Let's try this again - Alex's NB

[Apu]

Meh...what the heck, drill a few more holes! Add lightness!

[A.Chen89]

Well, it's been a while and I thought I'd revive this thread

Finally got off my P plates earlier this year, its pretty good driving without those plates.

January
Continuing on from last time, I managed to fix a fog light that wasn't working. Blown bulb. How exciting.


Went on a Circuit Club day around March at Wakefield. Was pretty rad...


...until shortly after, my power steering belt decided to eject after turn 2 at Wakefield.


Guess I should of had a look at that squealing belt.

No power steering sucks whilst parking. At speed it was ok. Turns out the aircon compressor seized; didn't get around to fixing that for about 6 months. But more on that later.

April?
Continued to drive the car around for a while...

Yep that's a vintage Corona and a TA22 Celica; parked next to the agricultural Nissan.


May?

Had a go at the South Circuit at the club track day. Pretty fun and flowing track, would definitely like to have another shot at it soon. Managed a low 1:09 I think, or somewhere thereabouts. Will need to see how that improves with some semi's!

Spot the odd one out

Parked next to a familiar blue NA

Cool rolling shot; cheers Regie!


June

This was another month with a public holiday, which usually means another day at Wakefield park! And this is exactly what happened.

I'm sure people were seeing double at one point

The track was quite wet for the first 3/4 sessions, although it was fun sliding, I was keen on trying to best my pb.

Luckily, the last timed session saw the track dry out completely. Managed to get a couple of consistent laps in and got a PB of 1:14.8. I was pretty stoked!

[A.Chen89]

Late June:

The AC compressor is a bit hard to get to in the bay, and I'm a bit of a girl so along with a couple of other things I wanted to do, my mate helped me pull the motor from the car for a bit of a refresh.

Things started to get pretty expensive from here on in.

For those considering a built motor, N/A or turbo, the parts and labour are a pretty big investment. Machining costs add up quick. My advice, if your serious, start up a spreadsheet and try to get the numbers low as possible!

You can save a bit of the latter by taking the engine in and out, disassembly and assembly, but it chews up a fair bit of time. Pretty fun though - if you can build IKEA furniture, bolting bits of an engine together isn't too much of a leap.

Before:
This a BP-ZE block. Amazingly, it looks like other BP motor's.

135,000k's worth of carbon

The bottom end. Random fact: the BP-ZE bottom end uses a bigger thrust bearing than the earlier BP motors. The larger thrust bearing is the same part found in the newer Mazda 2's.


During:
Picking up bits from the machine shop

Refreshed head

All cleaned up!

It goes on this way right?

All done for the day, getting there...

Turbo test fit.

After:
It's finally in!

[A.Chen89]

So just before/during the time I was piecing the engine together, I bought a turbo:



These guys (EFR6258) seemed to be getting pretty popular on Miata Turbo so I thought I'd give one of them a go.

Also got a suitably sized intercooler:


Gave these bits to rxmx/PureMX5 (following pics stolen off Facebook) to make them fit...

Before:


Magic bits:








After:


Was pretty stoked at the result. Setup looks really neat and he managed to fit the long Borg low mount with the PS/AC intact.

First impressions of the Borg was that the spooling sound and response were both pretty ridiculous (in a good way). Driving the car around with a base map felt completely different, definitely a lot better than N/A.

Managed to do this for a couple of weeks before finally getting the car tuned today. Made 183kw @ 10 psi on 98 (BP Ultimate; which I think is a pretty good result.

Unfortunately had some weird timing issues which stopped the boost from being raised. Hopefully I'll sort them out next month to finally see what this thing can do when its in its efficiency range!

[Regie]

can i buy my old car back now

[Lokiel]

Nice!

Do you have any close-up pictures of the turbo and did you modify your lower radiator hose routing to accommodate it?

I'm getting my engine built at MX5 Plus at the moment and am removing the P/S to make more room for the air intake and allow the EFR6258's integrated EBC to be installed - the lower radiator hose runs across the front of the turbo housing and blocks access to the integrated boost pressure barb. I got Dann to route the intercooler pipe underneath rather than use the standard over-the-top SE intercooler route which is causing this issue.

Please keep posting your impressions of your new setup, will be interesting to compare to my own and figure out how much power is actually usable with these turbos - they're capable of 400hp which is definitely not usable in an MX5 without a lot of weight in the boot and massive tyres (+10").

Also, make sure you read this thread: http://www.miataturbo.net/suspension-brakes-drivetrain-49/another-6-speed-bites-dust-75506/ - the gearbox is the next weakest link after an engine build.

[A.Chen89]

Yeah the lower radiator hose has been changed, the mixing manifold has been modified a fair bit. I'll grab some pics when its finalised, at the moment the hose is very close to the sway bar but that will be addressed soon

Can grab you intercooler routing pics if you want. Suli located the three port solenoid in the pod enclosure (black thing on passenger side behind the headlight) which works pretty well.

I'll put up a graph when I get home, the car makes full boost at 3.5k but I think this should definitely be able to be improved. Had some weird issues with VVT/ignition timing which meant we had to pull a heap of timing.

[A.Chen89]

Couple of close ups of the turbo...tried to away. Will have to take some better pictures during the day.




It's pretty tight down there but it works.

Got an AGI bar fitted too! Looks the goods.



Down to business, so the initial tune (with the funky ECU issues), netted the following plot:



Should be able to spool quicker once a couple of things are sorted. Maximum boost at the moment is only 10 pound, so should get better numbers once its in its efficiency range.
The power curve is great, completely linear; definitely wouldn't bother with super charging. The torque (not shown) is pretty flat as well, the boost ramps slightly to adjust for the drop off.

Can't wait to throw this thing around Marulan and Wakefield again, definitely predicting improvements with the extra power

Finally, went for a drive on Saturday

[Apu]

That is awesome!

[shuey]

22v

[Lokiel]

Thanks for posting the dyno charts and photos.

183rwkw at a lazy 10psi - VERY NICE! - and the turbo's not even breaking a sweat. That's what I'm looking for too, the car should be bulletproof on track days at those levels and have usable power (as opposed to lots of wheelspin).

What's driveability like? Is it a torque beast?

It's incredibly tight with the EFR6258 (it's longer than the Garrett turbos). I asked Dann to try and route my intercooler hose underneath, which he managed to do, to clean up the engine bay a bit and allow me to use the SE's original intercooler pipe hole to provide additional ventilation to my Cold Air Box. I'm getting rid of my power steering too to clean it up even further and make the lower radiator hose routing simpler - I was a bit wary of re-routing it through the belts like you've done and my large sway bar wont allow this route anyway.

Hopefully my car will be ready before the Xmas break so that I can run it in before doing a final tune in January.

[A.Chen89]

Yep was looking for track day reliability too.

Haven't dríven any other turbo Mx's but there's obviously a bucketload of torque compared to stock.

Don't really need to shift above 3 when driving around normally.

Been in a 1.6 NA turbo with a disco potato on that, that was laggy. You could definitely feel it come on at 4500.

Been in an SP as well but can't compare as that was a while ago.

Torque and power are pretty smooth; will have to see how it goes down the strip.

[Nevyn72]

Very nice!

Is that a custom Air-box for the CAI filter? Looks very neat and professional.

[bear2230]

Holly crap Alex, 183kw at 10 PSI.
As a comparison my SP is at 160kw but I'm at 15 PSI. That thing is going to be a rocket.
Well done, you will love the extra power. SS Commodore owners will be wanting to cut their wrists when you leave them for dead.

Richard.

[A.Chen89]

Haha yeah, custom airbox from PureMX5/Suli; love that its tidy.

Yep loving the extra power Richard, really want to see what this thing can do at 16 or 20 pound (once or twice). I do want to save my gearbox.

Latest news, I went to the drags for the first time ever tonight. And I found out that I'm not that great at racing in a straight line.

Had three runs, which ended up being: 14.4 (lol), 13.8 and then 13.5 (before I had to go).



Also, time slips.



Any tips for perfecting the launch (apart from launch control)? I think I just need to find the right revs to drop the car at, should net a decent lower 13 then.