97 turbo build

I’ve never had an LSD so probably don’t know what I’m missing out on.

Last weekend was a big day for me as there were no more jobs on my to do list other then 'start car'. I checked everything I had done to the car during the fitting of the turbo, then checked it all again............then just to be sure checked it once more. The only thing I found that gave me problems was the original bracket that attaches to the gearbox and then to the downpipe. I forgot to remove this and now with the turbo downpipe in place I can't get it off as there is not enough room to apply enough force to undo the upper bolt. The downpipe is hard up against this now redundant bracket so I can't fit the actual bracket that came in the Recent kit. It's a minor problem and one I can live with until later. I did waste a couple of hours trying to get it off though which was a pain.

So, back to starting the car. I had checked over my ME221 calibration file a few times, although I don't really know why as nothing should have changed. The plan was to get it started and let it idle and warm-up to check for noises and leaks. The first turn of the key proved the battery was flat after three months so needed a quick charge up. Second turn of the key and the car started perfectly and went into it warn up cycle with no horrible noises (apart from the tappets which stopped once filled with oil). A good look over the engine bay showed no sign of oil, water or gasket leaks so I let it continue to warm up, keeping an eye on all the ECU vital signs. After it reached about 80 degrees and I kept it going to keep topping off the coolant level while the air was expelled from the system. Once that was sorted I turned to off and had another good look and feel for any leaks. The fact I didn't find any was a surprise and I was pretty relieved. This could well changes once it's been out for a proper run but it's a good point to start from. Biggest issue I had was the stack oil pressure gauge not working but o think this requires the sensor grounding now its remotely mounted. It shook ground through threads but as it connected to Flexi oil line now I suspect tits not happening. I need to make a better mount for this as it is on bent P Clip for now as I couldn't find anything else to hand at the time.

To say I'm happy with the results so far is an understatement! I now need to get it out in the road and carry out some tuning around the idle and fats idle in preparation for the MOT in a few week. It will also mean the yearly saga of swapping over a few parts the MOT man doesn't like much since I've been told they would result in a fail.

One last thing I did was modify the main under tray to fit around the intercooler pipes. To be honest I didn't take as much time with this as I could have so took a little bit more material out than required but its still a good fit. I just wanted to get it finished. All I need to now is put the bumper back on and modify the small under tray type thing that normally joins the bumper to the main under tray and its ready for its first road test.

A few pictures of the finished engine bay

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The housing had been a real pain to refit as it was hard to align the bolt holes, insert the bolts all while pushing the housing into the heater pipes to trap the o-ring. I had used OEM gaskets but I had clearly got something wrong so drained all the fluid again and removed the housing bolts and pulled the gasket free. My plan was to use a bead of silicone on each side of the gasket (the same silicon I use on the cam cover) and see how that worked. It was impossible to align the housing bolt holes with the water pump as the heater hard pipe was preventing me from pushing it into place fully. To resolve this I undid the nut on the manifold and slid the heater hard pipe out the way. With this out the way I could insert the bolts loosely and then reinsert the o-ring seal and heater pipe and bolt it all up again. After this it was time to refill with fluid (again) and let the silicone dry a little. One coffee later I started the car again and let it warm up, thankfully the silicone had done it's job and the leak had stopped. The water pump leak had also stopped so I was a very happy chap! After a few days road tuning it was time for the MOT and haply;iy it passed ok. I was concerned about emissions and the fast idle test was very close indeed but managed to just seal under the limit.

For now that's it with the car as really jus than to drive it now. I'm so glad I took the plunge and did the turbo although at times i did wonder if I was taking a perfectly good car and breaking it. The ECU need more fine tuning but I'll leave that for a rolling road as it drives really well at the moment. Maybe a bit more tuning around hot start/idle is required as this can be a little temperamental at times but if that's all thats needed after everything that's been done to the car I'll take it.

Cheers Scottydugg. I’m finding boost to be quite addictive.

Hi trikkisixx, Thanks for the complements on the install. I wanted to aim for as close to an OEM look as possible. I had few headaches with the fuel pump priming when I first installed the ME221 as I could not work out which wires to swap as the UK 97 cars seem to have different wiring to all other MX5. I had wires in both pin 1U and 1V. In the Me221 manual it shows 1V is unpopulated and you simply swap 1U into 1V to Mal eat fuel pump work. In the end swapping these two wires around worked and the pump primed.