Fooger's Build
 

Well, I'm back from a year of deployment. I had two goals while I was there - Pay off every single bill that I owe (Student loans, car loans, etc. etc.), and save up some extra $$$ to throw into my hobby once I got back home.

Surely you've guessed, the Miata is the 'hobby' in question. A 1994 A-Package in classic red. I picked it up from the local stealership for $6k (this was before I knew better) in 2004 with just under 60k miles on it when my trusty silverado (1990 black, short cab, full bed, 5.7L, 200k miles) blew out a rear main seal, and my dad convinced me it wasn't worth the work to replace.

When I bought the Miata, I had searched probably 15 lots in the columbus area, and was ready to go home for the weekend. At each dealership, I gave the used car salesman two requirements....

It had to be a two-door
It had to have a five speed

I got a "sorry, don't have anything like that" at basically every dealership...the sneaky ones also tried the "but maybe you'd like....instead".

F That.

Convinced my dad to stop at one last dealership before going home. He didnt even get out of the car. Met the salesman at the door, gave him the requirements, and got a "yeah, we got that, right over here".

We took a short test drive, talked loan terms, and slept on it. Came back the next day, and after some quick paperwork I had the keys to my shiny new 10 year old red car (and my first car loan payment). I didn't even know what a Miata was, just that I had a Miata, and some shit-eating ear-to-ear grin.

50k miles and 4 years later I knew what a gem of a car I had - and I finally saved up enough to drop into an FMII Hydra kit, with all the supporting mods. I spent much more on that purchase than I had on the car itself when I bought it - but I've always had a theory - "do it right, the first time"

I put an NB Head on the car at the same time I did the turbo. Had a few kinks to work out at first, but eventually I got it all worked out. Right about the time I had everything working in near perfect harmony I got a phone call:

"Hey, it's the battalion commander, you sitting down?"

"No, Sir. I'm standing next to a Humvee." (I know it's spelled HMMWV)

"Well, you might want to lean on it..."

It was a 30 day notice that I was getting deployed. Son of a Bitch!

Well, I got deployed, and so sat the car.
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I did manage to get it to a couple auto-x before jumping the puddle.
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At one point, it was driven from Columbus, OH to LA for R&D of FM's 3" NA Exhaust. It was some guy I had never met, most of you will know him as VagaXT or Sonny. They fitted it with a new 3" exhaust after the design was approved, and the car sat for several months at my aunt's house in LA until I got home and drove it back.

The day I got home from LA, I drove it into my garage, parked it, and started tearing it to teensy little pieces. I had lots of new toys to add to it. This is where my build begins.

First off: Maybe it actually began when I was in LA with the car for a week. I ordered FCM Coilovers, new brake pads, rotors, an FM front sway, and some end-links. I had most of it shipped straight to my aunt's house. I kinda felt like a terrorist when I checked my bag with a huge front sway bar duct-taped to the outside of it...

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The first thing I did after I got home was tear out the engine...I've never done something like this before, so no idea what to expect - and couldn't find anyone to help out :(
Note to self: Take off the shift lever next time - what a pain in the ass THAT was!!!
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Also took out some other fun parts:
Rear differential out - took it out as a single unit with the PPF because of that pesky exact fit sleeve thing -
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And some new toys going into the diff :D
3.636 R&P!!!!
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Of course, had to rip most of the 3" exhaust out to get to anything...Only thing left on the car is the muffler.
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The engine bay is ugly as all hell without an engine to plug things up - WTF am i going to do with all this crap?
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Here's the random odds and ends that came off the engine before I took it to the shop. Lots of extra crap laying around.
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I just dropped this pretty thing in tonight. Walbro 190lph HP fuel pump. Next time I do a fuel pump, I might take off the soft top first - it might almost be easier...
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Additionally - I decided to do a foamectomy, but to the extreme. Screw taking out just the foam. I took out the seat covers, the headrest speakers, the seatbelts, the rails...all of it, gone. You wont believe how much legroom and headroom I have now!! The passenger side too!!! :P
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Here are the seats, out of the car:
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And here are the katzkins leather pieces going on them. These seat covers are absolutely gorgeous, top rate. I ordered twin seat heaters too, but I haven't gotten them yet, so the seats will sit until I get the heaters.
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Accompanied by some new Clearwater headrest speakers, of course:
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While deployed, I picked up a mazdaspeed tranny off here (MT.net) in the classifieds. I didn't get a shifter with it, the whole assembly was another couple hundred dollars :( I'm glad I made the purchase though. The red tranny fluid that I put into the 5-speed about 10,000 miles earlier was now a very pretty metallic silver color. Hmm...how odd....
Old and busted on the right, new hotness on the left:
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There are plenty of other fun things that haven't been installed yet. Obviously some of them require an engine first:

M-tuned coolant reroute kit:
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Hydramist WI System:
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Mazdacomp Motor Mounts:
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Garage Vary Front Lip:
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FM Hard Line Kit and Silicone lower radiator hose:
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Also have engine internals that I never got pics of - Belfab Rods, Supertech 9.0:1 Pistons, ARP Studs, Boundary Engineering Oil Pump, ATI Super Damper Pulley, and probably some other parts that have skipped my mind.

Current status of the engine - It's at my builder right now, Stewart Engines out of Indianapolis. They've been doing lots of fun things with it. Basically rebuilding the whole thing - the bottom end with parts I have supplied. They are doing a full top end rebuild with a supertech kit they sourced with slightly stiffer springs. They will be gasket matching the IM, and porting the internal wastegate on the 2560. I had overboost issues after the install of the full 3" FM exhaust, so hopefully the wastegate porting will solve the issue. They are also drilling and re-tapping the exhaust manifold and turbo housing to accept M10x1.5 Studs as opposed to the M8 Studs supplied by FM. I am currently working with Stephanie at BEGi to get an Inconel turbo stud set from them when they become available, hopefully this month. It's probably overkill, but I like the possibility that I can "fix it and forget it"

The differential is across the street from the engine builder at AIM Tuning - getting the 3.636 R&P put in it.

I've been looking for a hardtop for quite awhile now. I finally found one, reasonably priced, on craigslist about two weeks ago. $3500.

The best part is, it came with a "winter beater" attached to it!!!
This was as I bought it:
Attachment 201499

Here it sits in the garage with my stock '94 wheels on it, blizzaks mounted:
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I'm still not sure if I want to keep the top and sell of the car this spring, or keep the car as a winter car...

And I got an extra set of wheels from the guy too...I think i'm beginning to have too damned many wheels/tires. I have two sets of wheels and tires for every vehicle I own now, except the motorcycle...and I already have the second set of wheels for that - just waiting for a summer track day to put slicks on those wheels.
Make that FOUR sets total of miata tires/wheels:
Attachment 201501
And two sets to fit a mitsubishi montero sport - a 3-season set, and a snow set.

My power goals are 300 RWHP. If I can make more than that safely, then it's just an added bonus. I have no intention to track the car, but it does see auto-x duty. The idea is a suprisingly powerful and fun daily driver. It won't look 'overdone' from the outside. The only hints that a passing motorist will have is the FMIC in the front and a 3" Exhaust coming out the rear. From the side, you'll see only the 6ULs wrapped in RS2's (ok, RS3's eventually) and the ever so slight suspension drop - if you know what you're looking for.

I have ideas for how best to 'gauge' the interior. If I can get the motivation and the resources, I've got an idea in my head for the 'best' way to get two gauges in the car to look stock, and damned good.

For the exterior, I was considering just a classic red, or slightly darker red repaint. After having the black NB for a couple weeks, I think I may have changed my mind. It looks like the car may end up black, with a bold 'racing stripe' design I have in my head.

I'll update as I go - or as I remember to.

Nice start to your build, those pics were killing my Blackberry.

Ricky Bobby wouldn't drive with that windshield decal, car would look much better without it.

Thanks for your service.

LOL, thanks
The windshield decal is no more

:eek:

Good story, and an amazing amount of money spent. But if you said you paid off all your bills, loans, and credit cards, then why not! Any idea how much you've spent?

ouch...it hurts too much...make it stop!

Id say close to 7

He's got to be over $10k. The Hydra kit is $5,300.

Nice build, and nice writeup.

C

Thanks for your service Fooger! Good luck with the car.

@chris
maybe double that - without original purchase of the car

@rweatherford
thank you sir, it's my pleasure to serve

no new updates yet.

Awesome build thread :D

I just got back from Afghanistan about 4 weeks ago.. maybe we were near each other?

Good luck with the build, everything is looking good :D

Yay updates!!! Everyone loves an updates!!!
 

Time for more miata porn -

I did a quickie install of the clearwater speakers, went from this...
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To this...
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Also got my mazda comp diff mounts in...
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Best news ever: Engine and Differential are back from the builders!!!!
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I know, I know, it looks like an engine, so what...
I've also been tearing apart the passenger's side of the engine bay, here's a before and after of the twin EGR solenoids with mounts -->
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And OH MY GOSH, CRAZY WIREZ ARE EVERYWHERE!
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But im getting the bay cleared up a little bit, trying to make wires prettier and the bay nicer - some things are going back of course, but compare this to the WD-40 photo earlier...
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Next time I get down on this, I'd like to tear out the brake master cylinder/booster solenoid so I can get into that corner better where I've got primer sprayed over everything - I tell you what, brake fluid gets on crap, and it gets NASTY in there...ugh.

I got the clutch on the engine as kind of a last-thing-before-i-wrap-it-up-for-the-night deal. I got the damn thing on, then realized i'd forgotten the damned trans plate - shit - back off, then on again...

Motor mounts and the heavy ass A/C bracket all have been sandblasted and primered, waiting paint and mount.

I'm in the market for a nice catch can if anyone has a spare - two 'in' lines with a VTA preferred - no idea where to find one right now.

My nice powdercoated valve cover was stripped to bare aluminum at the engine shop, then repainted - they did a hurry-up job on the repaint, it looks ugly as hell, now i'm going to have to strip it down myself and re powdercoat the thing - shit.

Thats all for now, hopefully gomiata and katzkins figure out the backordered seat heaters soon so i can do the reupholstery - i can't wait on that project!!!

This build is looking great so far, great job! I can't wait to see how it turns out. I can't wait until I'm in a position to build the motor in mine....one day!

Hey, thanks Turbo! I'm really enjoying taking my time on this, I'd love to have it on the road by April, and fully repainted by early May. When you get the chance to do an engine build, I'm sure youll enjoy it too!!!

Started reassembling the block last night, slowly. Got the brake master cylinder and booster off, got everything below it primered and ready for paint. The 6-speed is mated with the proper trans plate and a smaller NB starter.

Does anyone know if the smaller NB starters are bracketed to the block like the NA starters were, or are they just bolted to the tranny in 3 places?

More pics to come soon!

This just came in the mail today....
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I found a rattle-can and might have messed things up a bit....the color doesn't look right. Dont know if i want to go get the right color paint, leave it the way it is, or do the whole bay in this...
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And started reassembly, haven't been moving too awfully fast...
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I've pretty much been blasting and painting everything before it goes on the engine - trying to get rid of as much of the ugly as I can. The P/S and A/C compressors are going to be a bit more difficult unless I choose to disconnect them - I dont wanna - esp. the A/C.

I got a late start today...some dude got pwned at an intersection, took me half an hour to go half a mile, wtf...
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Engine bay, oh engine bay...what to do?...

Ok, hell, I'll do it...
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So was working on the alternator, got the whole thing tore down, cleaned up, painted, and put back together -
Here's the before pic...
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And the after pic, mounted up, and ready to go!
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Yes, It's the same exact alternator, just purdier :D


While I was cleaning parts up, I got a good look at the lower alternator mounting bolt....

HOLY GRADE 6 HARDWARE BATMAN!!!
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I wonder how many more thousands of miles this bolt is going to last now that I put it back in....

And that's all I got for ya today!

Just a quickie for today - Before and after pics.

Enjoy!
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Beyond the "roadster" emblem, seats look awesome.

Thank you thank you thank you for cleaning your alternator, everyone ignores them. I've considered doing the $60 rebuild simply to have it come back clean.

If you can get that damned front pulley off the alternator, its absolute CAKE to disassemble, clean, and reassemble.....


....like I said - If you can get that damned front pulley off

Looks like it, especially if you have a bead blasting cabinet available. What's everyone's trick to getting the pulley off, impact hammer while the belts still holding it?

thats probably a good way. i used a bad way and fuxxored up the pulley.

hindsight, undo the 4 bolts holding the case together, pull the case apart. the rotor will be attached to the pulley end. it will be somewhat difficult to pull out (but not crazy impossible) as you're pulling the rear bearing out with it. the .... wirey part (is that the 'stator?')... will be attached to the other end. You may have better luck getting leverage on the rotor part after you pull the halves apart than on the pulley belt.

once it's apart, there are 3 screws inside the rear half - one is tough to get at, but if you pull the stator out a bit, its easy.

When you put everything back together, theres a pinhole in the rear case. you'll have to hold the brushes (springy things) down with your finger and stick a pin through the pinhole - this will hold the brushes in place as you assemble the alternator. once you are done, pull the pin out and the brushes will spring back to life

Thats pretty much it

blast cabinet, $119 at harbor freight, includes blast gun

Nice to see that car get a really good once-over and a makeover. Great job so far!

Update -Been awhile, but got the entire drivetrain in, differential, ppf, engine+tranny - WOOT!
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My nice, new shifter :D This one goes to 6, unlike regular ones that only go to 5. So when you're on 5, and you need that extra little bit, you can crank it up another notch!!!
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The red on the center console is going away once I'm all done.

And a teaser, finger painted into the dust, for what the future holds....
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I hope I don't lose too much of the 'stock' appearance by doing this.... :eek:

Hope to have this thing back on the road by next weekend!!!

SUCCESS!!!! well...almost.
 

It's taken me like 2 months (was end of October when I actually took the engine out), but finally got the engine in the car!
Yay!
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It runs!
Yay!
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Only one problem...

The only way i was able to prime the oil pump was through this 'priming port' on the pump housing:
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Which isn't really a huge issue, just requires unbolting some of the alternator brackets to get a 6mm hex, u-joint, extension, and ratchet in there - then reattach alternator bracket, retighten belt, and be on our merry way! Car started right up, set the timing with the Hydra, and it runs smooth as butter - 90 psi oil pressure on cold start, dropping down to about 15psi at full operating temperature (per the stock oil pressure gauge).

........




........




........



After sitting for about 30-45 minutes, the oil pump loses it's prime....


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.......




......





And there's only one way to reprime the oil pump when that happens.....



......



.......



.......


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FML


My builder said "that shit sucks" and said he would take care of me if i brought the engine back to him - we can put a stock oil pump back in.

He builds a lot of spec miata engines. They did over 100 miata engines in total last year alone, said this is the first one he's ever heard of doing this.

I emailed travis - waiting to hear from him now.

took the engine back to the builder in indianapolis today, (3 hours one way) and we tore down to the oil pump assembly. it turns out that a 1999 or later oil pump housing was put on the car with the boundary engineering gears. (they also ended up putting a 1999 or later block on the car without a convenient oil pickup port) there was one issue we found though. the 1999 and later oil pump housing (ending in "6D" marked on the pump" and gears are 25 thousandths of an inch thicker than the 1994 pump. (they changed it over in july of 2000 - likely to add some oil pumping ability to support VVT and superceded the 1999/2000 pumps for purposes of ordering a new pump, which really isnt an issue if you're not changing gears out) that 25 thousandths of an inch was plenty enough to allow air to flow across the pump gears from the high pressure side to the low pressure side and keep the pump from pulling vacuum when the engine was running. once there was a viscous fluid in the assembly, it was able to maintain normal operating pressure. I was smart enough to 2-day air a new 1994 pump assembly from mazdaspeed and we simply changed out the billet gears (the difference in thickness was enough to feel with your fingers on the 1999/later pump housing. Stock specs for side clearance on the pump gears is something like 3-5 thousandths of an inch, the boundary set was 3.5 thousandths, with an open mesh clearance and outer gear to wall clearances being dead center in the spec range. My builder worked pretty close with me today, I did the simple shit, and he walked me through the precision stuff. The whole shop there is a pretty good crew - they probably had a dozen miata engines in every stage of teardown and rebuild.

I'm working out of town all weekend, but with any luck, I'll be able to get the whole thing back in and running by the end of next week.

Car is running!!!

Oil pump self-primed after 10 seconds of cranking after housing switch, installed everythign and filled it up with fluids. Started it up and it sounded good! The Garage Vary Lip looks GREAT on the front of the car. Leather seats are win, seat heaters installed and working. The new headrest speakers function perfectly. 6-speed transmission reverse sensor was all banged up and leaking tranny fluid = bad. I ordered a new sensor from mazda motorsports and plugged it in. Went out for the first test drive and my speedo wasn't working! Yikes. Pulled the speedo gear out, did some troubleshooting, and determined the gear was too small to work with the 4.10:1 sleeve in the tranny. Forum searched pulled up a part number in hustler's "speedo gear fail" thread. Ordered and waiting on that part while turning the 4.10 gear in the 3.636 setup. Speedo should be about 12% pessimistic, so driving accordingly. Daily driven now for 2 days to and from work without problems. Car pulls strong, but i feel like I'm having to relearn the clutch again after driving the stock '99 all winter. Got home from work today, pulled the car into the garage. Took the mail inside then walked back out to pop the hood for a quick inspection. On my way to the car I hear a loud "whoosh!" and think "oh god, what now?"..... The lower radiator hose came off the radiator. Antifreeze all over the garage floor.

Fortunately someone had the insight to install sloped floors and drains in the garage.
Unfortunately I just poured two gallons of hot antifreeze into the sewer system.
Fortunately the radiator hose popped off 30 seconds AFTER i shut the car off. (How freaking lucky is THAT!?)
Unfortunately I have to run to the store to get more antifreeze now.
Fortunately, this is the only "leak" I've had since starting the car the first time after the rebuild.

When I did the initial turbo install, there were half a dozen leaks I had to track down before I got it all right...

:cool:



Subscribed.

Nice build

Nice pic JBrown btw

AA++ build

Thanks! still tracking down a few issues including an motor oil leak out of the gear housing - pretty sure it's the oil pan seal, but I'm going to UV it to make sure. Might get the engine back together by 4 july. Already replaced the front tranny seal (when i wasnt sure if it was motor oil or not) and then the rear crank seal to no avail. Also checked the CAS, but got no love from that.

The major rust spots were cleaned up - took the car to a restoration shop where they cut out all the crap (it was REALLY bad on the passenger's side) formed new pieces, and welded them back on. That metal looks great, just need to get the car to a body and paint shop, but I keep wanting to wait for that until after I get the engine sorted.

The radiator hose coming off was due (i believe) to my radiator cap malfunctioning and not allowing pressure to bleed off.

New cap = Easy fix.

Just to be doubly sure it wont come off there again, I put two hose clamps on the hose at the radiator ;)

I see $$$$$$$ flyin everywhere

To the stratosphere.

Small update to this thread...

Fixed some problems, including resealing the oil pan where builder fucked it up when we replaced the oil pump.

Where once there was rocker panel rust...
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now there is.....
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And got something else accomplished today...
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About to get a hard run at this to try and 'finish it' again. We'll see if it all works right, or if there's a partout thread around the corner :eek: I'm getting sick of this car not running.

Look what came in the mail today!
 

Robbins cloth top w/heated zippered window. I can finally replace that tan POS on the car!!

Attachment 195251

Shit runz yo!

Oil leak fixed, no more puddles! Thank god! I've got a little bitty tranny fluid leak (1-2 drips parked overnight) The copper washer on my tranny drain plug isn't sized right. I'm going to get a new pair of washers for the plugs and I expect that should fix the problem. Drove to Cincinnati and back, (2 hours each way) and only ran into two problems:
I had the car closed up and A/C on full blast on a 95 degree day. I looked down at the gauges at one point to see it running full hot! Turned the car off and coasted to the side. Turned the key on w/o starting the car to let the fans cool the radiator charge for a minute or two before staring the car with A/C off and watching the gauge drop. Limped it to the next exit and stopped at a gas station, picked up a bottle of 50/50, cracked the radiator cap and let it boil for a minute before opening it up. Filled up the radiator, started the car, and then continued dumping 50/50 into the radiator as the water pump sucked it on down. When all was said and done, I dumped half a gallon of coolant into the radiator before it filled. Capped it, and continued on my way, windows down. Didn't have any cooling problems w/o A/C on. At one point, I turned the A/C back on to "1", and after about 7-8 minutes I watched the needle start running from 11:30 to about 12:30 pretty quick. Shut the A/C off and dropped back down to 11:30 in about 30 seconds. On the way back, weather was cooler and rainy. Had the A/C running and the needle never moved, thankfully. My initial assessment is that I'm boiling coolant due to a weak radiator cap. The cap I previously had failed to release pressure (blew off lower radiator hose) and I replaced it with a 13psi cap. I installed a 16psi cap on it last night, and I'm ordering a higher pressure cap today. Before the rebuild, I could run my A/C full tilt on a scorching hot day and not see the needle climb past 11:45, after the rebuild, I had the radiator cap problem and put on the 13psi cap. I also added the coolant reroute to the new build, so I would expect my cooling ability to have increased pretty significantly.
About the time I got into Cincinnati, I started hearing a very faint squeal, after some testing, decided it was entirely speed based, not RPM based and not load based. Thought it was coming from the front right wheel at first. Stopped and checked the wheel bearings: no play. On the return trip, the squeal got a little louder, and seemed like it only happened when something warmed up, at slower speeds it would eventually go away. At one point it was loud enough that I determined it was coming from behind the instrument cluster, my passenger agreed. A new speedometer cable has been ordered.

The robbins top had absolutely TERRIBLE instructions. There were at least two times where it says:

4. Do this procedure
5. Before you do 4, you will want to:.....

WHAT THE FUCK!? If you want me to do 5 before 4, then make 5->4 and make 4->5....bastards!

I'm thinking about moving the outside edges of the black stripes out by about 2" before I take it to paint...
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I don't know what to do with the mirrors yet.

Doesn't make a lot of sense to me that the lower pressure cap is allowing the car to overheat unless you are boiling the AF out of the radiator. (which could happen)

Any readouts showing what the coolant temp actually is?

Does the hose in the overflow bubble when it is running or when hot?

Overflow tank get too full?

When it was overheating, the coolant was boiling into the overflow tank. I'm still trying to figure out if boiling coolant was the cause or the effect. It's probably time to do some ducting. The 16psi cap held out slightly better than the 13psi cap on my way home today, 90 degrees and maxxed AC. I don't have any exact readouts on temp. I wasn't logging. Overheating only happens when the AC has been running for an extended period of time (10 minutes or more under freeway cruise) Accel/boost/load doesn't seem to affect it as one might expect from a faulty/blown head gasket.

at a minumum put the factory underbody tray on if you dont have it on now.

that helped my issues which seemed like an air pocket when i was driving..... aka would heat up hot hot and then rapidly drop to regular.

I experienced running 'trayless' when i did the original turbo install in 2008. after seeing what it did for my temps, I've ran with the tray ever since, and advocated that everyone else do the same. I need to do some ducting though.

Tuned base timing and did a little fuel autotuning, car has been running fantastic at 8psi. Put the boost controller on today, went out, warmed up the car, and then put the pedal to the floor on the way to the gas station for a refill. Turbo/Intake sounded louder than it ever had before, boost went to 10psi and stayed there, car felt like it had less than the original 8psi.... figured I blew a hose off. Sure as shit, when I got to the gas station, checked to find that the intercooler hose blew off the compressor housing. Got it back home under vacuum and let it cool off. Pulled off the intake tubing and loosened the compressor hose clamp to find out that the hose itself had split!!! I think i clamped it too hard and tore it? Does silicone tear like that? There's just not a lot on the compressor high side for the hose to clamp to. If I clamp it too lose, the hose wont hold.

Shit, Now I've got to tear out the hose and fix/replace....With hard water lines, Power steering, and A/C, this is going to be another royal pain in the ass.

At least I don't have to pull the block...

You have the nice silicone hoses from FM, right? See what they say about it. Maybe talk them into replacing it. I popped off some IC piping once as I was leaving base, punched the gas right after getting through the gate and BOOM. Kinda embarassing as I was still on my Emanage setup and had to limp the car to the next driveway.

I feel you on the one issue after another...it's been a year and a half since I turbo'd my Miata, and while it has made a trip across the country and then some, I just can't seem to get everything "right".

Great build, sir!

Thanks messiah!

Yeah, got the replacement hose today, and I installed it. Also replaced the copper washer on the transmission drain plug, and I got the speedo cable replaced. Seems like everything is fixed on the car for now. I even drove out to Home Depot to get some sheet aluminum, in hopes I could do a little bit of ducting (but they were closed when I arrived at 920 pm).

Went out this evening to setup the MBC. After warming up the car, I got the MBC dialed in to 12 PSI at low rpm. The first time I stepped on it, it boost creeped like a mother fucker. Straight up to 15 psi and boost cut. Evidently, the WG wasn't ported well enough for 12psi. It held perfect at 8psi though, and so a marked improvement over original. I soo don't want to take this turbo back out, maybe I can get a steel sheet, cut a 2.5" hole in the thing, and bolt the fucker between two exhaust sections until winter? I don't want to pay for EWG - FML.

Autocross this weekend. If a sheet between two exhaust sections doesnt cut it, then I'll be running at 8psi....maybe not such a terrible thing?

Played around a little bit with the exhaust. Threw in a 2.5" restrictor plate to see if it would help with boost creep:
Attachment 194828

Didnt seem to help, so I thought maybe I needed to go smaller. Cut out a 2" restrictor and tried again:
Attachment 194829

Neither did anything for my boost creep - what they did do was make boost response absolutely terrible. I took them both out, and went to running on wastegate. Oddly enough, I got the same boost creep at 8psi.

I fiddled with my wastegate actuator for awhile. I even put two washers between the WG Mounting bracket and the compressor to see if I could get it to open the WG farther. Changed "wastegate pressure" to 5psi, and still creeped up to 15 psi at redline. Replaced the actuator to its original position and went back to 8psi base. After playing with it and trying to figure out why I was getting creep at 8psi now, but no boost creep at 8psi BEFORE I tried the boost controller, I went :idea: - I believe the silicone charge pipe i replaced was radially torn prior to me adding the controller, and letting enough air out that the wastegate held 8psi, but not enough that I noticed it happening. Well, I guess I'll continue to deal with boost creep for awhile...

I also decided to do some ducting. I <3 Jackstands:
Attachment 194830

Here's a pic of the upper sheet completed:
Attachment 194831

Will let you all know how it all works next time I turn the A/C on while driving down the freeway on a 95* day.

wow nice car im not use to seeing that much craftsmanship on a car with that much diy work excellent

Overheating problem solved - I hope
 

Thanks Stinging!

Ducting didnt fix my cooling issue.

160* Thermostat didnt fix the issue, but it did seem to help *barely*. I guess a fully open t-stat is a fully open t-stat, regardless of whether it opened up at 160* or 180*. (By the way, in case anyone is wondering, the thermostat in the M-Tuned coolant reroute is a 54mm thermostat, not a stock 52mm thermostat)

With a little bit of experimenting, I found that, when the car overheats (A/C On), and the needle moves to about the 1 o'clock position (Takes about 3-5 minutes to move to the 1 o'clock position, and will continue to climb if I let it), if I slide the heat control from full cold to full hot (leaving the A/C on), the temp gauge will return to normal in 10-20 seconds.

So, Here are the eliminated possibilities:

Airflow through radiator:
1: Stock undertray is in place (and with regard to this issue, has always been in place)
2: Airflow path has been ducted to ensure that air goes through radiator, including the big holes at the top of the radiator, and some work underneath and in the sides.
3: Fans are nearly new SPAL units, sourced through FM. These things move A TON of air. First fan kicks on and off at idle, and runs pretty much constantly under any sort of load. The second fan kicks on with the A/C, and anytime the car gets a little warmer than normal.

Hardware:
1: 55mm all aluminum race radiator sourced through FM at time of the original turbo install
2: M-Tuned Coolant reroute, orignially with 180* thermostat, now with 160* thermostat +two 5/32" holes.
3: Had a 13psi radiator cap, replaced with a 16psi radiator cap, no change in outcome from this.

Coolant properties:
1: I've been running approximately a 30/70 mix of antifreeze/distilled.
2: I've tried burping the cooling system to ensure that all of the air pockets are out of the engine. With the reroute, this meant jacking up the REAR of the car, then dropping the left side of the car while picking up the front right, then dropping the rear of the car while picking up the front left. Once the front of the car was in the air, I removed the uppermost of the threaded plugs from the water neck, and water began coming out, no air.

Coolant flow properties:
When I replaced the 180* t-stat with the 160* t-stat, I had already began to suspect that this was my problem. There just isn't an easy way to prove it. I have not bypassed the heater core (I live in Ohio, It is faily common to use the heater in the morning, the AC in the afternoon, and go topless in the evening), so it still exists as a restriction in that portion of the cooling path - but after my experience with moving the heater switch to full hot, I questioned "how much" of a restriction is the heater core actually providing? Suspecting that far too much coolant was going through the heater core, and not nearly enough of it was going through the radiator, I added some restriction:
I found a piece of leftover fuel line from running the breather tank, I cut it to about 6" and started shoving it into the heater core hose that runs from the head. It fit, but it got sticky in the bends, so before I shoved it all the way in, I pulled it back out, and coated it with some white lithium. I pushed it right on down until my middle finger was in to about the second knuckle, this felt familiar for some reason, and I thought it would be easy to go further, but I stopped there. Slid it back over the copper heater core tube, and tightened the hose clamp.

Unfortunately, we haven't seen any 90*+ days since this mod, but on the 80* day, (I would expect the 10* temperature delta to make a HUGE difference) my experiences are:
Get to operating temp, and get on freeway. Turn A/C on full blast. Needle doesn't budge after 10 minutes. Still rock solid after 20 minutes. Get off freeway, get into town, stop and go, needle still doesn't move a degree.

So I haven't yet been able to test the car on another 90* day, but as I've said, it is rock solid so far. It seems that the M-Tuned reroute may make it easy for coolant to take the heater core route instead of the radiator route, but I'm no fluid dynamacist. Adding additional restriction to the heater core might be another possible (and inexpensive) route for those that can't seem to figure out their own cooling issues. I'll update as soon as we get another 90*+ day.

Sounds like a coolant flow issue to me. Hope your restriction got it solved. I would think you could add a fitting somewhere with a smaller hole to make a restriction instead of a hose inside a hose.

I'll be the first to admit that I know almost nothing about the coolant re-route though.

It was far cheaper and easier to simply slip a fuel hose into my heater core hose than it would have been to fab up some sort of restrictor with a smaller hole.

Update: Drive home today was 91*. Cranked up the A/C as soon as I got in the car, and came home. Was slow at first, but eventually got moving at about 80 mph. It took about 5 or 6 minutes following an SUV at 80mph before I watched the temp needle barely start to move, it made it to about straight vertical before it stopped moving. When I got to the exit ramp, I simply let off the throttle for a couple seconds, and in the time it took the car to go from 80mph to 60mph, the temp gauge had very quickly returned to what I would consider "normal" temperature, right at about the 11:45 position. To me this is all indicative of a properly functioning cooling system, so it seems that adding the restriction to the heater core line completely solved the issue. Opinions or criticisms?

Ran again a little longer the other day. AC on 2, no problems. Then cranked the A/C to 4 to test it out a bit, about 80mph down the freeway. After about 10 minutes, it just barely started creeping back up, and it took it another 10 minutes or so for the needle to move to the 1 o'clock position. I kept thinking it might come back down, but it didn't. Just a slow steady climb. Eventually I turned the A/C off for a moment, and temps quickly came back down. Checked the overfill tank, and nothing had blown into it, so no boiling apparently, but the end result was that I still couldn't run the A/C on full blast going down the freeway on a 90* Day.

Levnubhin's FM Heat extraction hood arrived Wednesday....

I had about a 10 minute freeway drive at about noon today. Cranked up the A/C several miles before I got to the freeway, and then jumped on the freeway. Within moments, the temperature went DOWN.....WAY DOWN. The needle held between the 1045 and 11 o'clock position for the entire drive. Hot damn, this thing is amazing! I'm heading out to dayton in about an hour. It's a 90 minute freeway drive, and it's currently 94 degrees outside. I'll update this thread as soon as I can with how the A/C holds up.

On a related note, my A/C is COLD AS SHIT now. OMG I <3 YOU PHIL, but not in a gay way or anything.

So I finally got around to sending my turbine housing to BEGi after several months of proctrastinating on taking the turbo out. The previous porting job did not do anything to cure my boost creep issue. Once I separated the turbine housing from everything else, I took a look at it and quickly noted that the wastegate flapper overlaps the wastegate port by a good solid 1/4" all the way around. So I sent the thing off to BEGi, and about 10 days later I had it back. They did some pretty decent work making the port hole bigger and enlarging the previous channel that I had cut from the manifold flange to the wastegate port. Not wanting to ever have to take the turbine housing off again because of boost creep, I pulled out the dremel and grinded for a little bit on some areas around the port hole that I thought still had pretty significant tolerance/overlap before starting to bolt everything back up. Spent the rest of the evening getting everything back together before I started the car and parked it in the driveway for about 15/20 minutes to warm up. Got in the car and took it for a test drive. Upon going WOT, the car jumped to 8psi, held briefly, and then shot straight up to spark blowout - fuck.

Back at home, opened the hood, and found the wastegate signal line laying on the exhaust manifold, and the manifold had melted a hole in the line...shit. I was done for the night with the car though. My friend had come over to work on her motorcycle, so We went to work on that.

Next day, cut the melted section of signal line off, rerouted it away from the manifold, and warmed the car up. Took it out and floored it. Boost shot straight to 8psi again, held substantially longer, and then creeped to 10psi by redline....PROGRESS!!!

Added MBC, jumped in car, went straight to 12psi and held rock solid. SWEET!!!

Turned about half a turn, and found 15ish psi, turned it back down a touch to find 14psi and set boost target at 14psi across the RPM range on the Hydra. Runs great, but it feels like it's missing some grunt - needs tuned now, esp for spark, and I'd like to get my WI set up too.

I had a jacking incident in January, the jack slipped off the front subframe and found its way down to the crankshaft pretty quickly. I almost cried, but after inspection, everything looked good except for a broken finger-tab on the radiator drain plug (whew)....oh, and the plastic belly pan was absolutely destroyed in the process...so I built a new one
Attachment 190619
with a spare sheet of aluminum that I had leftover from radiator overhead shroud.

It's all nasty and roadgrimey and salty now :(

One remaining problem is oil pressure drop near redline. Per the gauge, it looks like the pressure is dropping due to the oil filter restricting, but not 100% sure. The pressure drop is 100% repeatable. I can't convince myself that the engine actually uses more oil at higher RPMs though, and that would be the only reason I could see for the oil pressure actually falling...

Have you installed your hydramist yet?

Do you know what the version of the junction box you have is? DDSv8? DDSv10?

Nope, it's still sitting in the box. Just checked, its the DDSv10. Haven't had the time I wanted to install it. About the time I got the FMII installled, I got a phone call: "You're deploying, you've got a month to get your life together". When I got back, there was a 3" exhaust on the car and it was in bad need of a rebuild...I just finally got everything where I "want" it, though the spark map is far from optimal.

bonerrrr BONER BONER BONERRRRRRRRRRR


OOO

Is that a wideband or the same DM-100 that I have? If it is the latter I commend your smartitude.

You're not thinking big enough.

Attachment 189590

So yes, I did indeed get a package in the mail. It was a rather exciting package to say the least:

Attachment 189395

2 DM-100 display units
1 AFR sensor
1 Oil Pressure Sensor
1 Fluid temp sensor module w/2 sensors (oil temp, water temp)
1 Boost/Vac sensor

So I got to work quite quickly. The first thing I did was destroy a very expensive display unit:

Attachment 189396

Actually, I destroyed 2 of them. With a drill bit attached to a screwdriver.

Then I destroyed the black gauge 'bezel' panel/window piece. I actually beat the first one up pretty bad learning how to do it, so it's trash. That's the one pictured in the previous post. I started cutting the bezel ring around the fuel gauge first, then said "oh shit, that's the fuel gauge - FFFFFUUUUUUUUU!!!!!!!!!" Then I shattered the plastic window because I thought I needed to take it off - mazda never intended for those things to come off apparently. Finally, I cut the center hole too big - you can almost push the gauge completely through it. I learned the actual method I used when I did the gauge on the right - basically, the technique I used in the end was to remove the recessed bezel so that the back of the 'bezel' recess was flush with the back of the panel. I started with a dremel and finished each hole with a hand file and a razor blade. Once I knew the gauges would fit where I wanted them to, I needed to go to work on the gauge pods. I originally intended to install the gauges to the back of the black bezel plate, but after some observation/experimentation, I decided to try to mount the gauges as part of the rear gauge housing. I had to cut the shit out of the center gauge cup (the PLX stock piece that works as the rear section of the gauge enclosure) in order to make it fit. I've got two dremel marks in the right side cup where the OEM plastic thingys more or less slide into place before securing with hot glue, other than that, the right cup is completely un-fucked up.

This is the back of the black bezel panel.

Attachment 189397

The gauges in place in the main housing in lieu of the stock coolant temp and oil pressure gauges:
Attachment 189398

Here is how much the center gauge snuggles with the rest of the stack. The bottom corners of the OLED screen actually overlap the round gauges. The round bezels that slide into place around the gauges actually have an O.D. that interferes with the bottom corners of the OLED screen. I had to barely touch the O.D. of the bezels with a hobby knife in order to remove probably .25mm in order to make it all fit. The end result is unnoticeable in the finished product. I had to cut the shit out of the gauge cup itself. I think I made 7 different cuts in the cup to make it all slide into place.:
Attachment 189399

I also cut two slits in the white plastic of the cluster to accomodate exit paths for the OLED cables to their control modules. Once the black gauge bezel is snapped into place, it flattens and very slightly compresses the screen plates of the gauges so that they mount flush. I added two tiny dabs of hot glue onto each gauge to hold the hard screenplate (clear lexan with a black rectangle outline) onto the OLED display screen.

To install the modules (6 of them altogether) I had to find a place to mount them. I tore out the center console panel hoping there would be room behind the stereo, but there's no room there whatsoever. I then went under the steering column and found a nice big open place to play to the right side. It's actually quite roomy, and the photos don't do it justice. Just to the right of the steering column:
Attachment 189400

A note on "stacking" the sensor/display modules: These things are made to slide together - but they don't do it very well. Nothing short of some heavy blows with a hammer will get them together. The only way that I was willing to put them together was to remove the plates off of the front and rear of each box and remove the enclosed circuit boards (which provided me with a "tube" of sorts), and then took a rubber mallet to them to get the connections started. Once they were started together, I put the module boxes in a vice, insulated from damage with terry towels on both ends, and I literally had to squeeze the things together with a vice. They are NOT coming apart. When I went to put the display module boxes together, I thought I was going to destroy them when I had them in the vice. The end result was that all of the sensor modules were put together, and the display modules were put together. I secured the two clusters to each other with two strips of adhesive mounting tape and a large zip tie before shoving them all up under the dash.

Installed and turned on, car is still not running because I destroyed an oil temp sensor in the process when I was screwing it into my glowshift oil sandwich plate - I'm beginning to hate NPT threads. I found one of my grandpa's old tap and die sets and amazingly it had a 1/8 NPT tap. I tapped out all 3 of the holes in the sandwich plate, removing significantly more metal than I thought I should have. My pressure sensor and my -4an oil feed line adapter screwed in and tightened perfectly now. Installed everything and ran the lines, now just waiting on a new sensor to bolt in and go.

Finished and in, these are my current bootup screens:
Attachment 189401
Attachment 189402
Attachment 189403

And damn, I must say, these things look GOOD. The only obvious errors in installation is seen on the bottom right and center left of the middle gauge where I chopped out a tiny bit too much of the bezel plate. That was a difficult area to work with.

These things have alarms on them too. I actually had to turn the low oil pressure alarm off to get these shots. The alarms red-out the whole screen and display the problem parameter.

Center display alarms:
Oil pressure exceeds 75psi
AFRs go leaner than 12.3 anytime boost is over 5psi

Right side display alarms:
Oil pressure is below 15psi
Oil temp exceeds 230
Boost pressure goes above 15.5psi
Water temp exceeds 210

I'll end up changing the alarm limits once I get it back on the road and see what the gauges decide is "normal" operating ranges. This is pretty cool shit.

.

BONERSAUCE

It's great to read about someone else's foibles. If I had a sense of shame I would not post mine but I know everyone has made mistakes.

So you like them little bitches don't you? I do not have the boost module but that is a great idea to set an alarm for AFR in boost!

You will enjoy the real time data graphing too. I bet it will be very useful for boost. I like it for AFR on occasion.

Beautifully executed... I use a PLX wideband; wish I could afford to do this set up.

I'm actually half-tempted to get the AEM Digital equivalent.. damn you.

Awesome build, Fooger. Making me look forward to getting home and bolting stuff to my car even more. :D