Problems with high HP in 2.0 engine

When I bought my P5, I of course wanted to know about pumpin' up the horses. I figured a JR supercharger would be in the works, etc.

I've been told that the P5 (and mp3) use the same engine as the Miata (mounted opposite, of cours - damn front wheel drive!) but that the blocks are different.

This came from a Mazda guy who owns a P5 - the block of the 2.0 in the Proteges is thinner-walled than the block in the Miata 2.0.

Because of this, he has warned against any kind of serious HP upgrades, saying that the block won't handle it well.

I've been reading about y'all pumping out nitrous and the like, and was wondering if there have been any serious problems.

I think I'm gonna wait for my warranty to expire before doing anything drastic. (won't be too long - I've got 13,000 miles in 5 months - daily commuter vehicle) I'll stick with a cold-air intake and maybe an exhaust for now - I'd also love to upgrade the CPU to the mp3, but 10 horses might not be worth the cost.

BTW - I owned a 93 Miata before my P5 - the car never saw the shop. The biggest repair in 80,000 miles was plug wires. Mazda builds 'em nice.

Sup dood. You might want to ask the guy who owns the P5 to check his information again. The Miata as of 98 I believe, came with a 1.8 liter DOHC, prior to that they had a 1.6 DOHC. One thing is for sure though, the Miata is damn near bullet proof when it comes to boost. If were lucky our motors can do well with boost aswell.

I don't think you'll need our ECU (if you can find one), but the Intake Manifold & Cams will due you some good. Don't worry about boosting until it gets here, if it gets here. Just my .02 cents

Without a doubt, the Miata is a purpose built motor right from the factory. Yes, the blocks are definitely different, so you're friend is right on because the Miata does now have a 1.8, while the older models had a 1.6. The block can handle boost very well as there are hundreds of boosted Miatas across the country. If that is any indication of the strength of your block, then you guys should be okay when it comes to boost. Ofcourse, that all depends on how much thinner the walls are and the strength of your internals.

As a pretty good rule of thumb, all stock cars and their internals can take a 50 to 60 hp shot of nitrous or about 8 lbs of boost without even having to think about the internals. Ofcourse, there is alwasy the exception, so take heed and boost incrementally constantly listening for detonation during tuning while upping the boost.

I have a 99 Miata as well as the MP3 and an MX6 LX.
The Miata engine is a BP series engine which uses a different block than the FS series in the MP3. The BP series also came from Mazda in a turbocharged form in the GTX all-wheel drive street car that was used to homologate parts for their rally car. The reliability of the Miata engine may not transfer to the FS engine.