An acquaintance of mine was recently killed when he hit a moose on the highway at night. I was never very impressed by my Hella driving lights and, given the amount of night driving I do in swamp-donkeyland, I thought I'd try out a new LED light bar on my Forester.

I went with a 20" 120W spot/flood combo for less than $40 off Amazon.

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1444911566

Here's my low beams, high beams, and the LED bar. Nice distance and good coverage of the roadside to help spot critters.

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1444911566

I'm going to have to be pretty responsible about watching for oncoming traffic, but most of my driving is super early in the morning and I have the road to myself 99% of the time.

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1444911566

Just from reading online descriptions, I can't really tell the difference between something like this and a $200 light bar. The cheap ones have a reputation for getting water inside the lenses, but that's easily remedied with some silicone. If this one craps out for some reason, well, I can buy a lot of replacements for $200.

Four of my friends have these light bars, theybwork well, we will see how they hold up in winter though!

On Saturday I got a bunch of work done. I completed fabbing my exhaust and downpipe, which was the last major item before starting the car up. I mostly picked my bends and routing from what I've seen others on the forum do. It's 3 inches with a Magnaflow a little smaller than everyone else uses.

Attachment 235477

Attachment 235478

I was all excited to start it up, take a spin, hear how the new exhaust sounds, and start tuning for boost... but the car starts hard and runs poorly. Here's the current condition:

- No start with old tune that worked well on the stock intake tract and exhaust.
- Car starts and runs briefly on ether.
- Confirmed ~190 psi compression in all four cylinders.
- If I double Req-Fuel, I can start and idle the engine, but I hear an occasional misfire.
- Idle is high (1400-1600 RPM), AFR reads about stoich, vacuum is a bit lower at idle than before.
- Can rev engine slowly, but more abrupt throttle inputs cause it to stumble and stall.
- Adding more fuel does not seem to improve the condition.
- Removing any of the spark plug wires causes engine to run notably rougher, so I'm reasonably sure I have spark in all 4.
- I replaced my intake manifold gasket and removed the coolant operated idle valve on the manifold while the engine was out.
- I've check and cleaned all my grounds and checked that all electrical connectors were secure - no improvement.
- I replaced the CAS O-ring and carefully re-aligned it using scratch marks during re-installation.

At this point I suspect I have a vacuum leak, bad fuel pressure, bad injector, bad coil pack, or bad plug wire. Any suggestions?

Bonus cat pic:

Attachment 235479

An engine runs like crap if you hook up the fuel lines backward. Herp derp derp. I should have paid more attention when I was unhooking things to pull the motor.

It starts and runs now, but runs pig rich on the same decent tune I was running before I installed the turbo and associated plumbing. Autotune is having a hard time because I have a noisy and offset O2 signal. Rather can keep dicking around with grounding locations I just ordered a CAN wideband module from Trackspeed.

Meanwhile, I discovered a fuel leak at the pressure regulator, so there's yet another issue to resolve before I can get on the road. All I really want is to drive it just once before I have to put things away from the winter and it's getting cold already.

I solved my fuel leaks, a couple pinched o-rings at the an injector and the FPR were responsible.

Car runs and drives now with a few issues:

- Small misfire, most notable at idle. Car stumbles with abrupt throttle inputs when in neutral.

- Engine hits a wall at 6,000 RPM every time. Almost feels like a rev limiter but mine is set to 7200 RPM. Spark blowout?

- Regapped new NGK plugs from 0.040" to 0.028". No improvement.

- MTX-L runs normally for perhaps 15 minutes, then bounces around between full rich, full lean, and a credible O2 reading, then gives error E8 until I restart the car. This is despite a new sensor and new bung location just before my flex pipe wayyyyy down in the transmission tunnel. :vash:

- I'm hearing possible engine knock, starting at very low throttle inputs and engine loads while still in vaccuum around 10 in-hg and onward into positive manifold pressure. The "knocks" do get more frequent, but not linearly with RPM so I'm not 100% convinced it's not just something rattling. IAT readings are never over 75F and AFR is 11.5-12.5 in boost. Spark map is unchanged from the DIY base map.

- There's a lot more turbo noise than I expected. I get chuff-chuff-chuff sound when I let off the throttle even slightly. Running my Turbosmart BOV full soft does not change this. I thought compressor surge would only happen at more aggressive throttle closing with high RPM.

Any suggestions? I have a CAN wideband module on the way, which should give me more confidence in my AFR readings and VEAL tune. I also have all the parts to build a Toyota COPS setup, so I may see if that solves the misfiring issues. Maybe my coilpack is dying.

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1445854290

A couple other notes while I think of it.

I'm using an 18"x5"x8" Magnaflow 12249, significantly smaller than the big Magnaflow that's popular around here. I don't find the sound to be any louder than the Borla cat-back I had when I was naturally aspirated. It's not something I'd want to listen to for a multi-hour highway roadtrip, but for a weekend/autocross toy, I'm pretty happy with the sound and it shouldn't attract any unwanted attention.

I've been impressed with my Flyin' Miata stage 2 Happy Meal clutch kit. Despite the heavier pressure plate, pedal feel and engagement is indistinguishable from OEM. I'll withhold judgement on the flywheel until my spark and fueling issues are sorted out, but it doesn't seem to rev or spin-down noticeably faster.

Last night I pulled out my DIYPNP for surgery and did a bunch of stuff at once while it was apart.

Installed my sequential kit and jumper for EBC:

Attachment 235474

Wired in CANH and CANL. Also jumpered GND and +12V to my DB15 (not shown):

Attachment 235475

Wideband CAN module wired in and the beginnings of my harness for EBC, and sequential outputs. A weatherpack connector will be added between the CAN module and the MS later, once my crimper tool arrives.

Attachment 235476

A set of Flow Force 610cc EV14 injectors arrived from Trackspeed with the CAN module, as well. My plan over the next couple evenings is to install and activate one thing at time in an attempt to solve my drive-ability issues. I hypothesize that I either have a bad coil or a bad injector in there now, so doing things in this order should tell me what was going on. First will be the wideband module, then the injectors, then COPS (still need to complete the harness), then feed in my sequential injections wires into the plug-and-play harness on the FF injectors so I don't need to cut my OEM wiring harness.

Then long awaited party time. :party:

I'm having a rough time following Reverent's instructions for setting up my CAN wideband module in Tunerstudio. Specifically, steps 6 through 12 don't have the same selectable options in Tuner Studio as in the instructions call for.

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1446083654

When it tells me to Set “Fetch Innovate EGO Data” to “Enable” in step 6, I don't see anything like quite like that on my CAN/BUS Test Modes screen. I've tried enabling some of the choices that are entering the given port, table, and offset settings, but that hasn't gotten me anywhere.

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1446083654

Similarly, under EGO control I can't find an option to set EGO1 Port to CAN EGO.

Any suggestions? I'm stumped.

The CAN module is still giving me a hard time, I get a failure to communicate with CAN1 error:

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1446602393

In the mean time I got my Flow Force injectors up and running in sequential mode as well as my Toyota COPS. I still need to add a resistor to the COPS to get my dash tachometer back and tidy up the wiring.

Attachment 235473

car's up on stands for the winter and I haven't done any work in a while because it's been cold. Registration time came around and got some new plates, though.

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1454081574

Nice! I keep waffling about getting historic plates or not for mine.

Still too cold to do much work in the garage, but now I've got some design work to do in the interim. I'll be making some brackets for the Elise seats I just picked for silly cheap.

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1456855472

Test fit:

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1456855472

I'm still having driveability issues, and I suspect my timing belt is off by a tooth, though my timing mark is difficult to see. Need to spend some time troubleshooting that, but in the mean time I got some other stuff done.

I built an airbox. It still needs some straightening and improved mounting points.

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1463142950

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1463142950

Attachment 235472

Also started on some radiator shrouding.

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1463142950

And I got some peeps. They don't taste like sugary marshmallows at all. Maybe they're the wrong kind?

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1463142950

Can you give me the part number for that air filter? I need to mount mine exactly the same so I can get a box built.

It's an AEM 21-2127DK. It fits pretty snug between the headlight motor and the fender support. Also be aware that it's a 2.75" outlet, so I had to use a reducing silicone bend to attach to the compressor inlet.

Bought it too.
Good to see it fits even though tight.
The 90 degree that FM sells is perfect as its 2.5">2.75"

I think I have that one. Slightly used, butbnot by me. I'll hook it up on the MT brother price.

I think I just used a cheap one from silicone intakes.com Had to trim the lengthy on the compressor side a bit to make it fit.

HOLY SHIT! My timing belt was wayyy off. I fixed it and the car was idling a million times better, so I took a quick cruise down the road and scared the crap out myself with the power. Apparently this is what a turbo Miata is supposed to feel like. Pulls way harder than my FXT, even on just wastegate pressure. No more misfire, no more knock. I spent a lot of time and money throwing parts at the wrong problems. I'll need to retune, but my MTX-L decided this would be a good time to crap out (again). Can't wait to drive it again tomorrow.

I'm surprised it even ran like this:

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1463449405

So, just to recap, here's a list of problems I was experiencing that can probably be blamed on the timing belt situation:

• Poor idle - would misfire occasionally below 1200 rpm.
• Pathetic power - car would slow down on hills on the highway
• Bad fuel economy - 100 miles per tank.
• Pinging in light vacuum around 3000 RPM
• Spark cutout at 6000 RPM, hard like a rev-limiter
• Slow warm up?
• Repeated O2 sensor malfunctions?

How did this happen? I must have messed up the timing when installing my coolant neck block off plate for my reroute. I made the problem worse by assuming there was a problem with my tuning. It's kind of embarrassing that it took so long for me to revert to methodical troubleshooting mode, where I could verify the fundamentals (like timing). I think I also mistook a smudge on my crank pulley for the timing mark, it wasn't until I re-established TDC with a dowel down cylinder one that I realized how bad things really were.

Lesson learned. :idea: