Topic: turbo miata build thread ***Ripper on pg 3*** (Read 58810 times)

patsmx5 · « **on:** March 06, 2009, 10:54:03 PM »

Saved this right before I was banned, so here it is.

I did a DIY turbo setup for my car. The goals were to build a setup that's powerful, but to keep the car a sleeper. I tried to keep it cheap, butâ€¦ pretty much failed there. This is my first turbo setup and it was a huge learning experience. I've been collecting parts for about a year. Built a MegaSquirt II to run the engine Jan. 08' and have been running that ever since. This summer I mounted the intercooler and fucked with a SC project and then abandoned it. Then in August I started buying turbo shit so I could turbo it over Christmas break.

I tried to buy used shit to save money.

MS2E, wiring harness stuff, etc.                  $600
LC-1 w/controller                        $190
Intercooler(new-second hand)                           $90
"Tial Style" BOV and 38mm gate, Silicone bends, couplers, and T-bolts, some flanges I didn't use. All from Evans Performance
$330
Autozone air filter                        20
New GT3271 bought second hand                  $350
T2 based Flyin' Miata Manifold(used)               $120
2", 2.5", and 3" Mandrel Bend Builder's kit from Racing Solutions      $210
Magnaflow muffler, glasspacks, hangers, etc               $200
Tools needed to do the job                     $200
-12AN oil drain shit from Summit Racing               $68
-4AN oil feed stuff from Egay                  $40
Ebay MBC                           $20
Shit from Autozone to finish the build               $150
RC 550's low ohm(used)                     $150
ACT Extreme Clutch(used)                     $100

I don't even wanna add that up, but I'm sure it cost a lot more than that in reality.

Box of CDM goodness

Garrett GT3271 52 trim comp, .78 A/R divided turbine.

Got a deal on a FM manifold but it was T2 and had stripped threads. And it also didn't have a port for an external wastegate. So I adjusted the manifold a bitâ€¦

Before:

Had to retap the threads bigger then locktite some grade five bolts in there.

Next day I cut them off and used a file to get it flat.

Then redrill and tap to T3 bolt pattern

Then test fitted it. I drilled the heads of the bolts so I could wire them together.

Added an external wastegate port. Had a welder braze it on. I did all the other welds. Works.

Then I was pretty much ready to turbo it. So out came the motor.

Had to cut some of the car out of the way for my IC install.

And make some brackets to hold the IC and condenser.

And some 5/16 weather stripping to seal things up and keep the IC from touching the other heat exchangers.

And now it fits. 20x12x3 core IC hidden behind factory condenser.

Working late

TT oil feed. Worked perfect.

Got the ACT Extreme clutch installed. Locktite'd the bolts.

In the spirit of HMT, I tried gluing my broken motor mount back together. Failed.

Damn welders were all slacking around Christmas, so I couldn't get my AN fitting welded in and I didn't have one that would screw in and point up. So I tapped it crooked. This was really fucking hard to get right. Ended up using a socket.

Screwed in the 3/4 NPT to -12AN fitting. Not it points up.

And welded it in.

Ground the inside flat and welded it too.

Old backhoe I worked on.

Opened up the stock intake manifold to get rid of a resonace chamber and make the second set of runners actually feed the motor air.

You can barely see in this pic but I added two extra ports to the plenum for the WG and BOV.

And ground the fittings smooth on the inside. Porting done.

Turbo bolted on.

Made a hardine for the waste gate. Bonus points if you see what's wrong in the pics.

Ready to go back into the car.

Back home

Ghetto trigger wheel setup. Works fine though.

Got the oil feed and drain hooked up. Made some SS coolant lines for the heater core.

Got dark and cold so I turned the heater on.

Then made my IC pipes.

Then painted them in the dark. Don't paint shit in the darkâ€¦.

A/C and P/S still fit

Put a new timing belt, tensioner, and idler pulley while it was apart. All mazda shit. No pics.

Finished. Need to clean up the wiring one day.

Second startup.

Only problem was the cork oil drain gasket I made leaked. Redid it with some Fel-Pro shit from a machine shop and it's fine now.

Washed it

I built the exhaust. Has good ground clearance.

Drove it a few days and had a fuel injector o-ring fail and almost caught the car on fine. (I fail, should have replaced them) $14 dollars at wal-mart laterâ€¦

Here's my AFR target table I'm tuned to right now

And my spark table I'm running

I started out running waste gate pressure of 8 PSI and got it tuned there. Now I'm at 11 PSI and it's wicked. No traction in first or second gear from a roll. I get full boost by 3300 from a 4th gear roll, but in first or second I don't see full boost till after 4K. Overall it's fun to drive. Needs an LSD bad and something to help with wheel hop.

COP project in the works

So yeah that's it. Turbo miata. Put about 1K miles on it and so far everything is working well. I want to turn up the boost but I have no traction as it is.

Robb · « **Reply #1 on:** March 07, 2009, 12:58:13 AM »

Hells yeah looks great pat. ;D

glustic · « **Reply #2 on:** March 07, 2009, 01:31:09 AM »

Awesome ass build thread! Clean as fuck!

colt45 · « **Reply #3 on:** March 07, 2009, 06:09:51 AM »

good job man. tight ass work. just wondering, why do you put wire through the head of the bolts around the turbo?

colt45 · « **Reply #4 on:** March 07, 2009, 06:17:37 AM »

hows that brazing holding up?

patsmx5 · « **Reply #5 on:** March 07, 2009, 02:04:44 PM »

If you wire the bolts together then if one tries to spin out, it pulls on two others' it's wired to and tries to tighten them. And since I wir them when they're tight, if one tries to back out it pulls on two others and nothing ever moves. So my bolts stay exactly the way I tightened them and never backout no matter what. They wires fasteners on airplanes and stuff where it's critical that it doesn't fail no matter what.

And that brazing is working like a champ! Old man brazed it. He's been a welder for like 50 years and done some other work for me in the past. I told him it was for a turbo motor and he said the brazing would be fine. I doubted him a little, but fuck me it's working perfect so I can't complain. ;D

92CXyD · « **Reply #6 on:** March 07, 2009, 02:15:13 PM »

Nice build. ;D

danz · « **Reply #7 on:** March 07, 2009, 11:31:16 PM »

kick ass rhmt status on the manifold.

you think the brazing will hold up to the intense temps?

SloS13 · « **Reply #8 on:** March 07, 2009, 11:34:56 PM »

Awesome. My turbo miata is by far that funnest car I've ever owned.

98vtec · « **Reply #9 on:** March 07, 2009, 11:51:07 PM »

maybe i missed it, but what engine management is that?

patsmx5 · « **Reply #10 on:** March 08, 2009, 12:12:28 AM »

Been daily driving the car since Dec. 30' 08'. 11 pounds every day and so far ~4k miles and it's worked flawlessly.

I'm running MegaSquirt II Extra standalone engine management with ford EDIS triggerwheel ignition. Works well overall. Not the best engine management in the world, but it runs the motor and keeps things safe and allows me to tune shit and make adjustments.

And yeah, it's a blast. These cars should have been boosted from the factory. It's just awesome.

86crxZ6T · « **Reply #11 on:** March 08, 2009, 02:09:21 AM »

are you tuning or autotuning feature

turbo4life · « **Reply #12 on:** March 08, 2009, 02:15:10 AM »

nice build thats good you ditched the gay twin supercharger!!! cool to see a good 'ol turbo set up!!! do you do any hpde? track? you should if you dont that shit will own!!!!!!!!!

ApexSilver06MR · « **Reply #13 on:** March 08, 2009, 02:34:47 AM »

solid build

patsmx5 · « **Reply #14 on:** March 08, 2009, 02:40:47 AM »

It does have autotune but I never use it. I just setup my target AFR table and then make a datalog, then it analyzes the datalog and compares my AFR to target AFR and automatically adjust the VE table accordingly. Give it one hour and I'm within 0.1-0.2 points of AFR target at any given cell. And I call that good enough. It also has another type of autotune that's on all the time, but it losses memory when you power off unless you hook up a laptop and tell it to save.

I ran it in the 1/8 mile a a couple years ago a few night, none last season. I need to get into autox and whatnot. Suspension is stock right now. This summer I'm gonna start doing suspension and get a few autox days in. There's a guy here with a 302 V8 conversion that wants some. :yes:

enikolayev · « **Reply #15 on:** March 08, 2009, 05:27:34 AM »

Solid repost ;D

Annihilator · « **Reply #16 on:** March 08, 2009, 06:56:44 AM »

wow. There is some ingenuity in this build. I love the manifold flange conversion, brilliant idea. Hell, pretty much everything on this build is a cool idea. Definitely get that thing on an autocross sometime. There is one locally that is supercharged and kicks the shit out of my civic in SM2 (not the right class for my car, but whatever lol).

However, don't be surprised if that turbo slows you down on the autocross...that thing is ridiculous and awesome haha. Road course would be best with that setup for sure.

- Steven

dvst8r · « **Reply #17 on:** March 08, 2009, 12:29:39 PM »

So you drilled for safety wire, but then never wired them?

patsmx5 · « **Reply #18 on:** March 08, 2009, 01:54:09 PM »

Thanks everyone. I definitely did a lot of things my way instead of the traditional way. I'm the first to cut the car up and mount the IC like that. Took a lot of measuring to know it was gonna work and me still keep my A/C and all. Most run pipes under the car that are in the way and hang low, and you end up with 14 connections in your pipes and a million bends, and have to cutup the bumper and factory air dam to make it work. I cut nothing but those two spots to do this. But a lot of the things I did I got my ideas from here. Like for an oil restrictor I just tapped my AN fitting that goes into the turbo oil feed and put a setscew in it, then drilled .070" hole in it. Cost $0 and works perfect. I posted up about whether drilling and filling the manifold would work on old HMT and a few guys here chimed in and said it should work, so I did it. Again, probably wouldn't have tried if I didn't get some feedback from knowledgeable folks here.

Yeah, it's drilled for safety wire but I haven't wired them. I need to order the wire, it's like .040 solid stainless wire. Has to be tiny shit or it won't really work, and lowes don't have anything small enough. But the threads going into the manifold are over 1" deep and apparently that's been enough grab that none of the turbo bolts are backing out anyway. But I'll wire them eventually just because. If someone here has some tiny ass solid wire hit me up.

Steven- I'd love to start tracking the car. You're right it would do much better on a big track not something like autocross. From cruise I don't get full boost with the stab of the throttle unless it's turning 4500 RPMs. But from a roll in 3rd I've got full boost 1k sooner. Overall I like the setup. I'll change a few things this summer to improve it and make it more reliable. Needs a V-band clamp welded to the turbine and one to the downpipe as getting to those bolts right now is terrible.

patsmx5 · « **Reply #19 on:** October 30, 2009, 06:01:44 PM »

I'm bored, so I figured I'd update my build thread as I've changed some stuff.

After 6 months, the brazed on wastegate cracked.

So I pulled it off, made a new tube for it from schedule 40 pipe, built four braces, and had an old welder who welds to cast iron every day TIG it up for 30 bucks.

And while I had everything off, I decide to paint it with some VHT header paint.

All put back together.

And wired the bolts finally

The main cooling fan on the miata sucks, and Spals are $$$, so I got a fan from a ford cougar for 6 bucks, cut out the old fan, and glued the ford fan into the miata's fan-shroud. This helped cooling at idle A LOT, especially with the A/C on in the summer.

Ford fan glued into mazda shroud

My shitty VR sensor bracket was acting up, so I made a new one that's much simpler and more rigid. Now it doesn't vibrate and loose the signal.

Ready to weld

Welded

Installed

I had started a Coil On Plug setup already, but I decided to keep the EDI4, so I switched to some ford mustang COPs.

Wiring harness for COPs

COPs installed

Cleaned up the wiring some, still needs work though.

Removed all this

Now

And I made the bottom piece for my cold air intake. Datalogs show this helped AIT's a lot, I was surprised. And power seems to be better too.

ktown powder coating · « **Reply #20 on:** October 30, 2009, 06:28:21 PM »

very nice build! :yes:

Eggylshatch · « **Reply #21 on:** October 30, 2009, 10:24:44 PM »

Good work pat. I hadn't seen your build thread before. I appreciate how thorough you are with your shit, still building everything yourself, but not halfassing like many do. I built an air intake box for my old turbo civic when it was feeling weak on hot summer days, seemed to help a bit... I'll have to try to find a picture. Does yours seal to your hood?

patsmx5 · « **Reply #22 on:** October 30, 2009, 11:54:40 PM »

Thanks, I try to do my best. It's my daily driver, so it needs to be reilable.

It has right at 1/2" clearance from the top of the box to the hood at any given point. When I mocked it up with cardboard I zip-tied pencils to the cardboard and then shut the hood so it would compress them, so I could get the height right. Just need to add a piece of weatherstripping to the top so it will seal. I keep forgetting to get some at the junk yards, you can find it on a door jamb or just about anything, and OEM stuff is usually high quality.

bryantaylor · « **Reply #23 on:** October 31, 2009, 12:12:23 AM »

i want a base 99.

and i still remember those pics from before we got banned on MT.

AbaZ · « **Reply #24 on:** October 31, 2009, 01:55:00 AM »

this is a great thread.. love the build.

ratcityrex · « **Reply #25 on:** October 31, 2009, 02:16:18 AM »

Said it b4 and I say it again. Im digging the build.

Pootie · « **Reply #26 on:** October 31, 2009, 12:20:37 PM »

nice build!!

i might have missed it. But what are plans for the car, or is it just a nice boosted daily?

xsenceo89x · « **Reply #27 on:** October 31, 2009, 12:42:13 PM »

Sick build dood. Is that wire on the mani bolts so they dont walk out?

patsmx5 · « **Reply #28 on:** October 31, 2009, 12:52:28 PM »

It's mainly my daily driver. Still has A/C, P/S, nice stereo, power windows and locks, I've added sound deadening and heat-reflective stuff to make it a nicer ride. I do plan to get in the low 12's in the 1/4 mile this summer though on a stock motor. Not many get in the 12's on stock motor, much less with all the creature comforts. And yes, the wire keeps the bolts from vibrating out. They're only torqued to 7 ft*lbs to prevent plastic deformation from thermal expansion. Work great.

JayL · « **Reply #29 on:** October 31, 2009, 04:03:53 PM »

Looks nice man, you've made some progress since the last time I saw the car.

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Author Topic: turbo miata build thread ***Ripper on pg 3*** (Read 58810 times)

Author Topic: turbo miata build thread Ripper on pg 3 (Read 58810 times)