Hey man! I guess the best mod for 1.6 miata, stage one, is going with electric water pump, electric ac compressor, as well as electric power steering For AC compressor I should say, it's bit heavier than your factory setup(~15kg, with back strapped AC radiator/fan). If you're ok with it, then based on the cockpit space, I recommend at least 2btu for a 2door small pickup. I have done only one of this sh¡t, but I researched it, like an asshole police, searching your car, without consent, just looking for sth to charge you with! I used a 4.5btu for my hatchback. I tasked it with ac, one giant ~1.4ft³ refrigerator, and one other thing. It uses 24v( with 3 separate small units of 12v DC to 24v DC convereors). For the power steering, so far, my best result had been combining both direct electric motor with mazda3 electric hydraulic pump, with my factory hydraulic rack). There is just one small pushback for above-mentioned upgrade: the efficiency of electric motors are less than their mechanical counterparts! Therefore while using them actually you are putting all the load on your alternator and with one step, on your engine! The way to attack that's problem is having a shot down/off push key under the accelerator, killing the alternator while heavy acceleration! So it won't affect your engine's performance!!! Please don't mention weaker sparks, because there are zillion ways around it. 😅 Doing so, on average you might gain 20hp optimistically, but this 20hp, is more than 20hp gain, achieved by upgrading turbo for example! Because it reduces the engine load, instead of putting much more strength on it! So no more powerful cams, pistons, conrods, etc.

hate manual steering and hot tyres

I just did mine last week when I was doing my timing belt and all 16 were stuck solid. Smart using that valve seal puller. I struggled to get mine apart taking over an hour. I also didn’t realize it was so easy to get the inner plunger apart. I soaked mine over night in seafoam.

Yeah that’s pretty interesting. I removed the power steering on my 90 last week. For now it’s just looped but in a few weeks I plan on finishing the job. Was waiting on new SuperPro bushing for the rack. For me I didn’t notice much of a performance difference. I don’t have A/C but I’m sure there is but it wasn’t noticeable. As it is looped I like the weight of it driving. It’s on the heavy side bellow 20km/h but driving it’s really nice. I think there’s probably still too fluid inside though. If I hit a bump well making a hard turns at low speeds it kicks back a little but it’s manageable. Roundabouts are two handed now lol. The most positive thing is now it’s super easy to access the heater pipe to change that o ring 👍

What I gather is that increasing your intake air temperature actually advanced the timing. If you were running 87 pump gas instead of high octane, the cooler intake temps (from the first graph) would have likely made more power. Cooler air is denser, usually leading to more power, but your results differ likely due to the stable burn of high octane fuel, which effectively slows down combustion (like retarding timing). Running lower octane gas might have advanced the timing. If you had adjusted timing for the cooler test (graph 1) until it just started pinging and then backed off a degree, the cooler intake test would have shown more power. Running even higher octane fuel, like C16, would produce less power unless timing was further advanced. Remember, the key advantage of higher octane fuel is allowing more timing advance. LOL I said that origionally so bad and then ran it through ChatGPT to explain what I was trying to say. This is what chatGPT reworded what I was trying to say.

5:55

Wat size speakers

What Color is the valve cover? And is it powder

Well, yeah, of course you got a test of an electric power steering pump helped gain this horsepower

Nice job.

Nice. Any undercarriage shots?

Hey guys... great simple tests. Love the wrap up you do! I race an NB1 RS with standard spec engine ECU etc down here in NZ (feel free to see my Videos :) )... I have a square top inlet plenum I picked up and have grafted a skunk type (bigger) throttle body (removing and smoothing aluminium to transition nicely). My question is, should I stick with the VICS (as your car uses) or are there extra BHP's in the Square top... also, how bad does driveability get down low, will I regret the squaretop pulling out of slower corners or are the gains at high rev's just too much to resit the change? i.e. can you please test a square top inlet against the VICS inlet. Thank you!... I'll dedicate my first win to you if it all come together. Keep up the great work!

And/or parts updates

Dude, more garage update videos please

Manual rack has way better feel on corners least with the older stuff I used to drive, but I can imagine with the heavier car and some sticky tires you can turn out to be a pain in the parking lot

Niceee!!! I was conscient that the power steering pump takes some hp away, but i wasn't expecting to take that much OMG, specially when in full lock. Love your videos, could you make a video testing the diferent octane fuels and if more octane influences the hp, or not. Thanks keep the good work

Will it work with the NA stock air box?

I did the short method I’ve bought the car like 3 weeks ago and I’ve changed the spark plugs with ngk blue ones at the same time as the air filter (simota) and I think I ve gained some power if there is any1 here to tell me that the ngk plugs added some power let me know … cause I dont

De - Powered vs manual rack is different.

❤ this. Amazing work! Another YJ saved from being lost forever 👏🤩⭐️

The short ram is gonna suck hotter air while the longer (if done right) take colder air from outside the car is gonna have air thats more dense then the hot air thats expanded inside the engine bay

Excellent, thanks for sharing ❤ what's the make/part no. of those valve seal pliers? I've seen others use locking needle nose pliers, but your tool looks far better and less likely to cause damage

springs still sound a little stiff for a car that weighs so little

another interesting video, you guys honestly have great content

Awesome content, im so glad i discovered this channel, this is the type of testing we need to see more of instead of companies making blanket statements about what their products deliver.

subscribed😎

Back in 95 I bought an R model (94) with AC. Steering was a little heavy if barely moving but autocrossing had great feel and wasn't tiring.

How long were the pipes? the Honda K24 reaches max power at 900-1000mm length

I would love to see a video comparing the randell intake design, a intake taking cold RAM air from the front, I wonder what a intake that uses RAM air to provide more air quantity effects the HP output?

Great video. Would be interesting to try some water meth injection to see what that would do to intake temps and power.

We need a exhaust cam in the intake slot test

Your test is a little inaccurate... You are testing removal of BOTH the PS and AC - not just the PS. When I tested PS w/o AC on a 99, it was only a 2 HP loss (with the wheel straight). Still a good video and test but would be interesting to see the results w/o the AC for accuracy

I've always had a theory about skin friction in a few of the pumps in an engine, like the oil and coolant specifically. I've always wanted to polish the inside of the passages to reduce skin friction and pumping losses. I put this theory into practice years ago with a td04 turbo. I polished the inside (all the way through the housings) and i took it a step further by polishing and sharpening the compressor and exhaust turbines so they would slice through the air. After installing i went way lean on acceleration, had to add throttle enrichment, once I did that, the additional torque smoked my transmission in about 7 days. The turbo eventually blew too because I didn't get it balanced. Anyway it would be cool if you could try something like this if anything on the water pump or oil pump. It would awesome to see the dyno numbers.👌

If i remember correctly hotter air will make you more prone to knock or predetination. Therefore, the colder your air intake charge, the more you can advance timing and the more power you can make. That is really interesting about the oil, thanks for the video. Makes total sense 🙏💯

missed opportunities in bigger tubes. don't waste your time doing step up or step downs, good filter vs velocity stack doesn't matter.

Great stuff

What about using the oem airbox and installing a less restrictive air filter like Kn?

Great video. I could see doing something like a "cold air chamber" or something to that effect for your test, an ac'd area which is kept separate from the hot environment so the engine oil can be warm with the car temps up while at the same time pulling from a cold air source. I do agree you are just very likely to prove the same thing. I've seen something like 1whp for every 20 degrees cooler for NA motors.

This is awesome info, is there an under drive pulley option for the Miata so you could reduce the amount the power steering pump would have to work but also retain some power steering?

Awesome video every Miata owner needs to see

Can you make one like for my 2016 Miata ??

Id be curious if intake pipe shape makes any difference. A friend brought me a goofy looking ARC crossover pipe from Japan, I doubt it makes any power but it does look neat under the hood.

This is great. BUT there's one thing you should investigate. Assess what difference the Resonator makes on the OEM cross over intake tube on MK1 and MK2.5 cars makes and whether it is better to keep on an aftermarket intake. I've been looking at keeping it but with a shielded pod filter (where the stock snorkel is ) and ditching the fancy shiny cross over tube as from what I've read the Resonator maintains mid range and low to mid range torque

rest in peace I know he's glad the car is as good as it is now

Really interesting results from your real world test (even though I run turbo!). I was surprised that power losses from cooler oil temps were outweighed any gains from cooler IAT's. Well done and keep the great content coming....

From a street car perspective it’s not going to amount to much, you’re paying for the sound and the response. Obviously the colder the air the better. Spec Miata guys are very limited but typically run open filters as far away as they can from the exhaust, despite being required to run it on the exhaust side. Pro level cars have fully sealed intake plenums with ram air if allowed and never run open filters, restrictors are often employed. When we dynoed cars for compliance with NASA and SCCA the hoods are closed. We compared those runs to our gps/acceleration data logs from the track to find cheater cars with speed activated tunes etc. The smartest and fastest setups tuned for maximum power and torque everywhere but peak which was rule exploit based on a power cap. Different dynos different days but for reference a healthy legal 1.6 spec miata with a good builder would make 125whp. Later 1.8’s would make 135-140whp. Top teams in the nationals would play with fuel pressure regulators, loose wheel bearings, loose belts and less oil.

Appreciate the data! 📈 I’ll just keep my aftermarket intake now that I see this! I was going to go back to stock with the Randall intake but no point really if it’s stock!

You need to tuck the air filter inlet on the front bumbers, where you have it positioned is incorrect (as shown in your video) Air inlet on the front bumber, your room seems not to be properly ventilated, it needs to see actual outdoors air temp, ( don't know if you are running heater in your shop) hood closed. Everyone knows that cold oil = less power, same as thick oil = less power. With the filter where you have it is sucking all the hot air from what the radiator is exchanging plus the radiant heat from the engine bay, what you have is not a cold air system as tested. I understand your points, of not wanting to break your back to find a decimal point increase, but then you are defeating the purpose of the test.

What about a test with hood closed ( hot air) and a cold air intake system taking air from the bottom of front bumper.

thanks!