Another blown engine

I was waiting for you to chime in here, you crazy bastard.
:D I don't mean to be an asshole or anything. I'm just saying that if you really truly love the Protege and want it to be FI, you need to SERIOUSLY consider a piggy back that can actively control timing and fuel. The J&S is also a HUGE help for that "just incase" everything else fails. But the main reason I decided to not keep going with my MP3 is that the cost greatly outweighed the benefits.

To explain this better, my payment went from $331/month to $335/month. And ask Patrick who won our race last night.:D He even got a better start than I did. But by the end of second gear, I was in the lead and constantly pulling away. His car has at least 50ft/lbs more torque than mine, but it's still no match. And the potential in my car is much greater.

Here's another scenario. A full turbo kit with exhaust, timing and fuel control etc. will run approximately $4000 to $5000 after all your tuning and tweaking is done. A Comptech Supercharger will run me about $4000 then another $250 for the VAFC to control my fuel. After it's all installed and done, the Protege is only putting down 240hp at the most to the ground. My car is putting down 290hp to 310hp at the wheels at only 6psi. And don't even argue about the looks. Unless you are just more into the sedan look, the S2000 has looks hands down.

But, with that said, I understand that it's hard to walk away sometimes after you invested all that time, money, blood, and sweat. It was hard for me, but I am damn glad I did it. Because right now I'm getting 25 miles per gallon, 200hp at the rear wheels, REAR WHEEL DRIVE!!!!!, and a damn good looking car. And I don't even have to open the hood if I don't want. Absolutely ZERO tweaking! Just change the oil and check it once between oil changes. All this for only $4.00 more a month!

Anyway's, good luck to all of you with your turbo kits, go easy on them until you have timing and fuel control or you too will have a blown engine.:D
 
Last edited:
big_ben said:

:D I don't mean to be an asshole or anything. I'm just saying that if you really truly love the Protege and want it to be FI, you need to SERIOUSLY consider a piggy back that can actively control timing and fuel.

I agree 100%. It's just that most guys don't have the time, ability, or $ to do so. Some have none of the above. :) Luckily w/ Perf and Spool working on this, we'll see less blown motors. I'd like to see Linux play around w/ the safeguard more too.

To explain this better, my payment went from $331/month to $335/month. And ask Patrick who won our race last night.:D He even got a better start than I did. But by the end of second gear, I was in the lead and constantly pulling away. His car has at least 50ft/lbs more torque than mine, but it's still no match. And the potential in my car is much greater.

I guess you got your car used? How many miles? What year? Is it stock?


Here's another scenario. A full turbo kit with exhaust, timing and fuel control etc. will run approximately $4000 to $5000 after all your tuning and tweaking is done. A Comptech Supercharger will run me about $4000 then another $250 for the VAFC to control my fuel. After it's all installed and done, the Protege is only putting down 240hp at the most to the ground. My car is putting down 290hp to 310hp at the wheels at only 6psi. And don't even argue about the looks. Unless you are just more into the sedan look, the S2000 has looks hands down.

Your point is understood, but you left one factor out...you mentioned no timing control for the S2000.
 
I guess you got your car used? How many miles? What year? Is it stock?
Yeah, it's a 2000 and it had 29000 miles on it when I bought it. A week later after I bought it I found a 2001 with 25000 miles for the same price.:mad: Oh well, it was the same amount of miles as my MP3. It's also bone stock. And the guy I bought it from was 52 years old.:D The car is in great shape.

Your point is understood, but you left one factor out...you mentioned no timing control for the S2000.
That the great thing about the S2000. It comes with forged pistons and rods straight from the factory. The compression is 11.1:1. The block is aluminum with fabric mesh reinforcement impregnated inside the cylinder walls. There is no need for timing control as long as you don't go above 6psi. Some people have theirs with a smaller pulley pushing about 14psi but they use an intercooler and an AEM piggyback. They are getting close to 380hp. But 300hp is safely attainable with no timing control. Oh, and did I mention 9000rpm.:D Here's also a great thing with the S2000. If you are only going with 6psi, you can use an FMU to greatly richen up the fuel, then use the VAFC to pull fuel out to tune it to exactly the A/F ratio you want at what RPM. With a turbo setup, you need to control the fuel based on what psi of boost it's at and also what RPM it's at. With a supercharger, boost is RPM dependant so you only need to control fuel based on RPM. And FMU's were designed for SC and not turbos.

Now, if you are crazy for horsepower, there is a guy named Mike Simon that builds F20C motors. He lowers the compression from 11.1:1 to 9:1, replaces the pistons and rods with beefier forged ones, ports and polishes the head, replaces the whole valve train with titanium parts, O-Rings the block. His head is capable of reving to 10,500 to 11,000rpm safely! You pay like $5000 plus your motor as a core return. One person has done this then installed a turbo an gone to like 17psi and got like 450hp to the wheels. 500+ is easily attainable at 2bar.

But me, I'll put on a CAI and Exhaust and I'll be happy. The power is more than enough for me right now. Maybe I'll go SC in a year or two after I'm done with college and have plenty of time on my hands.:D
 
Last edited:
dficken said:
That's it.
I should just trade my car in for a WRX.

Dont you all notice that all blown engines doesnt have engine management?


We will see now what happens after we all runs the microtech and the piggyback
 
Just to clarify cause I am stupid.
These have been running with the FMU (the UFO thing) right?
And would perfworks kit be considered proper engine managment?
 
I hate to see you guys blow your motors. Especially the ones that have been on this site since the site first started in 2001 like me. These new guys that go buy a MSP than slap a boost controler on it and crank it to 15psi, hell, screw them, they deserve it for being stupid. But you guys like kooldino and Apexistud, you guys need some engine management.

Take Terry's MP3 for example. He's been running 10psi for over a year now with no problems. Why? Piggyback timing and fuel control. There's the solution and you guys have known it for a while. But the cost is the killer.

Anyway, be careful with those ticking timebombs under your hoods. I'd hate to hear that you blew your motors too.
 
yea Ben, it sucks that Jeremy's engine blew, he was the one that orginally made me want to go turbo when I first saw his kit one night in Wilmington, now I've finally got up the money, got my kit on, and boom there goes his engine. Kinda makes me feel weary about my kit right now. You blowing your engine from the retread kinda scared me away from the FI for a little while too, but now that I'm boosted I don't think I could go back.

Like I said, Jeremy if you need help doing any of the motor work I'll be glad to come up and lend a helping hand.
 
You blowing your engine from the retread kinda scared me away from the FI for a little while too
Yeah, that sucked ass! It's funny now that I look back on it. I hit another retread ther other day in my S2000 also. I just need to stop driving on I30! I was passing someone and I didn't have time to swerve. I was bobbing when I should have been weaving!:D
 
ahh, scary, I was going to Raleigh one day on I40, just in a pack of traffic. All of a sudden the cars in front of me swerved and there was a damn retread in the middle of my lane. Didn't have time to avoid it all the way, just kinda hopped the tires over it. That wasn't a pleasant experiance.
 
big_ben said:

:D I don't mean to be an asshole or anything. I'm just saying that if you really truly love the Protege and want it to be FI, you need to SERIOUSLY consider a piggy back that can actively control timing and fuel. The J&S is also a HUGE help for that "just incase" everything else fails. But the main reason I decided to not keep going with my MP3 is that the cost greatly outweighed the benefits.

To explain this better, my payment went from $331/month to $335/month. And ask Patrick who won our race last night.:D He even got a better start than I did. But by the end of second gear, I was in the lead and constantly pulling away. His car has at least 50ft/lbs more torque than mine, but it's still no match. And the potential in my car is much greater.

Here's another scenario. A full turbo kit with exhaust, timing and fuel control etc. will run approximately $4000 to $5000 after all your tuning and tweaking is done. A Comptech Supercharger will run me about $4000 then another $250 for the VAFC to control my fuel. After it's all installed and done, the Protege is only putting down 240hp at the most to the ground. My car is putting down 290hp to 310hp at the wheels at only 6psi. And don't even argue about the looks. Unless you are just more into the sedan look, the S2000 has looks hands down.

But, with that said, I understand that it's hard to walk away sometimes after you invested all that time, money, blood, and sweat. It was hard for me, but I am damn glad I did it. Because right now I'm getting 25 miles per gallon, 200hp at the rear wheels, REAR WHEEL DRIVE!!!!!, and a damn good looking car. And I don't even have to open the hood if I don't want. Absolutely ZERO tweaking! Just change the oil and check it once between oil changes. All this for only $4.00 more a month!

Anyway's, good luck to all of you with your turbo kits, go easy on them until you have timing and fuel control or you too will have a blown engine.:D

Very cool to hear. The S2000 is a damn sexy car. I'd get one if insurance wasn't so horrible for me on them. But with all of these people blowing engines, I might just stick with NA. With all of the developments of headers, intake manifolds, custom cams, perfwork's piggyback I think I'd rather just try and get my MP3 to around 180 crank HP and enjoy it until I get rid of some debt. I can't afford a GOOD turbo setup (with good engine management, forged internals) as well as a second motor for if it blows right now.

We shall see. Good to see you still hang around this corner :)

Chris
 
big_ben said:

With a supercharger, boost is RPM dependant so you only need to control fuel based on RPM.

That's true. It would make it simpler.

Now, if you are crazy for horsepower, there is a guy named Mike Simon that builds F20C motors. He lowers the compression from 11.1:1 to 9:1, replaces the pistons and rods with beefier forged ones, ports and polishes the head, replaces the whole valve train with titanium parts, O-Rings the block. His head is capable of reving to 10,500 to 11,000rpm safely! You pay like $5000 plus your motor as a core return. One person has done this then installed a turbo an gone to like 17psi and got like 450hp to the wheels. 500+ is easily attainable at 2bar.

Sweet Jesus.

But me, I'll put on a CAI and Exhaust and I'll be happy. The power is more than enough for me right now. Maybe I'll go SC in a year or two after I'm done with college and have plenty of time on my hands.:D

Time and MONEY!

Hey, I'm not knocking the s2000, but come on man, in EVERY one of your recent posts, we get the same "it's not worth it" attitude. We're trying to have fun here w/ our little cars. Yours went haywire, and you canned it. You replaced it w/ a nice car.

Besides, we have a backseat for our groceries. :-)
 
Besides, we have a backseat for our groceries. :-)
This is true:D I like it small though, it fits me like a glove.:D I am a little pesimistic though since mine did implode on it's self.:D Oh well, I learned a lot from it.
 
big_ben said:
But you guys like kooldino and Apexistud, you guys need some engine management.


Preach it, brother. That's why I'm @ 5.5psi. Cuz I'm paranoid. I refuse to crank it past that until I get engine management. But in that respect, we've all been waiting for someone to come and save the day w/ the engine management. The day is almost here! :-) Ok, well it IS here, but the public can't get them yet. Hehe.
 
DooMer_MP3 said:

We shall see. Good to see you still hang around this corner :)

He's only on this corner to pick up my mom in his s2000. She works for cheap.

:D
 
ok, the post probably got drowned out by everything else but just curious is everyone priming their turbo with oil press. before cranking the engine after the turbo install?

as for engine management i'd have to put my ballot in and definitely agree that tuning is absolutely VITAL. i'm planning on going with a GReddy E-manage hopefully soon. can't beat the price and i've heard some pretty rave reviews about it so far.
 
Congrats Ben on the car;)
I like them as well, however people may find this hard to believe I enjoy driving the turbo Protege more:eek:
Why you ask, the car can be thrown on a canyon and driven roughly, The car has instant torque and pulls, pulls and pulls.
Now why do I like the S?
Well its smooth, Its got the definite bling ( http://www.spool-turbo.com/S2000.html )

And peopel look at it like they never saw something like it before. Thumbs up ect. However the big downside is this. No torque and and in my case the car rewars smooth driving. I like chucking cars around and the S will bite you if you do not respect it. So you are always remnided by it to stay in your limits. Now this is aggravated ofcourse because its turboed. If I were to spend the money personally it would have to be a STI hands down. Just because it suites my needs.
 
Back