Step 1. Show a picture of a shitty ass plastic coupler, followed by a shitty ass steel coupler hacked off of a larger crush bent pipe. Attempt to pretty by wire wheeling.

Step 2. Gather tools. Beer, rough looking coupler, 500 grit sand paper, Nevr-Dull aluminum polishing wool, electrical tape, flapper wheel, microfiber cloth, and drill press (not pictured).

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1397014026

Step 3. Wrap flapper wheel in electrical tape and jam it into the coupler.

Step 4. Turn on drill press and hold the sand paper up to it. 10 seconds later, should look about like this.

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1397014026

Step 5. Hold polishing wool against coupler, stroking up and down until well coated in the magic black oil the stuff creates, about one minute. Hold microfiber cloth against coupler to clean it off.

Step 6. Repeat step 5 a couple times.

Step 7. Bask in the glory. And yes, that's a blue iPhone 5c with black case.

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1397014026

:bowrofl:

That looks amazing, you are far too kind good sir! I would kind of hate to put that in a coolant pipe sort of like how I should never have put that PPF in my car.

Want to know what scared the ever loving shit out of me just barely? The capacitor on my COP harness blew like a god damn firecracker. I thought someone got shot outside the garage.

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1397014893

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1397014893

I think that is it for me tonight folks! Time to get some damn sleep

what gave you that crazy idea?

this car is not built for running and driving :party:

now go polish the block. Because all blocks need a mirror finish

There is too much truth in that after tonights performance. I don't know why I thought it would run, I followed everything to the letter and quadruple checked all my wiring.

Tonight was a little demoralizing.

yeah well, I know the feel. I'm sure you saw that one thread

tomorrow hook everything up and fire her up like a man. your voice will get deeper. ball hair. the whole 9

Please god no more pubes, I'll take some facial hair though!

What I want to know is what caused the capacitor to blow.

Too bad I'll be working all day tomorrow, wont get the chance to work on the car.

Still sucks what happened to yours. The Subaru is looking good though man!

Possibly dwell settings? Get the ms to connect first thing. It'll work any time it's powered.

You've changed enough stuff that a full re-tune is in order anyway.

Too true, what is odd is that it only lights up the LEDs while turning the engine over. When sitting on ignition key it doesn't show any signs of being active. I'll figure it out, all this might be due to the battery not really being charged, and really dead. Granted I was messing with the lights and other things checking what worked and didn't work, so I probably drained it too much by the time I was trying to start it.

The cap likely blew because it was wired backwards. Electrolytic caps are +/- sensitive. See that big white label with the negative symbols on it. Wire the lower potential (probably ground in your case) to that side.

On top of Chris's info in his email about the LEDs you can access MS as long as your ignition is set to ON which will power the board and let your computer pick up the usb signal. I have a slightly diff board but the LEDS are for the Jim Stim test board/visually testing to see that what should be firing, actually is.

The lights popping up one at a time is your flair man. *One pops up, you raise a thick eye brow as the onlookers gasp at your car's blue beauty, the other one pops up* It could work!

Also lol @ the -4 props. I'm his brother so I get to make boobies/pee pee/fart/poopy jokes any time I like. That, or E30 guyz just get neg props by the sysadmin automatically.

that's god's way of telling you you suck at wiring and that you shouldn't take polarity so trivially.

If I knew then what I know now I wouldn't have fucked about! I don't need god to tell me something I've known and had reinforced by yourself. ;)

Gotta start somewhere though, before this car I hadn't touched a soldering iron before. So believe me when I'm saying I'm learning wiring from scratch.

I dont know about everyone else but I can not connect to the MS unless the FP relay is in. If I pull it out my computer will not connect to MS. Maybe plug it in so your injectors prime and give it another go

odd as funk.

Hose coupler:
JEGS Inline Radiator Hose Drain - Free Shipping on All Orders @ JEGS

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1397064390
Replace that drain valve with a plug. It'll look right at home in your car.

Wiring things backwards: don't do that. :)

Curly's coupler is gorgeous . . . but I'm still at a loss. Why is it needed?

Just cause.

Shipped today. USPS says it'll be there Saturday. Just to let you know, no finger has touched it since polishing.

Good. I'd hate to have to resand and polish it due to an unclean hand soiling it.

While I'm sure curly agrees my metal coupler wouldn't be an issue, he had a spare lying around that will be less of an issue. Plus with the power of beer on your side garage work is enjoyable, or less painful and aggravating.

I'm guessing RadioShack supplies capacitors of that size correct? Can't believe I stupidly reversed the polarity. That is embarrassing. Hopefully one of the few stupid mistakes I made with all the wiring I did...hopefully. Don't be surprised if not.

I'm diving back down tonight to see if I can access megasquirt with my laptop. I remember installing all the usb drivers i need and getting the latest firmware so hopefully it actually has power to get to that point. Then I need to do some serious reading on what tuning changes I need to make.

Ain't that the truth? :bigtu: At least until I start drinking out of frustration, then things go downhill with a quickness :hahano:

Well I just had a sudden clarity of mind on why I had issues besides the capacitor of course...I was looking over a picture and saw a thick black wire poking up by the brake booster.

Oh hey...look...my engine ground is disconnected.

God I hate myself at times.

Also grounded my headlights to the stupid starter instead of the alternator....hence the constant power being on.

Friends don't let friends connect wiring sleep deprived.

Yeah but like, aren't you always sleep deprived? :party:

Yes but there are several stages of sleep deprivation

24 hours:mild discomfort and a slight decrease in memory and a large decrease in short term memory

48 hours: physical discomfort, food tastes bland, memory is shot unless you read something 5 times just to get the idea in your head

72 hours: welcome to zombie state, you better not have to do anything that requires thought or physical ability otherwise you are going to fail

96 hours: Fuck. That. Never again. I think I was close to death at that point.

Insomnia sucks, especially when meds like Ambien and Lunesta don't work. There is one drug that worked(read past tense) but considering it is a class 1 and Utah frowns heavily on it, it isn't worth the risk.


Anyone have a good source for local 10k capacitors? Largest I've found is 4700k. Maybe try a car dealer or an audio store?

Meh, that mistake wasn't so bad. Try hooking up the PCV system on your subaru wrong and pulling/doing a headgasket on the motor because of it; only to find out after the fact. :rofl:

IDK, hallucinating due to sleep deprivation in 500 person college lectures actually made them somewhat interesting. All those pretty lights.

FM intercooler piping makes the normal one-piece idea foul out.

I legitimately don't remember half the work i did this last time putting the MX6 together. 68 hour straight through wrenching bender FTL.

Ahhhhhhhh. Didn't know that.

For future reference, if you're willing to pony up 16 bucks, M-Carr has these baller machined aluminum 1.25" barb couplers. They are AWESOME. http://www.mcmaster.com/#5357k77/=rh7am2

I bought one for my FM lower rad hose (needed to extend it due to my rad relocate).

-Zach

-Zach

^ Awesome. That'll be in my next Mcmaster shipment for sure. Thanks!

Will I do any damage to the COP without a capacitor on it until I can find a 10k capacitor to replace the burned out one?

It's debatable that the capacitor is actually required (that's what I got from the COPs thread anyway) ;)

I never ran one on my 90 because i read the capacitor was built inline to the oem wiring i used for it, or something of that sort.

I dont run one on my 94. Never had any issue. Im wondering if the cap prevented you from blowing the coils?

How is the cap wired up?
If it's a power supply filter cap then bigger might be fine.

If you can show a crude napkin drawing of the circuit we'll tell you your options ;)

We have a whole 20,000 page thread dedicated to this, go read it. Its even a sticky somewhere :brain:

No capacitor on my COPs. No issues.

Connected the engine ground in hopes that it would solve the no power issue with megasquirt, still no dice. I have all the drivers installed, and still no lights from megasquirt, and the fuel pump still doesn't prime on ignition key.

Time to track down a fault with the power wire.

Hmm ok ignore that. For some reason the fuel injection fuse was missing, so I scavenged one from my old car, turned the key, and my laptop instantly recognized MS.

still no fuel pump priming though...

Isnt there some thing with 1.6 cars where the FP is wired up through the stock air meter? I think you have to jumper something or something.

(I've got an NB so my NA6 knowledge is somewhat suspect)

You are massively correct E02K.

Jumped the wire from fuel pump to the AFM and the car instantly started after I accidentally turned the key to far! Holy shit that surprised me.

I shut it down quickly though since it was completely unintentional.

After I jumped to AFM there is a very loud buzzing noise coming from beneath the cars gauges... not sure why this is.

I ran a wire from the fuel pump and connected it to these two points on the AFM

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1381422159

Looks like it is the fuel pump relay under the dash that is buzzing loudly.

Scared I may have an air leak at the turbo. High pitched whistle on shut down.

Oil gauge isn't responding to pressure so I may need to clean the oil sender pin and find out if that is the problem.

Just...not a very healthy alive!

Can you confirm it actually has pressure? Last thing you need is to damage this work of art.

I'm going to pull the turbo oil feed and see for sure that oil is flowing.

So... accidental first start?

https://i.chzbgr.com/maxW500/4863039232/h4B1C6EDC/

Yeah it seriously didn't even crank for 1/2 a second and it suddenly started up. No stumbling or anything. It does have a loping idle though. Can't tell too much without the tach working.

Pulled the CAS and COP and cranked with the oil feed line from the turbo off. It dumped about 1/2 cup of oil into the cup, so I don't think any damage is happening to the turbo and it is developing oil pressure.

Also switched the tach settings in tuner studio to ON, but there was interference from the PWM signal so I changed it to tach and still no response from the gauges.

If my tach out is on 2B on MS, which is the correct output for tunerstudio?

I also need to set the 99 tps/IAT to a new setting. Tunerstudio is reading it at 51% throttle at idle, but it is idling at 2350 rpm.*edit* I may have the 5v and ground reversed after a little reading.

When I have the fuel pump jumped it is reading the fuel pump at 100% duty cycle as well, which may be why I'm getting such a loud noise from the fuel pump relay.

The fuel pump is either on or off, no MX5 made (yet) uses PWM on the fuel pump.

More likely you just have a bad relay.

I'd agree but that would mean both relays from both cars I tried were bad, odd considering both worked perfectly prior to this build.

I think I may have ran the wire from the fuel pump to the AFM incorrectly to jump it. We'll see.

Wiring is such a pain in the ass. I don't even like putting in aftermarket stereos anymore.

Yep just what I figured. See post 2054

Be careful with that. Wouldnt want oil squirting all over your clean car. I would tape the feed into a water bottle.

:party:

You'd be opposed to some real skeet skeet?

Don't worry, I wouldn't just let the oil pour out over the engine bay!

The good news is that oil is flowing, how much pressure it is developing is still the question.

I needed a break from tunerstudio and researching stuff so I decided to get my headlights and other lights working right.

Forgot to check the continuity of the wires when I installed the new harness and it turns out grounding to the starter is not so good idea.

The diode I had put in was in the wrong direction so it wasn't blocking the high beams when only the low beams were on. So after changing the direction and getting everything sorted out they work perfectly.

My god they are bright too. When all 4 lights are on it makes the factory xenons on my Jetta look weak and dim.

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1397273073

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1397273073

Also thought I'd take a quick shot of the gauges with the white LEDs I put in. The bleeding around the needle caps is only due to them not being pressed on firmly since I need to align them once my tach starts working. The brightness of the trip meter and total miles is over-accentuated by the camera. It looks great IRL.

http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c1...c/IMG_2611.jpg

Classy as $!&#. Well done sir.