It was great meeting you. Glad you semi-sorted your braking issue out. I meant to follow up with you after the event to see what became of it. Sucks about the radiator hose.

 

Thanks! Hopefully another second or two if I have full confidence in the brakes. Still wont get me far in my class lol, 1:27 from 1st place in StreetMod is crazy. It was dope to get to finally see your car in person though after following your build thread!
You also! Im just glad it isn't anything more major than that. Still sucks as the hose was brand new before the event haha. Also I appreciate all of your PCV/breather help, draining the can back to the pan definitely helped a ton.

On that note I may as well tie up the catch can craziness. My hunch that at least *my* car was sucking the liquid oil into the can from the exhaust side seems to have been the case. For overview, I ran the exhaust side, with internal baffles opened up, and dual 10an lines to one can, and the PCV side to its own can. I also put a drain from the exhaust side can back to the pan as I felt this side was the issue, but if the PCV side ended up the issue I brought everything I needed to cap any of the fittings or swap the drain to either can.
Setup:

Also for context, I was over flowing the larger rear can in a few laps at Pitt the week before this event. This was the PCV side can after my first session out Friday at Mid-O:


Not nothing but, basically nothing. I was having brake issues Friday but I was still cornering at my normal pace, plus I know Mid-O much better than Pitt so if anything I was driving harder here than I was at Pitt when it overfilled. With the rear (exhaust) can draining and the PCV can barely catching anything I left it like this all weekend and didn't have to empty the blue can at all. It does suck that having the drain in the rear can means I can't quantify how much the extra holes in the baffle walls or the extra 10an line helped, but I didn't want to not drain the can and risk blowing oil all over the car and track again and potentially ruining a session for everyone.

As far as the life update, in my frustration of how the car performed this weekend, plus the amount of money put into the car last minute just to get it to run half of my sessions, I am going to take a break from running this car for awhile. That sucks as far as this build thread is concerned but I will not be getting rid of the car or anything. I am going to fix whats wrong with it right now and get it back to a running and driving, streetable state and keep it like that for the time being. I am planning on finally going back to school this fall to get my bachelors, and I don't think I will have the time, money, or patience to keep trying to run the car on track while also working full time at a job I like and try at, plus trying to succeed towards a degree that will probably be quite hard haha. I don't want to stop track stuff with my track friends so I will keep running the NB in casual HPDEs as I have really enjoyed running that car this year and how nice it is to track a mostly stock car that just works. I also maaaayyy consider running the NB in Sundae Cup as it is basically already set up for that minus an open diff and some ballast. But anyways, since I wont be tracking the racecar I don't need a trailer (it will be for sale soon if anyone is interested), and if I dont need to tow then I dont need a truck. If Im not going to the track in a truck then I cant take the Grom... see where this is all going. Grom is sold, truck is gone, and trailer will go sometime soon once I rectify my multiple miata rollers at various locations (also may or may not sell one or both of these). This lets me worry about less things, have some more money right now, and get back into a Mk7 with a lower monthly payment than my truck as I have missed my Mk7 GTI ever since getting rid of it for my Ranger. It will be sad to stop tracking this car for now, but it will also be nice to just keep it driveable for more than 5min by not tracking it haha. Also obligatory more pics of the R since I am really enjoying having a fast daily again haha

 

I'm sure that's a hard decision to make, but it sounds pretty logical to me. No sense making the car a burden instead of a joy. What do you plan to go to school for?

 

Mechanical Engineering. A decent chunk of my friends are engineers so I watched them go through school and know it will be a struggle lol. Its going to suck but I think it is the right thing for me to do for the future as I am pretty maxed out with how high I can go at my job with my current associates degree. I really enjoy what I do, but I don't want to be just a tech forever. Hopefully I can enjoy the car on the street for now here and there and have fun tracking the NB.

 

Thanks for the catch can updates, nice data points at least.

I feel you on the life updates, just focus on what matters and maybe you'll be in a better place to finish sorting and race the NA. I don't blame you for enjoying tracking your mostly stock miata. They really are great.

 

Behold, an update on the car:




But yeah in all seriousness this damn thing has eaten its second engine in 2 years. Its weird since it didn't smoke at all during Gridlife, car ran great as far as engine performance was concerned. Drove it on and off the trailer fine. My work puts on an event once a year called Summerfest with catered food and games and ice cream and what not, and at the center of it (at least the center as far as I am concerned) is a car show. I was going to take the racecar like I did last year as its nice to try to represent a road course racecar in a sea of old American muscle lol. Got a new lower rad hose to fix the one that got punctured during Gridlife, swapped my front and rear pads to my street setup, and threw me street exhaust back on. I go to take the car for a test drive and she's smoking real bad.

Pulled the plugs:



Bore-scoped the cylinders:



And did a compression test (cyl 3):



Cylinder 3 is even more dead than it was in the last motor. Cylinders 1,2, and 4 were all above 150psi... Either this is some sick joke the car is playing on me (possible), it is a giant coincidence, or I have some other unrealized issue going on. The car blowing up cyl3 twice in a row on two completely different engines seems weird to me. I am kinda suspecting maybe the cyl3 injector has a problem and maybe was/is leaning out cyl3 only. I should have sent them off and had them cleaned and flow tested but I didn't even think to do that after the last engine since I just chalked that whole thing up to that engine being overworked and tired. Unfortunately this means this car will now be down for an indefinite amount of time. I start school next week so I just don't really have the time or money to give this car the built engine it deserves (deserves is maybe a strong word right now lol). For now the car will sit there and think about what it has done while I get the NB prepped for a few more track days this fall. Hopefully over the winter I can at least get the head off the engine and see what ultimately failed. Not the update I had hoped to bring you all but as they say:

 

**** happens, but no consolation to you hearing it

If I hear of problems with No4, I don't immediately think of an injector. Other cylinders, injector def in the mix as at least part of the problem.

I think the take away from this experience is, if you can't be pretty certain what caused the problem, get the injectors checked, and maybe that should be a default anyway.

I hope all goes well with the NB

 

Shucks, man. Sorry to hear it. Appreciate the memes, though. Glad you at least got a couple other rides to keep you entertained in the meantime.

I'll stay subscribed to hear what you find when the engine is torn down.

 

That sucks. Since you're not in a rush and if you decide to keep it, you can always just slowly collect parts to do a forged bottom end.

 

Well its been a minute gents, but I finally had a little time and tore down the OG engine from this car that I blew up in late 2022. It had probably ~10 track day, a dragon trip, and lots of back road ripping on it between 2019-2022 while it was boosted, and many many track days on it N/A prior. Hindsight 20/20 I think I was making more power than I thought as I never dyno'd the car once boosted... Last year (on the motor still in the car, but same boost I was on this one) had a fun roll race with my buddy and his turbo NB1 running identical turbo hard-parts but no aero and 15x7s while I am on 15x10s and big splitter and wing so I should be slower for the same power. We did a 40-120 and we were DEAD even. He dyno'd 250whp so yeah I think I may have been making more than intended haha.

See if you can spot the problem....


Cyl 1:


Cyl 2:


Cyl 3:


Cyl 4:


Really impressed that this engine lasted as long as it did and was still running, albeit very smokey, when it was pulled. The cylinder walls on #2 and 3 have a tiny bit of scoring that I can feel with my nail but can probably be fixed with a hone (I'm not a machinist). I also was probably running AFRs that were too lean for the power I was making now that I know I was probably ~50whp underestimating my power level haha... I was running ~12.0-12.5 in boost and looking back now that I know more than I did when I tuned this engine years ago I'm thinking thats not ideal for a turbo miata on track on stock bottom end. Debating on if I want to get into fixing this or not right now with school and enjoying running the NB when I have time... We shall see.