Afternoon all,

It is about time I came out of lurk status, and introduced myself now my NB2 build is finished. Well, the first phase anyway.

After reading the excellent noob sticky post, I shall share a little detail about myself and the car, with no mention of lambo doors or daft camber anywhere.

My name is Martin, early 40s with a couple of children, and I live in the south west of England - in a county called Wiltshire, and I have had my NB2 for 3 years now. I have been slowly making it more track ready, with a roll bar, some suspension, and some proper geo and corner weighting.

I do 5 or 6 track days a year, but it also gets used as a sunny day second car on the roads too. My wife is convinced I have ruined it as a road car, less bump compliance and speed bumps are a challenge, but I have fallen in love with the car.

I have recently turbocharged the car in an attempt to make it even more fun on track, but this has been more of a cheque-book build than a DIY. I know my limits.

Ardler Automotive have done the work for me, a great job and I am very pleased with the results.

Best share a few pictures I guess. Cosmetics don't concern me greatly, so the car still looks very much like a relatively old, fairly rusty NB2 but the underneath parts are more important to me.

Plan is to enjoy it at this level for a while, then build an engine, overcome the NB2's 60psi static fuel pressure, and go a little further. Either transplant into a better shell, or move the bits over into a Caterham type car. I race motorbikes, so initially thought that this might be a little tame, but I am pleasantly surprised how rapid this is.

Oh, one final thought. As it is only right that an intro post should have a little self-depreciating humour in it, and to explain the small hole in the front bumper down by the brake duct intake, I attach a little Youtube clip of a track day pre-turbo. After failing to properly tighten an oil cooler fitting, and thus spraying the rear tyres with a fine mist of oil, the inevitable happened. At 3.36, you get to see the turn-in cone I managed to re-locate convincingly, adding the hole in the front bumper.



Martin.


Specification, courtesy of Ardler:
- 245bhp at the hubs, at 16psi.
- Standard VVT engine.
- e_1 manifold for Tial V-band housing and Tial MV-S external wastegate
- e_1 3" down pipe with re-introduced wastegate dump
- Garrett GTX2860RS with uprated metal bearing carriers and stainless heat shield
- Tial MV-S 38mm external wastegate with .4bar spring fitted
- Pierburg high-frequency boost solenoid
- Custom centre section reduces to 2.5" for Flyin' Miata catalytic converter
- Stock rear exhaust section (cat-back)
- Vibrant intercooler from Fab9
- Fully TIG welded hard-piped intercooler run
- Tial Q50 BOV
- Flyin' Miata Stage 1 clutch
- EV14 620cc/min fuel injectors
- Vishnu dual feed fuel rail
- MsLabs Basic MS3 with closed loop fuel and knock control enabled (and setup on dyno)

 

Oh wow very nice, love your car

 

Looks great so far. I can't wait to see what it'll do with a built motor and more boost thrown at the GTX. It looks like you've got everything else pretty well set up to push the turbo toward its limits.

 

it certainly comes on quick. I bet with 20+psi the torque would shoot up like a wall around 3500.

 

Any reason you stuck with the stock cat-back exhaust? It seems like that would be a huge restriction on your set up.

Also if your going to be flogging this hard on the track you're going to want to seriously consider a coolant reroute.

Car looks arsesome, I bet it's loads of fun on track.

 

That's true.

And I don't think he can run a re-route with stock 01+ hg

 

Thanks for the comments guys, much appreciated. I am loving the car more each time I drive it.

I have chosen a lot of these components to give me some future potential. Not sure if you get the same issues stateside, but over here, the NB2s rust horribly on the front chassis rails, and just in front of the rear wheels. My shell probably only has another year or two of life left in it, and my plan is to transplant the mechanicals into something lighter, but with the same handling balance as the MX5. Maybe an Exocet, but my favourite at the moment is The RoadRunner Racing SR2

I have therefore tried to avoid spending on stuff that will not transplant over, like the exhaust. I do also quite like the car staying standard looking, and quiet off boost.

I will have to see if a re-route is necessary. Naturally aspirated, coolant temps were never a problem on track but I know I am pumping much more heat in the engine bay now.

I know there is much more to come with this set-up. Daniel, who built and mapped this, deliberately aimed for 215ft/lbs maximum to protect the stock rods. The EBC is pulling a fair bit of boost to maintain that torque limit.

Forged engine, and fixing the fact that the injectors run out of fuel pressure under higher boost, and this could be very nice indeed.

Martin.

 

Thanks for joining, MJJ_ZX6RR!

 

Nice setup, I have a manifold on the way from Ardler Automotive and will be taking a similar route ... reasonable power first to check everything works, then forged goodies and more boost to follow.

Russell.

 

Looks great!

Also as a side note, I never realized UK MX-5's had optional seat heaters!! I'm kinda jealous...

 

I want one of those Seven copies as well. Thanks for the link. I didn't know Roadrunner existed.

 

Very nice build, jealous

 

I'm really diggin the spicy orange flat top intake manifold very nice.

 

Thanks all for the nice feedback.

2 months and 1,500 road miles in, and I am loving the car more and more. 245whp genuinely seems plenty, but just like Russell above, the temptation for forging and turning up the wick keeps nagging at me.

Despite the chassis rail and sill rust, it has just passed its annual inspection so I may well treat the old girl to an upgrade.

What has surprised me the most about the setup is how tractable it is, and how much torque is available at the boring end of the rev counter. Overtakes at 40mph in 6th are easy, though of course overtakes in 3rd are much more fun.

First post-turbo trackday coming up 5th December, really looking forward to that.

@Girz0r, the intake manifold is Focus ST Orange. The cam cover was the same colour, but Daniel (who built this) only had black available once he had welded on the breather fittings. I said in the first post that cosmetics were not important to me, but I did go a little bling in the engine bay.

Martin.