It's unfortunate that there are not many tuners that are experienced with turbo MX5 applications (specifically the SE) in sydney. After a fortnight into tuner hunting, you come to the realisation that pretty much all the tuners tend to work on mainstream jap cars (subbies, skylines, silvias etcs.) as thats the niche market.
It has been fun visiting various tuners as you could always notice that pretty much all of them would push the product they had some kind of deal with and in the process write off another brand when questioned about it. In all honesty, only 1 out of 8 tuners did not write off another brand and of the 8, only 2 had some kind of experience with the SE.
Experience working on the SE was a vital selling point, but what i rated the most was honesty. Sifting through the tuners when possing specific questions related to the SE, you could clearly see which tuners like to spin stories.
As far as ECU choice was concerned. Local support was a priority
During my intial endevour into this ECU upgrade, I was adamat on going for full a standalone ECU, as this would give me as much flexibility as far as tunning is concerned. However after seeing the amount of work thats required to get a standalone to work 80% correct and a lack of local support from the manafacturer for many standalone ECUs my mind began to alter.
From my investigation the only standalone for the SE that has local support from the manafacturer is the haltech E8, this is the only manafacturer in NSW that has installed and tested it on the SE. CT race car was the devolpment car. Haltech have also installed and tested the interceptor on the SE, which happens to be Boyracer car.
What finally swung me over from a standalone to a piggyback, was everyday driveability and reliability.
Primarly the car is road dríven at this point, so idle, A/C, alternator etc cannot be better controlled by a standalone for the SE. Secondly I would like to keep the car fairly reliable and driveable, with no intent on huge power gains restricted by fail safes ie AFM, rev limiter and aggressive mapping, the piggyback seems a good option.
So the car has undergone.
Haltech interceptor piggyback
Haltech boost solenoid
Direct drop in 450cc high impedance injectors
NGK 7 1 step colder 7mm Gap spark plugs (wasnt really needed but i really like these plugs)
Dyno runs all in 4th gear shootout. 98 ROM fuel
Base run
135rwkw @ 9-10 psi AFR 11.5 OEM injectors
Stock boost solenoid limit test, with interceptor & 450cc injectors.
154rwkw @ 12 psi AFR 11.5. The stock solenoid only appears to handle upto 12 psi and is not able to hold it very well drops back to 10-10.5 psi at the end of the run.
Haltech boost solenoid, interceptor + 450cc injectors
170.8rwkw @ 14psi AFR 11.5
Props to:
CT, Boyracer and Ricol for the tunning.
