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ChrisLol's Sunburst Build Thread (Should have gone 1.8 from the start)
I'll be starting with a stock 1992 SBY example. I plan to turn it into a fun little streetable go-kart with occasional track-day use in mind.
I've never built a car this way. For me, it's always been about driving the car, not working on it. So I've done bolt-ons and suspension work but nothing really complicated or time consuming. However, a recent job change prompted me to want to give this turbo thing a shot. I chose the NA Miata because it fits the go-kart style handling I'm looking for and the price point and budget friendly parts accessibility factors into the decision as well. Finally, I decided to stick with the 1.6 because, well, because I already have it and it's in really good shape.
First step: Engine Management! So since I could pass this off as a training exercise / R&D project I decided to make a plug-and-play "patch" harness to adapt the factory ECU connectors to the New Haltech Elite 750. It's ugly but the solder joints are solid and it works perfect.
However, It turns out that there can be no such thing as plug-and-play with the Miata. Just to get things going, I had to ditch the stock TPS in favor of a full-sweep sensor. That required fabricating a mounting plate for the full-sweep using the factory sensor base plate sans all of the original guts. The MAF also had to go but in order to disable that I also had to jump the fuel pump circuit that for whatever reason runs through the MAF. Then I had to rework the existing wiring so I could keep using the factory air temp sensor.
After a couple days of installation, figuring out problems, and tuning the "Banana Miata" put down 89rwhp on a Dyno Dynamics dyno in factory trim. At this point, the MAF is still in place but the flap door is rigged to stay fully-open since I'm using the ECU on-board MAP for load sensing.
This will be my baseline. The first "stage" of this build will use a Kinugawa TD04L-15T with a 0.3bar(~5psi) wastegate spring and no boost control. The goal is 140 rwhp on 93 octane pump gas.
Last week's project was a coolant re-route using Hawley Performance's coolant re-route spacer kit!
Replaced the factory coolant temp sensor with a GM coolant temp sensor because the factory would not fit. Had to lengthen the wiring as well. This whole job is a PITA with the engine in the car. Many curses were said. Protip: adhere the spacer, water neck and all gaskets together with coolant sealant and let dry before attempting installation. You will thank me later.
Removed the factory air intake tubing to make room for the coolant re-route hose. Cobbled together a short ram intake for temporary use. Surprisingly, air intake temps are only 5º higher than factory air intake temps.
Much cleaner!
Other factory items that were binned during this period:
- A/C lines, reciever drier and condenser removed to make way for intercooler
- Evap emissions canister removed
- Idle air valve and coolant hoses removed/rerouted
- Front grille removed
- Installed RX-7 "red-top" 440cc injectors and wired injector outputs 3&4 to Cyls 3&4 to allow for sequential fueling. (The RX7 Injectors would not idle well on semi-sequential because of the low, split injection times)
- Installed a Megan Racing OE-RS procured from the gents @ TH motorsports
- Received IL Motorsports bonnet lift struts. (Looks like an OK product, hopefully they are as good as everyone says they are)
- Received: Kinugawa TD04, Cast stainless weld els and tees, Stainless T25 and 1.6l Miata exhaust flanges, 2.25" alum. piping kit and used Starion intercooler.
Also started installing a Haltech RacePak IQ3 display dash into a spare factory cluster.
The faceplate is laser cut black delrin as a temporary tester to check the dimensions. The final piece will be made with textured ABS. I will do a proper write-up on this when finished.
Megan Racing did great job on the fitment of the exhaust system. And the sound is great too.
These dashes are very cool pieces. They read values from the CAN Network of most Aftermarket and OEM (OBD-II) ECUs and then display those values on user-configured pages.
Specifically I am using a Haltech branded RacePak IQ3 Display dash for this project.
I won't bother to cover cluster removal/reinstallation because there are already threads out there for that.
I also found disassembly pretty straight forward so there are no pictures to go along with that. I just started removing screws.
What I ended up with was a black gauge trim w/clear plastic cover glued on and the white back shell that housed the gauges and lights.
The first step was to gut the plastic structure from the white back shell. I found a dremel could do this but made one hell of a mess.
I ended up mostly using a razor knife and pliers to score and snap the remaining bits out of the shell.
I cut a rectangular hole in the back of the shell to make clearance for the connectors on the back of the RacePak display and I covered all of the un-needed holes with aluminum HVAC tape because it sticks to anything and conforms so well.
My plan was to sandwich a laser-cut panel between the front black plastic trim and the white back shell so I used a razor-knife to recess the lip of the back shell to give the sandwich panel clearance.
Here is a shot of test fitting the sandwich panel that was laser cut by a friend using a file I made. Notice the holes for the turn signals.
I omitted all of the dummy lights because they are unnecessary. The values displayed on the RacePak like coolant temp, oil pressure and fuel pressure will be programmed with their own warning lights.
I left the high-beam indicator out as well because I felt it wouldn't be missed.
The RacePak dash can display fuel level, but it would need to read the value from either the Haltech ECU or from a VNet module.
I saw this as a waste of money to buy a VNet module just for fuel level, and a waste of an AVI on the ECU so I left the factory fuel level gauge in the cluster.
Now black it out!
I installed a blue LED bulb in the fuel gauge's factory lighting location and built a shield to keep the light from hotspotting:
Wiring the turn signals.
Semi assembled product on the bench.
Wire **** on the back of the cluster.
As you can see above, I used a DTM12 connector on the cluster to make removal and installation easier on myself.
This meant I had to snip the factory cluster connectors and wire some of the OEM wires to the chassis side of the DTM12 connector.
This included a factory 12v supply, ground, turn signals, illumination circuit and fuel level signal.
Installed the cluster temporarily to check function and connections.
Now to work on the front clear cover and black gauge trim.
First, I had to submerge the assembly in boiling water to weaken the adhesive used to attach the clear cover to the black trim piece.
I found this method in another post and not sure how it works but my hypothesis is that the two plastics expand and contract at different rates and this caused stress fractures where they were joined together and made them much easier to pry apart.
Once I had these two pieces apart I put the clear cover to the side and started on the black trim piece.
I cut with a dremel until the old gauge circles were gone and then sanded and smoothed until there was a nice edge.
I then hit the inside of the trim piece with some flat black to even out the color.
The clear plastic on my donor cluster had seen better days and was in need of a polish. So I broke out some 3 stage plastic polish kit and started polishing.
I Also added a rubber hole plug to the hole that the tripometer reset stalk used to pass through.
I knew from reading numerous threads that re-adhering this clear plastic to the black plastic couldn't be done with many glues because it would fog so I opted for some 3M "Strip-Calk"
This is a butyl rubber adhesive that never really cures but is sag resistant. It is very similar to the black gunk that holds the vapor barriers to the door (the translucent plastic behind your door cards)
Once I had all of my parts ready to re-assemble I sat down at the table inside. Wearing nitrile gloves and using q-tips and isopropyl alcohol I gave everything a really good clean and dusting before reassembly
And here it is installed.
During this time, I added three sensors to replace some of the gauges I was losing.
- Vehicle Speed
- Oil Pressure
- Fuel Pressure
Since the NA6 uses a cable drive speedometer, it's vehicle speed sensor is in the speedometer. Since I was not using the factory speedometer I needed a way to rob that signal for the ECU to see.
What I ended up doing was hacking up the donor cluster's speedometer and mounting it in a project box, then attaching that box to the dash support just behind the cluster. Then I ran wires to the ECU for the signal.
However, that does not seem to be working as well as I had hoped. My first and second calibration tries resulted in a PPM of 2million+ and the speed fluctuates quite a bit while driving.
I am going to give the NB transmission sensor a try soon and hopefully that turns out better.
The pressure sensors were much easier.
Fuel pressure is tapped into the fuel supply line and oil pressure is plumbed to the factory oil pressure location next to the oil filter.
First, I had to submerge the assembly in boiling water to weaken the adhesive used to attach the clear cover to the black trim piece.
I found this method in another post and not sure how it works but my hypothesis is that the two plastics expand and contract at different rates and this caused stress fractures where they were joined together and made them much easier to pry apart.
It would be internal shear due to varying expansion rates of dissimilar materials, however both polymers materials wouldn't be drastically different enough to effect the hyper elastic polymeric adhesive. The likely cause is molecular deterioration as long polymer chains experience molecular scission at high temperatures. Basically other constituent materials begin to break down thus weakening the polymeric bonds and reducing integrity.
It would be internal shear due to varying expansion rates of dissimilar materials, however both polymers materials wouldn't be drastically different enough to effect the hyper elastic polymeric adhesive. The likely cause is molecular deterioration as long polymer chains experience molecular scission at high temperatures. Basically other constituent materials begin to break down thus weakening the polymeric bonds and reducing integrity.
This makes me extremely happy. This is literally exactly what i had envisioned in my head and im very pleased with how it turned out, looks amazing.
Questions-
with the sensors, did the ecu not send the signal from the stock sensors to the iq3? What was the purpose of adding new sensors and relocating them?
The grommet that the sensor wires are going through into the firewall, where did you get that from?
For the speedo, will the NB sensor you plan to use wire directly to the iq3 or route through the EMS?
The factory does not provide a fuel pressure sensor so that was a new addition. The factory oil pressure sensor could have been usable but was worth updating to technology that was 25 years newer. Relocation of the oil pressure sensor was done to alleviate any stress on the brass adapter used to adapt 1/8 BPT to 1/8 NPT. Both sensors are fed into the ECU and then displayed as available channels on the RacePak.
I bought an assortment box of grommets and plugs from Amazon and one of those sizes fit inside the original A/C grommet perfectly.
It turns out my issue is actually a boneheaded mistake on my part. The Elite 750 does not accept a direct input from a reluctor sensor so I will need to get some sort of VR conditioning circuit on there in order to use the signal. The NB sensor would have the same problem as it is VR as well. The VR signal is unusable.
Originally Posted by psyber_0ptix
It would be internal shear due to varying expansion rates of dissimilar materials, however both polymers materials wouldn't be drastically different enough to effect the hyper elastic polymeric adhesive. The likely cause is molecular deterioration as long polymer chains experience molecular scission at high temperatures. Basically other constituent materials begin to break down thus weakening the polymeric bonds and reducing integrity.
It turns out my issue is actually a boneheaded mistake on my part. The Elite 750 does not accept a direct input from a reluctor sensor so I will need to get some sort of VR conditioning circuit on there in order to use the signal. The NB sensor would have the same problem as it is VR as well. The VR signal is unusable.
Turns out, most of the above is incorrect.
The sensor is a magnetic reed type which outputs an interesting looking signal and may be usable (falling edge) if it wasn't so noisy:
(The above is without a pull-up on the signal wire)
The solution was to pull-up the signal wire and place a VR conditioner inline as well. The end result is usable signal and MPH reading on the RacePak dash!
Finished out the fall by sanding/buffing out the turn signals and the marker lights.
Installed a knockoff R-package lip. Fit was decent.
Bought some 96 M-Edition wheels in rough shape, blasted them, painted them, mounted new tires.
When winter came, I put the car up on jackstands, plugged in a battery charger and started some big projects.
Removed the power steering rack, welded the lines shut, welded the pinion shaft and cut off the internal seal.
Decided on over-the-radiator intercooler piping.
Decided to source a radiator that was shorter instead of cutting the hood or lowering the factory radiator.
Purchased a 80s/90s VW Golf GTi dual pass aluminum radiator.
Had a friend with a Laser table blast out a custom shroud and mounted two 10" SPAL knockoffs on it.
In the process of planning out my radiator mounts now...
Removed the front water neck.
Hammered a freeze plug in the hole and capped it with the old water neck base, cut and welded in an aluminum slug to make a solid plate.
While I was in there I replaced the front crankshaft seal... twice. It got crooked the first time.
Hacked up the water pump inlet and rewelded the cast pipe on the front to re-route the cool water away from the hot turbo area.
Will be very interested to see how the td04l-15t performs against similar 1.6 setups (td04l-13t, td04-15g).
Did you at any point consider the td04h-15t with billet compressor wheel or td04hl-15t with both billet compressor and inconel turbine wheel?
I'm going to be honest, I was slightly uneducated when I chose this turbo. I did so purely because my engine size and intended horsepower goals fit those brackets on the Kinugawa site. It was also T2 flanged and the recirc. valve was built-in which made the decision easier. I was told I was overthinking it by comparing several different turbos so I picked one and pulled the trigger. I have had several friends who have had Kinugawa and swear by them. Now that I have it I realize it's just a dressed up OEM turbo so I feel better about the longevity also.
In other news I got the GTI radiator in and plumbed:
Brackets made on a laser table, CNC bent and welded myself. (Still learning)
Mounted the rad and I/C for a test fit:
Fabricated some hardpipes for the hot side and cold side radiator plumbing:
"Burp" Tank fitted and ready to be zapped.
The "burp" tank will be the highest point in the system and it has a fill neck and pressure cap since the GTI radiator is not the highest point in the system and does not have a fill neck or cap. The tank feeds into the lower cold side pipe via a 1/2" hose. The top corner of the radiator has had an 1/8" NPT bung welded in as an air bleed point that will bleed air and circulate a small amount of coolant into this tank as well. I should be able to fill into this tank because of the direct feed into the suction side of the system and the air should escape from the radiator via the 1/8" fitting and into this tank.
07-08-2016, 04:04 PM
ChrisLol's Sunburst Build Thread (Should have gone 1.8 from the start)
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