Performance
The Miatas performance has been well documented by magazines worldwide as nimble, quick, agile, ect. but never fast. Fortunately there is a huge Aftermarket of Performance Products to make a Miata do all of the above things better including faster. By all means my mods are extremely subtle, as compared to some of the Miatae out there, but there are reasons for my subtle approach to performance.
One of the reasons I chose Nitrous as a power enhancement is because I very much enjoy the balanced / reliable nature of the stock MX-5. Turbos can make your Miata Very Fast, but at a price, reliability can suffer and the lag that comes with a turbo can take you by suprise and a balanced tossable car, can become unstable and quite a handful. Also, my wife drives the car often and I wouldn't want a leisurly drive to work in light rain turn into disaster when she takes an off ramp a little quick and the turbo kicks in.
A Supercharger is an option considering its linear powerband, but the upfront cost was a little much at the time of my decision to get a major power upgrade. It still may an option a little later, but considering I'm now a liscensed nitrous handler my refills have come down to about $1.75/lb it makes it easier to justify not doing anything yet.
The kit I chose was actually made for a FI late model Mustang. It is a "dry" system with the jets configured for about 50 hp. Before the Nitrous my cars best time at Atco Raceway was 16.87 @ 82mph, after the NO2 it went to 14.78 @ 93 mph. I have it installed with a remote bottle opener (shown) & purge kit. More pictures are coming after I reconfigure the solenoid set-up under the hood. Check back soon.
Above: As a plus to getting rid of the Headlights I could move my AFM & filter to the cold side of the engine so now all the air I get is much cooler than before. I used use a Racing Beat elbow intake which was good but since the headlight mod I wanted to move the intake over to the passenger side. It shortens up the run which helps throttle response, which when coupled with the RX-7 AFM, makes the car run right to the redline without the normal loss of power at about 6000 rpm. This intake consits of a K&N filter, 88 RX-7 AFM, 1 rubber PVC coupler 3" to 2", 1 rubber PVC coupler 2" to 2", and a 45 degree 2.5" mandrel bent exhaust pipe section.
More pictures will be coming of the other power mods as soon as I clean everything up to make it presentable.
