kotomile

iTrader: (24)

Sounds like you know what you're doing, good luck!

You'll hear that referred to in the MS world as "VE analyzer", FYI.

matthewdesigns

iTrader: (8)

From about 20' away, get any closer and it's all smoke and mirrors lol, but thanks! And thanks for that decode on VE analyzer...seen it referred to but been clueless as to what it was.

Joseph B

VEAnalyzer autotunes based upon wb input though, which is a very nice feature.

Doppelgänger

iTrader: (12)

BTW... you had a clone on CR....(if you would have kept those Konig wheels)

http://www.clubroadster.net/vb_forum...834#post670834

matthewdesigns

iTrader: (8)

Yeah, I think I saw it in a "post your blue" picture thread over there a couple of months ago. One of those is enough lol. Of course the first thing anyone says to do is lower the car.

matthewdesigns

iTrader: (8)

Thought I'd toss up a picture here and post on some progress. I'm currently working on the Galant VR4 engine harness for the swap, replacing some stock connectors that were missing and grafting on Miata specific plugs where appropriate. Best I can tell at this point, I'm down to needing only a Miata coilpack plug/pigtail and there's a local partout I think I can raid for that. But I still have some research to do wrt integrating the ecu as a parallel unit, so I'll probably end up needing a few more harness pieces. Went to the junkyard today looking for a coolant temp sensor plug/pigtail...no Miatas there but found an identical piece on a '92 Stanza.

Over the last couple of weeks I've gotten my exhaust piping and v-bands, 7psi wastegate actuator (thanks aug), some Nord-lock washers for the turbo, and a few other random bits and pieces. Aside from the odd harness bits I may need, I think I'm only lacking some coolant feed/return and oil drain hose, and the right bit to drill the pan. I hope to have the harness sorted and ready in the next week or so, and try to get the install started by the end of the month.

Here's the harness spread over part of the living room floor.

gearhead_318

iTrader: (1)

Very nice, I just picked up an almost stock white 97' w/ 86K miles for 4.5K. I should have tried to talk him down more, dont know why I didn't, but its super clean and I'm very happy with it. You got a really good deal though, especially if it came with the hard top.

matthewdesigns

iTrader: (8)

Started my install this afternoon at the shop...I've got till about noon on Tuesday when we open back up to get it put together. I planned to get going around 1pm but ran into an issue with my wiring harness that required a last-minute a trip to the junkyard and about 3 hours to figure out...still need to solder on the once-missing connector. It was of course the only connection I didn't look into over the last 4 months, as I assumed I had all my **** together. It was the data transfer connector no less.

Anyway, thus far I've got the bumper/related bits off, deleted the a/c up to the firewall (kind of a last minute decision), hosed all the header connections with PB Blaster, half the intake is off. Of course it's taken me about 3x longer than I thought it would to get to this point, but Im glad the a/c is gone as it's so much cleaner in there now. I'll post some pics of the mess when I get home. Hopefully by the end of the night I'll have most of the new parts attached to the motor, and can start on the harness install tomorrow.

By the way, WTF was all that goo that spewed out of the a/c lines when I vented them? Never seen that before.

matthewdesigns

iTrader: (8)

Alright, so I got a decent start but I'm not as far as I wanted to be. Engineering **** on the spot kills a schedule. I got the exhaust off from the head to the cat, the intake off up to the intake manifold, the return line drilled/tapped and pan flushed out, and was able to get started on adapting the DSM throttle body to the IM.

Surprisingly, no bolts sheared anywhere on the exhaust but they were rusty as **** and I had expected them to be a nightmare. The only one that was a real pill was the bolt that runs into the bellhousing bracket...thought for sure that one was going to twist in half.

Here are some random shots from the teardown thus far.



I used a deep socket to control the depth of the hole for the return line. This was the 3/16" pilot hole. I used a hose clamp on the large bit since I didn't have a socket that would fit over it.



Flushing with mineral spirits.



Comparison shot of the 1g DSM and Miata TBs. The DSM has a variable TPS and is about 3mm larger in diameter, and since I'm using a DSM harness/ecu it should perform perfectly. It's taking some work to get the TB and IM to play nice as the native bolt patterns are not terribly similar, but when I left I had two of the four bolts figured out and the others not that far off. There will need to be some porting of the IM flange but I'll tackle that in the future. I've got a 2g DSM throttle body elbow that bolts to the TB and makes a ~90* turn down towards my piping.





How I left it for the night. I'm really happy I pulled the a/c out as it's looking a lot less cluttered, and not having the stock intake is a huge improvement too.


Back at it tomorrow as early as I can drag myself out of bed lol.

Nagase

iTrader: (6)

So why'd you get rid of the Talon?

I've always been curious to get a 1g Eclipse GSX (again) and work on the drivetrain so it could launch hard all the time. Haven't been able to figure that out though. Anywhere to point me?

matthewdesigns

iTrader: (8)

I tossed the Talon for a list of reasons, however reliability was not on the list contrary to popular opinion about DSMs. I had been driving a 2g Talon for over a decade and wanted to try something else for one, and second, I raced a ChumpCar last year against a bunch of Miatas that totally drove circles around us. That really was the biggest deciding factor. I figured it would be easier to make a Miata quicker than make the Talon handle better, and I was tired of only being able to go fast in a straight line

Your best bet for a 1g GSX for drag racing is an early '92 model that's called the "6/4" combo. The motor is the 6, referring to the 6 flywheel bolts, as it has beefier rods that are safe up to about 475hp. The 4 is the number of bolts in the axle cups in the rear diff, and earlier models had a 3 bolt attachment point. These combos were made in a short window before the 6-bolt was phased out and replaced with the 7-bolt motor. Also found in earlier cars up to about mid '91 is a weaker transfer case with a 22 spline input shaft and all-aluminum housing. The later ones are 23 spline with a cast iron section, which is stronger and offers a little more flexibility in building a trans as there are way more 23 spline trannys to donate parts for a rebuild. There is also a gearset that was manufactured in the first couple of years of production that's "heavy duty"...it's much stronger than the normal gearsets. Unfortunately, it's not always obvious which trannys have those gears, and even here at the shop we might buy a trans based on the serial number thinking it's HD, but it turns out to be normal.

If you have a 6/4 with a 23 spline t-case, the weak link is the center differential. Welding it is a proven way to help preserve it, or you can go with a modified "4 spider" center diff which has 4 instead of 2 spider gears...those hardly ever break whereas the 2-spider setups can break even in a stock car if you don't shift smoothly. There are also a bunch of LSD inserts for the DSM center diff, and we mostly use ones from Quaife here. You don't even have to pull the trans to get the diff out...it's just under a couple of layers of stuff accessible through the end cover.

So, the cheap way to a good GSX for launching is a 6/4 with a welded center diff. Find one with a blown head gasket for under $1K, fix it, throw another $1K in parts at it, gut it, and you'll have a 12sec car even on the stock 14b turbo.

Nagase

iTrader: (6)

So if a person got a 6/4, 23 spline, Quaife center, when would driveline stuff start to break?

I couldn't really figure that out.

Of course, my only experience so far was owning a GSX that melted wires and blew out the dipstick with enough force to bend it. Sooo, this might just be masochism.

matthewdesigns

iTrader: (8)

My brain was a bit fried when I wrote that paragraph the other day. I misspoke regarding the Quaife LSDs. We use those for the front diffs, and typically advise customers to go with the 4-spider center as it's really beefy, though there are Quaifes for the center diff. The stock trans uses a viscous lsd in the center. So to sort of answer your question, with a 4-spider or welded center and an otherwise stock gearset you are good to about 400hp. Go here and look at the various build options and you'll have a better idea of what you can do to improve the trans: http://www.jackstransmissions.com/pages/dsm-page

Nagase

iTrader: (6)

That's interesting. I've always been interested in DSMs and Evos, but my DSM was a POS, and my friend's WRX... he launches slower than a FWD car because he's afraid to break his whole drivetrain.

If it could be built to handle abuse for a reasonable amount, that'd be pretty awesome.

18psi

iTrader: (76)

nice progress OP. not the normal style of doing things around here, but It seems like you know wtf you're doing and its refreshing to see dsm **** bolted up and actually working. I know of just 1 other guy here that took this path, has a yellow one (forget his name, I think "underdog"?) his came out great too, though he did ultimately switch to MS.

Nagase

iTrader: (6)

Yes, underdog's degreddified sunburst build.

matthewdesigns

iTrader: (8)

DSMs are more stout than their rep would otherwise suggest. Most of the time when they break it's because somebody did something really stupid (lack of maintenance or bad driving) or they are just too powerful for the gearset. We have an example of the former at the shop right now...kid revved to redline and sidestepped the clutch in his AWD Talon. It literally ripped the tcase off the bellhousing. I didn't hesitate to launch mine off the two-step at any time, and nothing bad ever happened, but I was paying attention to the car and not abusing it.

The strongest built DSM trans without going to a dogbox uses EvoIII gearsets, and it's good to about 600hp. Eventually, 2nd or 3rd is going to have the teeth stripped right off it given enough power.

Thanks. Yeah, Tom (underdog) was the first to go this route and he's been a huge help to me WRT getting this together. He's sent me a lot of info regarding the harness swap and sent me a couple of really useful links as well. I owe him many beers if we ever meet lol. And 18psi he's actually still running the DSM ecu in his Miata. He bought the same management software I'm going to run on mine, and he's already swapped over to it on his Talon (which is what it's originally made for). The owner of the company (www.ECMLink.com) was really enthusiastic about my project, and wanted to talk to Tom about his as well. It's a good opportunity for ECMLink to get the word out that their software can be used in other platforms, and at least in my case, they cut me a huge deal on it so I could give it a go.

In other exciting news, I got all the hardware installed over the last few days except for the injectors. Not working with a prepackaged kit makes for some tedious work, and using a cheap *** eBay manifold and dp doesn't really help the cause either. Yeah, I know, and I’ve read all the warnings, but this was to be a budget build and thus far I'm into it for about $1300 total so at least I met one goal lol. At some point I'm sure I'll upgrade to a better manifold but until then the cheap log-style will do. The downpipe will be reworked pretty soon when I put the exhaust together, and it will be far better sorted once that happens. I'm going to move the flex section closer to the front (it's about 6" ahead of the cat right now...not really doing much for flex there) which will relieve a lot of tension on the whole setup and hopefully forestall any more cracking than otherwise might happen.

I didn't get the new ecu or harness installed, but the harness is finally sorted out and I’ve pulled as much unused crap off if it as I’m comfortable with. I fudged the stock MAS back onto the car and drove it home that way. I got new leads made for the three power supply lines from the Miata to the DSM ecu, and only need to decide where I’m going to attach power for the fuel pump and where I’m grabbing a switched 12V (probably the cig lighter). Getting to the harness pass-through in the firewall was a real treat, but now that I’ve pulled the blower and a/c I’m thinking I can get the new harness through there rather easily, even if I leave the old one in place for a while, just in case haha. I hope to be able to address the wiring this weekend and get it set up on speed density on the new ECU by the end of the week.

Anyway, a few more pics…yep it's still super dirty under the hood. And the PO did a swell job (not really) running the yellow and green wires through the bay...gonna tuck those when the new harness goes in.

Nagase

iTrader: (6)

This is a terrible thread. Now I have ideas in my head of a 1g DSM with a 2.6 4G64 swap and an EFR 7064. Thanks.

matthewdesigns

iTrader: (8)

Lemme know when you're ready and we'll build you a trans for it

Got back out today and knocked out a little more. The cold side IC piping was in the way of the right tire at even half-lock, so I got that worked out. Ended up pulling the a/c fan out to make more room for the pipe directly off the TB, but I yanked the entire a/c system last week so I guess it doesn't matter at this point. I'll toss in a slimfan if it's getting too hot. I also soldered in my connection at a switched +12V for my main relay, and ran what I hope is the only thing I need to power the fuel pump. I grabbed the factory pump power wire under the dash at the circuit opening relay, removed it from the connector and ran it straight to my new main relay. Left everything else plugged in there so we'll see how that goes. Supposed to be 70*+ here for the next few days so maybe I can get this thing tied up and started by the end of the weekend. We'll see.

matthewdesigns

iTrader: (8)

More work done yesterday. I got the ecu side of the harness through the firewall, alongside the factory harness for now. That was a huge PITA, like pushing a baby back in a vag. Took two people to get it done, one under the dash one outside. I got the coilpack pigtail swapped over to the DSM one...thought I was going to toss in the DSM coils but they look essentially identical so I'm just going to run the stock ones and see what happens. I also made what I hope are all the correct power supply connections to the ecu and the fuel pump, got my +12V constant bolted in at the fuse box under the hood, power from the starter solenoid, etc. It's all connected at this point.

I've got another couple hours at lunch today, so hopefully I can get the routing around the engine sorted and maybe get some stuff plugged in. Might even put the injectors in if I have enough time.