hks_kansei

Figured that since i'm starting to do more than put fuel in the car I should make a thread about it.

First off, backstory.

I bought the car 10 years ago.
I wanted an MX5 for ages, and after saving cash started looking.
Found this one for sale in a rural area, low km, looked clean, had a full history.
Called the owner and got the story, owned by a middle aged lady who had retired, bought a farm and moved to the country.
They had driven the car down the rutted farm driveway, scraped the undercarriage a few times and decided to park it in the barn until they fixed the driveway.
It sat in the barn ignored for about a year.

Turns out they never fixed the driveway and decided to sell the car instead.

Then I came along with a pocket full of cash and drove it home that afternoon.

Here's a pic from the first month I owned it:
1st by hks_kansei, on Flickr


I then proceeded to do what any guy in their 20s does with a car, and ruin it.

I threw on some Mazdaspeed MS03 wheels, then for some reason decided to go for low offset chinese ****.
Around the same time I threw on a set of Mazdaspeed B-Spec springs, a Mazdaspeed strut brace, an RSR Exmag GT2 muffler, and an MX5 mania intake.

Side by hks_kansei, on Flickr

It also ended up with a Brown David rollbar at some point too, cant really remember when,
Mazdaspeed MS03 by hks_kansei, on Flickr



Anyway, time went on, I got older, I dumped the Axxis wheels (well, they're doing fine in my garden still, one holds the shed door from blowing open in the wind, and a few others keep stray animals from getting under the house)

I also sold the RSR muffler, for two reasons.
one: i was getting a bit tired of a 100db idle
two: some local guy was wanting to buy one, so I offered it to him for a stupidly high price.
he said no, then after a couple of weeks he realised that there were only 3 of those mufflers in the country, and mine was the only one for sale.....

A short profit later I bought a bog stock SE (MSM to the US market) muffler.
a good compromise for noise and stealth.

A set of Tein Flex-Z also appeared when the factory shocks blew (probably not helped by carrying an engine in the boot..... turns out a B6 fits into an NB if you remove the head and sump)



Anyway, engine bay got tarted up:
11084187_10206728058268972_3698057527085522336_o by hks_kansei, on Flickr

It currently looks like poo, since the VHT wrinkle coat, which says self priming, isnt......

Then I bought an Adaptronic Select ECU......... which was easily the worst thing I ever did.....
and it promptly got sold to some other moron.

and yeah, currently it looks like this, sorta.
IMAG0733 by hks_kansei, on Flickr




Future plans involve keeping it visually boring, and just making it not slow.
So yeah, there's a T2560 in the shed, some malaysian "Jasma delta fin" intercooler, and a few random bits waiting.
And a Kraken manifold on it's way from Bulgaria.

Then I jsut need to deal with some oil leaks, and buy the rest of the crap to reliably turbo this thing (injectors, probably a stronger clutch, and certainly an ECU)

so yeah, that's the short story.

IanIsInTheGarage

Love those wheels. Haven't seen them on a Miata before.

Gee Emm

... and newly enriched, they were at last able to fix the driveway.


Good to see you on here HKS, look forward to your progress, and some more nice piccies!

hks_kansei

Yeah, they're what i'd call moderately uncommon.

Not available new, and not seen often.
But also not hard to get from yahoo.jp

Although the prices have gone crazy in the past few years........


Centrecaps are the hard part to track down, a set of original ones in good condition go for about $300+ these days....
Which is why mine have some generic Chinese plastic ones on them.

hks_kansei

Soooo, minor shift.

The intercooler I had, i've decided not to use.

Externally it looked great, black painted for stealth (important for where I live), and had staggered core bits (Delta fin if you want to go by their marketing bs) which apparently means it cools better with less air blockage to the radiator.
I don't know, i'm an accountant, not an engineer.

IMG_20190711_220238 by hks_kansei, on Flickr

So while that looked cool and all that, my main concern was this:

IMG_20190711_220202 by hks_kansei, on Flickr

IMG_20190711_220227 by hks_kansei, on Flickr

IMG_20190711_220146 by hks_kansei, on Flickr

Looks like the alloy fins inside are corroding and leaving a white crusty sediment.
Also, in giving it a shake I noticed what looked like a few grains of sandblasting medium come out.....

So yeah, I figured that the last thing I want is to spend all the money on throwing on a turbo, only to kill an engine because the intercooler decided to throw a few bits of sand or alloy crust into the cylinders.



Thankfully though, I've already organised a replacement cooler, so will be grabbing a factory one from a Falcon XR6 Turbo this week.
Not black, but a can of paint will fix that.

Gee Emm

I've just done the black paint on my I/C. No longer screams 'Turbo: please stop me and give me a ticket', and seems to be working. So far anyway.

hks_kansei

Yeah, same.
Plus, i just dont like the look of the intercoolers.


As far as painting, normally i'd sand back and give it a spray pretty much as soon as the prepsol dries.
But that wont work for the fins, so i'm guessing the next best option is to clean it like crazy and use etch primer before paint?

hks_kansei

Well, when it rains, it pours.

Saw a cheap MS3X pop up and have arranged to buy it.

Guess i'll be having to learn how to crimp those weird tiny ECU joints earlier than expected.
As well as read a heap to get my head around how to set stuff up and tune.

hks_kansei

and some more updates.

• have a BOV now, a Forge Splitter that was cheap and local.

• Bought a Begi airbox from MX5psi, who's car is amazingly tidy in person, even when he's got half of it pulled apart to re-wire.

• Grabbed a set of LS1 coils, not the truck ones, just the standard D580 Commodore ones. Not the biggest spark, but should still be plenty for a stock bottom end build.

and more importantly, a package arrived from Bulgaria today.


Floyd approves of the downpipe.


Wait, you DON'T have armchairs and a persian rug in the garage?


.


Kraken T25 2.5in setup.
Quality is really amazing, even more when you consider the price!

the only things i'll change are the coolant hoses (rubber right at the turbo wont last long I presume), and i'll need to get shorter studs (or grind one of these down) since the ones Kraken supply are slightly (maybe 1mm) too long and one fouls on the exhaust housing of the turbo.


Next on the list are the boring housekeeping bits.

Get the leaky crank seal replaced, get a few other oil leaks looked at.
Decide on a clutch (flipping between Exedy HD, or the Exedy Sports Organic)

And then get the MS3X wired in and get it all running N/A before I start doing the tuirbo install.

hks_kansei

Should add.

That engine wont be seeing any of the parts.

It's simply my spare ******* that I use to test fit and measure for fitment/brackets/hose routing/etc without having to lean under the bonnet of the car.