280 WHP NC Miata for $5000 in mods

We got the call! Our CARB EO is pending! Now it's just waiting for the number to be issued. This has been a LONG road to get to this point, I suspect that 2015 Miatas only barely got through the CA emissions standards when new. Woooooohoooooo!

Pretty dang excited about this. Even attempted to bribe Brandon to move me up the list but, alas, he wouldn't bend!  My visa stands at the ready. Well, actually it doesn't stand, but it's in my wallet and ready.

Keith Tanner said:

In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :

One of our R&D cars is going to get a 2.5, but it's been in the emissions lab for months so there has been no progress on the swap. 

Does this mean:

1. You might fit the turbo to a 2.5 for fun to see the power figures? 

2. Maybe in a million years we could get a FM 2.5 race only tune? 

3. None of the above

1. It belongs to one of our staff who is going through his horsepower addiction stage :) But also, we are looking into what it would take to get SEMA certification for this. Not an EO, as that engine swap is not legal in CA and while we COULD take it through the EO process (making the 2.5 legal in CA but only if it was fitted with one of our turbos, which amuses me) there's not a strong business case there.

2. Race Only is not a legal definition. If you want to develop a tune on your own that does not meet emissions standards, have at it. If you want to sell it, be prepared to meet the lawyers at the ARB and EPA.

Okay, so this is embarrassing. The engineer who exported those dyno graphs did not completely understand the relationship between SAE correction, altitude and boost. I could write a whole dissertation on this, but usually we use uncorrected numbers and absolute manifold pressures to give numbers that should be appropriate regardless of altitude. Alternately, we use corrected numbers but relative boost level. This is important because we live at about 5000' elevation so there's about a 3 psi difference between our ambient pressure and sea level.

In this case, he used corrected numbers and absolute manifold pressure and I didn't catch it. That means the numbers were inflated by about 18%. I apologize and I shall be passing along my dissatisfaction shortly. Here's the accurate chart.

In reply to Keith Tanner :

Sounds good. I'm not in the U.S so this fancy lingo is beyond me sometimes. 

So the other numbers seemed almost too good to be true, because they were. That's ok. Your rush to be transparent and issue a correction is one of the reasons FM is held in such high esteem. This is simply an honest result. I know it's not a 1:1 relationship, but the simplest math can still provide a reasonable gut check on the feasibility of the numbers.

If an NC2 dynos at ~140whp and 11psi means .75 atm:

140whp * 1.75atm = 245whp

Beating that by 35whp (another 25%) unfortunately seems pretty unrealistic.

You read it here first (seriously, this is the first place I'm posting it):

Orders open on May 13s (TURBO TUESDAY!) and they'll ship immediately.

https://flyinmiata.com/products/flyin-miata-stage-1-turbo-system-2006-15

Thanks Keith!  

Suuuuuure, you do this AFTER I sold my NC and went all-in on the NB chassis! 

Congrats, Keith & co.! This will lead to some bad-ass NCs!

Likely very dumb question from a Miata neophyte:

What's the take on engine reliability from this kit, with regards to HPDE?  Stock NC 2.0 is what, 120whp or so?  I'd think 220whp would be unbelievable fun...

Any chance of selling just the exhaust manifold? That's a nice looking piece.

In reply to flyin_viata :

We don't anticipate engine reliability problems. We've done a lot of work to make sure the engine and cat are safe. Our own cars have seen a fair bit of track time with this setup, and of course we have forced induction history with the NC going back to 2006.

In reply to ralleah :

Not at this time, we need all of our stock for complete kits. You'd probably want the turbine outlet as well.

In reply to brandonsmash :

Well, we do sell NB parts :)

In reply to flyin_viata :

IIRC, manual trans NCs were rated at 167 crank hp.  NC 2/3 have a forged crank.

As far as track reliability, heat management is generally the issue with turbos.    8/10ths HPDE, it should be fine with an upgraded radiator.  Start pushing the pace, and there's too many variables for an easy answer.  I do think the stock block should be plenty reliable at FM's designed numbers.

A healthy stock NC will put down about 145-150 at the wheels although one of our baseline cars was in the high 130s.

As for heat management, we spent a lot of time on water flow. That's been a weak point on earlier Miata turbos for a long time, they take the hot water out of the turbocharger and jam it right back into the block. We actually researched what Ford did on the Ecoboost, as that's basically a turbo MZR. Required making a custom fitting to get access to a certain water passage on the block that's usually blocked off (it's a weird looking thing) but we've managed to optimize the cooling pretty well.

How long until you have an option for those who have NCs that have already been 2.5 swapped? 

In reply to brandonsmash :

We think it will fit if you use lowering mounts. Now that we're through the EO testing, we'll look at a 2.5 tune. That will not be given an EO because the 2.5 swap isn't CA legal either.