My roomate didn't know that you could put a car in gear when it wasn't running. Used to always leave it in neutral. Got real pissed when I moved it and then he almost drove into the wall of the garage when he started it.

 

Hey guyz, is now a bad time to say how cool my turbo timer makes me look?

(I really should water cool my turbo one day)

 

Ecutek box showed up at my desk this morning...

 

The atmospheric tune has begun in earnest; it's going a bit slow due to some weather challenges here in Memphis. I also have more parts to take pictures of; good lord I'm behind on taking pictures :( The AGM battery and related kit, the Innovate SCG-1 and MTX-D Oil/Pressure combo gauges, my Saleen-esque dual-gauge dash pod all hit the doorstep a day or two ago.

Also, Fab9 sent and I have paid the very last invoice for the kit; the remainder of the hard parts should arrive on my doorstep next week if all goes well. I had him coat both the charge pipes and the intercooler; the goal is to keep the car as reasonably "sleeper" as possible.

 

Can't wait to see your kit

You gotta unbox and lay everything out for the money shot

 

Damn fine idea, I'll do exactly that.

I *did* get a picture of the new tuning tablet while loading up a new map from Joe @ DynoTronics two nights ago:


Hopefully the hand gives you a sense of "scale". The Kirin cable hanging off to the right is a microUSB to dual USB "A" hub / splitter / converter thing. I've got it plugged into both the OBD2 cable and the ECUTek hardware key and just leave it beside the driver's seat. All I have to do is whip out the tablet, plug in the MicroUSB cable, and start the app from the Win10 "tablet mode" start screen.

It works flawlessly -- boots in like seven seconds, battery seems to last for between eight and ten hours of constant duty (depending on what I'm doing of course) and it's ridiculously light. It automatically on-demand tethers to my Lumia 950XL phone when I need to download a new ROM or upload a new log. Occasionally, Microsoft gets things right

 

So what is the tablet?

How much have you spent on this turbo kit so far? If I check all the boxes on their site (battery relocation, fuel pump, and injectors) it comes to just under $6,200. I haven't seen a price on the bigger MAP sensor option yet, and you still need a clutch and tuning solution.

 

Tablet is a Lenovo Yoga Tablet 2 8" (Windows). <-- link to Lenovo's website

I bumped it to Windows 10 with the upgrade tool, then once the license was legit I wiped it completely and reloaded it myself from the raw OS media. Loaded one of my O365 licenses on it so it has Excel and Outlook, loaded up the ECUTek software, even loaded up Netflix because why not. The little kickstand thing isn't of much use in the car, but it's great for a table.

I'm not at liberty to discuss exact pricing of the kit itself, but I bought the slimline battery and kit (which is more expensive than the relo), the fuel pump, ID 1000cc injectors, and the 3 bar MAP. Because I'm one of the pre-prod folks, it's reasonable to state that I didn't pay the same price you see on the page. Also because I'm one of the beta testers, Bryan was very kind enough to provide some discount on any other parts I ordered in relation to the turbo setup.

Fab9's package tuning partner for this setup is Joe over at Dynotronics. I payed the standard, published rate for Joe's services including the purchase (not rental) of the cable and key. He's putting together a normally aspirated tune for me, with my 100% stock drivetrain, in exchange for some published dyno numbers. The cost of the additional tune was about the same as the dyno runs; it was my idea to offer He's been very easy to work with, and the remote tune has been REALLY simple to manage.

When the car is "complete", I figure I'll have spent about $15k in upgrades on top of the $14k purchase price. That's including all the suspension and braces, the turbo equipment and related supplementary parts (injectors, pump, radiator, oil cooler, clutch + flywheel, gauges and boost controller, etc) along with wheels (Rays TE37SL or the newer RE40's) and 200TW tires.

Hardware should be in my garage before February, which means everything short of the wheels and tires should be done before March is up.

 

Normally aspirated "after-tune" dyno scheduled for Wednesday, March 2nd at 8:30am CDT.

 

I just bought an 06 Winning Blue with a factory hard top. It has 75k miles and I plan on budgeting for a built 2.5 soon. I will lean on your experiences with this kit to see if I want to go with it!

 

With a 2.5 build and an EFR6758, you're going to pull like a freight train Ask me anything you like, I'll tell you straight up.

I'm also hitting MIR this weekend to get some stock (plus ECU tune) timeslips in, so I have a more "real world" result to compare against after boost gets applied.

 

Looks like a nice well thought out build. Where do you dyno?

 

Thanks! I use Dynospeed Memphis: Home - Dynospeed Racing

They're primarily Chevy / GM build shop but there's always a few Fords rolling around in there. I'm not sure they get any real traffic from "imports", but the guys there were happy to help and seemed genuinely interested in the car and my plans for it.

There's a seriously reputable metalworking shop that I'm hoping will build my exhaust, but if not (or it's god-awful expensive) then I'll likely ask Dynospeed to do it.

 

Thanks! Good to know. I'm just down 55 from Mempho.

 

I hit up Test-n-Tune at MIR today. I'm running the stock, seven year old tires on stock pressure (35psi) which of course results in bad 60' times. This is fine to me, all I wanted to see was trap speeds which is where the power actually shows up...



The times are about what I expected; kinda hoped for 14's but it became obvious I wasn't going to make it today. Do my RT's show that it's been 10 years since I did any drag racing? Was a great day outside though. Mid 60's, clear, low humidity, and just a small breeze to keep it cool while staging. I was the only import making runs, and was thoroughly outclassed



Lots of cool guys (and gals) to chat with. Had a few people ask about the Miata, one particularly friendly guy in a silver C5 wanted to know when I was coming back out so he could see the turbo kit

It's a stock Miata making a 15 second pass, but if you want to watch it:

 

A 6758 on 7-8 psi will probably make 200 whp, so those times will drop soon

 

I would hope for a lot more than that at 8 psi. My car did 230 whp at 8 psi on a GT2871R on a VVT engine. 6758 is a bigger turbo on a much better-flowing engine. I'd expect at least 250 whp at 8 psi.

 

Yeah, most turbocharged NC's see around 240-250 on a half bar of positive manifold pressure. I semi-reasonably expect to get to a full bar of boost when I get it all dialed in; others have been quite successful along this trek.

I have no specific interest in drag racing, however this seemed the easiest way to quantify street-usable power versus just a dynosheet number. This is also why I went to the track with a full tank of gas, didn't change tire pressure on the seven year old factory tires, and the interior was wholly unchanged from any other day of driving it (my maintenance / fuel book, the Mazda owners manual and a spare interior dome light all in the glove compartment, a spare phone charger and trombone brush in the rear cubby.)

I have no interest in trying to convince anyone here of my epic drag race skills, because I have none

 

If 8 psi gets 250 whp, then what is the argument for a 6758? A 6258 should easily put the NC drivetrain into 350+ whp range and maybe be more responsive. Is the 6758 going to be more efficient over the majority of the operating range or something?

 

The "production" Fab9 kits will have the option of the 6258 for exactly this reason. According to Bryan, the larger 6758 should be entirely capable of over 400WHP with enough spool for anyone's reasonable taste, the smaller 6258 good for perhaps 325whp.

The pre-prod folks all got 6758's unless specific concessions were made beforehand. My power target is more inline with the 6758 anyhow, and who knows maybe I'll bump to the 2.5L if I destroy the stock block.