$3500 MSP Performance Challenge

[Black Majik MSP]

*Greddy e-01 boost controller
$539.00
http://spool-turbo.com/Electronics.html
*B&M Short Shifter
$144.00
http://www.mazdaperformance.com

Why the hell would you ever spend $539 on a boost controller, even if it is electronic? You can get the Joe P for $45 or even the GReddy Profec for like $300. Also, our cars already have a short shifter & it's better than almost every other shifter I tried out when I was at the Miami Auto Show. Just seems like a big waste of $$ to me.

 

[mili727]

Why the hell would you ever spend $539 on a boost controller, even if it is electronic? You can get the Joe P for $45 or even the GReddy Profec for like $300. Also, our cars already have a short shifter & it's better than almost every other shifter I tried out when I was at the Miami Auto Show. Just seems like a big waste of $$ to me.

I would spend $539 on an EBC. They are a LOT more consistent in their boost control as proven on the dyno.

 

[Aricjm15]

I would dump the MSP turbo setup completely
for either a Flyin protege kit, Spool, or HiBoost

there is my $3500

 

[Black Majik MSP]

If you're gonna do that, why buy the MSP in the 1st place? You'd be better off getting the cheapest model you can & then adding to it from there.

 

[Aricjm15]

because the challange was with and MSP

you are right though, if I bought a base model protege 2.0 five speed, bought a JIC majic suspension, awr sway bars, Flyin Protege turbo kit, exhaust, clutch and flywheel, kick ass sound system that blows away the one in the MSP (I hate kenwood speakers), and bought all of the other good stuff

I would probably come out to the same price as an MSP +your $3500 only my car would be faster and handle better
Oh and I would have no clunk hessitation or gobble

 

[Black Majik MSP]

Oh and I would have no clunk hessitation or gobble

Yeah, but you wouldn't get it in our neato colors & besides, those are part of the fun of owning an MSP.

 

[SOSPEED]

No No No No..... You guys are going about this all the wrong way.
What you got to do is ask yourself what would they do in the land of THE FAST & THE FURIOUS ???? And the answer is NOS
And lots of it....

1: youre going to need a good 10# tank no no make that 2 10# tanks and youre going to need them by tonight...

2: Make sure you got those cool red buttons that go on the steering wheel. Now youre going to need two if you going to run dual stage..

3: A really cool lap top computer with that bad ass program to tune it all. You know the one with all the cool bar graphs that move up and down tell you when you got a problem in the manifold and if you do ,for some reason, the bolts to your plate ,that you put on your floor pan, come off and sparks fly every where.... Tell me again, why is there a hole in his floor pan anyway??? Ooo thats right I have no idea...

4: The biggest tipped muffler you can find and make it shoot fire..

Now that is one bad ass setup right there... You would be unstoppable.. You would burn the rubber right off you rims..

 

[BinaryRotary]

Idea stolen from 1stMP3 ;p

Your mission is to gain the most performance for $3500 or less. The car is a 2003 Mazdaspeed Protege with an Injen Cold Air Intake.. besides that, it's stock. You can use any prices so long as they can be found with a factory warrenty. Hence, only authorized vendors, no EBAY .

Install labor is not part of the $3500

The parts can include what ever you think will make for the best performance overall.

I think this will go along way to answer the, "Whats the best questions".

To recap:

1) The car is a 2003 Mazdaspeed Protege w/ Injen Cold Air Intake
2) The goal is to get the most performance out of an MSP
3) Any equipment can be used.
4) List equipment and prices
5) No Ebay, only authorized vendors that prices can be checked.
6) $3500 budget

Edit: It doesn't neccasairily have to be everything done at once for $3500... but maybe a couple top of the line things that you should start out with.

OK, have at it!

Why would you want that bad power losing intake?

 

[[syko.xero]]

Engine Rods: $ 750

Engine Pistons: $ 750

Head Studs: $ 100

Apex Motorsports Cat-Back exhaust: $550

iON Air Intake: $275 dollars

iON FMI: $900 dollars

A'Pexi AVC-R Boost Controller: $425.00 (@ 15 psi)

Joe's Fuel Cut Defense: $60

this should be good for around 300ish horsepower at the crank

 

[AllJuicedUp]

Many of you want simple bolt-on performance, unfortunatly that's not really the best way to go. Before you start cranking up the boost with an inexpensive boost controller you need to make the car more efficient. You already have a CAI so that's good. Next you need to rip off the stock exhaust and throw it into the middle of the street. Use a good high-flow exhaust (HKS, Apex, Magnaflow). This will allow the car to breath better. By adding these 2 items you have already increased boost. Now you need some gauges to see whats going on inside that engine. You should have an electric fuel pressure, boost, and electric oil pressure. Don't worry about an A/F gauge as it is uselsss unless you like a bunch of dancing lights. Now for the most important item, the fuel management system. You will want a pressure regulator that will increase stock fuel pressure 1 pound per pound of boost. This will ensure you don't lean out and go boom (not zoom). Now that you have the car breathing right and enough juice for the spark (you should have also changed to copper plugs by now) lets look at the drive train. Replace all pullies with lightened aluminum and replace the stock flywheel with a lightened aluminum version. This alone should give you about 15-20 more ponies at the wheels. Reducing rotating mass on the drive train improves horsepower, torque, and acceleration as the engine revs quicker and the turbo boosts quicker. Now its time to add an intercooler as the stock one wouldn't cool a lawn mower engine. You can go for a kit like ION or just find a good performance shop and they will make one for about $1500. In addition by having it custom made they can weld in a flange to the piping to bolt on a performance BOV like a Greddy. This looks and works much better. After all this is done you can start looking at turning up the boost but be carefull. Use a good dual solenoid electric boost controller such as the Apexi AVC-R. A unit like this will prevent boost spikes that could kill your engine. For those people who run the cheap ones like JoeP, those boost spikes are damaging your engine and will eventually kill it. By this time you will be over 200 WHP. If you want more, hard pipes, headers, and a trip to the performance shop for improved internals.

 

[SP33D]

THAT IS EXACTLY MY WAY OF THINKING. <3 You couldn't have said it any better. But I'm not really sure if I'm going to mess with the flywheel and pullies because I heard that they're not worth it in some cases.

 

[SOSPEED]

Many of you want simple bolt-on performance, unfortunatly that's not really the best way to go. Before you start cranking up the boost with an inexpensive boost controller you need to make the car more efficient. You already have a CAI so that's good. Next you need to rip off the stock exhaust and throw it into the middle of the street. Use a good high-flow exhaust (HKS, Apex, Magnaflow). This will allow the car to breath better. By adding these 2 items you have already increased boost. Now you need some gauges to see whats going on inside that engine. You should have an electric fuel pressure, boost, and electric oil pressure. Don't worry about an A/F gauge as it is uselsss unless you like a bunch of dancing lights. Now for the most important item, the fuel management system. You will want a pressure regulator that will increase stock fuel pressure 1 pound per pound of boost. This will ensure you don't lean out and go boom (not zoom). Now that you have the car breathing right and enough juice for the spark (you should have also changed to copper plugs by now) lets look at the drive train. Replace all pullies with lightened aluminum and replace the stock flywheel with a lightened aluminum version. This alone should give you about 15-20 more ponies at the wheels. Reducing rotating mass on the drive train improves horsepower, torque, and acceleration as the engine revs quicker and the turbo boosts quicker. Now its time to add an intercooler as the stock one wouldn't cool a lawn mower engine. You can go for a kit like ION or just find a good performance shop and they will make one for about $1500. In addition by having it custom made they can weld in a flange to the piping to bolt on a performance BOV like a Greddy. This looks and works much better. After all this is done you can start looking at turning up the boost but be carefull. Use a good dual solenoid electric boost controller such as the Apexi AVC-R. A unit like this will prevent boost spikes that could kill your engine. For those people who run the cheap ones like JoeP, those boost spikes are damaging your engine and will eventually kill it. By this time you will be over 200 WHP. If you want more, hard pipes, headers, and a trip to the performance shop for improved internals.

Those are some good points but if you are going to do all that what are you using to see whats going no inside of the engine??
You listed all of those gauges but wheres the exhaust temp gauge?? If you want to start turning up boost you should know whats going on inside if your not going to use a A/F meter. And i think a good A/F meter is worth getting. And depending on how high you are taking the boost you would also what to look into some type of boost timing retard system.

 

[AllJuicedUp]

You all made good points but I chose these gauges because these would warn of a problem quickly. EGT is usually too late. As far as seeing what is hapening inside the engine I would recommend all tuning be done on a dyno. This will allow you to monitor all sorts of stuff that are crucial to proper tuning in a controlled environment. As far as the flywheels and pullies I will be installaing these in a few weeks and will let you know. I'm pretty sure it will be worth it.

 

[jflo]

that dyno time has to be added on to that cost...

 

[Dexter]

Re: Re: $3500 MSP Performance Challenge

Why would you want that bad power losing intake?

eh?

got any numbers?

 

[jersey_emt]

Spool FMIC: $975
Injen CAI: $225
Hallman Pro MBC: $100
Spool's E-manage piggyback: $700
Turbo-back exhaust with high-flow cat: $750
Greddy 60mm boost gauge: $200
Greddy A/F gauge: $325
A-pillar pod: $60

Remaining $165 could be used to offset some shipping costs & materials.

 

[tracknfield423]

if you're upping the boost alot wouldn't you want a bettwer fuel pump and better fuel injectors too??

 

[MP3skaterNC]

Re: Re: Re: $3500 MSP Performance Challenge

eh?

got any numbers?

iON!!! and turbo mag said it lost power, but I didn't see any mention of that in the mag. It all came from the mount of iON, even though their magical cold air intake made gains, when it looks just like the injen one....

 

[iON Performance]

MP3skaterNC - We had heard this directly from the guys @ Turbo Magazine in regards to the results to the Injen intake. It may have been a prototype, but those results were re-submitted back to them. So more likely then not it won't be published. This info was only passed on as "food for thought".

From a distance when our intake is installed, it looks similar but not the same as the Injen. There are various differences both in design as well as materials.

If someone would like to do their own little "comparo" dyno-shoot out, we'd be more then happy to provide them with our intake. Just as long as its a fair and independant test.

 

[JVJcivil]

Hey What's Up??

Well as for a budget of $3500, not including labor, I must admit this scenerio is similar to mine. So I will just list the mods on my 2003.5 titanium MSP to represent my search of more SPEED. I'm out of NJ and get my work done through a shop called TunerM.

But as of Dec. 8, 2003 I will have:

Custom Fabricated 3" T304 SS Exhaust:
- $285 exhaust tubing from the flex flange back was for material only(i.e. straight, mandrel 90 bends and reducer to go from stock to 3" tubing. Since I did not want to change the down pipe now due to a potential turbo upgrade in the near future.
- $220 HKS Universal HI-Power Muffler

In Engine Intercooling
- $700 Aquamist 2d Water Injection Kit (reminder tuning and install is very expensive BUT WELL WORTH IT)

Intake
- $244 Injen CAI (already on this project....cool)

Boost Controller/Engine Management
- $510.00 Greddy Profec e-01 BC
- $299.00 Greddy Profec e-manage
- $33.44 Greddy Optional Ignition Harness
- $120.00 Greddy Profec e-manage support tool

Gauges(I went high end)
- $187.20 Greddy Elect. Peak/Hold Silver E.G.T
- $180.00 Greddy Elect. Peak/Hold Silver Boost
- $212.40 Greddy Elect. Peak/Hold Silver Fuel Press.

Therefore the parts total is approx. $2992.00 a FMIC would be nice but the Auqamist kit will do an exception job cooling the engine down. It can be saved for a future mod along with the brakes.

I had my 03.5 MSP dyno'd w/. for baseline runs and boosted runs
it ran a strong 182.5 WHP AND 182 LB-FT TORQUE@ 9psi
With the new mods coming this week we anticipate approximately
anywhere from 240-265 WHP @15-18psi. That's if the pistons and rods can handle it. This roughly equates to 320 BHP at the flywheel assuming a 20% loss due to the tranny.

yeah, if anyone is wondering....I am a civil engineer by trade.

peace out.
jv