extra hanger for the NB to prevent the exhaust from rattling in the PPF and put a hose clamp on the hanger near the first resonator to slightly raise the exhaust.
Next I decided to install the intercooler, which is pretty simple. The intercooler has two mounts that just use the threads on the chassis for the stock OEM baby teeth. A large nut is used as a spacer between the intercooler mount and chassis that assures the intercooler is properly positioned. I only had to use a couple washers on top of the nut provided to assure the heat exchanger wasn’t hitting anything when bolted down. Now for the fun part! Time to test fit the turbo. Wanting to be able to put the manifold and turbo together I notched the chassis out like FM asks in their instructions just slightly closer to the front of the car. I also decided to ditch the turbo flange gasket and use wheel bearing grease, all sealed very well with no additional machining. Now this is where I started to notice some issues:
1 - The compressor outlet is pointing directly at the power steering hose as well as the stock coolant inlet hose. Additionally the other power steering hoses were also all in the way.
2 - The kit did not include any ports for the wastegate pressure. I had to purchase an outlet with a port.
First I removed everything, the coolant pipes, power steering lines, power steering pump and routed the oil drain and inlet. This is when I realized I over paid for the hardware that was provided with the kit. I did NOT want a silicone holding my precious oil. I stopped by my local automotive AN supplier ColorFittings and purchased hose and fittings from them. Once I got it all routed I could figure out how to route my coolant hoses and power steering hoses with minimal contact. Unfortunately that's when I found out that the TAP I was provided was not a 3/8 NPT tap. It was some 3/4 tap that didn’t make any sense to me. I ended up having to purchase a new tap and drill bit.
Because I had no AC I decided to remove the coolant inlet flange to the block, cut the hose flange off, relocate it to the front of the piece and plug it off. This strategy paired with NAPA 7945 hose it was a perfect fit to my crossflow radiator(will work with any other radiator as well).
Now that the coolant hose was out of the way of the compressor tubing it was time to re-run the power steering hoses. To re-run the power steering hoses all I did was increase the length of the low pressure hoses and left the high pressure one alone. This allowed the low pressure hoses to just go around the intercooling housing with minimal contact. However things got a little complicated with the hose that goes from the reservoir to the pump. It would still be in contact with the compressor hose. To fix this I simply unbolted the steel peace with the o-ring at the inlet of the PS pump. Cut the piece off the flange that holds the area for the bolt, rotate it and reweld it so that the inlet piece points downwards. Then I took the original hose shorted it at both sides and reinstalled it. Finally, I ran some stainless PTFE hose for the turbo coolant outlet and inlet and connected them to the regularly used coolant ports for turbo applications.
The next problem I encountered was that the kit does not include any ports for blow by. I decided to go with an amazon catch can and mount it to where the windshield washer fluid is supposed to be. With my incredible welding skills I created this mount and mounted this amazon catch can Greg Peter uses from the car passion channel. I did have to use some 1/2 to 3/8 hose adapters to convert from the engine block by ports to the 10 AN fittings on the catch can. Additionally, I used a vacuum cap to seal the original blow by hose into the intake manifold. Next was time for the turbo oil plumbing. The Kraken Kit installation hardware is honestly a no go. The fittings do not match the pipe thread on the block, nor was the tap size correct for the oil drain. I was unaware of this at first and ended up just forcing the 1/8 NPT three way fitting into the engine block where the pressure sender is and then running the provided inlets and outlets. Do not purchase the oil plumbing hardware, do some research and source the pieces you need from summit racing or FM.
Finally the air filter, just a little bit of trimming on the intake hoses I was able to get the hose to fit. However, the compressor to the intake flange does NOT have a groove for an o-ring. So if you plan to check for boost leaks you will want to order a flange with an o-ring from ebay or another supplier.
Finally, it was time to install the provided injectors. I was unable to find proper deadtimes and offsets for the injectors nor did the kit provide any spacers. When we installed the injectors I thought since there was no spacer I would just torque em down. This ended up warping the seals when I removed them and I could not get the car idle well. The VE table was incredibly high and would run nice and then stall out. I gave up on those injectors and went with some 640cc flowforce. All running good after that.
Well enough blabbering here are the dyno numbers. 255whp at 13psi and 234whp at waste gate little creep up to 9-10 psi. timing is ~11 deg advance at high pressure levels. Car could have prob touched 280+ whp with some more timing advance.
I will further continue this thread with track prep and see how this kit lasts on a stock engine with crazy thrashing . Excuse typos! Overall everything would have fit much better if I ordered the AC piping. But I had to make work with what I got!
250 on a mustang is HEALTHY! I've had the same setup as you (NA8 head, 8.8 compression) and ran the 2560R at 20psi and 16° timing at peak power, got me to 280-290whp.
Great writeup, this will help the n00bs out there pretty good
While the car made healthy numbers it was definitely not ready for any track time. A fully exposed manifold and zero ducting, work needed to be done. I headed to The Home Depot and bought a a couple benjamins worth of sheet metal. Simply using tin snips, a sheet metal clamp and rivets I measured once and cut twice till I got some decent ducting. While I definitely could have put in more effort to really seal off everything I believe the ducting I did will be good enough. My cooling system consists of a crossflow radiator, a coolant reroute, hood vents and an oil cooler which I will cover later.
First I used the sheet metal to cover off the turbo and manifold. For extra precaution I also boxed off the brake master cylinder which is probably overkill. The heat shield just utilizes threads from the airbox, my brake line brackets and stupidly the valve cover.
For the ducting I first needed to make sure that no air would go under the radiator. With the stock ducting lots of air would escape as the plastic under tray would not seal anywhere near the lower radiator.
For the rest of the ducting I just did my best to replicate the stock plastic trim peace.
While this is a half *** job, it took me 3 hours to do all of it. If I were to ever go back at it I would flatten all my sheet metal trace them and create these peaces without attaching multiple peaces with rivets. Additionally I would try to tighten some gaps or tape off the small opening. Hopefully this will keep things cool at 100 degree days. Im crossing my fingers. Also I am not concerned about aerodynamics my splitter covers all this sheet metal anyways.
The finishing touches to this setup was a custom oil cooler. While there are many oil coolers for sale they all seem extremely expensive, small and routed in terrible places. Being a track car I tend to go off track quite often. Id like to keep my cooler out of rocks petals and all that crap. I decided to great my own oil cooler setup using purely parts from ColorFittings. I went over to their shop, picked top 4 90 deg AN fittings. Some nylon/stainless hose, a setrab oil cooler and a mocal thermostatic sandwich plate.
Assuming that the airflow between the oil cooler and the radiator are the same regardless of the order they are mounted. And a small temperature difference between the air behind the radiator and before. I decided to mount the oil cooler behind the radiator where the AC fan is normally located. What makes air to oil coolers awesome is how effective they are. While most engines use coolant/oil heat exchangers using 200F coolant to cool the oil. The temperature difference between the oil and coolant is so small that they are not great in extreme driving situations. On the other hand air to oil coolers use oil above 200degrees and air at ambient. The temperature difference it quite large making them very affective.
So why explain all that? Well, mounting a 25 row setrab behind the radiator will be just fine. I even got a sensor to back it up.
Just created some simple brackets you can easily mount it flush to the back of the radiator.
Mocal Sandwich Plate with fittings. Threw the manifold support bracket out.
While I have gotten any oil temperature data at the track yet. Driving the car normally for 20 minutes oil temp at the pan never exceeds 160F and on a aggressive canyon run never reached higher than 180F. Im fairly confident this will keep oil chilled on the track.
Now it's time to see how this setup will do. Goal is to continuously run her for 20 minute sessions. With minimal cool down laps. Fingers crossed.
I tend to be a bit ---- and treat my first non-cardboard attempt as a prototype because it's only when you fit it that you'll see where all the improvements can be made, such as smaller cutouts or extra "gap-filling".
Rubber edge trimming comes in a lot of styles so you should be able to find the required type to plug many gaps.
Damn, nice numbers! I've got almost the exact same setup as you on a '95. All the way down to the Amazon catch can next to the cowl and FF640 injectors. 199k on my motor though and making 212whp at 9-10psi on a Dynojet. Guess I have just a little bit of blow by haha.
That's strange yours was shipped with the wrong tap. I got my kit in December and the tap was the correct size. Maybe they switched suppliers and got a batch of the wrong ones?
At any rate, nice build! Looks like you're doing it right the first time. That thing's gonna be a monster on track.
atotalpro, I'm running a Kraken top mount with full exhaust (dual tip muffler). The exhaust isn't too loud, only a handful of db louder than stock at idle/low revs. Sounds good though. This is mine for reference.
Thank you. I definitely will use these as a prototype. Once summer comes by I'll do some serious ducting where I will remove the bumper and make something airtight.
I had the honor to take the car to Thunderhill East this weekend. A great highspeed track to push the car and components and see if they could handle it. In terms of reliability the car held up fine. It pulled hard through the entire 20 minutes. Coolant temperatures where normal. Zero brake fade or pedal squishiness. With my oil cooler the highest oil temperature was 215deg in the pan. However, temperatures throughout the day where 55-60degs. Things where in my favor.
I did have to relearn the car, my Miata is no longer the Miata I remember. It took me until the the final session where I just started to get used to it. I put down a 2:04 in terms of time. The car without a doubt has so much MORE time to save. Hopping to go sub 2 next time!
Can you explain your turbo choice? Why go with the 2560r instead of the efr for example?
Because cost and power goals.
The EFR is a larger and better flowing turbo. Puts the BP well into the 300hp range. Any power like that will grenade a stock engine. Also, budget. The EFR would have raised the price of this project by another grand excluding engine rebuild and transmission replacement. I went with the 2560R because I am not building the motor or upgrading the transmission. If the budget allowed it, the EFR would ofc be the better choice. But make sure your car is ready to see 300+hp.
Me and my son just finished a Kraken install over Christmas break. We also had problems with the Bosch injectors we got with the kit and some alignment issues with the turbo outlet. Our kit was for a 2004 NB and we kept AC and Power Steering so that came with more troubles. We worked through the alignment issues though but never could get the idle right, again we think it's the injectors. We went back to stock injectors as we are only 7psi but haven't retested as we are waiting on other parts. Overall, the Kraken kit is nice. The manifold and downpipe are pieces of art!
Me and my son just finished a Kraken install over Christmas break. We also had problems with the Bosch injectors we got with the kit and some alignment issues with the turbo outlet. Our kit was for a 2004 NB and we kept AC and Power Steering so that came with more troubles. We worked through the alignment issues though but never could get the idle right, again we think it's the injectors. We went back to stock injectors as we are only 7psi but haven't retested as we are waiting on other parts. Overall, the Kraken kit is nice. The manifold and downpipe are pieces of art!
Did you space out the injectors? I forced them in with no spacer which possibly what could have affected the idle or my dead times were incorrect. Not sure. Do you have the 3" exhaust? I have boost creep to 10 psi when using the 8 psi wastegate but I do have decent preload on the wastegate.
Last weekend I had another track day and gave the car a little inspection before heading out. I noticed the power steering hose starting to melt against the charge pipe. I insulated that line to prevent rupture.
This time I went to Thunderhill West which is what I consider my home track. The car survived two hours of shear abuse. The first half of the day I started getting used to the car with these power levels and the second half of the day is when I pushed it a lot harder. I decided to put some 100 octane gas for the second half and pushed the car to 13psi aprox 255whp. Dealing with some misfire, I swapped in some BKR7E. Problem solved. Car pulled extremely well through the day and I even money shifted to 8600rpms. . Car seemed to run fine after. Oil temperatures hit a highest of 220F. Pretty chilly but it was only 60F ambient.
Best times of the day was a 1:25. Heres a of one of em. The 205's were screaming!
Hauling the mail! That's sick man. How blown away were you during the first session out? I remember being amazed at how much faster every corner comes up on you.
Also, that's a lot of power for the 205s! Looks like fun haha. Glad to see everything held up well and you solved the issues/would-be issues quickly.
Hauling the mail! That's sick man. How blown away were you during the first session out? I remember being amazed at how much faster every corner comes up on you.
Also, that's a lot of power for the 205s! Looks like fun haha. Glad to see everything held up well and you solved the issues/would-be issues quickly.
I was laughing and giggling with how amazed I was! It was at first extremely overwhelming but by the end of the day I just started to get the hang of it. I had quite a funny moment when first trying the high boost. Took turn 2, absolutely lost the back end! immediately switched back to wastegate pressure. The 205's are absolutely too small, I will upgrade when life lets me
Haha, nice save! Yeah, it's weird realizing that power oversteer is now a characteristic the car can exhibit. You're gonna get really good at controlling the car with those tires though! 225s or 245s will probably feel incredibly easy to drive after you're used to your current tires.
01-14-2023, 02:08 PM
Kraken Full Kit Install 2560R
. Excuse typos!
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. Car seemed to run fine after. Oil temperatures hit a highest of 220F. Pretty chilly but it was only 60F ambient.
