My Mini charged 5

[andrew]

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Hi,

Here is a few pics of mini charger install.

[andrew]

more of the charger

[andrew]

Wideband was installed before the install, to see how the OEM ecu was fueling it n/a

[andrew]

Intercooler went in next

[andrew]

Next was the megasquirt 2 ECU. I had to do some wiring mods to the injector loom as the ECU has sequential injection (smoother idle and better economy) and stock is batch. This was easy enough, I had a local garage do the mechanical work (Leixlip, between Lidl and Intel) so they took out the injector loom and I brought it home modded it and gave it back to the mechanic (Airdidas and Jederus who I highly recommend) to put back in with the 265cc injectors. I had some expected trouble starting it and idling but eventually found a good map on miataturbo and it ran. I was very happy that night.

[andrew]

Then I set the timing using a timing light and the megasquirt software which at first is very confusing to someone who knew nothing about it but after a lo of interweb reading it turns out its very good. It just has so many features that it gets confusing.

[andrew]

So with the car running and idling (very high) it was time to try it out and start tuning the fuel. The megasquirt has a live autotune feature for the fuel. I tried this at idle speeds and it worked very well bring the AFR at idle from 10.2 to the 14.7 target I set it to. It measures the fuel in the exhause at a given rpm and load and changes the fuel value until the target is reached. So out on the road I went and I seen some mad figures on the wideband for the first few minutes but then it started to hit its targets. I did this below 100kpa even though I had a boosted map on the ECU just in case. I then went gently into boost and it felt good. However I was worried about detonation so booked it for mapping with Joe Power from chippedire. He put it on the rollers and hooked up his det headphones to a sensor on the block. Sure enough there was some knock going on that was not audible normal ears so the spark map was changed to very conservative (my choice) as I wanted it reliability more than big power. Then he gradually drove it harder on the dyno as he was mapping it. I was s*****g it woulod break. The noise was unreal even with ear muffs. I was hoping for 160bhp which would be a big improvement on 115bhp (same dyno). Briefly my spec is mini cooper S charger (teflon blades) 17% reduction pulley, front mount intercooler which is very efficient, MS2 with sequential injection, dual throttle bodies for fast response, full stainless exhaust and decat and 265cc injectors. I was very happy with the results I got especially as the boost was very low. I think I had a boost leak - since fixed and the injectors were over 100% Duty cycle at 6000 rpm.

[andrew]

Since this I have splashed out on 550cc EV14 injectors as the 265cc were way too high on DC to be reliable. I have sorted the idle by finging a vac leak when installing the new injectors. They are a bit noisey and I had to retune the fuel table again but the DC is now 45% max, much safer. I still need to find out why it doesn't pull well over 6k rpms. If I can sort that I reckon there is another 10-15 bhp, but I want the revs more than the power.

So next it was off to Mondello on the 30th March for the Octane trackday. It was a different car! with crap tyres it was about 10 secs a lap quicker than before. It was reving much lower than before and I was using a higher gear in a lot of corners and still pulling out of corners quicker. The diff was getting a right workout too. Here a little video of the day, it is still a very controllable car when the back goes out and it goes out a lot on 185/60 tyres. throttle response is 90% as good as it was n/a. This was very important to me as its one of the cars best features and the reason I didn't go turbo. Besides nearly everthing is turbo these days!

http://vimeo.com/39791458

Now I just need some sticky trackday tyres to start chasing elises!

[leamyj]

VERY impressive, just wish I knew what all that data means
I'd love to have the time, knowledge AND money to explore the potential of the mx5,
but the lack of all three means I'll stay standard for a long time yet!!
Well done.


John

[andrew]

A little upate, I found out why it wasn't pulling past 6000 rpm. The belt was slipping ! It now pulls all the way to the redline and megalogviewer shows boost increasing all the way there too. Its a lot quicker too after a bit more tuning of the fule table above 6k. I have also just ordered some Federal 595 rs-r tyres for the next trackday. I just need to re install the undertray and duct more air to the radiator to improve the cooling.

[andrew]

I haven't updated this for a while, but since the last post I've done about 6 track day and had a blast at every one. The Federal tyres made a big difference as the T1R's were getting shredded in half a dry day. They are ok in the wet too.

I think I was doing about 2.20 around the international track when it was standard. I've done a good few 2.05's now and it was keeping up with a Elise 111S (160bhp) until recently as the driver seems to have got the hang of it.

I had a few sessions on track when the water temp tipped over 100 but reduced quickly as soon as I backed off. I am still using the stock rad. i think this is due to the intercooler reducing airflow to a overwork rad. To combat this I filled all the gaps around the rad with expandable foam. trimmed it back and sprayed it silver to hide it a bit. It worked out well, but I haven't done a really hot track day yet.

I took a passenger spin with a well know racing driver from Mondello, who demonstrated there are a couple of more secs to come off the laptime yet. He was driving it a bit harder than I usually do and this showed the clutch was slipping. Not surprising as its a standard 1.6. A new Stage 3 paddle clutch went in recently as did a coolant reroute as it was running a bit hot on track after a few hard laps. I also installed a oil temp guage before the last trackday. Oil never went over 100 Deg C, so no need for a oil cooler.

Next track day is on the 10th May, there will be two supercharged cars on track. My one is the loud one - its hard not to know its charged. The other red one is more descrete. Looking forward to it now.

[andrew]

How do I resize my pics? or can some do it for me?

[magic]

Try to re size them before posting. Simplest way use "paint" for it.

[Steve]

^ what magic said

here they are resized :

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dyno AFR (Small).jpg

[andrew]

Thanks for that Steve,

In preparation for the next trackday I did a coolant reroute and installed a new Stage 3 clutch. Its a paddle clutch, feels like a stock pedal but there is quite a bit of judder moving off from a standstill. Its a bit of a pain driving in traffic but hopefully it will be good on track.