Well, after 4 years of being a Miata owner and lurking around here, it's time for me to share my experiences of owning this adorable little track weapon. It's been a road with lots of twist and turns and epic moments. In fact, the journey began many years before the summer of 2014 when I bought the Miata. But I'll post a few early pics to give an idea of where this is going...

The previous owner did lots of autocross style mods including 14" TSW wheels and an Autopower roll bar.



In this pic I'm still running the stock 14" TSWs - but I've upgraded elsewhere to accommodate track use. More on those mods later...


To really start from the beginning I'll need to back up to the summer of 2009 when I took delivery of a brand new 2010 WRX Limited in Dark Grey Metallic. This was the car that brought me into the tuner car scene. Before 2009 I had a few Hondas but nothing actually 'tuned' or modded in any meaningful way. After buying my fist Subaru, I realized I knew very little about modifying turbo cars.... so I turned to forums for direction. After getting flamed a few times I found the local meets and began making friends and learning the ins-and-outs of turbocharged engines. I also learned how valuable an online community can be for support along the way.

It didn't take long before I was signing up for events- racing school and lapping at Pacific Raceway in Kent WA, autocross in Vancouver BC and TSD rally events throughout the region. The Subaru community is pretty big and I even imported a few WRXes from Japan to play around with. I did lots to my 2010 WRX including installing a methanol/ water injection system with great results.


Racing in the Rain





Proformance racing school run by Don Kitch in Kent WA - Best money I ever spent. Don is a decorated racer and has a talented staff.


One of the Subies I imported from Japan. 1998 JDM STI that I put brand new Advan tires on.




Rally through mud, snow, ice , tarmac, sun and dark for 3 long days? Yes please.


After learning some basic car dynamics I came to the realization that of all the disciplines I really enjoy the road course experience. Rallying is a lot of fun, but the repairs are costly and it's tough on the vehicle. To do it right was more than I could afford or commit to. So I had to make the hard choice to leave the AWD racing world and look for something that might be more affordable and suitable for road course duty. I toyed with many options, but in the end the answer is always Miata. I always liked the lightweight approach and I knew there must be something special about the mx-5s because people kept showing up to track events with them.

....

 

Miata + paco lift kit + solid undertray = rally pig?

 

​​​​​​It's pretty tempting. I think there's been a few successful RallyX Miatas.

 

Just throw in a 2554/2560/6258 and have all the lulz!

 

​​​​​​Ridethecliche I fully agree. I read somewhere "There are two kinds of Miata owners. Those that are thinking about turbocharging their cars, and those that already have. The truth of this led me to the place of Miata sorcery aka MT.net . I really had to start from scratch on learning how turbo systems were designed. Meanwhile, people here on MT.net kept saying, "Keep your head up for deals and you can do this stuff affordably." I knew this would prove true but it was going to take lots of research and probably support from others. While I was grappling with how to afford and assemble a turbo system I went on modding and learning other aspects the car.

First I found a local selling an OPM WRC wheel, NRG quick release and Momo adapter. Since my car was a non-airbag model I jumped at the opportunity. He also had a brake kit with RBF600 fluid, braided lines and Carbotech XP10 front and XP8 rear pads and Centric blanks. This stuff benefitted me to perform thresh-hold braking without ABS. I was quickly reaching the limits of the old T1R tires the car came with. When a used set of 15x7.5 Work Meisters with Dunlop Z1 tires came up I scooped them up. I like how they look and perform a lot better than what I had.


Local Miata club Autocross



Next I added some Sparco Sprint seats...


We took off the old mounts with an angle grinder and then I beat the transmission tunnel with a BFH before replacing the carpet and installing the seats.



Used TEIN type flex coilovers replaced the worn out AGX shocks and 25 year old springs. And a few mods later I was pretty much ready to add the turbo.

Basic roll and pull and fender liner delete



World-class Area 27 track in BC. My car should have been the slowest here but it was the quickest. I had the benefit of more seat time and confidence with my car.

 

I'd like to note that James' Jeep that he tows his miata to Laguna Seca with fits a hardtop really well

Looking forward to your build thread!

 

Thanks. It was awesome how you pulled the trigger on that fastback top without hesitating. I was happy to support your choice by hauling your old top North with us. It should also be noted that Stewart can repair rental trailers like a boss and also has a legit connections on delicious fresh pies!

 

They say an engine often feels the best right before it blows up. Well, this was kinda true for me. One morning I made the mistake of thinking that a sandwich adapter for an oil cooler was the same as a sandwich adapter you would use for adding npt sensors and such. I used to have one of those sandwich adapters on my Subaru for monitoring my oil and wanted to do the same on the Miata. If you can imagine my stupidity, I blocked off the oil feed fittings on a used oil cooler adapter I had found. I put it on my car and then threaded a filter on the end of it and took the car for a test run. Well, you guessedit, full oil starvation was the result. I had blocked the oil flow at the filter. By the time I got back from a short cruise the engine was shrieking it's last death screams. It ran for a surprisingly long time with no oil pressure. I wish it was a cooler story but that was the end of the stock 1.6L.

Armed with a 1.8 swap kit from FM and instructions from them and elsewhere, I was ready to source and install a 1.8L into my car. I found a used engine from a wrecked '97 which I knew was a good candidate for boost with it's 9:1 compression ratio. I didn't take many pics but you've all seen this story before. More power, more torque, more smiles... well one smile was bigger and my trackday friends were getting feelings hurt even more now


Diesel Grand Cherokee is an affordable daily and pulls the little roadster easily.






Time attack- this time I took 2nd place to a more veteran driver with a far more developed car.




I cut the valve cover and painted it... and I was running an early FM strut bar because I'm kind of a ricer. And yes that's an HKS oil cap and Koyorad for the same reason.

This is a bit of a lead-up to adding the turbo, but if you're following this far then what the heck, we're almost up-to-date.

 

Another time attack pic in Mission BC




Cruising BC on the hottest day of the year a few summer's ago. The coolant needle was pinned on the old 1.6 and I thought it might die. Instead, by buddies Subaru decided it wanted to spew it's ringlands all over in cylinder 4. We had an engine pull party the following weekend.





Counter-steer suggests I've overcooked it a little.







I hope nobody needed those cones


Okay next post I'll get to where I found the turbo setup and add some power the little track monster...

 

After lots of practice, I've concluded that fully open diffs aren't great at the racetrack. I swapped in a Viscous LSD but it acts too-little-too-late for track performance. I was reaching the limits of those rear ends. Then one day a local posts on CL that he's selling a TorsenII setup with some other things.

other things ended up being this...

This 1990 Mariner Blue turbo Miata had seen better days


The person selling the diff had started parting out his beat up turbo Miata. The car had an old FM2 kit on a 1.6 with a 2560r turbo and Greddy eManage. When I arrived the car was a mess. No seats, no wheels. The control arms, hubs and coil-overs were all out. It had a semi-built 1.6 engine with a blown head gasket. It looked like he put the car away dirty 5 years ago and hadn't cleaned or driven it since. It was pretty gross. I bought everything on the spot for $2500. I managed to get the car home, where I set about returning it to stock. I already had most of the parts it would need. Unfortunately replacing the head gasket did not remedy the engine. It had low compression on cylinder 4 and I swapped in a cheap used JDM motor. I was down about $1000 by the time it was sold but I was up a turbo kit and LSD.



In the end, I bought some new and used parts to add the turbo to my car over the winter. Some items I had to buy were:


-FM 1.8 Log exhaust manifold
-ID 1000s
-Forced Flow injector spacers
-FM oil cooler kit
-Singular hood louvers
-Singular ECU bracket
-MS Labs MS3 Basic with EFI bluetooth
-AEM X Series AFR , Boost and Oil pressure gauges
-FM knock sensor kit
-Hankook Ventus R-S4 225/45/15
-GLock R10 pads for non-sport brakes
-Flyin Miata Happy Meal clutch and 12lb flywheel with ACT HD disk
-M Speed coolant reroute
-2 1/4" Stainless magnaflow catback exhaust
-Custom test pipe

There's was lots of other parts I replaced on the car, but you can imagine. Just the basic maintenance stuff. This is how she sits now...


Singular hood louvers let out mad choo choo from the HKS SSQV







Crankcase is vented to a corksport AOS with a K&N filter.




I ended up with 160whp 180tq at 12PSI on Canadian 91. My tuner kept some extra fuel in there and not much timing beyond 10*. The manifold and exhaust housing got red hot after all the dyno tuning. I did a bunch of medium throttle tuning myself and it took me a long time. In the end the car feels very quick. It's probably double the power it came off the assembly line with. It was tuned on a Dyno Dynamics AWD dyno.

EDIT: Forgot to add this pic...

Turbo near the end of the session

inconel stage 8 hardware

 

Next up I'll be adding flexfuel and switch to sequential injection. I'll be adding a Fuel Lab fuel filter to stand up to the ethanol and some new fuel lines. I'm thinking Gates Barricade lines because I have a limited budget and skills. A new DeatschWerks DW200 fuel pump will handle the extra flow.

At the same time I'll wire LS coil packs with Magnecor 8.5mm wires.

To control this will be a Turbosmart manual boost controller in a hybrid setup. This will allow to quickly set boost from 12PSI down to wastegate pressure mechanically.

 

Here's a dyno sheet... I might not have strapped it down enough or it was my crappy tires. It broke traction.


Tuned on Canadian Shell 91