Baja Boost!
Little green miata is finally getting the extra juice it probably doesn’t want.
Sometime last year I ran across an opportunity to buy(steal) a supercharged setup for the baja miata. More specifically a California legal setup so I can pass smog while having fun and probably breaking things.
Just for clarity, when I rebuilt the engine after ingesting sand for a week in Baja… I put in ARP studs all around, forged H beam rods, forged pistons, stainless valves with dual springs and gapped the rings for boost. It is ready and has been fully broken in with a few thousand miles N/A.
Goodbye stock power…
The kit is a Fast Forward Supercharger (FFS), likely one of the last made as they have gone out of business due to retirement not insolvency. Big thanks to Mike Haag for the hook-up. But first I should explain why I’m finally installing it.
Trying to drive to work last month I found the car wouldn’t start. Brand new battery and alternator along with solid engine rebuild meant it must be only one thing. A few taps of a tire iron and yup it was a dead starter. Turns out they don’t like salt water and sand…
Not it wasn’t from the bottom of the ocean, just a week of abuse and rust started killing it.
The setup came will pretty much all parts required include a full AEM ignition and fuel controller to replace standard cards provided. I’ll be running it for better tunability while still wishing I had a full stand alone. But first I needed to see what other harm had become my fresh rebuild. Below are the intake runners. Don’t mind the oil at manifold edge that is likely from when I accidently sucked tons of oil into the intake from incorrect vacuum line routing. Deeper in is extremely clean, no carbon build up at all!
Two other problems with the car
It has slowly been consuming water and smelling like coolant. Along with my alternator belt slipping and squealing even after adjusting. Both problems are simple and stupid now I’ve removed the intake. One, my coolant hose has a crack at the back of block. Two, the alternator wasn’t really attached because it broke off its mount point from water pump. Meaning I needed to replace a perfectly good brand new water pump. Damn it.
Time for the goodies
While their instructions suggest to use RTV for all sealing surfaces… I own a custom gasket cutter aka Cricut. I cleaned the entire intake and supercharger then designed new gaskets for all mating surfaces. I only plan to run the stock 10 psi which should not stress out hard paper gaskets. Worse case they do and I use RTV later. For assembly this was much cleaner and simpler. Plus I can cut extra to bring with in baja and have a quicker fix.
Maybe a bit overboard
Decided I would take racecar approach and bolt mark all the intake hardware. This likely won’t help during smog as it will raise questions, but at least I know I haven’t lost any bolts or torque.
The above isn’t in final configuration, it was just to mock up and see how new boosted miata would look. FFS setup coupled with a hard intake tubing should be very nice and reliable. Well after some tuning it should be.
My goal with boosting the car was not peak horsepower, but actually reliability. I want low down grunt to pull itself through sand bogs and up hills without having to rev through the moon. This roots style blower should give me excellent low down grunt to do just that. Plus the beef cake internals and cooling should make her run like a champ while throwing sand. Only time will tell if I have made a grave mistake.
Buttoning up things and dyno tuning in the near future!
