Turbocharge a Miata
Well, I decided to put a supercharger on my Miata since I was unsatisfied with what the Miata engine was putting out. The other reason being that I am used to driving turbo charged cars and wanted the charging forward feeling back.
I decided to buy the supercharger from Sebring because the price was about what I wanted to pay ,around $2000. I placed the order and was waiting for the supercharger when I saw a turbo charger kit from Bell Aerodyne at about the same price. I immediately canceled the supercharger kit and ordered the turbo. I chose the turbo because the turbo is run by exhaust gases and does not cut down on engine horsepower. Also money for a header is saved because the kit comes with an exhaust manifold and a down pipe replacing the original manifold.
Installation
The first thing that I did after receiving the kit was to check if all the parts were included. The kit included the Aerodyne turbo, exhaust manifold, down pipe, air cleaner, air pipes, and all the connections. Everything looked Ok and I was ready to bolt it on.
The intake box and exhaust manifold was removed next. This was fairly easy because I was working on factory designed parts.
The new exhaust manifold and down pipe are installed. Installation was straight and forward. Also note the blue mounting bracket on the strut tower. That is the bracket from my Trust strut tower bar. Unfortunately, this unit will not fit with the turbo kit .
Here the turbo is bolted on to the exhaust manifold. I found out that heat protection cloth for the waste gate was missing. I decided to move on with out it. Note that this turbo does not need an oil line hook up since it has its own oil reservoir. The oil is turbine engine oil.
Another shot of the turbo installation.
Completed installation. The air cleaner is a K&N filter placed in a unit supplied with the kit.The air pipe hook up was also easy. The pressure line connection was a little tricky but I finally figured it out after a few calls to the supplier.
Comments
This turbo kit supplies six psi of boost to the engine and the hp is increased to around 165. I have to say that I don't like the way the boost comes up on this turbo. The boost comes on without much lag but the car must be held at full boost to get the power. It's a different feeling from the other turbo cars that I used to drive such as the Eclipse where the power comes as boost starts to build.
I noticed the air pipe contacting the hood. This causes some paint to be taken off on the underside of the hood. The same damage was found on another Miata with same setup.
Also I noticed some oil in my coolant. I think this is because of the boost. The head may have to be re torqued or a high pressure head gasket may have to be installed.
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