MM89

yeah you can spend ages just going through every single combination possible within the td04 family. I think you've pretty much nailed it though.

Integrated recirc valve, volvo application? Subaru fitment doesn't seem to have this option.

ahawks9er

iTrader: (1)

Cool build! Sub'd.

ChrisLol

I tried the OEM mag reed sensor with a VR conditioner and it didn't work. Still too noisy and it meant i had to leave the hacked up speedo inside a project box behind the RacePak dash. I ended up snagging an NB sensor and installing that. I just calibrated that this weekend and it works great!

Over the past couple weeks I had been busy prepping and painting the valve cover and re-assembling everything. Here is an Instagram shot of the engine bay from Friday morning just before the filter went back on:

I also did a few tall man mods (I'm 6'3") to the driver's seat including removing the rear humps and performing a severe foamectomy.

My big install this weekend was installing the catch can I fabbed up using an old Haltech CDI case we had laying around. I welded the bottom shut, welded an internal baffle to split the case into two chambers and a punched aluminum screen to keep the stainless pot scrubber from sitting on the bottom of the can and soaking in blowby fluids. I also welded a bung into the bottom with a brass draincock for easy drainage. Scrounged up some old aviation AN hoses for both sides of the can. Took some measurements and had my laser equipped friend blast me out a bracket for the thing. Probably isn't flowing a whole lot right now but once the turbo is on it should do some work with a vacuum on one side.



Total investment: $20 in fittings and pot scrubbers.

I got the fuel system sealed up and got the engine running this weekend. Refilled the coolant and idle tuned the dead times for the 700cc Deatschwerks Injectors I just installed. They idle much better than the 460cc RX-7 Injectors. Confirmed dead times by taking a spirited drive and running the car all through the rev range. AFR's were solid on target the whole time. I am very happy with that purchase. They should feed the turbo fine. Also, I did not have the fan wired in or any radiator ducting installed but temps never went over 200º and I had no leaks. I am very confident in the cooling system.


I have a few more projects to go before she is ready for a shakedown on track:

• Blackbird Fabworx single diagonal roll bar (Thanks Moti!)
• StopTech front pads and rotors
• Energy Suspension ball joint boots
• Get on the dyno one more time and steady state the whole map to verify it's g2g

The plan is to do a 8/10's shakedown at GridLife TrackBattle 1 April 8-9 at Mid-Ohio. If everything goes smoothly there, the turbo install will begin and should be complete before GridLife MidWest!

shuiend

iTrader: (24)

Your catch can looks nice. Have you figured out which turbo setup you are going with yet? My only concern is that it may be in the way of the manifold and turbo.

ChrisLol

I have a TD04 and the manifold will be a custom log-style made with SS Weld Els and Tees. SO I am choosing the position of the turbo. It should clear.

...If it doesn't, I have three boxes full of aviation grade AN hoses to play with to find something that works. I used to work at a small aircraft maintenance shop and they change hoses every 8 years and throw out perfectly good AN hoses.

ChrisLol

Called and spoke with Moti and after a few weeks I had a NB Single Diagonal Rollbar in High Gloss Black delivered to the office.
The first step for rollbar installation is remove all the interior and soft top.


Then position the bar and start cutting the hat shelf.


Dressed the bare edges and applied some edge guard so I wouldn't cut myself when tightening the bolts.


Got the cut right on both sides. Measure twice, cut once!


There it is!


And some glamour shots after taking it for a quick spin.


Thanks Moti! As promised, I made a color matched logo on the diagonal.


Then into the work trailer for the first track day.


GridLife Track Battle Round 1. Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course


I quickly found the limits of the stock suspension and street tires. The car was woefully ill-equipped for any group other than beginner which had a good mix of slow cars and slow drivers. Time for boost, tires and suspension!
Here's one at speed in the esses with my passenger waving for the camera:

Neddy

are haltech making plug and play patch looms now for the elite 750?

Apologies for the thread hijack

ChrisLol

No worries.

This is a custom loom I made myself. But, we will be releasing an official Elite 550 / Elite 750 patch loom for the NA 1.6 AND 1.8 within the month. 2-plug harnesses only though. (Sorry 3-plug guys.)

We already have an patch loom to suit the Elite 1000/1500 for 00-04 cars (Sorry '99 guys)

Neddy

Thanks for reply. In a VVT typical track car application what is the practical difference between an Elite 1000 and Elite 1500?

boileralum

iTrader: (8)

Did you mean 01-05? 00-04 seems a weird range, since 00 is BP4W with a different ECU plug and wiring from the 01-05 cars

Very nice work BTW, extremely clean car and build!

ChrisLol

Most typical track cars can make do easily with the Elite 1000. It supports the VVT and has enough customization options that you could do some really cool stuff with it. Active aero, boost by gear, boost by steering wheel position, etc. However, if you are racing in a car that is classed by power-to-weight ratio then the most interesting feature of the 1500 will be the 4D base fuel and ignition tables that can be cycled through based on a switch input. This would allow you to literally adjust HP output quickly with a 12 position rotary switch. Ensuring you have the maximum horsepower allowed on any given day regardless of environmental conditions. The Winning Formula does this with their competition cars. You could also use this feature to dial back power or boost for rain races or program multiple boost by gear maps to easily adapt the car to the day's track conditions. The uses are totally up to you as the user defines the value of the 4th axis.

Thanks Rich, I actually meant 00-05. VCT, non-VCT and MSM are all supported by the same product. The "patch loom" in this case is actually a "patch box" that uses a PCB and jumper pins to allow three different pinouts to be supported by one product. It's a new thing we are doing.

But enough about Haltech. Since we don't sponsor this site I don't want to step on any toes. If anyone has any more Haltech questions they can PM me.

ChrisLol

Quick Update:

I'm embarrassed to say I never aligned this car or even inspected the components before getting it out on track...
So now aligned and installed some Paco Motorsports eccentric locks with new OEM nuts and bolts.



Snagged a set of take-off PWC tires from Tom O Gorman, ordered up some cheapo XXR wheels for track duty.



Mounted and balanced!



I scored some used V-Maxx Classics from a friend and set them at 12" front and 12.5" rear. Drove on the R-comps to work because I just couldn't help myself.



That's all for now. My fabricator has set aside some time for my manifold in the coming weeks so the turbo install is finally going to happen and just in time for GridLife Midwest! (Can't complain if they work for free right?)

ChrisLol

So I started this turbo install 2 1/2 weeks out from GridLife thinking that was plenty of time. Ended up dyno'ing and loading into the trailer the Wednesday before we left.
There was quite a thrash for this so I didn't take a ton of pictures of the processes but the major milestones are recorded.

Manifold was tacked together a couple weeks prior so there is no pictures of that but I did test fit it in order to tack the t2 flange and test fit/clock the turbo.


Fabricating lines and test fitting/deciding on routing. I used the handy oil and coolant ports on the 1.6 block for my sources. Talk about convenient!




In this picture the manifold is now fully welded and all intake piping is complete:

Another angle:

Another angle:

Yet another angle:




Time for a down pipe and B-pipe:
Welded and wrapped, everything fit like a glove. I had some great help from my friends on this stuff.



So with confidence I installed everything and started it up! It lit right off but seconds later my low oil pressure warning on the dash started going off and then eventually dropped to NO OIL PRESSURE!!!
After several troubleshooting measures we determined the pump wasn't creating any pressure. (Removed the oil filter and cranked and got 0 oil.)
My first thought was that the bypass valve was jammed open, I must have sucked up some aluminum shavings from drilling/tapping the pan... That means the motor has to come out. #$@&%*!

So frantically I started ripping and tearing: (GridLife is less than a week away at this point)


The engine was out in roughly 4 hours.


Dropped the pan (F#$@&%*! windage trays Mazda!)
Found I had damaged the oil pickup tube during drilling/tapping and minimal aluminum shavings:


Thankfully my welding skills are up to this task:


Roughly 4 working hours later the motor is back in and everything is re-installed:
(Our dyno was currently occupied so I had to wait until Wednesday to tune)


Unfortunately after all of that work it seems I'm going to need to do something about the wastegate. It opens at 5lbs like I wanted it to but the boost just keep climbing and shows no indication of slowing down.
Here's a dyno graph of a run that was aborted at ~5600 rpm. We aborted the run because it still made 7 lbs with the wastegate wired open and the BOV disconnected from vacuum and venting constantly...


Going to start with enlarging and porting the existing wastegate flapper this week.

If all else fails It'll get an external gate and weld that to the bottom of the manifold.

ChrisLol

Quick update:

Went to GridLife and overboosted on every straight. I kept my foot out of it and still managed to get a few sessions in and have some fun anyways.

No pictures of it on track. I couldn't find any. Too many cool cars to worry about pictures of a seemingly stock miata I guess.

When we got back I pulled the turbo, ported the wastegate opening and then the turbo would barely make any boost. It turns out I ported the wastegate opening too well and the 5lb spring wasn't enough to keep the exhaust in the housing so the wastegate flapper would blow open as I crossed the 0 psi mark. Instead of clamping the internal gate shut and getting an external gate I decided to buy a couple springs with higher ratings. Finally settled on a 12psi spring that would allow me to make 4 psi.

However, that just wasn't enough so I threw a boost control solenoid on it and turned the boost up to 7 psi. It takes about 65% duty cycle to do this though so I'm almost out of spring. I'll need a stronger one when the time comes to increase the boost more.

And this is the current state of affairs:

We moved to a new building with a bigger, cleaner shop and got a new badass hub-dyno. Also upgraded our old DD dyno controls courtesy of MainLine Dynamometers.


75hp more than it made stock. It'll do for now.


With all that sorted I now have a host of non-engine upgrades on the way:

Momo MOD.Drift 330mm steering wheel
NRG Quick Release and Short hub
Sparco PRO2000
Impact 5 point harness
Maxxis VR-1 Tires to replace the PWC Slicks. (Wanting to go to Street Mod class with GridLife and need something 200TW)

Post again soon!

Lexzar

iTrader: (2)

You may also want an undertray, idk what your temps look like, but it helped immensely with mine.

Beautiful car and build. I was looking at a turbo from the same people originally.

SBY makes me feel fuzzy inside.

ChrisLol

I have a factory undertray and some coroplast panel ducting that keeps air directed into the intercooler and radiator.

With a 195º thermostat the coolant sits at 195º in traffic and ~200º cruising. IAT's hover around 90-100º.

On track the coolant gets to be ~215º or so at the end of a session. IAT ~110º

Lexzar

iTrader: (2)

Oh I see it now in the latest picture.

Great build so far

psyber_0ptix

iTrader: (4)

What an awesome car!

ChrisLol

Recently hit the track with GridLife at Road Atlanta for the first time and had a blast! The car did a bit of overheating though so searching for solutions for this. Thinking about a couple different mods next including more complete ducting and some hood vents...

Recent mods:
Momo MOD.Drift 330mm steering wheel
NRG Quick Release and Short hub
Sparco PRO2000
Impact 6 point harness
Maxxis VR-1 Tires

Everything was easy. Except the seat. I ended up needing to do some cutting. But it wasn't low enough so I got carried away with the cutting. Because I cut it so close, I didn't get any pictures of anything except the seat install.

Started with this: I had originally removed the rear seat humps in order to get the OEM seat as low as possible.


Cut out the front hump and the CAT hump to get the seat centered on the wheel. But I wasn't as low as I wanted to be. Couldn't pass the broomstick test.


So I cut more...


And more...


And ended up with this ridiculous hole to fill...


So with the help of some CAD (Cardboard Aided Design) I ended up with a template:


The template turned into this sheet metal piece:


Which fit into the hole with some persuasion and clecos:


Was finally attached with a MIG welder: (My first attempt at MIG, wasn't too bad.)


Primed the bare metal, undercoated the bottom and finished the interior with adhesive backed felt sheets:


And Viola! Finished 2 days before GridLife South!


GridLife South Paddock:




On track sample image courtesy of NVUS Images:

ChrisLol

So based on my last on-track experience with temperatures being a little high I played with a few options for venting the hood and finally settled on some "Singular Style" NC louvers.

I created a file based on the Singular design but sized for the placement I chose on the NA and had a friend blast a set out for me and bent them accordingly.

Cut a template on my vinyl plotter and I was ready to start cutting:


Taking a drill/air saw to a perfectly good hood caused me to have a bit of nerves but it was done and it there was no going back:


Both holes now open:


Here is a picture of the underside of the hood showing the structure cut out. This is not as flimsy as it may seem but because the IL Motorsport hood struts are so strong It flexes quite a bit if you try to close it by pulling down on the leading edge of the hood. The solution for me was to start closing it by pulling down on the edge of the hood behind the headlights.


Some paint and some rivets and here we have a finished product:


I also pulled the intercooler and added some more coroplast panels to complete my radiator ducting. During this process I broke the hood release cable so I pulled the trigger on some Aerocatches as well. Might as well go full racecar now with the hood louvers going in...

Removing the stock hood latch gave me a great mounting location for my new horns (These were a christmas gift last year from a loved one concerned people would not see me in my small car)


Loaded up and ready for GridLife Rd5 @ Gingerman Raceway:


Glamour shot of NRG goodies, Momo Wheel and Haltech Dash:


Another on-track sample image courtesy of NVUS Images:


Now with things finished out for the year I have plans to do a complete engine harness re-wire and use a new Elite 1500 ECU instead.
The Elite 1500 is capable of many more motorsport specific features and also supports Drive-By-Wire... More on that later though.