No can do. With such a spendy motor, I didn't want to tear it down and rebuild it myself. That said, I'll definitely be doing it myself next time.

This motor felt like it had a little extra something in it. :)

???? Then how did you get pics of the piston?

Because that would be a bad thing if the shop put this piston back into the motor. BTW they cost $180 each, shipped.

I'm currently waiting on an oil pickup tube seal before I join the two halves of the motor.

Today I sat out in the 100 degree weather and cleaned house. Will be swapping in some fresh cut-pile NB carpet, seat belts, shoulder trim panels, and new top tension cables. I'll be adding Reflectix to the transmission tunnel to hopefully cut down on heat. Picked up this Hard Dog Sport M2 to coincide with my eventual plans for an NB glass soft top and hard top . Got it locally for $250. :) I have so many parts just sitting around in my room, waiting to be installed.

Attachment 194909
Attachment 194910
Attachment 194911

It's time to show off my new cellphone's picture-taking abilities.

Should I be worried about this?
Attachment 193218

It's interesting how "sharp" the new piston is, compared to the old ones.
http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b2...0-28163257.jpg

Roll bar installed!
http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b2...0-28163158.jpg

Oooh! You must have burned fragrant offerings to the detonation gods that they were constantly present but did not smite thee. Perhaps it would be wise to appease them with a re-tune.

Base map, conservative timing. This did not happen with the motor in my possession. My question is will I need to worry about this causing more detonation and need cleaning up or will it be ok to use as is, without worry.

I worked on pulling the dash today. I don't want to cut my new carpet and have it end up never staying put.

Attachment 193200

Why, on all the pistons, do the cylinder wall clearances appear to be larger on the side towards the front of the motor?

Attachment 193073
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Attachment 193075

call me when you are ready to get the motor in. I'm off for a week in two more weeks. :)

I think it is an illusion. Piston seems to be on one side of the bore because of ring tension. It does look like the pistons are a little small for their bore, but it may just be another illusion.

Can you wiggle the piston much in there bores? Are you sure ring gaps are staggard properly? DID YOU REMEMBER TO INSTALL RINGS??????:giggle:

You are the man!

I checked it under different lighting and they are definitely off-center. I can kinda wiggle the piston, but it feels like it's due to the spring tension of the ring. I'm not sure about ring gaps, because I didn't build it. Could the builder have been meticulous enough to install all rings with the gap facing the same direction?

Yes he could. (Top facing one way, and second facing another way about 30%). And that is probably the reason all pistons are pushed to one side. This is normal.

Motor is in. Now Bryce just needs to hook everything up and get her running.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v3...7/DSCF1557.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v3...7/DSCF1553.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v3...7/DSCF1552.jpg

We also installed a MSM wheel in my 99 sport, so that Bryce can modify my old Nardi wheel to fit on his 92.
Attachment 192587

Update. Now.


Bryce.

Nice build, looking forward to the finish project.

Nice build, love the NB dash!

This is how it looked yesterday.
Attachment 191239

The end of today.
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Attachment 191241

The NB wheel feels so much nicer in the hands. It's in much better shape than my old one too. Plus, it was free. Thanks Stan!

I haven't touched the motor since it was put in. :P

so you drilled the slots to modify it :)

Let me know when you want to finish buttoning it up.

But wait till it feels warmer than 13 degree with the windchill please.

Stan, your assistance is not longer required. :)

Thanks for all the positive feedback!

I cleaned out the garage to put the Miata in, so I've been working on it a lot more the past 2 weeks. This has resulted in some rapid progress.

The NPT bushing that I tapped for the CLT sensor decided to break. I ended up JB welding an NPT coupler onto it. Hopefully this will hold. If it doesn't, I should know pretty quickly.
Attachment 190595

Interior is complete. No more crack in the dashboard. NB carpet with 20k miles on it is so much better than that loop-pile crap. The shifter boot is worn out so I opted out on that part. The NB steering wheel was easy to modify. Just one hole needed to be drilled. I also detonated my old airbag. Need to find the video of it and upload.
http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b2...a/DSC_0084.jpg

Power mirrors. The manual ones literally rusted off! They aren't hooked up yet. Apparently Mazda didn't offer them until 93, so I don't have the harness for them.
Attachment 190596

Fan control mod. It doesn't work though. It activates the fans anytime the key is on. I think the transistor might not be switching. I think it's showing continuity between the two legs that shouldn't have any continuity. Any ideas?
Attachment 190597

Get a load of this. I have a boost gauge and a blow off valve, but no turbo. I decide to put the stock intake back on. This way, I can let the AIT sensor sit inside the plastic snorkel and not get heatsoaked.
Attachment 190598

If nothing goes wrong, I'll be driving around tomorrow with an inspection sticker that expired in 2009. Gotta break in 1 cylinder, lol.

I tested the fuel system by jumping the diagnostic terminals and heard a spraying sound. Fuel is everywhere due to an o-ring on one of the injectors not seating properly. At least I checked this before getting everything hooked up to the point of starting the car. It was easily fixed though. I don't mind the 2 piece design of the NB manifold. I'd rather remove a couple extra bolts and clamps to have much more room to work on the fuel rail compared to the 1.6 design.

I had one hell of a time getting oil pressure. I had to whip out the commercial vacuum pump, aka the Prime master 5000, and pull a vacuum through the turbo oil feed while cranking the motor to get oil flow. It didn't do the trick without cranking the motor.
I tried to start it, but cranking PWs are certainly off after going from 750 to 800cc injectors and the GF was getting impatient.

Wait, what? Why is your turbo setup gone. I read through all this and now I'm lost.

Money. I left my full time job to go back to full time school with no job. Living at home is nice!

The current setup is for breaking in the motor/ quickly getting it up to daily driver status. I will most likely buy an ebay turbo in the meantime, then upgrade when I can afford it. I guess you could say the whole turbo thing has been delayed.

As far as the ebay turbo goes, I'm looking at a 2860 or 2871-sized turbo with a T2 flange. I can get it as soon as I sell my old greddy setup, which I need to get off my ass and make a FS thread for. I already have all the pieces for the turbo, except for oil lines.

AWESOME!

Congrats dude...now get a job and turbo that puppy.

I told you I was off all next week to help you finish your car. Now I guess I'll just have to come over and drive it.

I will be going to the casino this weekend. Luck is on my side. At mile marker 20, I noticed I was getting a little drip of oil under the motor after being parked for awhile. I went in to investigate and the only source was the oil drain plug. I go to tighten it and.... IT WAS FINGER LOOSE! I can just imagine this coming all the way out, dumping my oil, frying the engine, and resulting in me selling the Miata out of frustration and resorting to driving a Fiesta. Crisis averted. PHEW!

I am now proud to announce, that after almost 3 years, I am officially oil leak free!

Yesterday I got to use my Millermatic 180 for the second time. The first time it was a couple tacks on a TV wall mount. Ok, holding up $1K worth of TV is alright. This time it was my first experience in exhaust work. Universal Magnaflow cat. It was pretty easy once I got to the actual welding part. It's an SS cat so I had to get some 308L wire. I think I had so much slag because I didn't bother to wire brush the mild steel pipe ends.
Attachment 190512

Today I passed emissions. My inspection sticker expired in 2009, and I was getting nervous driving around tuning the car. Last time, I was able to plug in to megasquirt while on the dyno so I could tweak my AFRs to 14.7. This time I had a different laptop that I hadn't used Tunerstudio on before. Turns out Windows 7 lacks native support for the Belkin serial to USB adapter. Sadly, I wasn't able to take a log of the dyno runs because of this. I'm running the untouched base spark map.

I passed the 15mph test without a hitch. AFRs hovered around 14.3 on the gauge.
HC was 82ppm, limit at 141ppm
CO was .24%, limit at .79%
NOx was 469ppm, limit at 1088ppm
Dilution was 15.2%, limit at >6%

The 25mph test was a different story. It failed the first time, running ~15.3 AFRs in 3rd gear. The guy suggested we try it in 4th gear (6 speed 3.909 diff). AFRs were ~14.4 at this load point. I likely failed the first chance due to the CO emissions.
HC was 121ppm, limit at 136ppm
CO was .76%, limit at .76% CLOSE! :)
NOx was 658ppm, limit at 984ppm
Dilution was 15.3, limit at >6


It's got 70 miles on this motor now and I've yet to go over 5k rpms. It reminds me of my greddy kit when I first installed it, minus the boost lag.

Stan, that sounds like a good option! :)
Damon, I should be able to fund whats left of the turbo parts with the money from selling my old greddy kit. Fingers are crossed.

Well, my JB-welded coolant reroute spacer bung held up well, until I decided it was time to make a few visits to Mr. Redline. I suppose the extra vibration is what made it fail. It's just a good thing it decided to fall off when I turned onto the GF's street.

Instead of finding someone with a TIG welder (closest friend is 1.5 hours away), I decided to retap the spacer for 1/4" NPT. Then I bought a M-M 1/4" coupler, and a 1/4 to 3/8" M-F reducer. I cut the reducer in half till so that I was left with a flat surface for the CLT sensor to mate with, and tapped the now-beefier fitting for the CLT sensor. This should hold up indefinitely.

Just hit the 100 mile marker. It's oil change time.

I'll leave you with a little acceleration video I took tonight. It's still rich as hell, but it's getting there. I'm glad that I don't have the urge to buy any N/A power adders.

:) mmmmm

Time for an update!

Due to the lack of funding, I've decided to become the one and only 2 liter with a Greddy kit. It should manage 270whp or so. I bought an ETD racing Greddy manifold and it just came in. Here are some pictars:

http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b2...a/ETDMani1.jpg
http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b2...a/ETDMani2.jpg
http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b2...a/ETDMani3.jpg
http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b2...a/ETDMani4.jpg
http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b2...a/ETDMani5.jpg

Nice! Do want!

There's a lot of things about that turbo I'm liking. Probably one of the best functioning IWGs you'll ever use.

Yes, I was about to say the same thing. According to Borg Warner the internal waste gates on the smaller frame turbos are larger than the external I have on my car.

Full Race did back to back tests using the large frame EFR's internal waste gate vs. a large tial external. The EFR's internal was identical in performance. I read some where that the internals are 44mm or 46MM, gigantic internal systems and they work flawlessly.

Ready for a surprise? The iwg port is actually only 31mm in diameter with a 36 mm valve head. On the larger models they upped that to a 36mm port with 42mm valve head. This is according to the BW EFR brief.

Why don't you weld up a setup? What's the deal with the Greddy? Isn't every part of that kit *besides* the turbo asking to be replaced?

I guess it would make a good stepping stone...but after having a too small/too many bends intercooler and mani/DP setup once I swore to never short myself again. 3" exhaust, COPS & WI can only compensate so much once you want to push it a little more.

(this is NOT an attempt to score a cheap Greddy kit)

Lolol. Go ahead and click on the pictures of my manifold.

Doh!

For those of you who didnt get the going back to greddy joke, I give you turbo porn.
https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1312475648
https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1312475648
https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1312475648
https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1312475648
https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1312475648

so cool

God's gift to the boost tribe!

All these Borg builds are so fucking winning.
Seriously. Good job guys

:)

i like how the WG mounts to the back of the compressor housing so you can clock it how you want.

At this point I am convinced that I will never turbo the NB.
I should but a turbo on the wedding registry lol.

How long till the turbo goes on? curious to see how that turbo lights up for one of my 2L bros :D

The knocking sound has nothing, but nothing to do by how your pistons look. As long as you have good compression, to have a forged piston crown a little bit melted is nothing.

Your knocking is something else, whoever worked on the bearings clearances messed up.

My engine is running 17 psi now, yesterday I raped a Shelby GT 500 by half car with bad crowns, as long as there is no smoke, no overheating, good compression its all good.

You had to much timing, the spark plugs gap and spark plug choice etc...

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1313417061

Look at my engine, some sanding, wd40 and good to go...

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1313417061

You go into extremes about shims, etc, bla bla, the BP engine is a workhorse, its the M9 of the military.

Those chunks of piston crown were sanded off, after that I decided to go for a spin which a half hour ride became 2 hours as I got tired of messing around with S2000, STis, Mustangs, until that freakin Shelby from hell gave me a good battle.

Supertech pistons 9@1 84mm.

No matter your AFRs, stick with NGK7, gap it to .025 or lower, 93 octane and conservative ignition timing.

Note:

I saw the video, there were a few readings to redline in the 12.9 to 13.2 afrs which is not good at all, no it is not rich.

He wasnt boosted in that video. Those AFR's are fine for NA, but optimal power wont be hit until you get 11.5-12.0:1

Blown rear diff? Just saw the vid on the tube..

You are an idiot.

Let's not get personal.

Care to make any comments about the substance of what was said that may be of benefit? I agree with you it does sound strange and I wouldn't do it myself.

Luckily that video was taken in 2008. I just came across it and posted it recently.

I've been a little preoccupied with school lately. I have done some stuff to the car audio-wise lately.

The turbo keeps taunting me on my desk, I'll get around to it sooner or later.

You can send to me.

It would be really nice to get it boosted before winter.

Good news. I now have a knocking sound. It happens at a frequency of ~4.5hz, 270 times per minute and an 1100 rpm idle. That's 1 knock for every 4 revolutions of the motor.

Look! Sound!

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/12114789/ZOOM0013.MP3

Also of note, it seems to double-up in frequency on decel.

I hate these oil pump screws. Whichever engineer decided to use these should be shot and killed. Currently, my hammer-driven impact screwdriver won't get them to budge.

check all the other rotating shit attached to your motor before pulling the motor. cam gears, pulleys, damper blah blah.

Umm, too late.
https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1318898078


I did verify that the sound was coming from within the motor and all accessible bolts on the head were torqued properly. It sounded louder when the stethoscope was held against the block vs the head. I've been needing to pull it anyways to inspect the oil pressure relief valve but I cannot get the damn screws removed.

Oh the irony of the title of this thread. It's been taking 2 or more seconds to get oil pressure every morning. I tried a different oil filter with a better anti-drainback valve.

Unfortunately I have no mod powers in this section, otherwise...

Bryce's mother EFRing 6258 2 liter - now with less oil pressure

I can make that happen.

Woot!

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-D...2/DSC_0687.JPG
1 on the right, 5 on the left.

I haven't started measuring anything yet. I did notice that the wrist pins slide freely within the pistons. They aren't loose per say, but I could remove them with fingertip pressure if I were to remove a retaining clip. From what I have read, this is bad, but I can't believe that a shop who had their hands on this motor 5k miles ago would allow this if it were bad.