Jason and his turbocharged USDM Mazda MX-5 Miata

My sincere greetings to our multinational group of tuning enthusiasts here at HP Academy!

I'm currently living just outside of Memphis, TN, USA and I came to the HP Academy about 45 days ago. I initially purchased the Starter package, and I've very recently added the E85 + Ethanol Tuning series as well. Special thanks and appreciation go to Taz at the HP Academy service desk for helping me with the E85 course purchase, by the way.

I've been collaborating with a gentleman who lives in Los Angeles, CA who, in his spare time, has decided to fully decompile the Renesas ECU logic for the 3rd generation ('06-'15) Mazda MX-5 platform. His intention is to deliver a complete (and free, minus the actual OBD2 interface cost) tuning solution via the Tactrix OpenPort 2.0 device and associated Tactrix EcuFlash software. Myself and a small handful of others have been helping him test his findings by flashing our own cars and digging through the results.

I have some very dated experience tuning Haltech solutions from the early 2000's, such as the E6K and E6X devices on other various automotive platforms. Before my current DIY tune endeavor, I purchased a professional EcuTeK tune from a reputable establishment in Texas. While I'm happy with the result, I miss rolling my own tunes, and I'm excited to help get a far less expensive solution into the hands of the public. I've joined HP Academy to freshen my knowledge, to confirm (and in many cases I've discovered, to disprove) the knowledge I already have, and to put myself in a position to help others on their own trek through tuning.

At the moment, my car is using a mostly off-the-shelf turbo kit produced by a shop named Fab9, based on the Borg Warner EFR 6758 turbocharger, a gorgeous SS exhaust manifold made by John Gleason (of Glease Manufacturing fame), and a lot of other high quality parts. On a local dynojet and under purely stock configuration, the car produced 141whp and 126ft/lb torque. During my last test, it produced 293whp and 257ft/lb torque with a manifold pressure of 15psi. I'm not sure if there's more power to be had, but there are some pieces of my current tune which I feel I could do better.

I've attached a picture of the dynojet results, and a picture of my car for fun :-) I look forward to lots of learning and sharing with this group and the larger Miata community!

Welcome to the forum!

That is a damn fine looking car. How does the NC chassis handle that sort of power?

Looking at your dyno graph, I bet its a pretty damn responsive car to drive. Really interested to see how the tactrix/ecuflash project progresses, as the NC is going to be a popular tuning platform in the coming years for sure! Is that dyno pull from your own tune using ecuflash, or is it the ECUTek tune?

Ha! I wasn't quite clear, was I? :-)

That particular dyno session was running my bought-and-paid-for EcuTeK tune from the gentleman in Texas. Upon reading my introduction, I sound more negative about the state of my EcuTeK tune than I intended -- the tune seems to operate pretty well, but it has some issues at very low load and some tip-in fueling comp issues. It's also a VERY conservative tune on the fueling side; at the slightest hint of any positive relative manifold pressure, the A:FR races down to 12:1. I also feel it's lazy on timing in the midrange.

Also, that dyno was in 4th gear on a 6-speed transmission; it should've been run in 5th. The reason for the disparity is because my original, factory-stock dyno session was done by the local dyno operator and he just assumed it was a five speed -- so he tested in 4th and I didn't catch it until much later. As best I could, I wanted an apples-to-apples comparison of the power gains, so I continued testing in 4th gear from then on. In person you can tell it isn't right, because the car doesn't load up the same as the street and needs a bit more EBC duty cycle to achieve boost target.

Keep us updated for sure on your tuning efforts with your new setup, very interested!

Pretty much every EBC setup I've done has had different enough response once the vehicle was on the road to require some tweaks, one of the main reasons confirming your tune on the road is a pretty essential step :-).

Glad to see another NC turbo around, this is one (attached graph) I've been working on tuning using ECUTEK, managed 304 bhp at the hubs. I believe the owner had already tried the Mazda edit software with another tuner but became frustrated.

Welcome to HPA.