To be fair - the issue at hand wasn't the fault of BEGI unless you fault them for the around the front oil feed design. When I build my motor I am going to figure out a way to bring the oil feed in via hard line, perhaps via the back of the block or the firewall. HHammerly had a great setup that used hard lines and it looked fantastic. I will try and post a picture later tonight.

 

Ok, I am still not seeing coolant temps where I would consider acceptable. In 80 degree ambient temps I am seeing consistent 210 degree cruising temps at sustained speeds. Occasionally I go down to 205 or so and I have hit up to 219 briefly during the same trip. It almost immediately fell to 216 and then back to 210 though.

I don't have the money to figure it out anymore. Now that my girlfriend is back on the plane to Georgia (after a fantastic eight days together) I will have more time to screw with it and see if I can figure out idle and boost control. I hate to say this, but the car feels slow for some reason. I want to figure out why.

 

I noticed something interesting today. While I was at about 1200rpm and lower I was having problems where the VVT angle was fluctuating between 0 and 9 degrees with a target angle of roughly 9 degrees. At one point I saw that VVT angle was at 0 degrees and VVT Duty was at 100%. This is telling me that either I have a short or I have an oil pressure problem. Not good...

 

Had a frustrating weekend but mainly due to the heat and humidity. A couple months ago I ordered Hawk HPS pads and fresh rotors to do a brake job. I was getting low on material in the rear so I decided to do the brakes before my "Miatas at the Gap" trip. I took off the rear brakes and realized that the wrong pads were ordered and nobody had any pads in stock of any type so I had to find some used pads that had more material on them.

Then I washed and waxed the car in preparation for the trip. I still need to do the wheels and tires and perhaps check my ride height to make sure it is still in specifications.

Damn am I getting a lot of road and parking lot damage on this thing. Yikes!

 

I had a begi oil feel line fail on me last week that I just posted about. I took the same route as you and went to a localish hose shop. I couldnt believe I spent $14 on a hose they sell for 50+. Made my day lol. Anyways I came here to join you in celebration for cheap hoses and tell you that your car looks fantastic!

 

i'm still puzzled by my coolant temperature issue. If the damn sensor wasn't such a pain to remove I would be pulling it to check possible calibration issues.

At 75mph or so on the highway I was sitting at a hot but stable 226 degrees. I turned on the A/C for a minute to see how long it would take for me to see the needle move and it only took seventy seconds or so to peak up to 240 (on the log) before I shut it off and let the engine cool.

If I am going to be doing any long road trips A/C would sure be nice. :(

This weekend I am going to see if I can retrofit a SPAL fan on the mishimoto shroud and then see if it made any difference. I am contemplating wither or not I want to remove the radiator to make it easier. If I do, I am going to check my re-route and verify what thermostat I am running. I am also going to make sure that the "jiggler" or bypass hole is at 12 o'clock.

I am not seeing any coolant loss and I am fully ducted and am running the under tray. What more should I be doing?

 

What radiator? Pics of ducting? Pics of front heat exchangers? What fans/shroud currently?

 

I think I will start taking the nose off tonight and I will take pics.

 

when I had a/c condenser, big IC, and a radiator up front, mine was similar to what you're reporting. After getting my ducting in the front an 8/10 (I thought it was 10/10 at the time) it was ok on highway no a/c, but with a/c got up to ~220*F after 20 min of a/c wide open at 70mph on a 95*F day. I then put a better fan on the drivers side and that helped a bit.

Finally I changed the ducting in the front end to feed cool ambient air to the bottom 4" of the radiator. That helped enough that I quit worrying about it.

My new setup I moved the a/c condenser to rear of car, and did my ducting so that the radiator gets lots of clean air, car runs at thermostat temp all the time now. Best thing for the radiator is give it clean air however you can.

 

Where exactly is the A/C condenser in the rear? Is this a street car solution or something a little more specialized?

 

Mine is a street car. It was a lot of work to complete though, cost about 500 dollars in parts total and I did all the fab, vac/charge, etc. It works exactly as I'd hoped. Last thing to do is install a valve on the evap drain and hook it to a tank so I can let the water drip into a tank instead of outside so I can use my AC at the track. 41*F vent temps on a 100*F day in Houston at idle and cruise.

 

I did a pull on the way to work this morning to see where I was at. I am pretty happy with the torque and HP numbers but I am going to work with my boost control to raise that dip at 6,000rpm up a tiny bit, and then I need to get to an actual dyno to check my calibrations against a known quantity.

Unfortunately my laptop battery died before I could do much more work looking at my logs.

 

Some pics from my trip to "Miatas at the Gap"

Girlfriend is still in incognito mode. For those who are wondering everything is going very well.

 

Car photos look great, and the GF looks smokin hot in yellow. +1

 

Thanks. The GF will make an appearance (remote possibility that it will be a sexy bikini carwash picture) at some point in the future. We are waiting on some stuff to happen that is beyond our control. (no, not waiting for her to turn 18...)

 

<p><img src="http://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.miataturbo.net-vbulletin/845x363/80-car_wash_3_512d997f852516210fa3b7ed6bcc391b822aaf6 1.jpg" title="" /><br /><br />&nbsp;</p>

 

^Haha you get those rims nice and clean

 

*sticks finger in belly button*

You got a purty mouf...

 

This is a shitty update but...

There is no way I can afford a motor build this off season. So, if I am going to do anything it will be a rods-only build.

Street only, no track. What is the bare minimum I can do?

Reuse stock pistons (10.5/1?)
Reuse stock oil pump
new 99-00 head gasket (coolant reroute already performed)
Reuse stock head bolts
Reuse new'ish water pump
new rod bearings
new rear main seal
new front main seal
new cam seals (while i'm in there)
ebay manley rods?

What else? Piston rings?

 

piston rings should be at the top as should forged rods.
id get arp head studs too cause they're re-usable and relatively cheap