My modification journey began when a co-worker was selling his M45 cheap. I figured "what the hell" and purchased it. I dynoed after installation and with stock pulleys making 5 psi of boost made 164.16 WHP and 139.23 lb-ft SAE corrected on a dynojet. After getting used to this I of course needed more power! So, I aquired an 01+ header, cone filter, put on a large crank overlay pulley, and a small supercharger nose pulley, and converted to E-85 using RX8 yellow 425cc/min injectors and walbro 255 lph fuel pump. Keep in mind this is all on a primitive piggyback non-adjustable fuel card and stock timing... hence the swap to E-85 to prevent blowing **** up at 9 psi of non-intercooled boost. With this setup (pictured here) I made 200.81 WHP and 174.34 lb-ft on the same dynojet I used previously.





A few months back I sold the supercharger setup to some sucker (ummm, I mean I let it go, as reluctant as I was to part with it...) and purchased a Reverent built MS3. I already had the boost gauge and Innovate MTX-L wide band, so wired the wide band into the MS3. I will take some pictures of my current setup in the AM.

Next purchase was a full bore S6 setup from BEGi with the spud (now called S4 with external WG) along with clutch, flywheel, 3" exhaust with no cat, with the resonator and the "quiet" muffler option, radiator, coolant reroute... and commenced waiting. Also purchased full bore XIDA coilover setup from 949 racing... and commenced waiting.

The clutch and flywheel arrived, and I figured "if I have to pull the transmission to do the clutch I may as well throw in a 6 speed". My seller chose to trust UPS to package the transmission for shipment <sigh> The next set of pictures is the removed 5 speed, clutch and flywheel installed and the damage to the 6 speed it received during shipping. Mounting point for the slave cylinder was busted clean off!

Here is the 5 speed just after I pulled it out.


Here is the ACT pro lite flywheel... yes I cleaned off the fingerprints before installing the clutch!


ACT clutch


6 speed as it arrived.


View one of broken slave cylinder mount.


View two of broken slave cylinder mount.


View three of broken slave cylinder mount.


So, purchased a used front half of the case and had it installed, cost me about $25 more than the insurance payout from UPS (had to fight hard for that, but they couldn't blame "customer packing" for the damage, so they are paying up).

So, at this point the status of the car is thus:

MS3, wide band and boost gauge, 01+ header, 3" no cat exhaust, ACT clutch and light weight flywheel, RX8 425cc/min injectors walbro 255 lph pump running E-85, 6 speed conversion with 4.3 rear end ratio, cone filter stuck right on the throttle body.

The final parts to my turbo system are due to arrive today "before end of day" according to UPS tracking.

I was surprised that the exhaust wasn't too loud, people bitch and moan about a large diameter exhaust on a naturally aspirated 1.8, but I don't find it that bad at all. It will be even quieter after the turbo goes on.

While waiting for repairs on the 6 speed I went ahead and did a shifter re-build since it had a torn lower boot, and the 6 speed shifts pretty nice. The clutch engages lower than it used too, but not "dragging" when disengaged so no harm no foul. I haven't stalled the car once with the 10.4lb ACT pro lite flywheel, and rev matching on downshifts is much "snappier"

I think I have dyno sheets for the M45 in the dyno sheets and timeslips forum, and I plan to do a naturally aspirated dyno session just for ***** and giggles on the E-85 setup before installing the turbo system.

Here are some pics of the BEGi exhaust system compared to the stock setup.







Only cosmetic change to the car is swapping to a NB2 center consol.

Thanks for listening to me ramble!

Keith

<edit> added pics.

 

Here are the thumbnails for above post

Keith

 

Very good start.

When you say the exhaust isn't loud now, do you have it on with the stock midpipe?

 

Nope, I put the BEGi midpipe and muffler on. I had to do some grinding on the stock downpipe bolt holes to get the midpipe to mate up to the stock downpipe... the bolt holes on the stock setup are slightly farther apart, and needed to be ovaled out a bit. I am not big on posting crap up on youtube, but I think I will take a couple video's of it.

Part of it is that I am used to driving turbo cars with a 3" exhaust and a strait thru muffler, so a muffler with baffles in it seams quiet

Keith

 

I see. I only ask because I when I had my enthuza setup on n/a, I considered it pretty loud, and it looks almost identical to your setup.

Also the raspiness was driving me insane. It would do it in a very specific spot - 2500

 

Be kind, my first attempt at a youtube video ever. Cold start and a few revs with the BEGi midpipe with resonator and their "quiet" muffler attached to a stock midpipe and 01+ header.



Thanks,

Keith

 

Your youtube-fu is weak Grasshopper.

 

Link was fucked up at first, but fixed it pretty quick... did you try to view before the link fix? Or is your comment because there is not enough **** and ***?

Keith

 

Posted before the fix, but now disappointed by lack of gay ****.

Sounds like Vlad nailed the raspiness range. It sounds nice and mellow coming down though.

 

Here is video of a run through the gears with the new BEGi 3" exhaust with the windows and top up.



Keith

 

Wait... 6spd and a 4.3? o_O

 

Yup, a lot of rowing through the gears My brain is still confused by the rapid RPM rise, the RPM's shoot up so fast in first and second that it almost seems like you are free-reving it, or have massive clutch slip

Keith

 

Are you planning on taking care of that before boost? Because well... that's going to be ridiculous.

 

I remember those days hahaha

1st was so short I couldn't even hit full boost on the disco potato

 

Here is a run through the gears with the top and windows down.



Keith

 

Nope, because I am looking at my brand new spud right now! I am out of town from Tuesday morning until next Monday, and it is killing me knowing that the turbo is sitting here waiting to go on while I am out of town unable to work on the car! I am thinking of doing a naturally aspirated dyno run early next week before I tear the car apart to put on the turbo. Depends on what the bank account looks like at that moment.

Question for everyone... when I do start upping the boost I may run out of fuel on these RX8 425's. I know that they will support 200 WHP because they did when I had the supercharger on the car... but if I start to lean out as I push beyond 200 WHP I will be upgrading to 1000cc/min injectors. My question is this: is there any difference between the $350 1000cc/min injectors sold by BEGi and the $500 1000cc/min injectors sold by other vendors?

Thanks,

Keith

 

You'll probably run out of motor before you run out of injector on those RX8s. (Stock motor, right?)

 

It depends: is begi selling ev14 flawlessly matched "injector dynamics" or hogged out ev6 "deatschwerks pnp" injectors?

too lazy to look.

PS: we've been down that road before if I recall correctly. I'm still of the same opinion I gave you then. Fuel injectors are one of those items that can make or ruin your setup.

 

If I was running gasoline you would be 100% correct. On E-85 I am not sure.

Back on my 05 EVO I had 1000cc injectors and I was running 100% duty cycle at 30 psi of boost and 550 wheel HP on E-85... so using that as my template I should be approaching 100% duty cycle at around 230 WHP.

I don't want injectors to cost me 20 usable HP... so I am pretty much decided to go ahead and order some 1000cc/min injectors after my next paycheck. Hooray for overtime money!

Keith

 

Oh, E85. Yeah, RX8s won't do that for you. Get the nice EV14 1000cc injectors.