1997 Mazda MX-5 Miata Long-Term Road Test

Edmunds.com

1997 Mazda MX-5 Miata Long-Term Road Test

Edmunds conducts a Long Term Test of the 1997 Mazda MX-5 and describes its turbo conversion.

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noburgers

For all the gearheads that were not paying attention during math: read this post! Project Miata has been great technical reading. But this has gone on a very long time--let's get that lug in there and see what it does!!

speeder31

This is so magical. On behalf of all the mechanical engineers tuning in, thank you thank you for talking so nerdy to us.

agentorange

Yes, a typical piece of technical writing by a technical person forgetting that many of his audience may not be as technical as he/she is. For example, the concept "...which widens its map" is thrown in with no intro when discussing the photo of the turbo. Then we have the technical person who manages to write a webpage such that the HTML is screwed and we see "—" in a couple of places. Call me Mr Picky if you wish, but it's hard to switch off my peer review head when it's my job.

gloss

@agentorange

It's not unreasonable to assume that the target audience for these posts in particular is more technical than your average bear.

I am not, personally, but it took me all of five seconds to Google 'turbocharger map' and find approximately te

noburgers

ditto re the suspension walk-arounds. there are a number of different types of posts. "What's Hot" is now a compromise between enthusiast and consumer interest. I'm just glad that the general flow is close to what it was in its former configuration. Still not thrilled to have to click on a comments box to see what all the comments are, though

duck87

Honestly, journal bearings work pretty well too in modern turbos (better "transient response" as you put it due to low friction, although that's probably more affected by the overall inertia of the shaft... and the plumbing). Are you going to mention who made the sweet header?

stovt001_

So I'm heading to the Long Beach Grand Prix today, and before heading out I get this post. I'm in gear head heaven! I'm going back to school to study mechanical/motorsports engineering as part of a quarter-life crisis. Its tough at times, but geeking about about this stuff reminds me how much it means to me.

fordson1

That turbo is sized to make big hp at high rpm, at the cost of some lag and soft torque at lower rpm. If it's going to be a track car primarily, this turbo is great, because the car is never going to be below 4k rpm, but I would set it up to run on 100 octane, which is readily available out there. If the car is being set up as a mixed street/track car, I would keep it on 91 and consider a smaller turbo to get better response and more torque at lower engine speeds. I mean, it's only a 1.9. But that's just me.

hybris

While I love learning about the technical side of this engine build, I will still stand by my original suggestion made back before the dark times of dropping in a Ford 5.0L and maybe even supercharging that and getting more power and torque without ringing the neck of this 4 banger for a lesser amount.