AVO Turbo Kit as sold by Pettit Racing

[4/27/2000] Reviewed by Mike Pitts - mpitts@emi.net

Applicable to '99 + 1.8 liter

The kit is very high quality except for one piece, the power steering adapter. This can be modified to work if you have some dremel skills. The intake plumbing is made of cast aluminum and matches the OEM intake manifold perfectly. This kit looks like it was designed by Mazda! The plumbing to the intercooler makes good sense too in that the turbo to intercooler plumbing routes on the driver's side rather than crossing the front of the engine.

The kit includes eveything to turbocharge your M2 Miata up to ~8 PSI. Adding more boost is as simple as replacing the additional injector with a larger one and retuning the Link Piggyback ECU. The kit also included a the 280 HP Garrett Ball-Bearing "Ballistic Concepts" T25 turbo and Link Piggyback and wiring harness. The intercooler is quite large.

I installed this kit by myself, in my garage, over the course of 6 days. It would've taken much less time had Pettit included the instruction manual, DUH! I also inadvertantly drilled into the oil strainer pickup tube in my oil pan which cost me two more days of oil pan R&R. If I had it to do over, I would R&R the oil pan for the turbo oil drainback from the start.

Having driven with the system for a couple weeks now, all I can say is WOW! The car is an animal at 15 PSI! The Miata is powerful like a Porsche now.

The stock clutch won't last long. I baby my clutch and it's already starting to lose grip in fourth and fifth gear.

To make the kit more complete, I think it should include a larger injector, a boost gauge, an air/fuel gauge, a blowoff valve, a boost solenoid and a Link keypad. Still, for $3895 it's a rockin' deal! A kit is available for earlier models as well. Time from order to delivery was less than 14 days...from Australia no less.

I chose to step up to an 83# injector and it's supplying ample fuel.

Pics are at

http://www.emi.net/~mpitts/AVOTurbo

-and-

http://www.emi.net/~mpitts/AVOTurboInstall  

when my freakin' ISP has the server up. If you can't access the pics, try again later.

Difficult to remove without leaving damage


Back to Product Reviews 19 May, 2000