NA Screamer

[Benny]

Go on some club runs and try to get a ride in cars with various mods, and see what you like the best.
Go to a track day and talk to some of the guys as to what they've done.

You may find that what you want may not suit what you want it to do in that a hot NA engine may be a real drag to run on the street and you may get sick of having a 1200 rpm idle speed, and may hate the lack of low-down torque which a hot NA engine will give you.
Don't dismiss turbos for their lag, as in real life the lag of a properly set-up turbo is way less than the lag with a hot NA engine.
Don't forget, when you do a NA hot-up, you may be increasing its maximum power, but that increase will always come with a loss of power somewhere else.
You see, a FI set-up actually fools the engine into believing it is a much bigger engine. For every 1 atm of forced pressure you feed it, it will think it's twice the size that it is as there is double the amount of air and fuel going into it, whereas with a NA setup, the only way you can get more air into the engine is by having wilder cams and more revs. LOTS more revs.
Now having a rev limit of 8500 RPM sounds really good, but when could you use this on the street?
Not very often IMHO, and what are you going to do with little torque at sane acceleration rates you normally use in traffic?
I've had hot NA cars in my time, and for 90% of the driving, they are a real pain.
When you hot up an NA engine, you can actually REDUCE the amount of torque you have in the area where you use it the most, and just push it higher in the rev range.
A turbo (or supercharger) can actually make the car more driveable and torquey where you normally need it, and still produce prodigious power in the upper rev range.
A hot NA engine can eat plugs on a regular basis, and if the plugs are cold enough to let it rev its little head off, they may be too cold for low speed use and will oil up all the time.

I can fully understand that many people want a hot NA engine instead of a FI one, but the people who have chosen the FI route, can have their cake and eat it too.

[Babalouie]

Is not a pointless aregument.
mx5s are way cooler than 180s IMHO...
Well a lot need lots of works first but in general I think they are better cars.
No I haven't owned one but I have owned the 180s sister car, the s13 silvia. Engine blew within 2 weeks.

But back to the matter at hand.

I like the sound of getting the engine pretty much rebuilt, with a few mods for NA which can also help for FI. something like the cams, lifters, pistons etc.

I am really glad I asked you guys this, am getting some gold

Here's an idea...get a mangy old 1800, rebore it with 20 thou over ACL pistons, which should get you 1880cc, they're cheap. It's a shame the ACLs aren'ty available in hi comp, but shave the head 25 thou and you should get the high 9s in compression. If you have a little bit more budget, I think the 2002+ oem pistons are available in 10 thou over, so that will be a final CR of 10:5 and a capacity of 1860cc.

Spend the little bit extra for Tomei cams, since you know they're streetable and work with the stock lifters. Bung it all in the car. It should make about 88rwkw on the stock ecu, and you have headroom for later upgrades like a computer. Your NA6 headers won't fit on the 1800 but I'm thinking everything else will....change the timing belt, water pump and tensioner while you're at it, and you'll have a brand new engine, that will have about 35% more power than you have now...