Steve Dallas

Yeah. I know. I'm truly the most boring Miata owner ever. Someone should back over me about 30 times with a Paco lifted Miata to set me straight. Or at least flat-ish.

Steve Dallas

Finally had some time to research this problem in earnest today and found a few things.

First, my FSM for a 2003 has very little emissions system info in it, but I found an emissions system supplemental for the 2005 model year, and it includes a diagram and test procedures for all the various bits. The test procedures are ridiculous (remove the fuel tank to test the shut-off valve?!), but the diagrams are very helpful. Parts 4, 5, and 6 are saturated with fuel, and I have ordered new parts, in case I need them. I will test parts 2, 3, 7, 8, and 10, as I start to tear into it tonight.




I also found this helpful blog post from RevLimiter. I don't know about the heat shield, but the instruction to clean the rollover (2) and check valve (3) is helpful. On the TODO list for tonight.

I think I will also swap the factory ECU back in and let it do its thing for a little while to maybe help right the ship. I have wanted to compare power curves between the factory ECU and the MS anyway. If the difference is 5WHP or less, the factory ECU is probably staying in, until F/I.

Mobius

iTrader: (2)

Steve I have the charcoal canister stuff from my '01 in a bag. You are welcome to it for much less than $400. PM me if you're interested. I don't need it, got permanent registration plates on my car now.

Steve Dallas

You are seriously awesome for offering that to me. I really appreciate it. How did you plumb allthethings for your evap deletion? There has to be a way to ditch this stuff, keep the tank pressure under control, and fool the sensors.

Last night, I drained over a quart of gas from all the various evap bits and replaced the pressure sensor solenoid thingy that has 4 different names, then put it all back together with the other OE parts, hoping to be able to return the expensive replacements. Tonight, I pulled the carpet and surveyed to the top of the tank for the rollover valve and check valve. Guess what my weird *** unicorn car doesn't have. That stuff. The evap hose on the left goes straight down to the charcoal canister. Weird.

Jeffbucc made me clean this, before I buttoned it back up. No smell of gasoline fumes in here, so at least there's that.



Also notice those fuel line clips. They are unlike anything I have seen on another Miata in person or in photos or in my FSM. This is why the fuel filter defeated me a while back on this Miata. I can't find the clips, and I can't find the right tool to release them. The FSM shows a different style, and the local Mazda dealers have been no help. They haven't seen them before either. I'm going to try a Ford dealer on a hunch. WTF car is this?!

So, I took some good advice for once and reinstalled the MAF and factory ECU. I'm going to drive it to work tomorrow and try to put it through as many driving conditions as I can in an attempt to activate as many evap modes as possible. I will also carefully fill it up with gas. If everything goes well, I'll slot the MS back in tomorrow night in advance of my track day on Saturday. However... I'm also going to do some pulls and record some logs in Torque to see how the power curve looks in Virtual Dyno. It is still possible that I may just leave the factory ECU in until F/I.

Should things not go well, there is always this piece of junk:

Steve Dallas

So... Drove the Miata to work this morning. Everything went fine, and no fuel leaks and no CELs. No weird smells.

Remembering that I installed the ECU at the same time I did all the bolt-ons, I did not have a feel for how much it did or did not contribute to improvements in the car. This led to my thoughts of staying with the factory ECU. After this morning's drive, all I can say is: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! [breathe] BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

This car is such a pig without the MS. It's going back in as soon as I get home tonight. Not even going to bother doing any pulls for comparison. There is no comparison.

EO2K

iTrader: (37)

Everything in that picture looks identical to my NB1.

They are standard fuel line/HVAC push lock/quick connect clips. They are used on the fuel line, filter, high pressure ports on the tank, pretty much every fuel and evap connection on an NB. I don't remember what size (5/16" maybe?) but one of these things will release them:




IIRC its the second to last one on that holder. Clip it around the line, jam it up there, and it'll release the clips. Easy as pie.

EO2K

iTrader: (37)

Also, when it comes time to start messing with this stuff to make custom -6AN lines, you are going to want these guys:




They go together over the factory hardlines like thus:


The nut part screws in from the bottom and makes an incredibly sold connection.

Protip: use a q-tip to put some oil on the steel line before you slide this style fitting over the steel hardline. It'll lubricate and prevent tearing of the sealing o-ring inside the fitting. As you can imagine, this is important

There is ANOTHER version of this fitting that looks like this:



They clip to the line but because they lack the screw-in section on the bottom that kinda supports the line, they can be tweaked over by fuel lines that are not super-duper secured and leaks can/will result. I bought and returned a handful of these in favor of the ones with the screw-in lock. You can browse around online and find tons of horror stories from people who used this style of fitting and burned cars to the ground. Just sayin'

Steve Dallas

Hmmm... Interesting. Thanks for the info.

This is what has me confused. The FSM shows this type of fitting, which is common and easy to manipulate without special tools.




The fittings on my car are similar, but different, and there is no squeezing of any tabs that will release them.

An acquaintance of mine is the service manager at one of the local Mazda dealerships. I sent him a photo of my fuel filter and asked him what tool I needed to release the clips. He showed the photo around the service bay, and none of the techs had ever seen them before, or so he said. I ordered a set of clips for a 2003 Miata from parts.com (using my VIN for identification), and they sent me what is shown in the FSM, and they do not fit the lines.

I'll have a look at the stuff you posted and see what works. Thanks again.

SamS

iTrader: (2)

My 2001 required the special tool to remove those lines. I just got a cheap one from the auto parts store, worked fine.
https://www.autozone.com/test-scan-a...171201193404:s

sonofthehill

iTrader: (1)

I basically use a 90° tweezer and shove the 2 ends down to release the little clips, slides right off. Easiest way I have found.

Steve Dallas

Here is a fun video from a few weeks ago. I invited a friend to the track, who has a Spec E46. Surely that car, with its far better power to weight ratio and skilled driver, can outrun a lowly Miata with full interior, right? His power to weight ratio is about 13 lbs per HP. Mine is around 21. No brainer, right? Once my tires finally warm up in the cold weather...


I took the Miata back to the track yesterday and had the most "fun" spin of my life. Pro tip: when practicing left foot braking at full speed, do not accidentally hit the clutch instead of the brakes. More on that agricultural expedition later.

Evap system worked fine, though. That problem seems to be solved.

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ridethecliche

iTrader: (2)

Congrats on getting the problem solved. In 4 video of spin!

Also, I saw your post about wanting to swap back to the stock ECU and just wanted to see if you'd actually go through with it and what you'd say after. It was worth it lol.

Art

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Steve Dallas

Sadly, the SD card's write protection switch was on, so the GoPro wasn't recording. There is no video, but I REALLY wish there was!

This corner is a long sweeper, where entry is a quick tap on the brakes to go from 98 down to 80, followed by a quick turn-in. Tapping the clutch and turning in results in going sideways, doing a 90mph rail slide down the curbing with the tires off the ground, hooking up with the pavement on the other side, spinning back around the other way, jumping the next curb going backwards, hitting the grass from airborne and doing a 360, before coming to a rest in a giant plume of grass, dust, and debris. At that point, you start to smell smoldering grass and hastily try to get the engine running again, before a grass fire burns your car to the ground. The car looks fine, but I'm quite sure it is time for another alignment, and about 10lbs of debris needs to be vacuumed out of the interior. The only damage I could find was scrapes on the under bracing and exhaust from the rail slide.

The factory ECU is soooooooo bad. It runs extremely lean and retards timing mightily to make up for it. In theory, one could cheat the timing to pick up several HP out of it, but I'd rather just run the MS.

Several reasons. Off the top of my head:

1. Faster lap times
2. Ability to transfer weight on demand with both feet
3. Ability to keep the throttle on the floor and still scrub speed when needed
4. Several tenths of seconds saved per lap from not wasting time moving right foot from pedal to pedal
5. Faster lap times
6. Keep the turbo spooled under braking for next acceleration event
7. Causes students to say, "Oooooooh! Aaaaaaaaah!" when they see you do it
8. Spectacular spins
9. Faster lap times

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ridethecliche

iTrader: (2)

Too keep with the title of the thread: spin for the win!

Art

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Steve Dallas

Here's video showing good examples of heel-toe rev matching and left foot braking. I have heel-toe down pat. Trying to master left foot braking. Old habits are hard to brake, though.

You Tube

Steve Dallas

Finally had time to get under the car and assess the curb slide damage. Not too bad. All superficial. I spent last night bending, filing, sanding, painting, and undercoating to keep it from rusting. Checked the alignment with the old straight edge and tape measure method, and it is actually very close to correct. As much fun as that was, I'd rather not do it again. Lots more practice at lower speeds needed.

z31maniac

I did something similar at Hallett years ago and was thankful for the FM Framerail reinforcements. Running clockwise didn't get slowed down enough going into the The B!tch and dropped the right rear off the curb on exit, BANG.

Steve Dallas

Changing the subject to track tuning...

I did a little experiment. Being that I have a MS3 in my car, I have a built-in SD card. Last track day, the weather was particularly average, so I decided to do a little track tuning. I set the entire VE table a little bit rich, turned off MAT correction, deleted all the files off the SD card, and drove all day. Just before leaving, I downloaded the data logs, picked the session that best represented the day in terms of weather and driving conditions, stitched the usable parts of the 3 logs together, and let VEAL go to town with the log in MLV. Loaded the new tune on the ECU and drove 2 hours home on the result and watched the wideband. It was pretty much dead squirrels on all the way. Very cool feature.

Unfortunately, I have to do it again, because my rev limiter settings were too conservative, and I couldn't get higher than 7100RPM. It's so easy, I'll just run that column a little rich until another track day in the 70s rolls around, and tune it with track logs again.

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