Ok well where do I start?!

I signed up here a while ago when I was planing on turboing my last car, which was one of the de powered UK 1.6 cars that only had 90bhp. In the end I decided that this wasn't the car to turbo so I sold up, I really didn't want to as I got the car for my 21st birthday/Graduation.

It looked like this before I sold it:





I kept most of the special parts off it, such as the Rs Watanabe's and GV lip as I knew I would want them on the next car.

The plan was to find a 1.8 Eunos, so I'd get all the goodies and hopefully a TorSen!

I ended up buying this beauty, which was completely rust free and was sold cheap because there looked like a wobbly crank pulley and was seriously lacking power:



After getting it home and diagnosing the problem it turned out to be a seriously badly fitted crank pulley which I replaced and the CAS was about 7/8 degrees retarded IIRC.

I got around to fitting some parts to the car that I already had an got on with polishing it:



As you can see I was riding outrageously high! on the Bilsteins... That needed to get sorted! So I bought some second hand BC Racing BR coilovers and cleaned them up and protected them with some ACF50:



This lowered it quite a lot, and I still haven't got around to raising it back up after it settled. The front is a little too low atm, and the back could do with raising slightly too.



Then I removed the fog lights and fitted and offset plate:





And then I went to Dublin, Ireland for my friends stag and got very drunk! heh...

I got hold of a 5zigen Border 304 exhaust, which coupled with a decat sounds AWESOME and free'd up the engine some more:



...A comparison of size against a modern roadster...



I got hold of some Cobra Monaco S seats recently and fitted those. This also shows the other little bits in my interior:



And how it is now, I was at a meet in North Wales at the weekend so got some pictures there:





And one from tonight, it was an epic sunset, shame the photo didn't quite capture it!



So the plan for the car now is to take it down a retro racer look, and turbo it over the next 6 months or so depending on money!

I will no doubt be asking plenty of questions, stupid and sensible. And I'm fully aware the search bar is there ;]

Thanks for reading,
-Lew

 

I love the back of the new Jag F Type

Keep up the work

 

Ooooooo I best update this, it's been a while!

I swapped my hard top for a lovely new mohair roof with heated rear screen:





Then I changed the seats, AGAIN, for some Sparco Sprint V's which I'm very happy with:



Fitted some new calipers, in red with axxis ultimates pads, hel braided lines and ATE super blue fluid:



Then interesting things happened, first of all I took delivery of this:



And then a full kit containing this:



Eaton M45 kit with a KAVS 17% reduction pulley.

Then I got some rx8 injectors cleaned and flow tested:



Decided that the charger and engine bay needed sprucing up, so I cleaned and painted it:





Now as it stands I'm almost ready to bolt the go faster parts on and tune it, should be fitting the Megasquirt tomorrow all being well.

And some random pics for the sake of it:









-Lew

 

Don't you put that super charger on that car! Don't!

You will always want to be turbo. Always!


Good looking car tho.

 

Coulda had a snail!

Seriously though, super clean car and props on going MS first.

 

Haha cheers guys, but I always wanted it to be supercharged, it somehow seemed more... right? on this car.

Maybe because it's retro themed? Just felt like it would suit the car and my driving style more.

And that noise... I'm a sucker for a supercharged whine screaming past

 

I'm sure it will be awesome for a while. Then you will be stuck <200whp and it will start to feel slow. Ask me how i know. (small limp dick turbo crew, represent).

 

If I reach that point then yes, I may turbo. It's not about out and out power for me with this car. It's being able to enjoy it on the roads over here, which unless you've driven on you'll understand that massive power cars just don't work over here, sure they may destroy most cars given a straight but I can keep up with some turbo cars as it is now, in nasp form.

Either way, boost is boost, and it's fecking awesome!

 

I'm just giving you a hard time. I do like the supercharger thing in my mind, never driven or ridden in a miata with one yet. The power curve on paper just looks entirely underwhelming.

You'd be surprised what the roads are like in my little rural mountain town, not saying they are comparable but i understand where you are coming from - unlike most people in US cities with big highways and whatnot.

 

Yeah but a small turbo will make more torque EVERYWHERE compared to that shitty M45.

 

There have been quite a few people convert from small blowers to turbo setups on this forum in the past, this one more recently: https://www.miataturbo.net/diy-turbo...all-m45-75933/

Anyways, OP might just have to find out for himself.

 

**** that. If OP wants to find out for himself he can go to M.net where they will all tell him that he is special and that turbo lag is bad.

This is MT.net where we call people out for doing stupid **** like putting an M45 on anything.

It's not too late OP, you can still sell the stupidcharger. The guy in the link Fireindc posted is building his whole turbo kit for the $800 he got for his.

 

I like this place, no bullshit! Straight to the point.

I'm installing the charger regardless. But I'm not cancelling out that I might turbo in the future.

I'm getting my own house next year, it will have a garage and I intend on building a forged motor and probably heading for a high power turbo setup... But until then stupidcharger.

 

The point you've missed is you never get to use it. At least with a small blower and a low power setup you get to nail the throttle for an extended period of time.

Very rarely were we live do you find a stretch of road where you can really extend a typical 220 - 260 bhp powered car.

 

Wait you're saying lower power is better because it makes the car slower? If you like the feeling of the pedal on the floor, keep it stock. Otherwise I don't understand what you mean by "you never get to use it."

And if you want less power, just turn the boost down and still enjoy your mid-range torque.

 

Stock power has its moments in the UK, but leaves nothing on the table for power oversteer.

Turn the boost down and your at or near to the the same levels as an M45, so it just boils down to personal preference then.

Your just going to have to trust what I say, you've never driven in the North west of England, a typical MT turbo setup you'd rarely ever get to use in anger.

 

I guess so, because I don't see why 150whp from an M45 is perfect but 190whp from a T25 is so fast that you'd rarely get to use it in anger.

If you want an SC because you want an SC that's fine, but don't pretend it's because "it's more useable blah blah blah".

 

Get a turbo or we'll break your knees.

 

Sorry Lew, I don't want to start 100 pages of turbo vs SC drama.

One thing I can positively contribute to:

If you're serious about buying a house next year, don't bother thinking about building up a forged engine for at least a year. I budgeted very carefully and I'm very conservative with my money (see: my "which welder should I buy" thread started 6 months ago... still haven't bought a welder). And still I have much less than I thought I would, as little stuff from the house adds up.

 

Yeah, house buying isn't fun... I'm quickly learning that!