Common Mistakes in Turbo Miata Track Preparation
03-15-2012, 11:23 AM
#1
Moderator
Thread Starter
Join Date: Jul 2011
Location: Tampa, FL; Lake Jackson (Atlanta), GA
Posts: 1,902
Common Mistakes in Turbo Miata Track Preparation
The following is a list compiled by Emilio at 949Racing after years of turbo Miata track development. I thought it was interesting how many omissions and mistakes currently exist in my car, so I thought I might share. I'm a long way from running a high boost car on the track, but I didn't realize how far.
Stuff Miata track turbo guys do wrong
Stuff Miata track turbo guys do wrong
- No hood vents
- Hood vents in the wrong location, i.e behind #3 cylinder
- No full coverage undertray
- Radiator core not 100% sealed for air leakage around it
- No reroute
- #6 or #5 plugs
- Stock coils
- NA batch fire ignition
- NA6 batch fuel
- Pump gas of 92 or lower octane
- Non-Inconel manifold studs
- OTS BEGI or FM manifold w/o turbo support brace
- OEM Garrett internal wastegate and >10psi instead of VTA
- Too small VTA BOV
- Intake pipes without beads
- Intake pipes held on with ordinary worm drive hose clamps
- Throttle plate not epoxied
- Solid motor mounts broke other stuff on car
- OEM diff mounts - broken exhaust
- No V-Band in DP
- OEM Rods
- OEM pistons
- OEM oil pump
- No clutch bypass for starting leading to toasted thrust bearings
- No oil cooler
- No trans cooler
- No diff cooler
- 5 speed transmission (went through at least four I bet)
- Rubber lines for turbo oil and/or coolant
- Restrictive tube/Fin I/C from big name American company instead of superior Chinese Bar/Plate off ebay (who knew)
- Piggy back ECU
- >13psi with NA cam/crank angle sensor + ragged edge tune = det
- No WB02
- WB02 in wrong place
- No EGT
- Coolant temp sensor at front of head
- Heater bypass w/o restrictor
- OEM 16psi rad cap instead of 19psi Koyo/Stant
- Too few/misaligned exhaust hangers = cracked DP
- Bad welds, cracked DP or exhaust
- 5th injector in manifold
- RX7 460cc injectors
- RC engineering injectors
- No det cans used during dyno tuning
- Boost turned up after dyno, then raced
- Boost turned up way past highest efficiency island on compressor map
- Zero safeties built in to ECU (overboost,EGT,WB02,coolant pressure etc)
- Insufficient heat shielding for heater hoses, master cylinder, trans tunnel
- More than one change in intake pipe cross section dimension between compressor-I/C or I/C- TB.
- Under drive pulleys
- Road tune only for WOT/peak boost only (no steady state part throttle dyno tune)
- $25 junkyard turbos
- Non-water cooled turbo
- Koni yellows with GC coilovers
- Spec Miata suspension
- OEM rubber suspension bushings
- NA6 diff
- Open diff
- more rear camber than front
- Anything less than 9" wheels
- 205/50/15's
- Zero front aero but tons of drag/lift inducing cooling holes in vain attempt to stop overheating
- No wing
- No hard top
- Bolt in cage
- NA8 brakes with Hawk Blues
- OEM bone stock hubs
- OEM end links
- A/C components still in car
- >2400lb comp weight
03-15-2012, 04:25 PM
#3
Moderator
Thread Starter
Join Date: Jul 2011
Location: Tampa, FL; Lake Jackson (Atlanta), GA
Posts: 1,902
It isn't all for a lower powered car. It is pretty well everything you need to do to keep a ~300whp turbo car on the track for an hour or more at a time. Less would obviously be required for a 200whp car and on down.
03-16-2012, 09:17 AM
#6
Moderator
Thread Starter
Join Date: Jul 2011
Location: Tampa, FL; Lake Jackson (Atlanta), GA
Posts: 1,902
We've seen it several times on MT.net. And Fast Forward Superchargers (a huge m.net figure for some reason) sells many of them every year and swears it is the best way to do it. People get banned over there for saying 5th injectors are a joke, no kidding.
03-16-2012, 09:22 AM
#7
BAMFr
Join Date: Jul 2011
Location: NC
Posts: 1,787
as for the SC, thats about the only place I have seen it. Plus, what miata have you seen with a trans or diff cooler (other than the v8s)? No EGTs? Most of the track miatas don't run EGTs, hell Andrew doesn't (although thats because he is on E85).
Like I said its overkill for sure, I think you should aim for that, but many of those things don't necessarily constitute "done wrong" or "common mistakes".
Last edited by Track; 03-16-2012 at 09:25 AM.
Thread
Thread Starter
Forum
Replies
Last Post
MF-Rick
Miata General Discussion
11
10-28-2011 08:19 PM