Alright so here goes . . . Anyone out there with too much time on their hands and of a friendly nature to drop a gal a lifeline?? My hubby's into the grassroots/rally/autocross scene and I don't mind it myself (I have been known to participate in an autoX or two). I'm tired of feeling like a moron due to the lack of information I have on the subject (either because I wasn't interested or too busy). So I think I'm ready to start learning if anyone is willing to give me the cliffnotes on miatas and the turbo option. I love tooling around on the roads with her and she's fun but I'm feeling like it's time to give her an upgrade so I suggested it to him that we might attempt this together. But anyone who's married or in a significant relationship out there knows it can be hard to learn from each other so rather than bothering him with my "stupid" questions I thought I might get some feedback from you nice folks. Any takers??

 

Adding a turbo/supercharger gives 7% horsepower boost per 1 pound of turbo/supercharger boost. That said an engine built with a turbo/supercharger has lower compression so you can give it more boost. IE: turbo charged engine compression is generally 8:1 where a normally aspirated engine is 10:1. So if you add a turbo you must hold the boost pressure down so as not to blow the head gasket/piston skirt. There are turbo kits out there for Miatas to just bolt on. Not a huge job really. Just be careful to not boost it too much.

 

I DO appreciate your reply. However, I'm not sure you understand how much I don't know. I have an engineering degree but as you might guess they don't teach this sort of thing so could you dumb it down for me A LOT?

 

A turbo is basicly a shaft with 2 fan blades,one on each end. One end with fan blade is mounted in the exhaust manifold so that the exhaust pressure spins the fan blade. The other end with fan blade is mounted to the intake port so that it forces air into the intake thereby raising the compression. Normally aspirated engines pull air in by the action of the downward force of the piston sucking air in. Turbos force more air in.

 

Thanks!