"If you're not breaking parts, you're not making enough power." Ever heard this saying before? Of course you have; it's the motto of any true drag racer. My story starts on Wednesday, June 20, at Performance Development in Costa Mesa, Calif. It was the first time I met Ross Wilson from AVO Turboworld face to face. I have been e-mailing Ross for the past couple of months. After our greeting, we stepped into the work bay where he had laid out AVO's Miata turbo kit.
"There she is," Ross said proudly. I asked him, "So this kit will bump up my horsepower by 100%?" He responded with an astounding "yes." Wasting no time at all, we went to work. Ross tackled the header while I started removing the front bumper. It took me 20 minutes to completely remove the bumper, after which Ross decided to tell me that the bumper did not need to be removed to install the fits front-mount intercooler. Thanks Ross! Working backward, I reinstalled the bumper but left off the underside dust shield where the intercooler is suppose to slide behind the front grill. We took a belated lunch break at 3:30pm and came back to work on the Miata. Since the turbocharger is already installed onto the manifold, installation was a breeze with the exception of the metal heater tube that runs beneath the manifold. As Ross waged war with the tube, I started installing the high-flow fuel pump. Taking a smoke break while working with fuel is highly recommended...not! Luckily for me, the fuel pump can be accessed from above without removing the gas tank. I installed the pump in an hour while Ross finally won the battle against the tube and installed the manifold, turbo and exhaust outlet as one unit. We took a dinner break and call it a day. Thursday, June 21, I arrive bright and early at 8:30am, but there wasn't any sign of Ross. I figured the jet lag finally kicked in. He finally showed up at 11:00am. Ross finished tightening down the manifold and installed the stainless-steel downpipe to the factory catalytic. I installed the rest of the I/C piping from the turbo to the hot side of the intercooler and installed a bypass from the oil pressure sensor unit to the turbo. The final and most difficult part of the installation was the oil drain, which required the removal of the oil pan. The subframe of the Miata had to be dropped in order to gain access to the oil pan. After locating the right tap, we installed the oil drain fitting and line. On Friday, June 22, it was off to the dyno. Along the way Ross tuned the driveability and half throttle acceleration of the 1.6-liter. Pressed for time, we only had a window of one hour to tune the Miata on the dyno. With the Miata firmly strapped on the dyno, we ripped the rollers to the tune of 212.8 horsepower and 194.2 ft-lbs of torque. That's through the 160,000-plus mile factory catalytic converter and Racing Beat street exhaust. The Miata baselined in at 110.3 horsepower and 98.2 ft-lbs of torque a couple of days earlier on the same dyno. We were able to realize an improvement of 102.5 horsepower and 96.0 ft-lbs of torque to the wheels! Although we didn't exactly make a 100 percent increase from the baseline, we didn't question Ross for the other 7.8 horsepower he didn't pony up.