Updates;

-The muffler developed a crack along the far side around the neck welds and on the engine side along the base. Got pretty loud over the weekend so I brought it in and had that fixed with a magnaflow 3" which toned down the note some and really sounds pretty nice now. They didn't really offer much in the way to 'make it right' after they messed things up last time though. Kinda put off there, probably going to go elsewhere from now on.
-After cleaning the pulleys with brakleen and a small flat blade to scrape them clean and replacing the belt with a new gates I finally cleared up that alternator belt squeal at startup.
-I've been having issues with burning oil lately, occasionally I get big plumes of white smoke when hot starting and more frequently I get smoking while idling or cruising. I suspect valve stem seals, but I need to pull things apart to confirm.
-I found oil residue on the under tray and a streak going from the dipstick to the pan and down. More concerning is that I found oil on my turbo, specifically around the turbine side where it attaches to the CHRA. Appears to be coming from the feed threads (see picture). Turbo performance is not impacted so I think it's the feed, and I'm having the same issue as Aidan (drain too small).. Could this be causing the plumes of smoke? Oil failing to drain and working itself out?

And lastly, tonight while checking tension on bolts I found a broken head-to-exhaust manifold stud. Luckily it appears to have broken just behind the nut head, so extraction -should- be easy. I will be pulling all of the studs this weekend for a replacement.

Anyone try the SS ARP studs from MR?

MR-EMFK-ARP - MiataRoadster fastener kits - exhaust manifold - MiataRoadster - High-performance service...and parts for Mazda Miata Roadsters

https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...c66a84d450.jpg

My personal setup:

https://www.belmetric.com/fine-10x12...ud-p-1376.html
https://www.belmetric.com/hex-with-f...7s1pn3egpv2mt5

.

Just used a caliper on all the hardware I have from TSE, biggest ID was the treadstone fitting that attaches to the turbo at just under .5", need to review the efr docs but I believe that's too narrow.

BW specifies .5625" minimum

I emailed TSE for their advice and will start my hunt for bigger hardware..

In other news, I spent several hours tonight wiring in a new siren for the alarm but the thing was a dud, need to exchange tomorrow and re-run again. Also ordered 10 of each stud and nut from above links.

This post discusses the same topic and goes into good detail on it, looks like I may need to look into a 12AN drain.

So my current inlet to the oil pan is a 3/8" NPT (6an equivalent) and the fitting I have is a step down from the hose diameter of 10an. I don't really have a good way to fab up a 12an fitting for the turbo, so I'm thinking most likely I will be drilling and tapping for this 3/4" NPT -> 10AN adapter fitting to eliminate restriction. Might be a drill / tap / JBWeld(?) project coming up.

https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...6b2583e666.jpg

the id of that fitting is probably still really small.

You think a 12an -> 3/4" would be any better? I don't have anyone lined up easily that can weld aluminum for the turbo side fitting so I need to work that out yet.

I wonder how big the ID of a 10an to 12an upconverter is, perhaps I can get a 12an hose and use the 10an treadstone fitting and immediately scale that up to 12 for the hose / pan fitting?

12an pan side. And you can buy special 10an adapters from se power systems. It's mentioned in my psa post

Thanks for pointing that out, I missed that portion. I'll give them a call tomorrow.

Or your turbo is too low...

Pending hearing back from SPS and barring any issues putting in the new pan fitting I plan to install this next weekend while I replace the exhaust studs.

40+ kits in service and Tim is the only person to even mention a perceived issue with the drain. I personally have 3 cars running in my direct care using the standard feed/drain lines with no issues. You can upsize the drain if you wish, but it's not causing whatever issue you're having.

@soviet is running the same manifold setup as me, with an even smaller drain line. He doesn't have smoking issues and I do. SPS seems to think the drain is also my issue. If I upsize my drain line and the smoking goes away there might be a reason to believe that not all EFRs drain equally.

Your kit is also a top mount, with a long oil drain, that gives plenty of room for oil to return to liquid and drain to the pan.

There are also many other factors that add up, crankcase ventilation, oil weight, oil pressure, etc, etc. Add them all together with a slightly smaller than specified drain line and you might have an issue.

I too am somewhat doubtful that the oil drain is our issue, but at this point I'm out of ideas (for mine). Want to loan me a known working 6758 at MRLS and see if it still smokes? :party:

Ryan_G has a straight shot 3/4 inch silicone hose and threw away the 10an fittings and went to something larger but I don't know what. He's still got efr issues with it sending oil into the compressor housing. Southeast Power evaluated the turbo and found no issues with it. Ryan thinks it's getting too much oil pressure and I have to agree he's eliminated most everything else. Boundary VVT oil pump.

Sure, he'll even loan you a manifold and dp for the small price of $3100+shipping.

Its entirely possible that my turbo is different from yours, since it is one of the earlier ones. Mine is a steel center, not the new aluminium ones.

I also have an older efr. 2015 build date or something.

I'm going to try a turbosmart oil pressure regulator next.

i lol'd

You may have a point Sav, haven't seen any other symptoms that would explain this behavior though. I need to pull the manifold off to do studs yet. I've been busy with work but I'll be tearing into it tonight a bit. I'm going to check the pcv and the usual suspects (valve stems for oil, coolant leaks, compression, plugs). Hopefully I have some answers tonight.

I'm using a treadstone flanged drain though to the 5/8" silicone hose to what I think is a 1/2" NPT. My old steel core 6258, soviets warranty replaced turbo that he never ran, did have oil in the intake track during use and I attributed this to the K&N Filter I was using. My aluminum core 6758 is bone dry on the intercooler side; still using the same drain scheme and a k&n.

Both setups have used BE pumps with 1 shim. Both setups puff a bit of blue smoke from a long stop which I think might be the supertech valve seals.

Man what a week, I'll be receiving the drain fittings and I have a drill+tap on hand so I should have the oil return switched over this weekend after I get the studs replaced which I am hoping is sometime Saturday. Looks like weather should be pretty agreeable, my only concern now is if I'll be able to get the drill/bit into the bay to hog out the hole. :-/

WAT.

Time to figure out this plumes of smoke issue.

Pulled the plugs and did a compression check, all four came up consistently 110-115psi which while low (blame the cams) is CONSISTENT which for a motor with (around) 30k on it is pretty impressive. One of the main reasons I stick by this car. Next I looked at the plugs, no oil there and nothing out of the ordinary either. Looked in all four exhaust runners and the valve stems were bone dry though the runners had a little carbon on each. After that I reviewed the turbo's hotside and everything looked good there. Looking more and more like a drain issue.

While I had the turbo out I used some sockets to massage my heater core bungs round again. I really need to sleeve those spots..

Fittings came in the mail Friday, as well as my 59/64 drill and 3/4-14 tap. I proceeded to gauge things with the caliper and found both the Treadstone fitting for the turbo and the 12-10an adapter were the smallest parts (besides the hose ID) while the pan AN/NPT fitting was oversized but since I am JB Welding it, I went bigger as a precaution.

I proceeded to drill out the Treadstone fitting with a 1/2" bit, but found the sizing was still smaller than the turbo outlet so I stepped up to a 9/16" bit and matched the diameter to the turbo outlet. This left some meat on the lower section to maintain the O-Ring seating but it did press some material higher than the gasket surface as well as up on the end of the flair, so I filed that out and cleaned things up.

Found a suitable drill and put a piece of hose over the bit. Greased things up and started drilling. Once I confirmed there were no issues with sizing and spacing with the pickup I finished drilling out the hole, greasing the bit and cleaning it many times. This caught nearly all of the shavings. Once punched through, I tapped the hole also greasing the fitting and re-tapped until i was satisfied with where the fitting ended up once torqued into place. I did nick the pickup with the end of the threads but noticed as soon as the tap made contact so there's only cosmetic damage.

I then poured half a gallon of mineral spirits into the hole via a 5/8" hose/funnel, drained the oil, ran the rest of the can through and gave it some time to drain. I then used 80grit to scuff the pan around the hole and on the fitting on the smooth section below the bolt flats. I mixed up some JB Weld and put it on the last 1/2 of the threads on the fitting and a thin film on the pan threads, threaded it on and torqued to a reasonable pressure, then added some more JB Weld to the rest of the fitting and some on the pan and left it like that overnight.

I then hit my exhaust manifold with a grinder wheel to flatten out the nut contact surfaces- the ceramic coating in combination with tight tolerances made several nuts not torque flush, leading to what I think caused the previous stud failure. I massaged the clearances on all of the affected spots, mounted the turbo but found the second stud back on top was slightly too long, so I trimmed it back a quarter inch. Re-mounted the turbo and torqued it down, installed the oil / water lines, added coolant. I then ran dino oil through the motor for about half an hour, drained it and added T6 back changing the filter along the way.

One complication though was that the drain hose interfered with the nuts to hold down the fitting. I was able to tighten down the hose leaving it juuuuust loose enough to get the bolts on and torqued and leaving enough room to turn the hose fitting just enough to get a seal. I'll be watching this one, but I don't think it will really be an issue since the line is not pressurized (normally). This is Treadstone's fault for not (apparently) taking into acocunt the fitting to accommodate the attachment hardware.

Today she's been running well, no oil burnoff, no leaks whatsoever so far either.

So far after two days, there have been no leaks, no burning, no riff-raff whatsoever. I will check torque on the head studs tonight after it's had a few heat cycles. Gotta say, those studs and the copper plated nuts really do dress up at spot nicely and contrast well with the ceramic coating.

I am bummed though that the coating is flaking off so much in the most visible of spots though :(

In other news, I'm trying to decide between another set of the 245 Maxxis VR-1 or switching to the RS4 for my 15x9s..

Do you have spares?

I think I may make a switch as soon as my VR-1's wear down, which is in quite a while. But they are just tough to beat for the cost on street duty. I was on the fence of picking up an additional set of wheels for non slick stickier tires for track days.

I don't, my current set of VR-1s are close to wear bars on the back and the fronts are past the wear bars after rotating. They definitely lasted and that's with a trip to/return from FM to MN.

245 RS4s. I like them plus you can just drive over to TR and pick them up in town.

^ I honestly had no idea there was a TR warehouse in town, I might actually just go through with this. I'm planning on putting on my new brakes before I mount any new tires though so I can bed in my new pads first. Trying to figure out how to best hook up the sport booster/MC first though.

Did it stop smoking?

I haven't had any smoking since I got things together, I haven't really pushed the car hard though because it's been raining here but so far things are smoke-free. If weather allows I'll hoon around this weekend and try to reproduce the issue. I suspect a few big pulls should work well.

In between moving furniture and clothes from our apartment I went about upgrading my brakes over the weekend, got a great deal on a used TSE BBK and pads+ prop. Breakdown (lol) is such;

Sport MC and Booster
Wilwood Prop valve
11.75" rotors and Wilwood Dynalite calipers
10.9" sport rear rotors and calipers - Rotors turned to remove surface rust, 9.1mm remaining thickness.

Old front pads were due for a change, that's for sure. Since the front rotors were already bedded with Hawk HP+ compound pads, I picked up a set for the rears for the remainder of the season and will replace the rear rotors next season and resurface the fronts and switch the car over to Carbotech pads. The resurface job was done as minimally as possible to save thickness, I took some sandpaper and cleaned up and roughed out the small surface rust that remained.

A few things to note;

-The 3" heat shields contacted the rotor face around the tie rod end, these are 93LE ends which have a SLIGHT taper variance. After some persuasion with a pair of body hammers and some assorted tools, I rounded it around the end and ground down the material to get some clearance. Here's hoping things clear OK when heatsoaked...
-The braided SS lines I had worked with the sport calipers. Yay!
-The heat shield for the rotors in the back didn't clear the rotors either. After some heavy tweaking I made it clear.
-My HP+ rear pads didn't come with pad shims. The NA 1.8 pad shims were also too small, and Rock Auto doesn't carry rear shims- only fronts.
-Bending and flaring brake lines was relatively painless, I kept the old lines in the event of an emergency revert or if I don't care for the sport MC/booster. Gives me hope for putting in ABS for traction control

We get to bleed brakes tonight and finish buttoning things up. Can't wait to test this setup out.

Started bleeding the lines last night with a vac bleeder to get things moving then moved on to manual bleeding and once we had pressure I found it had several weeping fittings around the MC and the IN side of the prop valve which took several adjustments before it all stopped leaking. The prop valve fitting had me worried but after a heat cycle it sealed nicely. After we got all the weeping fixed I cleaned up things and set the prop valve to 5-turns from full open and bled the brakes. The Wilwoods were interesting and I had to read up on the bleeding procedure and because of the angle of the driveway I had to open both sides of the upper bleeders to get a good bleed. The pedal feels great in the car now and just requires a little adjustment of the rod to move the engagement up the swing some as the pedal moves a good 1" or so before the brakes even start to engage.

I took the car out last night and broke in the pads, there was no squealing of the brakes whatsoever which is surprising from what I read up on the HP+ pads. The rear pads didn't come with shims either (RA doesn't sell them, either) but it looks like with the supplied grease there will be no issues. This morning there was no squealing either, just quiet cruising in to the office. Brakes engage much firmer now but also have more modulation too, I was worried the sport MC would not have enough force behind it but so far things are feeling good. The E-Brake adjustment allen was tightened down to contact/immobile wheel, then backed out 1/3. The Ebrake handle actually locked up the rears last night, something I was never able to do with my HPS pads on the stock NA rear calipers.

Overall, I like everything so far. I definitely need new tires soon though, especially with new brakes now. I'll have to play with the prop valve some this weekend and play with the CC actuator cable routing at some point.

I ordered a pair of 3/8" check valves to put inline with my PCV catch can setup for a little added insurance. Should be here in a few days.

Took the car out for a little hoonage tonight after I verified wheels/brakes/bleeders were all torqued and good. 30 minutes of 90% freeway with plenty of 10-20psi pulls to 5k. No smoke, no weird noises; Just a little breakin smell and plenty of clean, QUIET, smooth braking.

After parking, I found the turbo once again had oil residue on the hotside of the CHRA where the housing torques down. Not a ton, no puddles or drips. More like a few drips squeezed by and flattened themselves out over the turbo CHRA. No evidence of oil around the feed line, but it's pretty hot atm and could be there could not be. No shaft play, no oil on either side of the turbo inside the housings when I had it out either... I'm hoping the check valve might resolve this, maybe the PCV is leaking?

I was thinking of adding a hose barb to the back of the intake filter on the turbo to run the driver-side PCV vent to and give the crankcase a vacuum source in boost. Not sure how to go about that just yet, but it might help if it's blowby.

Lurking for a while in this thread. Glad to hear that you were able to get the smoking to stop it sounds like!

Hope to see you out soon at a meet again, maybe get another ride along :P

Right on, if she's running properly I might just take you up on that :)

Still looking into a 3/8" hose bung, haven't had time to properly research it though. Maybe a fitting with a 3/8" hose to NPT and a nut fed into a hole cut into the rubber back of the filter?

Edit; Wondering if I should pickup this 1.6mm restrictor for the oil feed that some sites suggest. I drive my car a lot in cool weather (sub 65) and the pressure is quite high until the oil warms up. Not sure how high, but it pegs the needle on my oem gauge. From the site;

"The oil restrictor is necessary with all EFR Turbocharger at engines with more than app. 5 bar oil pressure at full load. It is needed when the Turbocharger with the built in restrictor is “pressing” oil. Attention: please check that your return line has at least a Dash 10 line size without constriction or kinks."

I expect my check valves will be here by the weekend, I will install them on the IM side of the PCV system; if they don't remedy this I'll talk with BW about using the restrictor.

Check valves ETA Saturday. Calling Borg Warner today to get clarification on what they think about the 1.6mm restrictor. Oil pressure when cold goes well above the 60psi mark on my gauge.

In other news, I'm trying to figure out good placement for my 25row Setrab. Previously I mounted it where the A/C fan was on the radiator however now that I have a SPAL fan there I have fewer options. I'm considering two options- Screwing it down to the wood undertray between the sway and the engine or mounting it similar to how Lokiel mounted it like so. The latter might not work as I have brake ducts in the way there. I also have the 180* TStat right now and will want to swap that out for the higher temp one before I finish mocking things up so the oil gets to proper temps before it opens up.

So I have been thinking of a way to get the hotside PCV port routed to a vacuum again. I've been having issues with oil leaking from places it didn't normally do so (like my new VC gasket) and think a tiny bit of +pressure is in the crankcase long enough to push oil out. I never see any oil on the filter though which I would expect. FM's kit includes an elbow for the air filter that has a 3/8" hose barb attached and uses the turbo inlet to draw a vacuum but my new filter doesn't have that capability and the FM setup wouldn't have fit. I have come up with two ideas (1 + 2 in the pic), I think #2 is the better idea due to all the bends involved with #1, I'll be checking out pipe lengths to try this, but I will wait until the check valves are on to see how that performs. The other question is how close can I get the pipe to the compressor before it interferes with spool, and how close can it get before it starts sucking oil out of the VC? It's no slashcut on the coldside port, but I'm sure vacuum there from 20psi boost might be a little too much.

For the oil cooler setup, I've pretty much decided ducting is unlikely right now. I did some research and found a 500cfm puller 7.5" SPAL fan (pt #30100394) and an adjustable thermostat kit (derale pt# der-16759) that I can dial up to 240*F. The fan has a 50% increase in CFM compared to the fanpack from Setrab. I think I might fab up a shroud and toss this fan on with a threshold of 230* or so. This will likely be a project for over the Winter time.

I picked up a set of 245 RS-4s Friday from the local Tire Rack distribution center (thanks, Miatataki), I didn't even know we had a warehouse in town, typically I only see warehouse pickup as an option for like California or Florida, etc. Anyway tomorrow I will be getting them mounted/balanced. I'm interested to see how things handle on the new tires, they certainly look meaty that's for sure.

Today I also installed the check valve between the catchcan and the intake manifold. I'm not sure if I was having issues with the PCV before, but this should all but guarantee that isn't a problem now. Noted the grommet on the valve cover for the PCV valve is also starting to get hard and needs replacement again.

Lastly, I also drilled out the end of the filter with a small bit and gauged the thickness of the material which came out to just over 1/2" and I'm sure the back end is much the same. Since the material is so thick I opted to try drilling a slightly smaller hole than a 3/8" 90* hose barb and threading the fitting into the hole. This which worked out pretty well as the fitting didn't even penetrate into the inside of the filter. Since it's NPT it is wedged in pretty tight and shouldn't need any extra adhesive or anything of that sort. Once verified that it would work, I drilled out the fitting as the 90* was pretty poorly connected with a bend that had barely a 1/4" in total gap. A little drill work later however and a it looked much better.

Once ready I attached a hose and picked a suitable angle, buttoned things up and cleaned up the gasket surfaces that were weeping oil so I could check for leak(s) over the next few days while the car warmed up. I then went for a drive for about 20 minutes which had quite a few 15-20psi pulls. which showed promise as the turbo didn't show any weeping yet. I'll check it out again tomorrow evening after I get the tires mounted and go for a drive.

I think the check valve is bad idea because the PCV valve already handles the function you're looking to accomplish but does it with minimal obstruction of flow.

I've also got a couple of problems with the hot side breather arrangement. The oil that will be in that line from the condensed vapor will simply drip inside your filter and then your filter will drip inside your engine compartment. When that is not happening the oil vapor will be sucked in to your turbo and will then puddle in the bottom of the compressor housing when the car is turned off and in the bottom of your intercooler. When you then get into a high-flow situation some of that oil will travel up and into the engine where it will cause detonation and also carbon buildup on your valve stems and combustion chamber.

Oil vapor detonates at a lot lower cylinder pressure than gasoline.

Man, that SUV at my office sure is all smashy. At least it still drives? Makes me think of GTA and damage to the cars from that game.

Built a small catch can using HUSKY compressor filter HDA70403AV and two 90* 3/8 hose bung - 1/4" NPT. Drilled out the fittings to ensure maximum flow around the bends and will install tonight. The valve at the bottom leaks under vacuum or low pressure which wont work for where I'm putting it. I'll pickup a vacuum nipple to seal it and might RTV or JBWeld it shut. Need to source more O-Rings if I seal it as I can see this one getting hardened fairly quick. Plan to ziptie the filter to the drivers-side headlight motor which will put it in the perfect mounting place until I can fab something up to attach it to the chassis.

I finally got around to clearing the CC and remembering your comment I checked how it flowed at idle by opening the drain schrader valve on the CC and got next to no air suction leading me to believe the driver's side was making up for this drop in flow. I pulled out the checkvalve and tried again and got a huge increase in flow.

I bet I could make up for the drop in flow if I just put a few Y's on either end of the CC to IM hose and run 4-5 check valves to spread out the airflow.. Or not lol :m-freak:

Spoke to a BW engineer today regarding the oil weep around the CHRA/Turbine housing. The long and short is, it shouldn't be leaking oil like that but if it is the oil pressure needs to be regulated. He said 60psi is their target limit for oil pressure and said 75 is okay for transient but higher pressures like that will cause strange behavior. His suggestion was the TurboSmart regulator I mentioned previously or I can try the 1.6mm restrictor which he said he hasn't had any reports of a failure using. He -did- mention a racing team used a smaller restrictor than that and caused catastrophic failure of the bearing though (it was around .9mm or so) so 1.6 is about as small as he'd advise if at all. I'll most likely be picking up the TS oil pressure controller and at some point putting it in-line on the feed. Guess I'll have to drill another oil pan hole. After reducing boost to 11-12psi weeping was drastically reduced so probably I'll ride out the season as-is and install the controller over winter.

Tonight I'm also upgrading my boost gauge to a AutoMeter 4303 Boost/Vac gauge w/ 30psi range off of a great CL find (NIB for $50) to replace my 20psi limit gauge. Looks to use the same 1/8" nylon line so I might not have to fish another line. Yay!

https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...90c15ca537.jpg

Picked up a security camera system to hopefully catch the losers going through our cars at night too. Getting pretty old.

Installed the 949 hybrid mount kit, so far I like it after about an hour of driving. Marginal NVH increase but it definitely restrains the motor more.

I've also been trying to figure out a good second location for a drain for the TurboSmart oil pressure regulator when I install it this winter, it's only a 4an fitting so it shouldn't be too hard however I'm doing it on the car so there's that.

So the Hybrid mount kit is pretty awesome, definitely noticing more vibrations at idle but not too unreasonable. Engine is very planted now. I like it.

I'm picking up some gauges for the Miata after forever being put off. Looking at the following:

• VEI Gauges Water temp / Oil temp gauge
  VEI Gauges Water temp / Oil temp gauge
• VEI Gauges EGT / AFR dual gauge
  VEI Gauges EGT / AFR dual gauge
• Innovative Motorsports LC-2 & Wideband sensor
  Innovative Motorsports LC-2 & Wideband sensor

I've been thinking on the sensors and where they'll be installed -- I know my MTuned reroute will have a port for coolant and I can pull my narrowband sensor in favor of the LC-2. The oil sensor I'm thinking I'll put a T in-line on the Turbo oil feed which comes out right above the dipstick (94 block). Just need to find a fitting that works. I AM having some difficulty in determining the best placement for the EGT sensor, however. I'm thinking it'll be on the bottom of the TSE manifold but not sure if I want it in the collector area or a single runner (#4?). Never installed one of these, don't want to screw up my manifold. Any tips?

I double-checked my TSE bag as I was 99% sure he shipped out a fitting that might work in this case and I'll be damned there it was. This was meant originally to go on the port that has the factory oil pressure sender to T off the line to feed the turbo but I didn't need to do that so it was just laying around. I'll be using the supplied NPT->AN fitting to feed the turbo and the remaining threaded port will hopefully be used for the sensor, the sensor is pretty long and may obstruct the flow of oil so I need to wait until it gets here before I can say for sure if this will work.

https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...ab076e5d55.jpg

Upon further review, I don't think the above will actually work due to the way the sensor protrudes past the threads further than I expect will allow decent flow for the turbo. I have been planning on putting a TurboSmart OPR T40 in to control oil pressure to the turbo better before cranking the boost further and that has an accommodation for a 1/8 NPT sensor so I will be installing this as well. I'll need to drill and tap the pan for another fitting. Not sure yet where I can make that fit yet though, based on post #389 here there I have to contend with the windage tray and the pickup. I do not want to pull the oil pan, is there a good second place to tap in a return?

https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...9aad053f3b.jpg

Not with the motor in the car.

^ Yeah, that was what I was thinking I would have to do anyway, after some research I found a rear location that codrus spoke of that appears like it might work for the return but will require me to pull the engine (again lol) but probably not the pan:

https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...f2c247ed00.jpg

After emailing TurboSmart to verify if the pressure controller has enough depth to mount the sensor inside it sounds like they actually don't think it will fit. They suggested a 1/8 NPT female to 1/8 NPT male standoff. I took a look and it looks like it should work but the inner diameter of the standoff may be a tad too small requiring me to bore it out a bit. We shall see...

I think I'm going to try drilling and tapping the bolt for the EGR port on runner #4 on the manifold. Least amount of work and most likely to get done fairly quickly - And I don't have to pull off all of the stage 8 fasteners and try to get them all lined up correctly again. That and I don't want to drill my coated manifold and mess something up :bang:

Gauges are shipping, I received the LC-2 and found it was actually an MTX-L kit in the wrong box. Vendor is sending a replacement but in the mean time I am working out where I am going to run my sensor cable through the firewall, both ends are pretty big and will require a sizable hole in any grommet. This has me considering using the shifter turret and snaking the cable up to the downpipe bung which has me thinking the 3 foot sensor cable is not long enough even if I put the LC-2 next to the shifter turret but the 8 foot sensor cable is pretty damn long..