CANbus 02 sensor box ordered and on it's way. Depending on weather I may start disassembling the dash and removing my now un-necessary pull up resistors as I have purchased the MSpnpPro that negates the need for such things. That and I have to pull the old 02 sensors or make sure they are powered by the MS so they don't go bad.

 

I picked up an 99-00 intake today, so goodbye to VCTS and hello VICS! It's pretty grungy though so a good cleaning is in order.

Hive-mind, raw, painted raw, painted natural(ish) color, painted black? What do you think? I am leaning towards painting after sanding down the finish a bit to make it less rough so that it's easier to just hit with soap and a pressure washer in the future.

Also, maybe paint, maybe powder coat. Undecided.

If I were to upgrade my fuel system, who's build should I copy? Do I need to go recirculated or can I stick with my non-recirculated setup? I plan on running e85 with flex fuel sensor.

 

Pink is natural(ish)

 

If there was any way to enjoy the humor of it without pulling the intake I would paint the inside pink...

 

More thinking out loud. Say I wanted to add coolant pressure, oil pressure, and oil temperature sensors. Where would the best locations be? If I recall, oil pan for oil temp correct? What about pressure?

I am throwing around the idea of getting rid of the water neck and blocking the front off with a plate. I could put a coolant pressure sensor there correct? Or would I be better off using a freeze plug/cover and get coolant pressure somewhere else?

Basically I just want to be able to log those sensors and feed them into an idiot light in case of extreme outliers.

 

I put the water temp sensor in the back of the head. You can use that for pressure too. There is ano Allen plug by the water heater neck on the drivers side of the back of the head. Believe it is 1/8npt. I put the oil temp and pressure sensors on a glowshift sandwich plate and deleted the stock oil cooler/warmer.

 

good idea. It's sometimes tough to visualize when you don't have the car OR the spare engine sitting in front of you to ponder over.

 

I've been thinking about this as well, possibly doing a Hobbs style switch @5psi as a coolant pressure warning input. I know Ballenger carries the switches, but I'm not sure if they are setup for direct exposure to coolant environments.

I currently have aftermarket oil pressure and temp senders in a glowshift plate, but my plan is to move temp to the pan and pressure to the firewall via a remote sender mount kit. My M-Tuned reroute rear spacer as a 1/8" NPT that I'm using for aftermarket water temp. I figure back of the head should be the hottest place in the system and it gets constant flow due to the feed for the heater, so I'll stick with that for now.

 

I would like to work towards getting all sensors off of proprietary gauges. I am starting to see some canbus gauges working their way to the general public and to me they are much more attractive due to how flexible they are. Idiot light plus multipurpose gauges are my planned direction. Something like this:




BT Innovations - BTI Gauges

UPDATE: I talked to the owner of the company and he is working on Megasquirt integration. The only thing I don't like so far is it's not possible to customize the data screens yourself. He will pretty much add any configuration you want but I don't believe it's possible to create custom screens on the user level currently.

 

So I ordered some stuff...

 

Redline Goods Shift Boot. Perforated Napa leather, silver inner stitch, medium blue outer stitch. My old boot was cracking badly and I decided to make a small cosmetic upgrade.

 

Four door utility Miata acquired:

 

You'll love that thing. My room mate bought one last summer, they are pretty fantastic.

 

Why 10.5CR Pistons?


I like dis

Sweeeet! Post moar photos, I wanna see the engine bay

 

10.5 because e85 is plentiful. I will have a 91 octane "limp" tune at some point for safety.

Oddly enough I haven't even opened the hood on the Fiesta yet.

I'm loving it so far, but dreading the rest of this week. We are supposed to get 1-4 inches of snow tonight and I have the summer tires. I am planning on getting snow/winter tires for next winter but tomorrow is going to be a hassle.

 

I hope to pick up the cylinder head from storage tomorrow or Tuesday and bring it in to be prepped and possibly built.

I am going with +1mm valves on intake and exhaust. Exhaust are inconnel. Dual weak springs.





Most of my engine build. Still need ARP hardware, some gaskets, and assorted other stuff I won't know about until I build it.

 

I am contemplating the upgrades I will be doing to the fuel system and I'd like to see what others think.

I am either planning on going to convert to return style or keep it returnless but upgrade the FPR in a fashion similar to the Flyin' Miata Big Flex Fuel kit.

Joe Perez made some critical comments about the FM kit. (I'm going to try and get him to post here) What are the negatives of the FM kit, either vacuum referenced or not? Obviously it's pricey, but what else is poorly designed or engineered? What I like about it is that it seems like it is doesn't require much relocation/fabrication. The FPR lives down below out of sight.

How important is the dual feed rail?

If I go return style, I imagine it may be cheaper especially if I don't go with a dual feed rail. Does anyone sell a full kit that includes everything I need? In what ways will it be better than an upgraded returnless setup?

 

Got your PM.

I honestly can't remember writing anything about the FM kit you're referring to, though of course a lot has fallen out of my brain over the years.

Speaking broadly, I've never quite understood the necessity of dual-feed fuel rails; not that there's anything wrong with them as such, I've just not seen any data which proves that the stock rail is inadequate in some way which is correctable by installing dual-feed rail.

As for return vs. returnless, opinions vary here as well. A return-style system is always going to maintain more consistent fuel pressure, but it's not like the pressure drop in a returnless system is hard to predict relative to fuel flow. If your ECU can deal with a non-referenced, non-return fuel system (and most can these days), then you can certainly go this route.


But this is all stuff you already know. I'm afraid I don't have any useful, original insight to provide here.

 

Thanks Joe. Perhaps it wasn't you then. I remember it being someone I respected the opinion of and your name is what stuck in my mind. Maybe it was someone else who is equally as reputable/knowledgeable.

 

IMHO - returnless is inconsistent and actually harder to accurately "predict" than it seems to most. You can predict some of the weirdness, but ultimately it's a pain in the butt and you're still left with mediocre control at best. And you also get the lovely fuel/injectors heating issue which rears its ugly head on hot restarts.

It's definitely worth it to conver to return style. Just my .02