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Hi All - i recently had my setup dyno tuned by a highly recommended local tuner. I'm not the most knowledgeable on turbo miata dyno charts and what they should or shouldn't look like, but it struck me a little odd b/c in almost every run peak whp was acheived well before redline (6100 to 6500 rpm) and most times peak torque was the same or higher than peak whp. Here's are a couple of charts. This is a MUSTANG DYNO and the charts are 'corrected' for environmental from actual.
This was at roughly 190 to 200kpa
This is at wastegate pressure of a 7psi spring, usually would get up to about 147kpa:
FlowForce 640cc injectors (have 900s, just not installed)
Ignition
R8 Coil Packs from FlowForce
Spark Plugs are NGK ZFR6F-11, gapped to 0.28
Turbo
EFR 6258 vband flange style, 0.80 A/R
External TurboSmart Comp40 wastegate w/ 7PSI spring
Borgwarner Boost Controller
Fab9 Tubular manifold
Fab9 Intercooler
DriveTrain
ACT 6 Puck plus heavy duty pressure plate
Fidanza lightened flywheel
OEM 6 Speed
OEM 3.9 Torsen 2 (soon swapping to a 3.6 w/ reinforced housing)
Engine Management
MS3PNP for 2001 to 2005
Aftermarket Oil Pressure, Oil Temp, Water Pressure, and Water Temp gauges
Cooling
FM reroute kit
Mishimoto radiator
FM oil cooler
DCN hood vents
"Custom" "ducting"
Front oem brace removal / replacement
Lastly - if the dyno seems fine above. My cooling seems to be on point from previous track days, I have no brake fade etc from how hard I'm able to drive the car. Anything I should be looking at to 'shore' up thats likely to break on track at those power levels? I'm running 200TW 15x7 Azenis though have some 15x8 slicks to mess with. I have been considering the supermiata hubs but haven't pulled the trigger. I just dont want to be missing something obvious that I should be adding for a hard track day only to find out when I'm 500 miles away at the track day.
Thanks everyone!
Last edited by tfbmiata; Aug 25, 2025 at 02:31 PM.
Hi All - i recently had my setup dyno tuned by a highly recommended local tuner. I'm not the most knowledgeable on turbo miata dyno charts and what they should or shouldn't look like, but it struck me a little odd b/c in almost every run peak whp was acheived well before redline (6100 to 6500 rpm) and most times peak torque was the same or higher than peak whp. !
99% of miatas produce their max power well before redline.
the only exceptions to this are cars with big cams and head porting, or cars running centrifugal blowers, as these are tied to engine rpm so develop more boost as revs go up.
You are running a std head (valve sizes, no porting) and standard cams, so without changing these it’s unlikely you’ll move the peak power any higher.
the engine is essentially just an air pump and what goes in must come out. Using a turbo helps force air in but ultimately you are still limited by how fast you can escape the air, which is where porting and cams comes in. Bigger cams typically open the valves wider and hold the valves open for longer to let more air in/out, and porting helps the air move through the head.
Numbers look low, but that is a heartbreaker dyno. A flat top, or skunk2, etc. manifold will allow it to make power to redline better. Huge difference on my car after 5500rpm.
You can boost the top end a bit with breathing mods, but the shape of the curves is basically set by the cams and the boost response. Those graphs look about right for stock BP4W cams and a standard boost curve of "make this much boost as soon as you can and hold it to redline".
Absolute numbers are notoriously hard to compare between different dynos. DynoJets are somewhat comparable (at least when run at the same altitude) because they're dead simple (just spinning up a drum of a known mass), but once you throw in things like eddy current brakes or load cells it needs a lot of expensive calibration to maintain accuracy and shops don't want to pay for it. Absolute numbers don't matter for tuning, just repeatability from run to run.
Looks a bit like cams might not be timed correctly. Post pic of ignition map if you can.
CA91 I assume?
clt temps during run?
Your motor should be safe to 7800 or so assuming either a blueprinted Junk2 T or epoxied OEM TB.
Should make peak power above 7,000, assuming a 3" catless exhaust
Numbers look low, but that is a heartbreaker dyno. A flat top, or skunk2, etc. manifold will allow it to make power to redline better. Huge difference on my car after 5500rpm.
I forgot to mention in the parts list I actually got the flat top manifold as well.
Originally Posted by emilio700
Looks a bit like cams might not be timed correctly. Post pic of ignition map if you can.
CA91 I assume?
clt temps during run?
Your motor should be safe to 7800 or so assuming either a blueprinted Junk2 T or epoxied OEM TB.
Should make peak power above 7,000, assuming a 3" catless exhaust
93 octane in Florida. By cam timing, do you mean physically w/ the timing belt etc? It was a decently warm day and humid as hell. Stock cams. CLTs were quite low in the 160s to 180s as the tuner would take 10 minutes or so per run between each run. I run a 3" exhaust, with a single resonator, and muffler, but it also does have a cat. This was so i can sit in traffic without the car smelling like liquid death.
Originally Posted by muthagoose
Thats low HP for that setup IMHO. 200kpa 15ish psi? only 220 hp?
Also not sure if id classify a Mustang dyno as a heartbreaker. Dyno dynamics yes..
The tuner, who is heavily involved in spec miata racing and has supposedly dont lots of FI tuning with miatas for both street and stock said his mustang dyno will read 15 to 20% lower than a standard dynojet.
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Sorry to everyone for the slow replies, my email box never said anyone replied to this thread so I assumed nothing was happening. Glad I decided to wander around the forums today! I'm happy to share the tune/maps:
Like maybe cam and crank not synced, belt one tooth off. That's pretty aggressive ignition timing. About what I would run on E85. But yeah, underwhelming results for the hardware you have. On 93 at 15psi with that ignition map, I'd expect more like 260-280whp and pulling to 7300 or so.
Monitoring EGT's by chance? That might tell a story. IR gun aimed at exhaust runners can also provide some insight.
Like maybe cam and crank not synced, belt one tooth off. That's pretty aggressive ignition timing. About what I would run on E85. But yeah, underwhelming results for the hardware you have. On 93 at 15psi with that ignition map, I'd expect more like 260-280whp and pulling to 7300 or so.
Monitoring EGT's by chance? That might tell a story. IR gun aimed at exhaust runners can also provide some insight.
He didn't have a monitor for EGTs. I mean, the car is super fun and rips and at least psychologically feels like it pulls all the way to 7000 where I shift, I just wanted to be sure I wasn't missing something which it sounds like I am. All pulls were done in 5th gear on my 6 speed as well. It was a hike to get down to his dyno so I'll probably look for something in town to do some confirmation testing on.
What are you saying about the ignition timing does have me a little concerned. I did ask him to tune it a bit conservative because I want to do track days with a fair amount of overhead so what you are saying seems like the wrong direction from that. If you had to change what you see on the ignition map to make it more conservative, what would you change?
I guess what I can do is take it to a local dyno and just do some confirmation runs to make sure it wasn't something odd with his dyno before I freak out too much. I dont know much about how the calibration of those things work, but he did say he just had a major software issue with it and had the guys who built it working on it for a while.
You can get tip-in det by being too aggressive at 100kpa. Too conservative though and it won't spool at part throttle. I usually create some new setpoints just before and after 100kpa so I can create a more granular map.Tip-in det holes pistons and is hard to hear without det cans.
My general rule is of you can hear it on the dyno by ear, it's at least 3° too much timing. On 93 with your hardware (and uncoated pistons/chambers/valve heads), I would run no more than 20°. You can dial a tad more in past torque peak but need to be careful in the 4000-5500 range.
220whp is fast and fun. Just saying that for 15psi on 93, it should be making a bunch more unless your exhaust is plugged. Our 220whp/7psi dynojet was on E85 and 3" exhaust with a big resonator, no cat.
I'm guessing you don't have a knock sensor and your tuner was using det cans (headphones connected to engine listening for knock).
Yah, confirm cam/crank timing and that exhaust is not plugged. Turbs melt exhausts and sometimes that stuff clogs mufflers. Recently experienced that with our Rotrex supercharged NC..
Tuners who are used to Hondas can sometimes have warped ideas regarding how much timing another engine might be able to run. We can't get away with using as much as some other "modern" engines.
Double check cam timing. So many have been off here in the past.
I cancelled my dyno appoint for verification b/c of work, but now will be checking cam timing. I did have a cam off by setting it up on the "ex" marking rather than the E when I first put this motor in (late night mental flubbbb). I have another post on it in another thread. Perhaps even though I got the cam timing close enough to start and seem normal, its still off enough to not be in tip top. I'll report back when I have time to tear down the front and verify.
Sorry for the delayed update. I've been taking care of a handful of other loose ends (leaking oil, etc). I still haven't had a chance to check. I'm hoping to pull everything together this weekend to also install a 36-2 trigger wheel.
hey all - had a chance to rip down the front of the motor and check the timing belt today. It looks normal to me, though I thought I would post some pictures in case someone else sees something I'm missing. So probably we are thinking the cat is in the way? I'm about to replace it with a resonator and flexpipe so hopefully that is the cause b/c now I'm head scratching.
That looks correct to me, although I wouldn't trust that timing cover, replace it with new so you can accurately sync the timing when everything's together. Yours looks very...bent.
That looks correct to me, although I wouldn't trust that timing cover, replace it with new so you can accurately sync the timing when everything's together. Yours looks very...bent.
Noted - it's definitely seen better days, I'll get one on order!
The middle one barely holds onto that lower one, and only has one other bolt, they usually get soaked in oil together and should be replaced together. They’re ~$25 each, but I recently use a set off Amazon that was $25 total that I was perfectly fine with.
The middle one barely holds onto that lower one, and only has one other bolt, they usually get soaked in oil together and should be replaced together. They’re ~$25 each, but I recently use a set off Amazon that was $25 total that I was perfectly fine with.
As a longer term follow up, I did get this ordered and replaced and timing but because I had also changed my pulley and timing wheel, I have no idea if I was off. I had base timed the car multiple times, so I dont think that was it, but either way at the moment it sits ready for the next time I decide I want to take it to the dyno, catless and ready to go.
Dyno Review and Weak Link for Track Day Advice
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