mx5autoxer

iTrader: (1)

What brake lines are those? And why not SS braided?

Glad to see you got an IC wider than 6 inches

petrolmed

iTrader: (8)

Because they're orange nylon coated SS from 949. Trickster status in pictures but I assure you they're braided.

You can do a lot with 6", but for real performance...
Don't worry, they'll both be black. BBIC

IcantDo55

iTrader: (11)

What ever happened with the Subaru ?

petrolmed

iTrader: (8)

Ahh, meant to text you my bad. They weren't budging on the price like I wanted given its condition and I decided to avoid the expense+insurance increase at the moment. Don't direly need a 2nd car quite yet. SO here we are at backup motor acquisition instead! An upcoming international trip didn't help money matters either.

petrolmed

iTrader: (8)

Hey brohammers, it's time for a long overdue update. Its been almost a whole year now and looking back at the thread I'm pretty pleased with how things have turned out. She keeps on trucking with spirited driving nearly every day! About 12k miles now.







Since we last crossed swords, I've gotten my SS brake lines and ULTs installed and brake feel is tasty now. Probably should not have been relying on the old old off brand **** that was on there before to stop me. Also installed viper's old IC and now I don't lose power rowing through the gears.

Here are the delta T before and after the intercooler upgrade, taken from a 3rd gear pull in the same location.








Before is an increase of ~30*F while after is just 13* (on a 56* day, 20* hotter than the before IC log). Topend feels much stronger and I'd say it's at about 200 whp right now. Definitely a fun DD. Next step is to finally implement EBC for dat spool. Also suspension is badly needed. My bargain bin Broni Yellows are on their last leg. But not so far gone that a road like route 220 just south of Hot Springs, VA isn't still amazeballs even on snow tires.





I drove the crap out of that road whenever I went to visit. It's like 5 miles of windy roads half up and half down a mountain. Recently helped the fam move out and had to grab a pic at the top of the mountain since there's nothing drawing me out to that part of Nowhere, USA anymore.




SO then what do you do when things are going well with your car? Screw with it of course!

I'll be semi-building this 94 1.8L to swap in with a HEAVY CLEANING, rods, hone, reroute, and a gasket refresh over the summer using shiuend's 8.8:1 oem pistons. These ones are shot but the cylinder walls seem fine for honing. If they aren't then I guess I'll just HAVE to go supertechs. That would just be terrible now wouldn't it?!? Also it came with a lightened stock flywheel for a great price.










The main reason I'm not thinking forged pistons from the start is that I drive this each and every day in any conditions. I hear scary things about piston slap and accelerated wear from the varying of expansion rates and such vs oem cast. I don't plan on ever exceeding 300 whp and expect to sit at a nice 250/250 maybe a touch higher depending on future turbo choice. I'll be running the t25 for a while yet. It's also at least $600 cheaper which is important since I'll also be doing a reroute, new 1.8 949 clutch, oil temp gauge, and covering pieces for conversion costs. Need dat suspension too. I've been doing a lot of research and considering longevity that's where I stand at the moment.

mx5autoxer

iTrader: (1)

Jelly. I wish I had a place to build an engine. Instead my leasing office sends me a notice saying that it is a lease violation to change my oil in my parking lot. Guess who won't be renewing his lease?

petrolmed

iTrader: (8)

Oh apartment living. I've been under the car enough already but haven't gotten any complaints. I guess I'm lucky that the office is down the road, its a super chill atmosphere, and neighbors have complimented me on doing my own work so I don't think they'll be a problem *fingers crossed*.

I recently realized that I've been running on an older firmware on the MS, NOT the hi-res... I'm all about free upgrades and I hope swapping that over makes driving even smoother as I'm already pretty pleased with how it runs. I'm hesitant to reflash it using my own laptop because that was the one thing that held me up during the initial install. Had to borrow a friends to do it. Should I try it and risk wiping it without being able to reload the hi-res? Not sure how that works exactly. For now I'm off to calibrate the wb, do some warm weather tuning, and rinse off all this crazy southern pollen!

petrolmed

iTrader: (8)

A little update:

I sadly haven't had time to get my ebc set up yet. The wiring is all ready but time has been too scarce for me to properly research and get the OL and CL tune just right. Plus I didn't want the boost to be all screwy during the awesome autox event at NCCAR last weekend.








Having the autocross on a track was epic and so different from parking lot setups, featuring higher speed sweeping turns. However that really displayed some weaknesses in my car, not to mention how difficult it is to modulate at the limit with more power at the wheels. I learned that my current suspension setup has some serious downfalls, but I've been planning on upgrading that in the near future anyway. At least I was able to drop my time almost 10 seconds with no cone contact on a 1:14 minute course.


Finally disestablished my ghetto gauge mounting solutions with the DDM works panel. Much cleaner (minus the hole).




A vei oil temp gauge will be going in there. Probably won't be functional until the motor swap unless I get the urge to tap the 1.6 pan a second time.?.

timk

Nice build, but you need to calibrate your TPS as it looks to top out at 87%!

petrolmed

iTrader: (8)

Thanks man! And then, the second log pictures shows it spiking at 113... lol. My tps has always been a tricky POS. I think the floor mat plays a factor too depending on how hard I press to calibrate the maximum position. Oh well as long as there's some resolution from minimum to maximum I can't complain too much.

GV1390

iTrader: (2)

Just read through this, nice work! Car looks good.

FAB

iTrader: (4)

Awesome progress. Nice to see someone that takes the time to fix things like rusty quarters before dumping cash into other areas. Restores some pride in our community

petrolmed

iTrader: (8)

Thanks broz. I started out focusing on the cosmetic bits which was painful because I wanted to go fast... but not so much to do it in a rusting bucket. Now that it is much faster, I'm going back to working on refining the car in many respects as recently as today!

Example:







Tempted I was to purchase 1.8 internal parts from you FAB. I will be pursuing that path soon but I've taken a detour for suspension in order to not hate life and to truly be fast! The suspension hierarchy calls my name after years of dutiful suffering with my used broni yellows.

Alejo_NIN

iTrader: (2)

nice build man.
may i suggest going back to the engine bay and DEGREASING it..lol
it hurts my eyes...so much work,
perhaps, that's my problem....i take 2 steps forward with my build and one backwards clenaing ****...lol

but props on the car...

BTMiata

iTrader: (5)

Wow you were right about your before/after on the beltline's! Amazing how worn and crappy they get but makes the car look 1000 times better once replaced!

petrolmed

iTrader: (8)

Thanks and I do NOT look forward to doing that. I plan to put it off until I do the engine swap which wont be for a while lol. Theres 20 years of crud on the subframe and the bay is pretty narsty in the hard to reach places, especially since my valve cover has a slow oil leak out the rear of the head. It's great at collecting dirt like mad.



Yeah you thought yours were bad. I used to cry when I walked around to the passenger side and saw that rust strip. The driver's side was bearable but then I decided to stop being cheap and fix it too when I replaced the broken window regulator. Also did the soft top drains that run behind the seat belt tower... the car looked like it took a **** when I punched out the gunk in there. Plenty of chunks too from the interior carpet fasteners. No more stopped up drain though and the car smells fresher! Those fixes along with some of the other touch-ups have made me feel much more at home with the car. It keeps becoming more and more of a sporty DD machine.



After changing the oil last night I thought I'd check on the spark plugs. I hadn't seen them since install last year, but they all looked like the "normal" pictures I found.
EDIT: While I was at it, I redid the tightening pattern on the valve cover bolts too. The order was correct this time and the torque on them is way less. I think last time I got excited and overdid the tightening which may have compressed the gasket too much and allowed the leak to accelerate? We shall see if it improves.

Also addressed an occasional misfiring at ~11 psi WOT by assessing the plug gaps I had made using one of those $.99 coin-like tools with a graduated ramp... they weren't exactly precise and were beyond the .030" I had attempted. The blade tool I bought helped me get it there exactly and so far I haven't misfired. More testing needed.

Alejo_NIN

iTrader: (2)

power washing, baby

BRGSEinTX

sweet build man! I love seeing your everyday average car and blue collar worker do wrench time on underdogs. Then seeing them go out and perform better than new cars that cost 10x as much. Its part of the reason I built up my 04 Cavalier the way I plan on building my newly acquired 91 Miata.

I too cringed a bit on the grease/oil build up on the underside of that engine. Mine is the same. No leaks now but it did in the past and no one ever addressed it. I plan on degreasing my entire underside when I upgrade my clutch before the turbo install.

btw, hows your clutch holding up all this time now after boost for 12+k miles?

petrolmed

iTrader: (8)

Thanks! I will clean it one day but IDGAF since its DDed so hard. Those pics are especially bad because a bunch of coolant spilled down the motor and tranny when I was working on the hard pipe below the manifold during the install. I care most when I have to get in there and work in strange spaces since it gets all over me but that isn't too often. It's just been so reliable! The clutch feels as good as it did before boost and hasn't changed much since the initial install break-in at ~175?K. Highly recommend although I'll probably do the FM1/2 1.8 when I swap for more torque capacity, street modulation, and to match the lightened stock flywheel I got.

I discovered a leak at the heater core yesterday. My feet were squeaky on the pedals like when it rains but it was hot and dry out. The stuff on the pedals smelled like coolant. Looked right and saw a drip at the plastic cover for the heater. Will be investigating this weekend but I'm not driving it for now. Hopefully its just a hose connection but a cracked heater is likely. One thing I'm not sure of is how it got onto the pedals since the carpet was still dry.

mx5autoxer

iTrader: (1)

I blew the heater core inlet hose at an autocross once (made the last part of the course fun for everyone else, but thats another story). I had to do some quick sloppy work to get home and replace it properly. After I did replace it I was driving and then all of a sudden I felt burning liquid hitting my bare shins (happened when I was on the brake pedal; especially on hills with the nose up). It turns out that I wasn't careful and slightly crimped the tube on the heater core. I had to reshape it to get it seal properly.