Can anyone please explain why its so damn hard to make power outta the msp's. I havent really done much my mods are listed bellow. But hell my buddy in a stock vr6 jetta pulls me like im setting still the other night. I came home and order the ssafc waiting on it to get in but theres gotta be something im over looking.
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why!!!!!
- Thread starter odie84
- Start date
what makes it "hard"? do you just not know what to do next with your setup or you cannot afford mods or?
how fast did you really expect to go with an intake and exhaust as your only power adding mods?
my advice would be to go for a drive in a car that you consider "fast".
then go weigh your car. then you can figure out how much power you need to make your car "fast" as well.
under 250hp is bolt on territory. if you need more or cannot afford to ever have downtime from a worn out motor then you are looking at the cost of a built motor on top of supporting mods.
how fast did you really expect to go with an intake and exhaust as your only power adding mods?
my advice would be to go for a drive in a car that you consider "fast".
then go weigh your car. then you can figure out how much power you need to make your car "fast" as well.
under 250hp is bolt on territory. if you need more or cannot afford to ever have downtime from a worn out motor then you are looking at the cost of a built motor on top of supporting mods.
- :
- 2003.5 Mazdaspeed Protege
buy a bigger turbo. Upgrade exhaust,upgrade intake manifold and engine managment,bigger injectors better engine mounts and a front mount intercooler. That should be a good start. Also upgrade the diff,.
when you think about it at 260HP you are doubling the output of a stock FSDE, so keep that in mind with regard to how long the stock engine will last (even with supporting bolt on mods) at 275hp and decide if you are better off starting with a built motor.
pretty sure a plug and play unichip with intake, decent fmic and exhaust gets you to ~ 240HP on a dynojet last time I checked. not too far off from your goal with just a plug and play device + your current mods.
if you want 275 and you are not close to any unichip tuners you are going to need to go with something like a AFC and larger injectors which will cost you about the same after dyno time but will require you to tune the device yourself.
The last 25HP is where you start to sacrificing reliability on a stock motor build. You may find It more practical to just make 250HP, buy a AAA membership for $100 in case you get a flat tire and remove some weight from the car IE spare tire, jack, rear stereo components, Air Conditioning, Power Steering etc.
OR if unlike most msp tuners you have a few thousand dollars of disposable income and want piece of mind then a built motor will take under 300HP all day long so you would just need the afc, bigger injectors, ~15psi or less on stock turbo and some dyno tuning as you already have a intake/FMIC/exhaust.
pretty sure a plug and play unichip with intake, decent fmic and exhaust gets you to ~ 240HP on a dynojet last time I checked. not too far off from your goal with just a plug and play device + your current mods.
if you want 275 and you are not close to any unichip tuners you are going to need to go with something like a AFC and larger injectors which will cost you about the same after dyno time but will require you to tune the device yourself.
The last 25HP is where you start to sacrificing reliability on a stock motor build. You may find It more practical to just make 250HP, buy a AAA membership for $100 in case you get a flat tire and remove some weight from the car IE spare tire, jack, rear stereo components, Air Conditioning, Power Steering etc.
OR if unlike most msp tuners you have a few thousand dollars of disposable income and want piece of mind then a built motor will take under 300HP all day long so you would just need the afc, bigger injectors, ~15psi or less on stock turbo and some dyno tuning as you already have a intake/FMIC/exhaust.
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MSP owners (like myself) are usually just cheap and allergic to spending money. a MSP costs less than practically anything you would compare it too, but then owners wonder why a stock FS motor cant pump out 300+ all day long for 10 years.
Id take a MSP + cash difference over pretty much any FWD "tuner" car. Compare it to anything from the era- srt4, RSX, Civic Si etc and you will see the MSPs are usually thousands less to buy, especially when they were newer.
When I go by mustang/corvette shops I see guys slap down 5 - 10K for built motors/turbo kits without complaining. They understand that even with big displacement sports cars speed costs money.
MSP owners that are looking for serious power (over double stock HP) just need to realize they cant get upset when they see a bill for a set of pistons/rods/install. If you were on another platform it would be big money too just on different parts to get the same sort of power daily.
when you compare the base cost of pretty much any FWD car from the era and then add the cost of getting it up to 300+HP or in the 12s they all end up costing you around the same. All those MOPAR kits for SRT4 are not free and boosting a K20 to 300+HP will cost you quite a bit more then you would think if you are buying decent parts. the guys who are running 300+HP and in the 12s with FWD seem to have more in their setups than our cars are even worth nowadays unless they did junkyard/ebay build like I did with my BP.
regardless of car you are going to need to buy things to make anything FWD quick and reliable.
either way there are not too many engines out there were you can double the stock HP and have great reliability. sure there are 400HP stock block K20 motors, 4g63 motors and SR20DET motors with turbo setups worth more than your whole car, and they are great.. but I doubt many last for several years being abused all day.
More like a couple seasons if the owners really beat on them at the track. If they are dyno queens / show cars that get driven by people who dont beat on them constantly then ya they may last a few more seasons than that.
all I am trying to say is, it doesnt really matter what FWD car you have, its going to cost you to get it into that sort of power to weight ratio.
not sure what your procharge 02 Cobra costed you, but Im guessing you had more $ in it then your msp. with a few key mods you could be making similar power/weight. with a built motor you could have piece of mind. but you wont ever get the same QM times with a fwd car I hate to say. I get smoked by my friends cars (C5, M3, SRT-8 etc) daily.
FWD is no fun from a dead stop. From a roll with my current 1HP/9.6 pounds of weight I can hang with my buddies C5 vette until I get into 5th and aero/gearing start to factor in. Not bad for a 4 door economy car IMO, but not a drag car by any means.
Id take a MSP + cash difference over pretty much any FWD "tuner" car. Compare it to anything from the era- srt4, RSX, Civic Si etc and you will see the MSPs are usually thousands less to buy, especially when they were newer.
When I go by mustang/corvette shops I see guys slap down 5 - 10K for built motors/turbo kits without complaining. They understand that even with big displacement sports cars speed costs money.
MSP owners that are looking for serious power (over double stock HP) just need to realize they cant get upset when they see a bill for a set of pistons/rods/install. If you were on another platform it would be big money too just on different parts to get the same sort of power daily.
when you compare the base cost of pretty much any FWD car from the era and then add the cost of getting it up to 300+HP or in the 12s they all end up costing you around the same. All those MOPAR kits for SRT4 are not free and boosting a K20 to 300+HP will cost you quite a bit more then you would think if you are buying decent parts. the guys who are running 300+HP and in the 12s with FWD seem to have more in their setups than our cars are even worth nowadays unless they did junkyard/ebay build like I did with my BP.
regardless of car you are going to need to buy things to make anything FWD quick and reliable.
either way there are not too many engines out there were you can double the stock HP and have great reliability. sure there are 400HP stock block K20 motors, 4g63 motors and SR20DET motors with turbo setups worth more than your whole car, and they are great.. but I doubt many last for several years being abused all day.
More like a couple seasons if the owners really beat on them at the track. If they are dyno queens / show cars that get driven by people who dont beat on them constantly then ya they may last a few more seasons than that.
all I am trying to say is, it doesnt really matter what FWD car you have, its going to cost you to get it into that sort of power to weight ratio.
not sure what your procharge 02 Cobra costed you, but Im guessing you had more $ in it then your msp. with a few key mods you could be making similar power/weight. with a built motor you could have piece of mind. but you wont ever get the same QM times with a fwd car I hate to say. I get smoked by my friends cars (C5, M3, SRT-8 etc) daily.
FWD is no fun from a dead stop. From a roll with my current 1HP/9.6 pounds of weight I can hang with my buddies C5 vette until I get into 5th and aero/gearing start to factor in. Not bad for a 4 door economy car IMO, but not a drag car by any means.
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hornsfan10609
Certified Mazda Tech
- :
- 2003.5 Mazdaspeed Protege x2
They didn't make Cobras in 02.Iv had fast. I got the msp after having a 02 procharged cobra. Im looking at 275hp outtanthe speed to be close to power weight of my mustang.
hornsfan10609
Certified Mazda Tech
- :
- 2003.5 Mazdaspeed Protege x2
Like I said, they never made an 02 Cobra, I used to have a 94 Cobra and I have a Bullitt now. I'm an SVT nut
hornsfan10609
Certified Mazda Tech
- :
- 2003.5 Mazdaspeed Protege x2
I worked with a guy that had a 2000 Cobra lol. It was a GT with cobra seats and the guy told everyone it was a true SVT.
Viralphrame
Member
The MSP is not a very good platform to begin with. The rods start snapping and transmission gears start coming apart as your HP/tq numbers begin to climb. Bolt-ons and high hopes won't get you anywhere near 300hp. I noticed that you don't have any sort of tuning solution listed in your mods... the stock PCM tune from Mazda is utter and 100% crap. The SS-AFC will not help you very much either. All of your goodies don't really amount to much when you're at the mercy of your car's awful fuel and timing maps.
tl;dr BUILD your motor and transmission then TUNE, preferably with a standalone; piggybacks and A/F controllers are half-assed solutions. However, by the time you get to "big power," you might be wishing you hadn't spent so much money on a 4cyl FWD econobox.
tl;dr BUILD your motor and transmission then TUNE, preferably with a standalone; piggybacks and A/F controllers are half-assed solutions. However, by the time you get to "big power," you might be wishing you hadn't spent so much money on a 4cyl FWD econobox.
MSP owners (like myself) are usually just cheap and allergic to spending money. a MSP costs less than practically anything you would compare it too, but then owners wonder why a stock FS motor cant pump out 300+ all day long for 10 years.
Id take a MSP + cash difference over pretty much any FWD "tuner" car. Compare it to anything from the era- srt4, RSX, Civic Si etc and you will see the MSPs are usually thousands less to buy, especially when they were newer.
When I go by mustang/corvette shops I see guys slap down 5 - 10K for built motors/turbo kits without complaining. They understand that even with big displacement sports cars speed costs money.
MSP owners that are looking for serious power (over double stock HP) just need to realize they cant get upset when they see a bill for a set of pistons/rods/install. If you were on another platform it would be big money too just on different parts to get the same sort of power daily.
when you compare the base cost of pretty much any FWD car from the era and then add the cost of getting it up to 300+HP or in the 12s they all end up costing you around the same. All those MOPAR kits for SRT4 are not free and boosting a K20 to 300+HP will cost you quite a bit more then you would think if you are buying decent parts. the guys who are running 300+HP and in the 12s with FWD seem to have more in their setups than our cars are even worth nowadays unless they did junkyard/ebay build like I did with my BP.
regardless of car you are going to need to buy things to make anything FWD quick and reliable.
either way there are not too many engines out there were you can double the stock HP and have great reliability. sure there are 400HP stock block K20 motors, 4g63 motors and SR20DET motors with turbo setups worth more than your whole car, and they are great.. but I doubt many last for several years being abused all day.
More like a couple seasons if the owners really beat on them at the track. If they are dyno queens / show cars that get driven by people who dont beat on them constantly then ya they may last a few more seasons than that.
all I am trying to say is, it doesnt really matter what FWD car you have, its going to cost you to get it into that sort of power to weight ratio.
not sure what your procharge 02 Cobra costed you, but Im guessing you had more $ in it then your msp. with a few key mods you could be making similar power/weight. with a built motor you could have piece of mind. but you wont ever get the same QM times with a fwd car I hate to say. I get smoked by my friends cars (C5, M3, SRT-8 etc) daily.
FWD is no fun from a dead stop. From a roll with my current 1HP/9.6 pounds of weight I can hang with my buddies C5 vette until I get into 5th and aero/gearing start to factor in. Not bad for a 4 door economy car IMO, but not a drag car by any means.
+1
what makes it "hard"? do you just not know what to do next with your setup or you cannot afford mods or?
how fast did you really expect to go with an intake and exhaust as your only power adding mods?
my advice would be to go for a drive in a car that you consider "fast".
then go weigh your car. then you can figure out how much power you need to make your car "fast" as well.
under 250hp is bolt on territory. if you need more or cannot afford to ever have downtime from a worn out motor then you are looking at the cost of a built motor on top of supporting mods.
+1
Try adding a downpipe, the stocks looks utter crap to me.
The msp isn't meant to be fast in a straight line.
Agreed. Get some good suspension then see if he can keep up with you on a mixed road.
100 - 2002 Cobras were made and shipped to Australia. It really doesn't matter to me what the OP had nor that his MSP is slow.
Ha, that made me chuckle...
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