Man of Honour
- Joined
- 13 Nov 2009
- Posts
- 11,662
- Location
- Northampton
I probably should have started writing this 2 years ago so things were fresher in my memory and I had remembered to take photos of everything
Introduction
So I bought my MK2 1.8 MX5 in December as a cheap but fun stop gap car for a year or two until I could afford to buy and insure something faster.
Here’s how it looked shortly after purchase
Then another month later after fitting a set of TSW Evo wheels in 15x7 ET10, and a dyno run at PowerStation
Almost bang on Mazdas claimed power figures. Even with 105k miles on the engine
The Beginnings
3 Months into ownership I was offered a steal of a deal on an Impreza WRX, almost ready to sell the MX5 and buy the WRX and found the £600 a year I was paying for insurance would jump to swap to the Impreza (~£2000 a year)... Or I could spend the purchase price different on walking the turbo path with minimal impact on insurance (~£150 a year)
I then begun spending some money and had begun collection a small pile of parts
A Megasquirt2 Enhanced by MSLabs (Reverant on various forums)
Yellow Top 425cc/min Injectors from an RX8
An Innovate LC-2 Wideband Lamba Sensor kit
An ebay intercooler Core
And a Cobalt Rear silencer
I fitted the Megasquirt ECU and spent a few months learning my way around TunerStudio for tuning and getting the car starting and driving well then fitted the RX8 injectors and repeated most of the process again.
With the aim of more power December 2015 saw a FreakyParts 280mm front brake conversion fitted. This uses 280mm discs from a Corrado G60, the standard brake calipers with adapter brackets and slightly longer braided brake hoses
Time for Boost
A few more months of collecting parts passed by and May 2016 rolled around and I had the following to fit
Black cat fabrications TD04 Exhaust manifold and 2.5” downpipe kit (includes gaskets, oil feed and drain lines etc)
G19 Oil return kit (More on this later)
Used reasonably low mileage Subaru Impreza WRX TD04 turbo (Housings rotated to roughly the correct positions)
A big box of silicone hose and alloy pipes from Viper Performance
Pipercross cone filter
Install was relatively painless other than having to cut the old downpipe out of the car as the fasteners on the flange to the manifold were far too rusty to remove along with the bracket bracing the downpipe to the gearbox.
I opted to use the G19 Dipstick tube return as I wasn’t particularly fond of drilling the sump in situ given the risk of leaving any swarf behind (Although plenty of people have no issue) and undoing a 10mm nut followed by a wiggle and a pull to remove the old dipstick tube was a much more appealing idea than dropping the subframe or lifting the engine out to remove the sump for drilling
The original intercooler pipework route I had decided upon wasn’t going to work correctly so I fashioned and crossover pipe out of what I had leaving the engine by looking like so after around 8-10 hours work.
This was only ever temporary so the car never saw a dyno but with wastegate boost and a conservative ignition map the car was already completely different to drive even if it had “only” gained around 30-40bhp
Another week passed by waiting for silicone hose to be delivery and a day of to get some work done and it was decided going through the inner wing was the easiest pipwork route
Intercooler now fitted, and wastegate actuator arm adjusted so the car would make more than 3psi before 5000rpm and there was an instantly noticeable difference in power again.
I spent another few weeks driving it like this before the inevitable happened and I wanted to get closer to my 250bhp target, and a MAC 3 port boost control solenoid was purchase and installed
This bought more boost although rather short lived as the clutch began to slip fairly quickly so I bought and fitted a competition clutch Stage 3 Segmented ceramic clutch, along with a new vinyl hood as the original had quite a few rips
New clutch installed, boost was once again increased although stopped by injector duty cycles
September 2016 arrived and it was off to Santa Pod with a group of other OCUK members and I came away with a best run of 13.4s @ 105mph with boost limited to 10.5psi due to the injectors
A couple of weeks later a set of 650cc Bosch EV14 injectors arrived from America arrived, fitted and boost turned up even more, then it was off to an OCUK Rolling Road Day at Ti Motorsport
And then the broken gearbox on my way to Shakespear country dragstrip. I can only put this down to the gearbox not liking Redline MT90 as the replacement has been perfectly happy since even with much more power.
Back in the air to remove it for the second time already
Now it’s getting silly
After spending the last 6 months enjoying driving it, a 4 days before we were due to head to Curborough and the car feels down on power along with a new rattle from the cat. In a pinch this lead to finding a local company that had a used 2.5” cat to replace mine along with most of what was left of the original 1.75” exhaust. The journey home from there saw the tune needing around 10% extra fuel in boost indicating some power had been gained.
Followed by Santa pod a few days later, confirming the increase power with a new personal best of 12.91 @ 111.5mph
This then leads to where the project ends for now at least.
After 2 years of having the megasquirt fitted I realised I had never yet set base timing, out came the timing light and an epic face palm moment when I discover ignition timing has been retarted 3.5 degrees to where I had thought it had been. An hours dyno time was booked, firstly to see how much power the exhaust changes had actually made a few months ago and secondly to find out how much that extra ignition advance was really worth…I came away actually reducing the boost in the mid range and will be returning in the near future to tame the torque to make all 4 con rods stay in the block for the foreseeable future
Future plans
Front chassis rail repair
Suspension removed, blasted, powder coated and rebushed with OEM rubber
Fit LSD (Still unsure of ratio)
Edit: Credit goes to @ScoobyDoo69 for all the Santa pod and Curborough footage
Introduction
So I bought my MK2 1.8 MX5 in December as a cheap but fun stop gap car for a year or two until I could afford to buy and insure something faster.
Here’s how it looked shortly after purchase
Then another month later after fitting a set of TSW Evo wheels in 15x7 ET10, and a dyno run at PowerStation
Almost bang on Mazdas claimed power figures. Even with 105k miles on the engine
The Beginnings
3 Months into ownership I was offered a steal of a deal on an Impreza WRX, almost ready to sell the MX5 and buy the WRX and found the £600 a year I was paying for insurance would jump to swap to the Impreza (~£2000 a year)... Or I could spend the purchase price different on walking the turbo path with minimal impact on insurance (~£150 a year)
I then begun spending some money and had begun collection a small pile of parts
A Megasquirt2 Enhanced by MSLabs (Reverant on various forums)
Yellow Top 425cc/min Injectors from an RX8
An Innovate LC-2 Wideband Lamba Sensor kit
An ebay intercooler Core
And a Cobalt Rear silencer
I fitted the Megasquirt ECU and spent a few months learning my way around TunerStudio for tuning and getting the car starting and driving well then fitted the RX8 injectors and repeated most of the process again.
With the aim of more power December 2015 saw a FreakyParts 280mm front brake conversion fitted. This uses 280mm discs from a Corrado G60, the standard brake calipers with adapter brackets and slightly longer braided brake hoses
Time for Boost
A few more months of collecting parts passed by and May 2016 rolled around and I had the following to fit
Black cat fabrications TD04 Exhaust manifold and 2.5” downpipe kit (includes gaskets, oil feed and drain lines etc)
G19 Oil return kit (More on this later)
Used reasonably low mileage Subaru Impreza WRX TD04 turbo (Housings rotated to roughly the correct positions)
A big box of silicone hose and alloy pipes from Viper Performance
Pipercross cone filter
Install was relatively painless other than having to cut the old downpipe out of the car as the fasteners on the flange to the manifold were far too rusty to remove along with the bracket bracing the downpipe to the gearbox.
I opted to use the G19 Dipstick tube return as I wasn’t particularly fond of drilling the sump in situ given the risk of leaving any swarf behind (Although plenty of people have no issue) and undoing a 10mm nut followed by a wiggle and a pull to remove the old dipstick tube was a much more appealing idea than dropping the subframe or lifting the engine out to remove the sump for drilling
The original intercooler pipework route I had decided upon wasn’t going to work correctly so I fashioned and crossover pipe out of what I had leaving the engine by looking like so after around 8-10 hours work.
This was only ever temporary so the car never saw a dyno but with wastegate boost and a conservative ignition map the car was already completely different to drive even if it had “only” gained around 30-40bhp
Another week passed by waiting for silicone hose to be delivery and a day of to get some work done and it was decided going through the inner wing was the easiest pipwork route
Intercooler now fitted, and wastegate actuator arm adjusted so the car would make more than 3psi before 5000rpm and there was an instantly noticeable difference in power again.
I spent another few weeks driving it like this before the inevitable happened and I wanted to get closer to my 250bhp target, and a MAC 3 port boost control solenoid was purchase and installed
This bought more boost although rather short lived as the clutch began to slip fairly quickly so I bought and fitted a competition clutch Stage 3 Segmented ceramic clutch, along with a new vinyl hood as the original had quite a few rips
New clutch installed, boost was once again increased although stopped by injector duty cycles
September 2016 arrived and it was off to Santa Pod with a group of other OCUK members and I came away with a best run of 13.4s @ 105mph with boost limited to 10.5psi due to the injectors
A couple of weeks later a set of 650cc Bosch EV14 injectors arrived from America arrived, fitted and boost turned up even more, then it was off to an OCUK Rolling Road Day at Ti Motorsport
And then the broken gearbox on my way to Shakespear country dragstrip. I can only put this down to the gearbox not liking Redline MT90 as the replacement has been perfectly happy since even with much more power.
Back in the air to remove it for the second time already
Now it’s getting silly
After spending the last 6 months enjoying driving it, a 4 days before we were due to head to Curborough and the car feels down on power along with a new rattle from the cat. In a pinch this lead to finding a local company that had a used 2.5” cat to replace mine along with most of what was left of the original 1.75” exhaust. The journey home from there saw the tune needing around 10% extra fuel in boost indicating some power had been gained.
Followed by Santa pod a few days later, confirming the increase power with a new personal best of 12.91 @ 111.5mph
This then leads to where the project ends for now at least.
After 2 years of having the megasquirt fitted I realised I had never yet set base timing, out came the timing light and an epic face palm moment when I discover ignition timing has been retarted 3.5 degrees to where I had thought it had been. An hours dyno time was booked, firstly to see how much power the exhaust changes had actually made a few months ago and secondly to find out how much that extra ignition advance was really worth…I came away actually reducing the boost in the mid range and will be returning in the near future to tame the torque to make all 4 con rods stay in the block for the foreseeable future
Future plans
Front chassis rail repair
Suspension removed, blasted, powder coated and rebushed with OEM rubber
Fit LSD (Still unsure of ratio)
Edit: Credit goes to @ScoobyDoo69 for all the Santa pod and Curborough footage
Last edited:
I have a 3.6 sitting in the garage but it is for my mates MX5 track car!
