Supercharged miata reliability?

I'm looking all over at Miatae to replace my 1990 that got t-boned. Not having an NA is driving me nuts.

There's a Jackson Racing supercharged 1995 M-edition locally. Super clean, installed in 2006 and only driven about 15K since then. It's a little expensive ($7K and it'd need tires ASAP) but it's at least interesting. I haven't driven it yet, but it's on my todo list.

I'm sort of torn between loving the slow-poke stock 1.6l that I could pretty much drive at WOT all day without getting arrested and wanting something with power.

Anyone have experience with the JR kits? This car has been street driven, I think, so I suspect it's not got much in the way of cooling upgrades. Is it the sort of car I'd jump in, drive 3+ hours to a track, drive hard for an hour or two, and then expect to make it home that evening so I can go to work the next day?

If it's not reliable enough for that, how hard is the kit to remove and what is a reasonable amount to expect to sell it for?

The engine was originally designed to handle boost, and a supercharger doesn't create as much as the more powerful turbo kits, so it should be fine. It's already lasted 15k miles. I'd actually prefer a supercharged Miata to a turbo one. No turbo lag. (Though my pipe dream is a V8... )

maitame DD'd a 94 with a JR kit and it was a hoot. we ended up putting a BRP (since out of business sadly) 'coldside' intake manifold on it which moves the blower from over the header to directly on a very small volume intake manifold and WOW did it feel good like that. if you could find an intake like that one out there i'd highly recommend it, though that might be hard nowadays. can't comment on the trackday reliability but he drove his hard on the street all the time for a few years.

White_and_Nerdy wrote: The engine was originally designed to handle boost, and a supercharger doesn't create as much as the more powerful turbo kits, so it should be fine. It's already lasted 15k miles. I'd actually prefer a supercharged Miata to a turbo one. No turbo lag. (Though my pipe dream is a V8... )

Yeah, I guess my concern is less the engine than the cooling system and general heat buildup in the engine compartment.

They're an okay kit if you leave them at the original boost level. You run out of supercharger very quickly if you try to go further. It's not a major power enhancer but it's a nice boost. Drawbacks tend to be poor idle behavior and a tendency for bad idle droop.

For reliability, it's all about the installation. The belt tensioning setup is pretty ugly and there were some running changes over the years. Definitely make sure the belt is aligned properly and check to see if it has the newest brackets - there were a few cracked heads from the stress of the blower being bolted to the side on the older setups. If it's an old enough kit to use a fuel pressure regulator, put in a stronger fuel pump and a pressure gauge to make sure you're not running lean as the stock pump fails over time. You may want to add an O2 signal modifier to get rid of the lean condition when you tip into boost as well.

It probably won't need cooling upgrades, as the power gain is fairly small (I'm going to guess it's around 150 at the wheels) and there's no intercooler. That said, the car probably does have a plastic radiator that's 15 years old, and it's not just BMWs that crack their rads...

Removing the kit is a quick job. You'll need a couple of parts such as a throttle cable bracket, and they usually sell used for around $1000-1200 or so last time I checked.

And, to finish: http://www.flyinmiata.com/turbos/janel.php