I've had this '96 triple black for going on 7 years now and finally boosted it this past weekend. I'm pretty sure it has every option except for ABS and hardtop and I kept them all with the turbo kit.

Here's the best picture I have of it, it looks pretty much the same except I have a tan Robbins top and BBS wheels now:


It's been running on MS1 for a few years and has a bit of work. The motor is a '96 with a ported head with 1mm oversized valves and it has been de-shrouded and it has '04 pistons, Raceland header, and exhintake swap. Using a 1.6L flywheel with matching ACT clutch. It made 125whp on the dyno before I installed the MS and the extra power kept me happy for a little while.





Chassis has Tein basics, Hawk HPS pads, and E30 14" BBS with whatever tires I come across at the time. Other than that it's pretty much stock.

 

Now for the turbo install...

My friend has a race shop down in Albuquerque which is about 500 miles from where I live in Denver, but it's worth the drive. My other friend works there and has been helping me fabricate the system from pretty much scratch. I totally misunderestimated the time it'd take to complete and it ended up taking me 3 trips down there...totally worth it though.

We started with the manifold, I followed the DIY thread here and my buddy replicated it:



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http://i103.photobucket.com/albums/m...o/IMAG0605.jpg



Next we mounted the turbo and started on the charge piping and intercooler. Piping is shitty exhaust tubing but it was free









http://i103.photobucket.com/albums/m...o/IMAG0945.jpg

http://i103.photobucket.com/albums/m...o/IMAG0952.jpg


Next we made the downpipe which took a long time but came out really well. The wastegate has it's own divorced tube which rejoins about 8-10" down and it bolts up to my OEM cat which means I can do anything in the future with my exhaust pretty easily. This is the best pic I have of it, will get a better one when I do real heatshielding:




It took many long hours of hard work and sweat but we got it running about 12:00 on Saturday night. My buddy told me have fun and he went to bed. I was up until 3:30 busy with all the little things and test driving it. Put about 60 miles on it and really flogged it to make sure it'd be reliable. Ended up bypassing the coolant lines for the turbo as it was making my unducted, stock-radiator (lol I know I know) overheat.



I made the 500 mile drive home safely and met up with a fellow MTer fireindc in Taos, which turned out to be the one of the best drives I've had in a very long time. If I'm honest though, the turbo made it the best drive of my life. Once I got into Denver I took the long way home

 

LOL@ the pegged speedo pic. Nice car man, glad we could meet up and make some noise. Turbo setup seems solid, just clean it up some and it will be perfect. I'd start with a proper heat shield and making the engine bay look less like a rats-nest.

Mechanically the car seemed very solid. Props for being a crazy man and building a turbo kit 500 miles from home and driving it back.

 

Also, who did your head work? Looks really nice, mines coming apart this winter for an overhaul and the head is definitely going to be re-worked (as well as the bottom end )

Edit: Also was curious about your gearing, one time when we raced you shifted and i still had a long time before my next shift. I'm rocking 4.1 in the rear on a standard 5 speed. Probably the same as you, lol.. but you might have 4.3 ? IDK

 

Lol thanks dude. Not sure I can make my bay as clean as your though, loved your car.

Soren at Miata Specialists did the porting. No flow bench or anything, just by eye. Only reason I have it is cuz the guy he ported it for changed his mind and went with a '99 head. I got this one for way less than the price of the oversized valves lol.


e: also remembered I had my GoPro in my glovebox about 2 hours after I left your place, damnit!

 

Just saw your edit. I'm running stock '96 gearing which is 5-speed plus 4.10s. The last time we raced I was in 2nd around 6000rpm lol, trying to get everything I could. The other times I'm pretty sure I was in 3rd. I'm on 14s too which is probably the difference.

 

It's quick already on the tune it has. Just needs MORE BOOST.. but so does mine. Just got my new fuel pump in and will be tuning for allofit on e85. Then engine build + bigger turbo next year if all goes as planned.

Anyways good fun!

 

It needs more timing. The boost comes on nice but it doesn't take off right away. I added only about 1-2 degrees of timing last night and its way faster and comes on sooner. Need to get a new O2 sensor and build my electronic det cans before I push it any more. Also 7psi is only 125kpa at this altitude lol

 

YIP, lol. Sounds about right. What timing map are you running? I'm still on the mspnp basemap for a 99 car for now, will be playing with e85 soon though so I can get the hang of it before I build a motor.

 

Here's my map. It's just an evolution of the map I've had for years. Tuned everything below 80kpa on the dyno so everything above that is new territory for me.

e: woops dunno where I got that map, this is the one that's on my car.

 

It looks like you did a pretty good job!!! im glad you liked it so much! lol
The pipe work looks pretty good too. I wish i would have had mine bent and welded for the most part. instead, i used scraps from a tubular Bunk Bed factory, and couplered them together. haha Its sealed, i just dont like all those points of possible failure.

 

Thanks man, yeah that's what I'm hoping for. The piping was all pre-bent exhaust that we got for free from another shop's scrap pile, pretty shitty but a hammer and some skills and it turned out pretty nice.

 

Swapped out the rad today for the Performance Radiator from my SM, it won't be running anytime soon. It will just be a bandaid anyway because it's still a single row OEM style rad, just all-aluminum and with less dents. Will be getting something much better soon and a reroute as well. I also shoved some high density foam in between the rad and the AC condenser around the edges. I also cut up the stock front rad duct that I didn't have in place, and made it fit with the intercooler. Worked pretty well, will make some end plates when I have some more time. Initial results promising, runs a lil cooler. Hopefully I can run the AC now too. I got this ic for $20 and it shows, which ain't helping either.

 

Got around to figuring how much the turbo setup cost and it came in at less than I thought originally. There's probably another few hundred bucks worth of stuff but I went through all of my paypal transactions and as much as I could remember for this list.

Some of the stuff I already had on the car and didn't include like my ACT clutch, MS1, and motor work. Also I didn't include the stuff I got for free like the i/c tubing, downpipe tubing, various hoses, oil drain fitting, vac Ts, etc.

e: got about 2000+ miles now and it's still holding strong!

 

lol @ Herbal Gifts...

 

Damn, $85 wouldn't even get me 1/2 of an herbal gift.

 

So I was idling my car for like 45 mins yesterday while charging some batteries and I started to notice some oil smoking coming out of the exhaust. I figure it's the turbo itself but have no reason to believe this other than wishful thinking.

I turned it off and then when I started it to drive away there was a ton of oil smoke out the back, blowing all over the place. Only lasted for a few minutes so I'm thinking it's the turbo leaking oil into the exhaust which was probably pooling until I started driving? That sound right?

No visible smoke this morning after cold-start or the drive to work.


Either way I ran with my buddies APR turbo VW R32 yesterday and he only pulled on me a little bit through 4th He's only on 6psi too.

 

Definitely wasn't smoking when I saw your car. Interesting. Do you have a restrictor of any kind running on that turbo? I had to put a .60 on mine to keep it from burning oil at idle intermittently. It was just like you said, it would burn oil randomly after a while at idle, then would burn a bit when you revved it afterwards, but would eventually clear. As you saw the car still burns oil under heavy load, so I'm not even sure if it's the turbo or engine.

Try a leakdown test as well.

 

No restrictor, I've read conflicting reports on whether it's needed on a SR20 T25 or not. I figured if it wasn't smoking then I didn't need one. This turbo had some impeller damage and I broke a stud while tightening up the DP the other day so I already got another T25 in.

I'm planning on swapping that in this weekend while I also install my shiny new M-Tuned reroute. Just in time for winter!

 

Keep in mind that the sr20 turbo in its oem application (on a sr20det) is restricted. Depending on your feed line size, you may need a restriction too.