Forced Induction Options

[VFR750]

Actually they say "We have testing a china charger in house for 10 months with no problems."(grammar fail) I'm not 100% sold on them, but where's your proof that they don't last?
Chris

Have you seen anything from China that was quality made?
They will get there one day but for now I have not seen anything but poorly made tools, parts, you name it.

[the_don]

china turbos are all over ebay even knock off garret and greddy don't do a no name charger setup of any type

you will spend well over what a quality setup runs in the long run

[Stephanie Turner]

Yes, I am sure they put that comment in there to answer the common question..."how long does it last", cause that is the most common complaint for China-chargers. I have seen TONS of china-chargers, and most don't even last 10 months. The fact their's hasn't yet means they are just waiting for it to grenade itself, and that statement is very indicating of such.

You read entirely too much into what I said. I am not waiting on anything to grenade itself. Chill out. Take a step back and quit putting words in my mouth. We spent 10 months testing it. Tim put lots of miles on it and ran it hard on his car. We had no problems. The turbo was removed, sold, and re-installed on another car. The turbo itself is a TBO Turbo.

More info:
http://www.tbo-turbo.com/index.html

Other than it not being the fastest spooling turbo, we did not have any problems with it. The whole idea is if it breaks it is cheap to replace.

Hmm...maybe they didn't have an oil restrictor on the oil feed line to the Garrett. It's required for BB turbos. Yes, even good turbo's can blow when people don't know what they are doing.

Oil restrictors are not always necessary. The right size oil line is necessary.

MS is too problematic to be considered a REAL standalone. Go browse the MS sub-forum on MT.net...EBC doesn't work, constantly frying, locking up, etc.

That is very typical of adding that type of solenoid to ANY tuning device. And you aren't even mentioning the over boost problems it creates.
Stephanie

[TurboDuane]

I agree with Mr. BRG that you will have to address every system on the car, and here's why.

Let me start by saying I'm not an expert, but I'm on my 3rd Miata. On my first ('90 Miata), I bought a Begi 4.2 kit for my 1.6L with no electronics. It was putting out between 160-170rwhp , and I think about 145 lbs. of tq. From day one the clutch wouldn't hold over 4500 rpm, so within a couple of weeks I installed a H/D ACT clutch in December. System was fine until May or June. I had trouble running the A/C without the car wanting to overheat. So next came an Aluminum Racing Radiator and a ton of work trying to duct air into and out-of the radiator. I still had over heating issues, so I bought a pair of Spal fans and a lower temp t-stat. After that, the only time I had over heating troubles was when I auto-crossed in the summer and we did hot laps.

Then came my '97 with the early FMII Turbo (now JonWag's car) already installed with about $14,000 worth of upgrades to suspension, transmission, clutch, cooling and engine. This car should be putting down between 205-240rwhp and needed ducting and SPAL fans. This car also liked to over-heat. Once I added SPALs and ducted the cooling air, the car quit overheating, unless I hot lapped at an Auto-x.

I never took either car to the track for many reasons, one of those reasons was because I was confident the car would over-heat when running several laps at full bore. I don't know what Mr. BRG is doing to keep his car from over-heating when he is hot lapping his car, but it must be working.

BTW, during my ownership of both turbo'd cars I had to replace broken transmissions three times, due to the added hp, thus going back to all systems will need attention even for a modest 70 hp gain.

Also, in my opinion, I'd rather have a supercharged car for auto-x than the turbo. I find it a challenge to drive them fast as the power comes on either too slow from bogging or too fast causing traction issues. Whereas, superchargers are much smoother in laying down the power and are easier to predict. That said, I have no experience with actual racing so I'll let those experts give their opinions on which is better.

Another consideration when choosing which computer to use, is that any 1996 or later car will now fail emissions if the ODBII port doesn't properly talk to the emmission testing machine. This is a new law that went into effect in September of '08. In the past if the ODBII wouldn't talk to the testing machine, we were able to advance the car to a dyno test; this is no longer an option!

[SirHustlerEsq]

how to make an FI miata turn cool on the track:
big radiator
ducting the front of the heat exchangers (Bournoulli's principle)
coolant-reroute
vented hood (I don't have this on yet)
nix the mixing manifold

things that don't work:
increasing frontal area
improperly vented hood

I've only had my car in 92* heat so far (at 300whp on a dynodynamics) but I only needed the fan after about 4 laps into the last session of the day...and my ducting was blown-out on the bottom so I didn't have proper ducting on the car you could say. Fans are not the secret, moving air through the heat exchangers is. Stick your cupped hand or a cup out the car window at 60-80mph...I doubt fans are going to move that much air. I'm about to remove a fan and just run one stock fan instead depending upon how the FM hood performs, the new oil cooler ducting, and how August treats me. If I can make it through a session 100*, then I'll call it done.

Now getting the turbo to stay on the manifold...that's another story.

[TurboDuane]

As I said:

...So next came an Aluminum Racing Radiator and a ton of work trying to duct air into and out-of the radiator. I still had over heating issues, so I bought a pair of Spal fans and a lower temp t-stat. After that, the only time I had over heating troubles was when I auto-crossed in the summer and we did hot laps.

...Once I added SPALs and ducted the cooling air, the car quit overheating, unless I hot lapped at an Auto-x....

Actually after the above was done the car didn't overheat while running a lap, it was when I'd finish and would be waiting to start another round that the temps would climb too high.

BTW, I don't buy into the re-route solving any problems. I do think a big radiator, and ducting were the biggest factors.

[ray_sir_6]

You read entirely too much into what I said. I am not waiting on anything to grenade itself. Chill out. Take a step back and quit putting words in my mouth. We spent 10 months testing it. Tim put lots of miles on it and ran it hard on his car. We had no problems. The turbo was removed, sold, and re-installed on another car. The turbo itself is a TBO Turbo.

More info:
http://www.tbo-turbo.com/index.html

Other than it not being the fastest spooling turbo, we did not have any problems with it. The whole idea is if it breaks it is cheap to replace.


Oil restrictors are not always necessary. The right size oil line is necessary.


That is very typical of adding that type of solenoid to ANY tuning device. And you aren't even mentioning the over boost problems it creates.
Stephanie

I wasn't putting words into your mouth, I was merely stating exactly what you were putting that statement on your website for. Do tire sites have "driven 10k miles and still hasn't blown out" on their tire info?? No, cause it's not a common occurance, and the chances of it happening are SO SLIM that it's not even a concern. Yet you made sure that everyone was aware that it had lasted 10 months. Maybe you were trying to head off the inevitable question from customers, "How long does the turbo last?" That is a typical issue with China-chargers, regardless of if you decide to call it "Shanghai-Charger" or not, it's still made in China, and they don't have the same QAQC that well known US companies have. It's not a question of IF, but WHEN.

[SirHustlerEsq]

BTW, I don't buy into the re-route solving any problems. I do think a big radiator, and ducting were the biggest factors.

DFW doesn't like the coolant reroute, the rest of the nation does. What is so tough to understand about moving water from front to rear, as opposed to front to front? Moving water through the head will pull out more heat, you can't argue that. With my set-up, I don't have actual flow #'s, but I wouldn't be surprised if I'm moving 50% or more water through the motor with the mixing-manifold "delete" when you look at restriction on the t-stat compared to the heater port. It moves cold water through the head. I'm making 300whp and with shitty ducting I don't need the fan below 90* for the entire session... that's hard to argue with.

You can continue to not buy-into it and tell every single competitive miata racecar on this planet that they don't need it (matt andrews, emilio, andrew kid, william bell, aim tuning, AWR, and everyone else I've forgotten).

[Miatamaniac92]

DFW doesn't like the coolant reroute, the rest of the nation does. What is so tough to understand about moving water from front to rear, as opposed to front to front? Moving water through the head will pull out more heat, you can't argue that. With my set-up, I don't have actual flow #'s, but I wouldn't be surprised if I'm moving 50% or more water through the motor with the mixing-manifold "delete" when you look at restriction on the t-stat compared to the heater port. It moves cold water through the head. I'm making 300whp and with shitty ducting I don't need the fan below 90* for the entire session... that's hard to argue with.

You can continue to not buy-into it and tell every single competitive miata racecar on this planet that they don't need it (matt andrews, emilio, andrew kid, william bell, aim tuning, AWR, and everyone else I've forgotten).

^Yep.

The data speaks for itself:
http://users.telenet.be/miata/englis...nt_reroute.htm

Chris

[ray_sir_6]

Our Miata we built a few years ago had a coolant reroute on it. I'm definitely looking to get the M-Tuned setup as soon as I get the motor built.

[johnwag]

System was fine until May or June. I had trouble running the A/C without the car wanting to overheat. So next came an Aluminum Racing Radiator and a ton of work trying to duct air into and out-of the radiator. I still had over heating issues, so I bought a pair of Spal fans and a lower temp t-stat. After that, the only time I had over heating troubles was when I auto-crossed in the summer and we did hot laps.

Then came my '97 with the early FMII Turbo (now Johnwag's car) This car also liked to over-heat. Once I added SPALs and ducted the cooling air, the car quit overheating, unless I hot lapped at an Auto-x.

Yesterday I drove from TDR to downtown Dallas in the turbo miata. It was 3pm in 100+* weather and I had the A/C on. I took the Live Oak exit to pick up jeff_man and noticed the temp needle move a little. I picked up jeff, made my way toward 75 and the temp gauge was sitting at 12 o clock. As I made my way to the on ramp, the gauge was clearly showing overheating. I was crusing at 60mph. It never went above 3/4, but clearly not running cool. I shut the a/c off and it went back down almost immediately.
Once I got back to the shop, I made an ABS plastic panel to seal off the holes in the core support so air wouldn't go over the radiator and an ABS plastic belly pan. A few rivets and bolts later and I had it sealed, with help from Jeff. By recommendation of mr brg, I went ahead and burped the cooling system with the front of the car in the air, with the car running. Lots of little bubbles evacuated.
The radiator and i/c were ducted when I got the car, but throughout the many PITA repairs, I had to remove alot of the ducting. Now that I've reducted it, I drove from Dallas to south of Red Oak with a/c on and the temp needle never moved.
Too bad I can't run a factory belly pan. If any of ya'll aren't running the bellypan, i suggest you find one or duct the radiator.

[SirHustlerEsq]

Too bad I can't run a factory belly pan. If any of ya'll aren't running the bellypan, i suggest you find one or duct the radiator.

actually, we need to run both. If you don't run a belly pan back to the steering rack, then air won't go out the bottom. If you want to make it even more effective (like I do), then make a small air dam on the custom belly pan at the steering rack.
Look at the c5 vette:

An opening smaller than the miata for the radiator, but look at the huge air-dam under the nose...this creates negative pressure under the car and pull air out the bottom.

I'm going to make one out of flexible garden edging if I need it to run in Texas heat. I'm really going to piss people off when I run a turbo miata in 100* heat and not over-heat.

[juxt3r]

There are lots of GM cars that run a similar air diverter setup. You might (or might not) be surprised at how thick the material is. Even so, they do tend to get rippled & deformed with extended use, allowing some air to escape between the upper edge of the diverter & lower edge of the radiator support framing. A simple piece of thin bar stock bolted to the back of the diverter is a cheap, quick fix for this.

You could likely pull one of these things from a local wrecking yard for next to nothing if you didn't feel like working from scratch. There's even a nice, 90* bend at the top (on the ones I've worked with/around) that makes for easy mounting.