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Car is looking awesome!
I have this distant plan to one day drive the Miata up for the pond skim. Skis strapped to the roll bar.
You're not at the ski area anymore right? Hope you're weathering these times ok...
Car is looking awesome!
I have this distant plan to one day drive the Miata up for the pond skim. Skis strapped to the roll bar.
You're not at the ski area anymore right? Hope you're weathering these times ok...
Thanks man. I'm working in IT again as a Linux sysadmin, and keeping busy! It's a Taos based company but we're all WFH. All is well, hope the same for you! I of course had a ski pass and was enjoying the year until all this craziness happened, was some good powder days this season! I've driven the miata to snowboard before, but only because my gear was already in my locker at the valley. Was a fun time, but too much traffic in the canyon during ski times for my tastes
I just spent several hours reading this thread from start to finish (hadn't checked in on your build for a few years). Lots of good learning that I can apply to my build. Your car sounds like a blast. Thank for sharing.
A small but awesome update. My car is now running on a Trubokitty ms3x using a 36-2 trigger wheel and CPS!
Just got it running last night. First got the MS3x running on my CAS, dialed in the req fuel and idle settings, then cut the CAS off to wire in the 99-00 sensors. In hindsight I would have went straight to the 99-00 sensors, but in my mind at the time I wanted to change as few things as possible to avoid headache.
On the 99-00 sensors, just set it to Miata 36-2 in the ms3, and it fired right up. Then I dialed in my base timing. The timing looks much more solid and less "jumpy" with the new timing system compared to the CAS (looking at it with a timing light).
Now I've got to button everything up and get it retuned, which I'll be working on over the next week. I have a track day on Aug 28, so I'm just working on getting it ready for that.
Aug 28 track day was postponed. I'm now going on Sept 20, hopefully this one sticks.
Lots of progress of course. Cars been running on the MS3, runs fantastic on mostly the trubokitty basemap. It's running his 99 timing map on the 36-2 trigger, and I basically took all the parts from the 99 map that apply to my car (such as the IAC valve settings, timing/fuel maps, and my COP settings) and put it on the 90-93 base map. No issues so far, this timing map has a lot more timing at high RPMs than my old one, and it shows. Really rips on the top end now.
In other news, this was a fun little project. More of a PITA than I was expecting to be honest, but I got it done! Went with the S2 throttle body to avoid ingesting a throttle body screw (or other debris from a failing TB).
Port matching the flat top manifold to match the new Skunk2 throttle body:
Starting to tear it apart:
Finally off!
And the (mostly) finished product:
First impressions of the s2 and flattop are that it's a huge upgrade. I'll elaborate more on this later, but initial throttle response is crazy, the engine feels much lighter, the turbo appears to be spooling several hundred RPM faster, and the top end is clearly improved. This is only at about 12PSI, so I'm sure these gains will be even better once I'm running "man boost". Though 10-12psi is all I'll run at the track for now, as that keeps me within the class I'm running at, where I'm supposed to have no more than a 9:1 power to weight ratio. The plans are to get this thing running on flex fuel (already have the parts, so that's next!), then run 18-20 psi on the street and see what it does (for science!), but turn it back down for the track.
And an update on the motor build: It's been running perfectly. It consumes a tiny bit of oil, but I don't even have to add any oil between 3k mile intervals, and that's with trackdays in the mix, so it's obviously not a problem. I chalk up the slight oil usage to valve stem seals, as they were replaced, but the valve seats were not. The machine shop said they were "in spec", but the more reading I've done says if those are loose you can have valve stem seal leakage. Or maybe it's coming past the piston rings, I did tell the builder to go to "the loose side of OE spec" on those. No real accumulation in the catch can to speak of. None the less, the motor has been a peach and I'm thrilled with how well everything has been holding up, and hope for many more track days outta this thing.
The whole car is really well sorted right now and I'm really happy with it. Future plans:
More seat time
Install these frog arms I have laying around
Flex Fuel / E85
Valve cover and breather mods. Just looking to delete the pass side vent, and enlarge/add additional vents to the drivers side. This is as per savington and emillio's recommendations for venting a track car.
Paint / vinyl wrap (i have a garage in the works on my property, which will finally allow me to put some love into this aspect of the car)
It's been a long time coming boys, but I've got a pretty ******* badass miata right now if I say so myself.
Running about 12psi, about 240whp according to virtual dyno pulls. Car rips, perfect power for the track.
However, I have something that's perplexing me. Ever since I got the car running on the MS3 and the 36-2 trigger, it's been set to rising edge triggering. Today, shortly after doing a bunch of pulls, the car started having sync loss issues. The tach would flutter, so would the tunerstudio dash, at the same time. Clearly trigger wheel related from my understanding. My first thought was the sensor got out of adjustment somehow, so I pulled into a gas station and re-adjusted it, and fired the car back up and immediately had more issues. It got to the point where it would barely idle, and hardly even run without the tach cutting out erratically just sitting there revving trying to keep it alive.
I ended up switching this to a falling edge pickup, cycled the key, and it fired right back up. The drive home was smooth as butter with no more issues. Out of curiosity, when I got home again, I switched it back to rising edge (where it has been set at and running fine for weeks now), and the car would not run.
So tomorrow I'm going to re-time the car now that it's using falling edge and thoroughly flog it again. I need this thing reliable, as I have a track day next weekend. Making me nervous.
My understanding is that switching from rising to falling (or vice versa) can help with interference between the crank and cam sensor pickups, or something to that extent. Why the heck would it suddenly act up like this? It really has me perplexed, and hopefully keeping it on falling edge fixes the issue for good.
Re-timed the car and took it out on a good shakedown drive with the falling edge trigger setting. So far so good, no issues, and I was flogging on the car as best I could to simulate track abuse. Track day is this weekend, so here's hoping that issue is fixed. I'm feeling really good about it.
Make sure your timing doesn't shift with RPM. I've seen that before with incorrect edge settings.
Thanks for the tip! I did check that, with the timing locked at 10* after I set the timing I revved the engine a bunch, and the timing stayed rock solid at the 10* it was set to. Much more solid than the old CAS, which you could see the timing shift a few degrees when revving with it locked.
Went racing, had fun, got humbled, will do again. 3.5 hours driving each way, raced in the time attack, did some tourism with my GF. Fan-*******-tastic time and not as much as a single issue with the car. Just set tire pressures, drove hard, then drove home.
Glad to see after all these years of slowly (and properly) building this car, that you’re still using it way it should be.
Cats
many cats
Thanks! It's been a long road with this car and I'm just glad that it's at a point that I drive it more than tinker with it. Things are looking promising for next year, so once I get my own shop built on my property with a nice place to park this thing I'd like to get it looking nice.
Originally Posted by adamiata
I see you have Lotus seats. I have Lotus seats too. What are you using for belts on the track?
Just stock belts for now. However these seats were modified with harness slots in them by their previous owner, so I could certainly run some harnesses on the car. I drive it on the street more than the track so stock belts are staying for now. Love these seats though!
Just stock belts for now. However these seats were modified with harness slots in them by their previous owner, so I could certainly run some harnesses on the car. I drive it on the street more than the track so stock belts are staying for now. Love these seats though!
Thank you, sir. I'm weighing my options for future track use. Good to know I don't necessarily need to decide before I try it out. Would you add another hole in the bottom for 5/6 points, or just do a 4 point with an ASM system?
I like my Elise seats but don't love them. They're snug in some places but loose in others, but maybe I'm too picky. I had to try a few belt configurations to get the lap belt low enough that it was on my pelvic bones and not my stomach, ended up going with short NA8 receiver stalks mounted to the NA6 locations on the transmission tunnel.
Your pics make me miss New Mexico and the west in general. I had a day to go up Wheeler Peak back in 2015 and it was awesome.
Thank you, sir. I'm weighing my options for future track use. Good to know I don't necessarily need to decide before I try it out. Would you add another hole in the bottom for 5/6 points, or just do a 4 point with an ASM system?
I like my Elise seats but don't love them. They're snug in some places but loose in others, but maybe I'm too picky. I had to try a few belt configurations to get the lap belt low enough that it was on my pelvic bones and not my stomach, ended up going with short NA8 receiver stalks mounted to the NA6 locations on the transmission tunnel.
Your pics make me miss New Mexico and the west in general. I had a day to go up Wheeler Peak back in 2015 and it was awesome.
Wheeler peak is an awesome hike, glad you got to do it! That's a good question, I've not heavily considered adding harnesses to mine since I daily drive the car so often and no track events I've done (or have wanted to do) have required them. I've been trying to maintain a balance of trackability and streetability, and it's tough. I have the car pretty dialed with acceptable NVH and I'm thinking about adding a stereo back in, but I also want to further develop the car to be faster on the track as well.
That said, I just picked up some more parts, and I must say, these sons of bitches are SEXY. I now understand the hype after holding them in my hand, they are much lighter feeling than expected, and have such nice fine details like the anti slip texture on the bead seating surface, and the 949 racing text forged into them, etc. They are 15x9 Tungsten, and to be honest a dream wheel for this car.
05-13-2020, 11:35 AM
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