I currently have a 93 miata, and im wondering how to get more power out of my little 1.6. I currently have a magnaflow cat-back exhaust and a k&n cool air intake, but im stiil looking for more power. Turbo kits arnt really an option as i cant really spend the 3+ grand for one. So im looking for more power while keeping my baby naturally aspirated. Any suggestions?

 

How much power are you looking for and what budget are you working with?

 

Well 1grand would be ideal, any more would start cutting into the budget for other parts. And I would be happy with around 200 bhp, any more would be fantastic as long as the block can handle it!

 

I'll level with you. You won't make much difference without going turbo. And you are correct, you don't have enough budget to do it. But there are some things you can do to make your car quicker and more fun.

Minimizing weight in the rotating mass of the drivetrain will help a great deal.

A lighter weight flywheel will make a big difference in acceleration in the first three gears and will make the car rev and downshift much more quickly in all gears. The 949racing dual plate clutch with the organic discs is the lightest reliable choice available. 949 Racing 7.25 Twin Disc Racing Clutch
The car will rev more like a motorcycle with that clutch. It makes a big difference in sporty driving.

A Megasquirt computer will allow you to ditch the AFM in your intake tract and that will free up a few horses. It will require a little tuning on your part but you can gain a little power everywhere with it. It won't be more than 10 or 15 horses, but it all helps.

Then there are the free things:
Bump the base timing up from ten degrees to fifteen or sixteen. The car will be a little peppier.

Are you still running power steering? Depower your rack for some free horsepower and weight savings. It only requires a reduction of the caster in your alignment down to about 4 degrees from the stock 5.5 to be quite good in feel and effort.

The stock steering wheel airbag is heavy. If the wheel grip surface is bad and is due for replacement, a nonstock wheel can be much lighter.

Stock seats are incredibly heavy. Some aftermarket seats are 20lbs lighter apiece than some of the stock ones.

If you are using wheels on your car that weigh more than 12 lbs, the car will be noticeably slower. What wheels do you have?

The NB starter is smaller and lighter than the NA starter.

Do you have a "full size" battery? I'm using a smaller one designed for a lawn tractor.

There are more things you can do with varying levels of effectiveness. Exhaust mods and cold air intake mods don't really net you anything on our cars (5whp total for both) until you have an aftermarket ECU to tune for the changes. This has been dyno proven. They just sound like you are going faster.

Weight is the enemy of our cars. As Colin Chapman, founder of Lotus, famously said, "Add lightness."

 

Well the plan was to replace the clutch anyway so that's dueable. And I was going to wait to replace the ecu and the tuning until I got all the mods done so I could do it all at once. And I've done a few things like a carbon fiber drive shaft and I have already replaced the seats and staring wheel. And my rims are about 8 pounds a piece. Wouldn't taking away power steering effect the handling? But I was planning on getting a fast back body kit but I can switch that and free up another 1500, and I figured maby so new spark plugs, gaskets and those kinds of things would increase power? Also what about maby getting some pirted pistons or something of that nature?

 

My steering feel improved after eliminating my power steering pump because it was over boosted and floaty. There was too little communication.

Where did you get a carbon fiber driveshaft?

8lbs for wheels? Are they 13in diameter? My new lightweight big brake kit's rotors weigh 8lbs.

How would gaskets increase power?

What is a pirted piston?

 

Ported pistons* sorry. And I was under the impression more compression equals more power? So wouldn't new gaskets help? The drive shaft I picked up off of Craigslist off a guy who was parting out his Miata race car. And I picked up the rims off Craigslist too. I wieghed them and they said 8 pounds!

 

What wheels did you get?? A lot of folks are going to be highly interested.

 

The only rims that i can think of that weigh that little, are 15x6, Racing Hart CP-035R's weighing in at 7.9lbs each...

 

Higher compression will net you small changes in power but a lower compression ratio will let you add more turbo boost than a higher one will. More boost = more air density = more power.