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My newly acquired NA with an old Hitachi HT18-bm turbo off a 12A rotary engine is blowing a heap of smoke. I was quoted 1100 on a rebuild or 1500 on a custome pieced together Garrett ball bearing water cooled. I am leaning toward option B obviously.. I am trying to do as much of this project myself as possible so am just wondering where everyone else with a water cooled tapped into their water jacket. Someone said the heater lines are the best option?? Any pictures would be greatly appreciated...

This is my virgin post on this forum, i will do an official introduction with some pictures soon. I also have access to some wholesale parts but more information on that at a later date.

Definitely go with the water cooled version.

That main bearing in turbos needs all the help it can get as far a temperature goes.

If you want to see how it's plumbed in, stick your head under the bonnet of an SP.

G'day Shadydeals. With a name like that you should fit right in here

When I had a turbo fitted on my NA6 (1989-1993) I used the small diameter thermostat bypass coolant hoses.

Below is a link to the Flyin' Miata website with install instructions for their Turbo kits, I used this when I installed my bitsa kit.

http://www.flyinmiata.com/support/turbo.php

J.

Thanks for all the help guys. I'll post some picks of my progress. Thanks again

Chinacharger!!

Check the miataturbo.net forum out - everyone is going with chinachargers over here. They are SO cheap - even if they lunch themselves in short order, no real harm done. That said, guys are getting good service out of them, even in high HP applications.

The china chargers have come a long way in quality and relyability, even some of the miata turbo guys are using them these days whereas before they would tell you to get a garret of get "OUT". Plain or roller bearing thats up for debate, roller certainly better, but $1000 better ??
I dont know if your an eBay user, but if you log onto eBay proper the US site, not the AU version, and search your turbo spec T25 or GT28 you will find hundreds of turbos, some will post world wide for $100 on top, but the turbos are cheap.
mounting flange sizes are the next issue, know what you need to fit what you have. You may need to modify, its unlikely you will get a straight bolt up.
The small 8mm water connections on the thermostat bypass are used, it doesnt mater which way you pipe it for the out and in to the turbo, it will flow regardless, you may find the turbo connections are not 8mm but bigger and this will need some addapters/reducers and naturally two different size hoses. I tried to find a good picture but couldnt. The flying miata instuctions give you the info.
Think about a turbo timer to run your car for a while after you get out Apexi have one thats fairly simple, they are cheap on eBay and actually use the O2 sensor reading to figure out how long to run the engine after you stop.