it doesn't have to do with building a race car, I don't think mine was. The problem is the whole "grass is greener" thing. Don't get me wrong, 60-70hp is alot for a protege and you'll love it... at first. When I bought my MSP, I didn't even know it had a turbo. I owned a '99 LX and was comfortable with the protege interior. I saw the MSP and it came with nice rims, a spoiler, ground effects, etc. And when test driving it, I heard the loud whine and I was thrown to the back of my seat. It was awesome. I had a grin from ear to ear.
But small things started to annoy me. I liked that it had the "oomph", don't get me wrong, but in times where you really need to get away, 170hp is lacking. For example, I do alot of highway driving (most roads here are 45+ and then 70 on the "highways"). 7 psi is not enough to get you on an on ramp ahead of the cars that are already cruising. You can't blow by a soccer mom in an accord at a light if you have to get over (if the lane ends). You'll just have to wait for her to pass and then take out your blinker and get in line. Yeah your car will be faster, and you'll feel it, but you're only shaving a few seconds of 0-100mph, not 0-60mph. In real world applications 7psi (on a T25) will only allow you to put up a fight against stock accords, 6s's and IS300's. Don't know about up by you, but those are pretty much the only "cars" that people drive down here. Well, that and CX-7's that's invading the market. You have the same problem though, 200-250hp "heavy" cars will stay within your blind spots in a lane takeover, thus negating the need to invest in the turbo to begin with.
People have repeated for four years now that 8psi should be the top of your range on stock internals/stock ecu. I'm sorry but that 1psi doesn't make that much of a difference in a real world scenario. Not to mention, I remember plenty of people blowing their stock MSP motors, at stock boost (6-7psi). If you build the engine first, you know for a fact that when you are ready, your car will be there waiting.
I drove for four years, 90k miles at 12lbs on my stock block. Every time I stepped on the gas, in the back of my mind I was waiting for the tink... tink... boom. It was pretty stressful knowing that it could blow at any time, but I'm insane, I liked the risk
. It did blow a few weeks ago. I'm not upset, I knew not to run that much unmodded. But... no soccer mom ever succeeded in disallowing me trying to merge. It has nothing to do with making a race car, it has to do with being able to step on it if you "really" have to.
P.S. sorry about the long post, just wanted to get my points across
