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That cursed water plug a couple pages back - I forgot to order the OEM replacement, so...
Fortunately was playing with closed loop idle in the parking lot instead of road tuning. Side note - PID closed loop idle, can't get it to catch fast enough when I kick on A/C. And I can't get any more P in it (more than a few %) without it oscillating. Any tips and tricks there? @der_vierte have you worked with closed-loop idle on the speedy yet?
@der_vierte have you worked with closed-loop idle on the speedy yet?
Open loop and no AC for me to this day, a bit high when warm, but very stable... As long as it isn't road legal, i like it this way, because of my 6 puck clutch, makes it a bit easier to take off, haha.
Maybe i try CL idle next weekend, my car is 40 miles away, so i do not have access to it every time i want to :/
What happened to this build? I’m doing a similar build and was waiting to see everything together and running. What the heck! Where’s OP?!
OP here! Still alive! Been waiting for my tax return to buy the remaining parts and it just hit yesterday, a cool 8 months after filing. Should have some updates shortly!
OP here! Still alive! Been waiting for my tax return to buy the remaining parts and it just hit yesterday, a cool 8 months after filing. Should have some updates shortly!
I just read they the whole thread last night and I thought “damn this poor guy had no idea how long he was gonna wait for that tax return” lol
Glad you finally got it. That would be cool if you posted up some progress pics or pics of some of the stuff you have currently laying around. How’s the speedyefi running?
Good news and bad news. Good news: much better base car for this. Bad news, gonna be a while before it sees an EFR.
Things have taken a turn.
Meet my 2004 MSM. But don’t worry, in the spirit of this thread and of being cheap, it's got 150k miles and a rebuilt title.
Basically, I had $3.5k set aside to take my NA from cooling and EMS done, the rest of the way to turbo. $3.5k would have got me everything I still needed, but I still would have been a tired 1.6, with terrible paint, a clapped front bumper, VLSD, 5 speed, etc, that I’m not stoked on. Sure, it's fun to beat on, and was an excellent car for me to have fun on a super low college kid budget, but I was not motivated to dump that kind of money into something that is an eye sore and would likely pop the diff and trans anyway. So I added just a little bit on top of that 3.5k and got this MSM. It was wrecked in 2013 at 50k miles, rebuilt, then bought by an older gentleman.
He owned it until roughly April of 2020, and drove it a ton. I have a boatload of oil change receipts in the glovebox from his ownership. He put like 1000 miles/month on it, and religiously had the oil changed every 3,000 miles at the place he bought it, which I also suspect rebuilt the car. The guy I bought it from purchased it in 2020 and daily'd it. Mods he did were a Greddy BOV, which seems like it needs a different spring, as it’s a little sluggish when letting off from light throttle, homebrew intake (which is much sketchier upon closer inspection than I realized), “Manzo” coilovers, and an aftermarket intercooler which is way too big . Zero rust- the car was wrecked in New Mexico then spent the rest of its life in Tennessee.
The hood and front bumper were replaced after the wreck that totaled it; the hood has some fisheyes (single stage) and the bumper is pretty chipped. Planning a full paint correction so we will see what I can do with the hood, the paint is still in good shape despite the fisheyes, so I should be able to shine it up at least. I’ll also do some heavy duty touching up of the bumper before correction and coating. But for what I want to do with the car (beat the hell out of it) it’s certainly acceptable, and is a million times nicer to look at than my redish pinkish, Maaco resprayed NA.
Only issues with the car upon my purchase are a dead cat, dead motor mounts, and airbag light indicating problem with driver’s side airbag. As it turned out, there was just… no clock spring installed. A used clock spring at $25 fixed that.
My first order of business was to remove a mound of stickers (“Good Vibes & Bad Habits”), some peeling window tint, and the dark as hell windshield tint strip. To be replaced with ~35% ceramic tint at some point. Preemptively swapped in a new boost solenoid, changed plugs and wires, and plugs looked pretty happy when I pulled them. Had plans for engine, gear, and diff oil, accessory belts, fuel filter this weekend, but after putting a thermostat in my wife’s Renegade, swapping the NA back to stock suspension and ECU, while pulling gross brackets to repaint at midnight-thirty I ended up letting all the freon out of my system, because I’m an overzealous idiot. So that killed a lot of my time. But on the plus side, I have a vacuum pump and AC gauges now. And now I have learned not to mess with things when exhausted.
I pulled undertrays and bracing and wow, a lot of gunk and leaking gear oil. I’ll need to pull and reseal the neutral switch and back up switch and see if that resolves it. Additionally, I’ve been PB Blasting the diff fill plug all week, as it is really well stuck on. Also pulled the downpipe to make engine mounts easier, and the cat sounds like a rain stick. Megan Racing downpipe ordered to remedy that. Another issue that I’ve noticed, and digging under the car seems to explain: strange vibration at WOT from ~4k to 5500. Not sure if engine mounts are the culprit (idle shake confirms it needs them) but the driveshaft seems to have spit out a ton of grease from the u-joint. If I can’t source a used one locally, 949 it is. I’ve got a FM oil cooler on the way that I snagged for a cool $275 used, so that will go on shortly as well. FM crossflow to be ordered as soon as it’s in stock, as unfortunately the supermiata crossflow fits every 90-05 EXCEPT MSM.
So, still to be done: what was mentioned above, swap over rollbar, swap Konis on to replace the ~Manzo~ coilovers that are on it now, swap over reroute, FM radiator and oil cooler, FM intake, timing belt and all front side gaskets, linearize temp gauge, make oil pressure gauge real, track pads, hood vents, and ducting. I want to throw all the cooling mods at it before I even try to track it. I don’t want to waste my money on a track day overheating. Also probably going to preemptively rebuilding the turbo. I'd also like to find another VRM trunklid to put the BBFW spoiler on.
Somewhere in there: door lock actuators, window track clean and grease, polish headlights, install undertray, FM check valve, maybe a DIY O2 mod and Zener diode. Also need to get the NA ready to sell to free up some money for more mods/maintenance. Need to find a red trunklid that isn't drilled for the spoiler, grease the windows that are pathetically slow, unclog the condenser so it stops spilling on the passenger's feet when you run the AC, and do a quick polish to get the paint looking a little less rough.
All of this said, I do still have an EFR laying around. I want to get some track time this year first and foremost. I’ve been talking about it for like 5 years, I want to finally do it. Maybe 2021, go megasquirt, but not this year. That’s ~$1700 in ECU and tuning that can instead get me a few track weekends this year. I do think I’d stick stock turbo until a motor build is in the cards. No real point in spending a bunch of money to put the EFR in when I can turn the stock turbo up to ~12 psi and make ~220whp *fairly* safely.
Overall, I’m very happy with the purchase. I’m much more motivated to go through it with a fine toothed comb and make sure it’s completely track ready, and it feels very healthy. Really looking forward to warmer weather so I can go beat on it, as the tail of the dragon is an hour from me, and the devil’s triangle a mere 25 mins. Anyway, flame me for taking the easy way out if you want to, but the EFR will still happen eventually, and you can hold me to that.
Seems like more good news than bad... Red NB looks pretty awesome and I'm an NA guy.
No point in leaving all the other fun off the table just to put a big *** turbo in it, enjoy life and driving (especially in these times)!
One question to your work shop. How wide is it? Looks like plenty of space even for a lift. I'm buildung a Garage next year and yours looks pretty much perfect
Well I can’t say that I’m not disappointed. I was definitely looking forward to seeing that budget EFR build, but I definitely understand why you did what you did. I did the same thing when I sold my last miata which was a 1.6 turbo miata with all the cheap failure points. I snagged an M-edition for a good price and sold the 1.6 so I had a better base to work with.
On another note, TCS is shut down now so it’s pretty difficult to find an EFR 6258 for less than $1400 now. You can still find a 6758 for less than $1400 but I don’t think the 6258 is available at that price. I can’t remember for certain though.
Well I can’t say that I’m not disappointed. I was definitely looking forward to seeing that budget EFR build, but I definitely understand why you did what you did. I did the same thing when I sold my last miata which was a 1.6 turbo miata with all the cheap failure points. I snagged an M-edition for a good price and sold the 1.6 so I had a better base to work with.
On another note, TCS is shut down now so it’s pretty difficult to find an EFR 6258 for less than $1400 now. You can still find a 6758 for less than $1400 but I don’t think the 6258 is available at that price. I can’t remember for certain though.
Yeah I am trying to get money back on an order from TCS placed in December I never got; bad news as they were consistently the least expensive. But usually the 6758 can be had around $100usd less than the 6258 just about anywhere, just not $1200 like TCS had them (but hey, would rather pay a little more and actually get the item ordered)
Seems like more good news than bad... Red NB looks pretty awesome and I'm an NA guy.
No point in leaving all the other fun off the table just to put a big *** turbo in it, enjoy life and driving (especially in these times)!
One question to your work shop. How wide is it? Looks like plenty of space even for a lift. I'm buildung a Garage next year and yours looks pretty much perfect [img]cid:2E57342B-8E7A-4583-B74E-B5EB6CF8B094[/img]
It's 22 feet x 22 feet, with 12 foot ceilings. A lift is DEFINITELY in the plans.
Originally Posted by 95RedM
Well I can’t say that I’m not disappointed. I was definitely looking forward to seeing that budget EFR build, but I definitely understand why you did what you did. I did the same thing when I sold my last miata which was a 1.6 turbo miata with all the cheap failure points. I snagged an M-edition for a good price and sold the 1.6 so I had a better base to work with.
My thought process exactly. And the EFR will happen one of these days, mark my words. It can only stare at me on a shelf for so long, and it will still be on a budget. As much as these one and done kits are nice, the build, the spreadsheeting, the piecing things together is all part of the fun for me. For now I'm just excited to have something with a little more boogie that I can finally feel comfortable taking to the track. And HOLY COW is a 2004 interior so much nicer to be in than 1993. I will miss the popups though.
Bro idk what everyone is so caught up with the pop ups for. The reason I always had NA miatas is because they were always cheaper, but I want an NB2 so bad. One day I’ll have all 3 miatas (not including an NC of course)
Yeah I had a turbo parts car fall into my lap for almost free, so not accounting for the money I made selling parts off that car I spent approx $1800 getting my car turbo’d buying used parts and piecing together the kit for 3 months. But when I swap engines that new engine will for sure get a EFR (although I have all the other parts already that cost money that makes an EFR justifiable financially [BOV, EWG, EBC solenoid] so I might go with a Garrett turbo)
Geez, let's see. Since my last post (maybe some overlap, I'm just throwing stuff out here): FM oil cooler, whichever sensor on the trans is the one on the driver's side, accessory belts, alternator, fluids, AC recharge, FM happy meal (stage 1 and light flywheel), rear main seal, rear half moon seal, used driveshaft (fixed vibration), poly diff bushings, delrin door bushings, cleaned throttle body, EGR valve, and IACV, transferred rollbar over from the NA. Parts sitting in the garage waiting for me to find time: Singular hood vents, 2x Sparco sprint (also waiting for brackets from Fab9, a couple months waiting on that order at this point), FM crossflow, Supermiata reroute. Need to get the NA listed for sale before I can justify the time though, just needs the cooling system put back together after I pulled the reroute, window bushings, and maybe a quick polish.
Car is at the muffler shop right now, got a sweet deal on a Roadstersport 4 muffler from a friend ($100) so I had a shop build me a midpipe from the Megan catless downpipe to the Roadstersport. Need to pick the car up tomorrow.
AC compressor is turning on and off every ~2 seconds at a traffic light, is that normal behavior? Seems it can't be. AC also gets nice and warm at lights but is cool once I start moving.
Also an idle issue to chase, which was the genesis of me cleaning the MAF, IACV, EGR, throttle body. Idles fine until I do the half-clutch-out-creep-forward thing, then it hangs at 2,000 rpm and does so until I turn the car off and on again. I don't think its as simple as adjusting the idle screw, as it idles fine until the above mentioned condition. Maybe needs a new IACV? It does idle muuuch smoother after cleaning everything, though.
May have found my idle issue. Picked up the car from the exhaust shop today (sounds great) and punched it about a mile from home for the first time since the clutch job. It stuttered hard at about 4000 RPM and something fell off the car
I went looking for it but couldn't find it. Limped it home the last mile, unable to idle and misfiring like crazy. Didn't see anything obvious under the hood so I busted out the smoke machine... Other than three small boost leaks, it had spit out a plug that the previous owner used as part of a hackjob homemade intake. That's the last straw, FM intake ASAP. For the moment I'll replace the plug, I'm betting it'll idle much better.
Approaching one year since last post and haven't made much progress... But I've signed up for a TNIA event at the end of April so I have a deadline! Haven't dealt with the AC issue, the idle issue disappeared for a while and just reappeared in a bad way the other day. Going to smoke it again once I finish the timing belt and front seals job that is nearly done; just waiting for cam plug to arrive. Oh, have to pull vacuum line to run my boost gauge to the cabin. Will install wideband too if I have some spare time, but being it's stock tune I'm not that worried.
Bit the bullet and ordered the FM MSM intake and throttle body elbow, so the previous owner's homebrew intake wont be causing any more problems. Reroute is almost done, not looking forward to routing the coolant hose through the mess of extra bits on the intake side. The older Sparco Sprints I have won't fit, I'd have to bolt the bracket to the floor like 5" back from factory holes and even then I won't pass the broomstick test. Going to foamectomy the stock seat for all it's worth for now.
I've also given up trying to adapt my NA Konis to the NB, I know it can be done some way but its just too much hackery for me to deal with. And also a good excuse to upgrade... Anyone know any used Xidas or Ohlins for sale?
Once the engine bay is buttoned back up, all that is left for track readiness is brake pads, driver's seat foamectomy, hood vent install, and swapping in new suspension if I can get my hands on something before the end of April. Super stoked to get on track for the first time!
05-07-2020, 06:17 PM
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