Dyladjent

Hi guys, I bought this particular car around this time last year. I made an intro thread in the meet and greet section and planned to make a build thread on both my old 1.8 swapped 91 and my then new TD04 95. That didn't work haha. I went back to my lurking ways and never even updated my first post with pictures. This thread is my attempt to document my progress. Maybe I can stay on top of this one.

Here is the car the week I bought it.





I got it for a great deal from a guy that was semi local.
It is a Montego blue 95
Stock engine
Stock Injectors
Stock Clutch
Torsen
MSPNP1
Koni Yellows w/ eibach springs
Hard Dog rollbar
Full 2.5" exhaust
Minor cosmetic mods
At this point it was on 3 Enkei RPF1s and a random Borbet wheel the PO had laying around

It isn't perfect cosmetically. From 10 feet it looks good but the closer you get the more swirl marks and faded/peeling clear coat you see. Its rust free though and looks tons better than my other car.
It had oil pouring out of the front main seal and a questionable tune that was running around 10 afr at idle. But it pulled stronger than my 91 (in the background of the second picture) and it was my favorite miata color. The second I got it home I changed the timing belt, water pump, front main seal, thermostat and did a full service of all the fluids and consumables.

Dyladjent

After getting the mechanical maintenance done I decided to pull the tune from the MS to see what the PO had done tuning wise.


WTF is this ignition map?
This scared me into starting over with a basemap from diyautotune. After loading the new basemap I went to start the car for the first time to set base timing and check to see that all my new settings were correct I discovered that the AFR gauge (Innovate MTX-L) was not even wired into the harness or the MS. The brown narrowband wire and the yellow wideband wire were just hanging there... So I learned how to correctly wire up the WB and I got it communicating. However there was tons of noise on the signal.



The median between the oscillations was about spot on. I had the sensor grounded at the TB like everyone suggests here so I didn't really have much of an offset ( I think). I didn't bother with changing the POs power source which in hindsight was probably my problem? I never got around to chasing down the noise. I used VEAL and it got the afrs close enough to the target that I could smooth everything else by hand.

At this point everything was good. I was smoothing out my VE table. I had my idle as good as you can get with MS1 and stock injectors (think ok for the most part but with random hunting at times). I was running waste gate pressure (7psi).
Here is a picture of the car when it was running well. (Sitting on 15x8 +28 Gram Light 57DRs with 205/50/15 S-Drives)



I was about to get ready to dive in and start adding boost when I popped a huge exhaust leak.

Up until this point I had not even taken the heat shield off of the turbo. I just naively figured that everything was as it should be and I was all good mechanically. I was wrong. I took the heat shield off of the turbo and found that out of the 4 bolts on the flange 2 were sheared off and 1 was not even in the downpipe because of the stupid "?" shape of the topmount routing. So I parked the car at my parents place and took the turbo off to see what I could do about the downpipe situation. Then my wife and I purchased a house. So that is where it sat for a few months. Now that everything has settled down with the house I put the turbo back on temporarily (reused gaskets found cheap hardware that sort of fit) and got it into our garage and that is where it sits now. My plans as of now are to reroute the charge piping that was a convoluted mess. (It came down in front of the front water neck, did a full 180 degree turn back towards the driver side and then another 180 into the intercooler that was too low to even hack an under tray on.) Install a Trubo Kitty MS3X I just finished assembling. Install a set of 640cc FF injectors I got last year and get the car running well before getting a new clutch and turning it up to 225-230 WHP. I have some other small things I want to do while the car is on waste gate pressure like changing the radiator/ getting my 949 coolant reroute off of my other car and deciding if I should keep the set of RB swaybars front and rear. (I have no plans as of now to track the car just a good weather dd) I'm also still playing around with the idea of changing the manifold from the sub optimal top mount that it has now. I haven't been able to find out where the manifold is from, it is shaped like the old greddy 1.6 top mounts and the turbo is the TD04H-15g from that kit (the one with the t25 inlet flange and the odd oblong 4 bolt outlet flange) and it seems like a semi quality piece. I just hate dealing with the downpipe/chargepipe routing.



Before I put the turbo back on I need to get this thing resurfaced. I just haven't decided to do that or go with a different manifold/ downpipe before I do my chargepipng?

I've got a bit to do before I get it running and if I've missed anything don't hesitate to chime in. I'm sorry this is all one big run on thread, I'm just trying to compress a year worth of stuff into a brief intro. Maybe I can stay on top of this thread and find motivation to get my car running again. The posts from now on will be more as it progresses and not so much getting up to date.
If you've made it this far thanks for sticking in with me.

90LowNSlo

Welcome to the form (again?).

I'll be watching... Can't wait to see it all finished up.

andyfloyd

Im not 100% on that manifold but it looks a lot like the HKS piece. It may not be HKS but a copy of an HKS but it does look to be pretty decent. Any other manifold ( FM, Trackspeed, Kraken ) would be better for downpipe routing since the turbo would hang off the side of the mani instead.

sixshooter

iTrader: (12)

That's an HKS manifold. I've had one. Good quality but needs a smallish turbo to fit underhood. Downpipe is easier if you trim the shelf beneath the heater hoses.

Dyladjent

Thanks for the ID. I didn't even know HKS had a manifold for the 1.8. One thing I forgot to mention in my thread here that I think I touched on in my meet and greet post is that I plan on going to a 6258 after something breaks or I get bored. I'm looking for a 1.8 block to throw some rods in currently. Thats why a new manifold now sort of makes sense. I (like everyone here) have lusted over the TSE kit for awhile now. I could buy the TSE manifold and just run the TD04 with it until I get the money to buy the rest of the TSE kit since they both have a t25 inlet. I also briefly considered buying psyberoptix's ARTech set up when he started his part out awhile back. I think for now I'm just going to run the setup I have right now and just deal with the manifold/downpipe until I can get a block built and money for the 6258 hardware.

Dyladjent

Update!

A week or two ago I finally got around to building my jimstim and testing my MS3X. I got the firmware and tune loaded up. I'm running 1.4.1 right now until I get everything started then I'm switching over to 1.5.X so I can interface with an AEM X series wideband through can to get rid of the troubles of the analog MTX-L.
This weekend I started getting ready to install my FF injectors. My plan is to get the injectors installed and get the car idling on my MSPNP before switching to the MS3X just to keep from doing too much at once.
This afternoon I dropped my manifold and turbo off at the local machine shop to have the flanges resurfaced. (The machinist quoted me 150$ for the job... it better be glass) I decided to stick with the HKS manifold for now. Following everyones advice here I will be running a gasket between the head and the manifold but no gasket between the manifold and the turbo. I have no choice but to run a gasket between the downpipe and the turbo for the time being though, as my exhaust is a solid piece from the DP flange to the exhaust tip and I can't have it resurfaced now. (screw the P.O.)
That brings me to my next problem. I need to redo my downpipe. Here is where it is now.




Crusty and on its last leg. The shape of the downpipe prevents the bottom bolt/stud from being used. Its been rewelded 2 times by the looks of things. I'll have to use this in the meantime while I get my car running but it will be one of the first things I get done when I can drive it. I ordered a flange to give to the exhaust shop when I have it done. The pictures on the site were of a bellmouth flange like my current downpipe is but they sent a divorced/ separated gasses flange.


Do you guys see anything wrong with going with a separated gasses downpipe or should I just get my machine shop to modify this or make a new flange? I haven't really ever seen anyone with a miata run a separated downpipe like the subaru guys do. It looks like it would be fairly restrictive and require tons of porting and or smoothing to make it semi efficient. ??? I'm not sure.

I'm getting close to being able to start my car for the first time in a while and I'm finally motivated to work on it again. A huge thanks to everyone that's helped me so far.

Badams932

Any chance you remember where you got this flange? I’m looking for one for a custom downpipe.

Dyladjent

Whoops I missed this one but for anyone else who gets here this is the link for the flange I think.

Dyladjent

A bit of catching up to do.

My car is up and running on a Trubokitty MS3X with FF640cc injectors. I ended up using the vibrant 12800 intercooler(the updated one with the better core design). I mounted it like Schroedinger did in this thread. It works perfect with no ac.




I drilled and tapped the end tank for the IAT sensor so no heat soak issues.


It fits nice and high, centered in the mouth of the bumper. (ignore the mismatched tires going two different directions they are just my junkers to roll the car around on)


I depowered my steering rack and got the pinion all welded up. This wasn't 100% necessary as there was room for the charge piping but I decided that I just wanted to keep this setup simple. Plus if I hated it I could grab one of my 3 other racks and put them in at any time.



At this point I buttoned everything up and started tuning the car on the new MS and injectors. Everything was going well until my Innovate WB started failing and giving me intermittent errors so I replaced it with an AEM x series and wired it up through can. I had most of this up and running June of last year. I immediately started looking for a solution to my downpipe issues and got a quote from a local welder that does amazing work. He quoted 450$ for a full stainless 3" downpipe running into my current 2.5" exhaust. At the time I still wanted to eventually go to an EFR 6258 so I was a bit wary to spend that much on a setup that I would have to modify again.

So I started looking for an EFR manifold/downpipe combo that would in theory work with both turbos. I could get my fab guy to build an adapter from the odd mitsu flange to the EFR vband and just swap turbos when I got the chance. At that time Kraken was still a couple months out and the whole TSE fiasco was going down so there wasn't much of an option.

Then this happened.


Broke in half haha. The PO had someone do some serious work on this. So nasty looking on the inside.

So I capped the oil feed and return and took the obnoxiously loud headers and 2.5" exhaust off of my black car and that's how the car sits now. I replaced the fuel pump last weekend as I started to have some tuning inconsistencies. After looking my tune over I think it was that somehow I had changed the dead time of my FF640s from 1.120 to 1.200. I changed it back and changed the small pulse width curve to the what Nigel last posted and all is running well.

Dyladjent

Earlier last year I thought I had something worked out with a forum vendor about a side mount t25 manifold and a vband DP but I haven't heard anything back from them in a while. I think I've also decided that instead of building my spare 1.8 and going the EFR route I'm going to go with a K24z3 using the Kmiata kit when I get the funds/they get kits in stock.

That being said I need something to work in the meantime. I think I'm going to go to my fab guy and just have him make a DP/ full 3" exhaust with the MT.net approved magnaflow for my current set up and just enjoy an extremely fast spooling turbo.

Over the course of all this I also went and picked up a hardtop for my car from the guys over at Walter Motorsports. I talked to them briefly and seeing as my car is going to be 100% for the street I might send them one of my 5 speeds to rebuild. They say they can build them to take a bit of power. I'm not sure how well it will take a k24 with a 7163 but one can dream right? I know of one race team on reddit who has gone through two of them at 350ish HP but my use case is a bit more mild. I'm also not too sure about the ratios with the K and where that will put everything, probably far from ideal. The ultimate goal is to do the bmw getrag swap at the time I do the K but that's still a way off.

Until then I'll just be buzzing around making the most obnoxious 100hp anyone has ever heard. If anyone has a side mount t25 manifold laying around that they would like to sell let me know. I'm still not 100% committed to anything at this point.

Dr.Sep

my friend designed and had machined an efr manifold for his k24 Miata and will be running the 7163, but with a 6 speed box for now. Not many options out there for manifolds, but I can put you in contact with him if you’d like

Dyladjent

Well this just happened.




Old vs New I'll add pictures of my backwoods 2.5" that's on the blue car now when I get the new setup installed. It's so loud. I'll try to get an exhaust clip before it comes off to deter anyone from ever getting a 2.5" exhaust with a no name straight through muffler on their NA car. It's deafening.


It's the 3" Kmiata race exhaust. My fab guy said he only had time for a downpipe so I looked far and wide for a 3" solution and ended up with this as I didn't want to have to go in more than once. I haven't seen anyone run this setup and figured I'd give it a go. I can't comment on the fitment yet but the finish is top notch. Plus it gives me the option to run the K24Z3 downpipe without having to modify anything if I end up having to go NA before the turbo setup on the K.

I have been unable to source a decent sidemount t25 manifold so I'm just going to work with what I have. This setup should be good for 220-230 whp and kinugawa have replacement oil/watercooled TD04h-19t turbos with this flange if I am unsatisfied with the 15g.

I've got a few more fittings and things coming in for the turbo setup. I am redoing my oil drain and feed. I went with the easy button on the feed and I'm going with FM's pre fabbed line with a -4an to m10x1.25 adapter for the TD04. I struggled with the fitting as there are ones with and without a restrictor built in. I ended up getting the one with the restrictor after reading literally every Greddy TD04 thread on here. I still don't have a definitive answer but the old Greddy oil feed has tiny openings in the fittings. If it's not enough oil and I smoke the turbo I'll grab one of the 19ts from Kinugawa. For the return I'm retapping my pan with 1/2" NPT to 5/8" barb fittings from the 3/8" barb that the PO used and using the blue continental instagrip hose.

I still need to modify my LRB speed under tray to accommodate my charge piping and button a couple more loose ends up before I take my car to get the downpipe made.

Earlier in this thread I posted about the flange I got for the DP. It's mild steel. There are SS flanges available but I'm afraid it would warp. I still have to talk to my fabricator about this. Do you guys think I should get a SS flange cut before I take my car in or will the mild steel flange work better?

Also should I go ahead and add relief cuts to the HKS manifold? I had both flanges resurfaced before my old DP came apart so they have slightly less thickness than before. I haven't really seen a strong opinion either way for this particular manifold. I know it was a pretty vital thing to do on the Greddy manifolds. This setup doesn't have to last indefinitely but I would like it to be as reliable as possible considering its a pretty rare piece and finding a replacement would make me cry.

Anyway I'm excited to quiet this thing down and see how the new more optimized setup works with this turbo.

Dyladjent

@Dr.Sep Are you friends with soeracing? They are the only guys I've seen other than the KpowerIndustries guys I've seen that are working on boosting the z3. I'm still waiting on how their stuff turns out before I decide 100%. Although I think I've seen Kmiata post about potentially being able to fit a K24A2 on the stock subframe if you are going F/I. I'm still a good ways off from starting but I've enjoyed watching the progress.

Dyladjent

Just a small update

To start things off KMiata ended up sending an exhaust for an NB. I figured it out the night before I towed my car to the fab shop. They were super quick to send the correct one. The new one arrived and it looked like the FedEx guy tried to pleasure himself with the exhaust tip while it was still in the box. Luckily the welding shop across the road had a set of expander mandrils and made it round again. It's always something right? By the time I got the correct parts in the downpipe was already done. He finished tying it into the rest of the system the next day.

The downpipe is welding **** haha. I haven't had the time to get pictures of it installed yet but here are pictures he sent me while he was working on it.




To get back to the KMiata exhaust he ended up needing to split it into 2 different sections for ease of install/packaging




He cut the middle out of the divorced flange to reduce some of the complexity. In the end it took him almost 10 hours of fab work after quoting and charging for 3ish. The 4 bolt mitsu flange is really awkward when using 3 inch pipe but he killed it. He made indentations around the bolt holes so they are easy to get a socket on. The bottom hole still needed a stud/nut and requires a person pulling on the exhaust to clear the first bend on the pipe to start threading and it's tight everywhere but it doesn't hit or bang around on anything.

It's close to stock quiet with the KMiata exhaust. I popped a charge pipe on the way home from the shop so I couldn't really get into it and I've been buttoning some stuff up since it's been home. When I get a good day I'll try to get some clips of how it sounds. On the few pulls I did get in the setup felt incredibly responsive compared to before.

Since the setup fits so well I've decided to go ahead and order a new turbo and clutch and just run it until I save up close to 100% of the money for the K24/ whatever trans solution i go with Kinugawa sells a TD04H(L) with a choice of a 13t 15t 19t or 20t compressor that uses the same exhaust flange and is also water-cooled. I haven't heard anything about it from anyone so I'm just going to take a chance on it. I'm going to order that and a rebuild kit/ new turbine for my current setup so I can have some redundancy if something happens. I haven't decided which compressor to go with. I'm leaning toward the 15t to retain as much of the response as possible. I'm not really planning on pushing this setup anytime soon and the better spool of the smaller wheel is appealing.

Now that I've got all of this into my setup I'm just waiting for the manifold to crack.

Dyladjent

Changed plugs for the first time since mounting the turbo back on. Nothing too crazy but here's #4




Missing a piece of electrode. (I just had a really hot lean restart where my injectors were heatsoking causing the white around the electrode)

I haven't pulled my supermiata reroute off of my black car but I will before I order my clutch. I'm not 100% sure but it sounds like I'm pinging right as I start cold. It doesn't do it from a warm start but the first time I start the car every day I get a nice metallic ping. It didn't do it when I was running NA and I haven't done anything to the tune that would make it have some crazy amount of timing on cranking but??? Still trying to figure that one out.

None of the other plugs show any sign of anything going on so I suspect this is the normal cylinder 4 is getting warm type of thing.

With the new DP I'm hitting 12 or 13 psi on wastegate pressure. I think my highest log is at 195kpa. It's supposed to be a 7lb wastegate but it crept to 9 or 10 with the old crusty DP. Now I just don't think it flows enough to keep up. I do have my vacuum source coming off of my cold side charge pipe instead of the compressor housing so that may be some of it. I haven't had it on the dyno but I don't think with Brains conservative timing map that I have anything to worry about as far as getting too close to 250ft/lbs. Should I be concerned at 13psi on this turbo?

I'm about to order another turbo and I'll make a thread on the turbo section about what sizes I'm considering.

Other than that everything is going well. It's nice to be choochin around again.

DNMakinson

iTrader: (3)

Many have run 15 on stock engines with TD04L-13T turbo. My overboost cut is set to 215kPa, for a data point. My full throttle target is between 202 and 208, depending on RPM. But that little guy will run right on up to 22 psi in mid-range if you hold the wastegate closed. Will only happen one time on stock rods.

Mine's the 13T from a WRX. It also had some mad boost creep until I ported it.

Why a new turbo?

Dyladjent

My turbo is the old one from a 1.6 greddy kit. It's in need of a rebuild and rather than rebuild it I'm going to take the opportunity to upgrade. The ones Kinugawa have are water cooled and I think that's going to be better for reliability on a car I drive most days. One of your dyno sheets is what makes me want to downsize to a 13t. I'll make a post about what I'm thinking about with numbers tomorrow. What it really boils down to is I think I can optimize my setup to spool better and meet my power goals while I gather parts for a boosted K24z3 in the next year or so.

Also a quick edit.

Your compressor wheel is a touch smaller than mine as well. I think mine will be flowing slightly more cfm at a given boost level than yours.

Dyladjent

My turbo came in. It's a td04hl-16t with a 6cm housing. Dealing with Mambatek was very pleasant. Their customer service was impeccable. You can read about my thought process and how I ended up with a bigger turbo with a smaller .ar at this link (TD04 options).






While I was waiting for the turbo to come in I also buffed, polished and ceramic coated my car and wheels.





I'm very happy with the results, even though you can tell the paint is 28 years old because of the scratches and dings, between the blemishes its very smooth and mirror like. I used the Chemical guys V line of compounds and polishes with a Torq 10fx polisher and finished it with the CG hydroslick ceramic coat. (forgive the layer of dust on my wheels they sat in my sunroom for a bit.) The ceramic coat on the wheels really just made them easier to clean but did a really nice job of bringing out the shine in the paint on the car after the polish.

Now I'm just waiting on a SuperMiata clutch/hydraulics refresh in the mail and I'll pull the engine to clean and do some other maintenance. When it goes back in I'll throw the new turbo along with my clutch and coolant reroute on and post the results here.

Dyladjent

In the last 3 months I have installed my SM clutch/ line, replaced the master and slave cylinder and replaced every seal from the RMS to the output shaft seal.




The machine shop that resurfaced my flywheel managed to bend one of the dowel pins that holds the PP on. I didn't realize this until I had the flywheel on the car and torqued down with loctite. So I had to remove the dowels and install new ones under the car. It really wasn't bad, a pair of vice grips and a touch of heat and they slipped right out.

I also had the coolant hose that runs behind the head to the oil "warmer" develop a pinhole that I replaced while the trans was out. I decided against taking the reroute off of my black car for the time being. I would have to redo my cold side charge piping and wire in a NB throttle body to get the reroute to fit with my current rad so I skipped it for now.

"I" also bypassed the starter interlock by removing the bottom switch and installing a jumper wire between the two pins.




Having a small SO that's willing to help work on the greasy shitbox in your garage is invaluable haha.

I filled the trans with the unicorn blood Motocraft goodness and bled the new clutch hydraulics.

Now I have put 300ish miles on my clutch to break it in, and am starting to lean on it more. It holds 12psi all the way through 4th fine. I haven't beat on it too much and am still being careful but it will get the tires spinning from a dig in first and has had one or two Mexico pulls to triple digits. The engagement is much better than whatever was on it before. Its right in the middle, not too far from the top and far enough from the bottom to be comfortable. It's slightly heavier than stock but anyone who hasn't driven a miata wouldn't blink an eye at the pedal pressure.

Since getting everything installed and living with the car in it's current state a few problems have come up. The first being a SEVERE need for heat management. It's been 90+ degrees and 100% relative humidity every day as it always is in central AL. I've been daily driving miatas with no a/c for the last 5 years. But now with a full 3 inch exhaust that is millimeters away from EVERYTHING it is painfully obvious that my car needs some protection. The coolant never gets over 190-200 but the radiant heat off of the exhaust and the overall engine bay temps with the turbo being so high are atrocious. I am kicking myself now for not putting some trans tunnel heat shielding on while my trans was out. It's unbearably hot in the car after it sits and heatsoaks for any small amount of time. Not only does the floorpan area get very uncomfortable but the entire engine bay heatsoaks and causes the car to run like absolute garbage. I'm running into the whole ev14 injector heat soak problem. My IAT's are stable and my sensor is out of the way of the heat coming off of the rad but my hot restarts still lean out and hunt/oscillate enough to kill the car. I've modified my ASE table to inject a ton more fuel at certain temps after a restart and dramatically increased the ASE taper time but as soon as the ASE ends it goes right back to fighting itself to even run. Sometimes getting airflow through the bay helps but on the hottest of days I've noticed that even that doesn't help. The car will run perfectly until I have to stop for more than a minute or two and then it will run like hot garbage until I stop for an extended period of time. The same happens sitting in traffic. I can be out in the twisties having fun and not have any problems but the second I have to sit at a stoplight for 2 minutes waiting for traffic to pass I start having issues. It only happens on 85+ degree days. At night/morning or in the rain it's fine.

To combat this I've ordered some hood vents from Spiked performance that I hope will get some airflow through the engine bay and keep everything up there cooler. I also went to the Lowe's racing department and picked up some of the water heater insulation that I will be lining interior with. All that along with some of the DEI trans tunnel shielding on the outside of the trans tunnel should help. I'm hoping that venting the engine bay will keep it cooler so that my engine bay/ injector heat soak issues will be less dramatic and help cut down on all the ambient heat causing problems in the engine bay itself. If that's not enough I'm going to have to find someone who can ceramic coat my turbine housing/DP to see if I can get any more help there before the dreaded turbo blanket/ heat wrapped DP is my only solution. I've also acquired all of the parts to delete the rest of the AC system inside of the car in an attempt to keep the blower system from transferring heat through the firewall.

I'm planning on getting all of my heat management stuff done in time to make it to MATG on Aug 6th. In the meantime I have a couple more projects I need to tackle to get my car ready for the trip. I bought a full parts NB shell for the front subframe/steering rack/suspension components and for the rear uprights. My car needs the bushings/hubs/axles/control arms refreshed on the rear. Instead of putting the NA stuff back in I decided to go with NB stuff and give the entire system a refresh. The drivers side CV boot has torn and flung grease all over my exhaust everything around the back of my car. Has anybody here experienced decreased boot life with a full 3" exhaust? I'm planning on taking all of the stuff off of the NB and transferring it over to the NA this weekend. I've got a set of used axles going in until I can figure out if the exhaust is dramatically reducing the life of the CV boot. I'll save the front until I get the time to pull everything and clean up the bay.

If anyone has any suggestions for the heat issues other than what I've mentioned here I would love to hear them.

Other than that I'm looking forward to meeting some of you at the gap this year we're camping at a camp sight in the middle of everything haha. If you see a very low obnoxiously red PRHT NC or a Montego Blue NA with a emerald green hardtop don't be afraid to say hi.