So I'm signed up for the weekend at Dominion Raceway Nov 2/3rd. Got a few friends who'll be out there so it should be a fun weekend hanging w some friends. I've done one weekend at Dominion before and it's not my favorite track (it's a pretty newly built track and the layout and lack of runoff in spots kinda sucks) but it's still track time so it's fun regardless. A buddy of mine Dave will be there instructing and I'll have to get him behind the wheel to see what he thinks of the car's setup. Homeboy can drive, and I expect him to be my "Stig" going forward to see what the car is capable of. I'm hoping to do the weekend afterwards for a track weekend at Summit as that'll be the end of the season around here (it's getting cool).

Backing up a bit. I installed a cheap turbo blanket (just trying to reduce heat where possible). This is the one I got: I don't have high hopes for it lasting forever as it was only $28, but honestly it doesn't look too bad. I bought a ~$200 one for my Honda and that one was definitely a little nicer and thicker, but we'll see how this one holds up. My main concern with heat after making the heatshields is the coils mounted closish to the turbo manifold so I want to keep them from getting exposed to too much heat. Ideally I would have the coils mounted all on the passenger side of the valve cover but I'm short on time and want to drive the car. On that note, I made a quick heatshield above the manifold that uses 3 valve cover spots to mount it. It's not ideal but should do the trick for the time being. I definitely need to make a proper heatshield for the manifold but it'll take more time and I wanted a quick and dirty solution for the time being.




I haven't commented too much on the BMM ECU, but it seems like a great value for the money. The support from Jesse and from other users in the Discord is awesome and it's a very capable ECU. It has some good safeties built in (which admittedly I need to setup) like adjusting injector pulse width as fuel pressure drops, lambda safety limits (fuel cut if a/f is too lean), and other typical stuff like boost cut, etc. I added a fuel pressure and oil pressure transducer (Honeywell part #MIPAN1XX100PSAAX) and an oil temp sensor: https://www.improvedracing.com/18-np...tte-gauge.html The pressure sensors were very straightforward to wire up. Fuel pressure used the 3 pins from the oem map sensor, and oil pressure I had to run 3 wires from the ECU. Oil temp was 2 wires from the ECU with a pullup resistor installed between 4C (signal) and 4F(5V) like this picture.



I haven't wired up the MAC solenoid for boost control as I'm just running off wastegate at the moment, but I will do that over winter. Here are the nice readouts. It's nice being able to monitor all these in one gauge rather than needing multiple. I like having oil temp as it's important to let the oil get upto temp before really pushing the car. Coolant temp responds a lot faster and warms up quickly but oil temp can take some time.


So now I need to work on tuning the car a bit more. Working my way around Tunerstudio has a bit of a learning curve (like setting up templates so you can easily view logs/etc) but it's fairly straightforward and there's lots of info out there.

I've put the car through a few heat cycles and it's a lot of fun. Small/light cars + some power = good times. I haven't made any progress on the radiator ducting but I'll get started on it soon. A friend suggested the HVAC ducting material at HD and I'll be stopping by today. If anyone has suggestions for sealing up the large holes around/in front of the radiator I'm all ears. It looks like the stock plastics cover a lot of that and I'm not sure if the stock piece will fit back in place, it doesn't look too promising.

 

Yo dude! Thought I dropped a reply on the thread here yesterday but apparently I didn’t. Congrats on the first fire up and drive! All those hours you put in look like they paid off. The bracing and shielding look great. Can’t wait to see how the car treats you at its first track day.

Watching your experiences closely with the BMM ECU. They’re coming out with an NC variant around December. I haven’t edited my own tune in the ECUtek software yet but the temptation to tune with software I’m already familiar with (From your above post it looks like it runs off of TunerStudio, right?) is pretty enticing.

Welcome to the boosted club!

 

Thx man. Ya *knock on wood* hopefully no issues. The neat thing about the BMM ECU is it's built on FOME (open source software) that is still getting regular updates/releases. The only "problem" I foresee for you with something like the BMM ECU is being in CA and your emissions/smog reqs. I'm assuming they plug the OBD2 connector to the ecu to check/test it, and I'm pretty sure BMM doesn't support obd2 protocols. Depending on your setup, you could maybe just swap the ECU for emissions tests. Besides that, yes, it just uses Tunerstudio to make all the changes. I guess TS is just a giant xml file for making property changes in the ECU so it can be used for different standalones. If you're interested, I'd highly recommend just popping into the discord and ask a few questions as Jesse and others are very helpful with answering questions.

 

Congrats man, looks great! It is politics season, so if you need ducting material I don't imagine it would be hard to find some wild coroplast growing on a street corner.

I've noticed that the embossed aluminum is prone to cracking if it sees a lot of vibration. I think the way you've got it will be fine though. Mine had a section that wasn't supported very well and one day it basically fell off. The stuff seems to work well though.

 

The emissions testing in California isn't an issue at the moment. Most of us doing stuff like this over in Cali "got a guy". I'll have to ask Jesse about OBD/CAN compatibility. It's not a make or break, but I have my coolant temp and AFR readings broadcast to the center display in my car via an OBDII dongle. Wouldn't be the end of the world to have to add a couple standalone gauges but I'd prefer to keep my display if possible.

Didn't realize that's how TS worked. That's actually super cool that's how the files work. I'll probably message Jesse once I get all my questions together and see how viable the ECU will be for me personally.

 

Gotcha that makes sense. There's definitely CAN compatability as a few people on the discord are running some Pidashes and I think one or two people run the DD-EFI digital dash which runs off CAN I believe. Well, I'm not 100% sure that's how it works but I believe it's just an ini file that maps to properties in the ECU. I'm sure it's a little more complicated than that but that's probably the main gist of it. The BMM ecu supports DBW TB's, e85 sensors, and a bunch of other stuff that's beyond my scope of interest at the moment. Stop in, there's an NC forum (which doesn't have much yet) as well as a potential new user section. https://www.beermoneymotorsports.com...munity-support

 

Ha, that's a good point on those political signs. I'll drive by the polling place to get free material. lol Ya that's def the thing w/ embossed Al, it's not as strong as normal straight sheetmetal. If it's well supported I think it'll hold up ok. Ideally I'd like to replace the big heatshield that curves around the back with a straight sheetmetal bent piece but that'll have to wait.

I took the car for a spin today and weather is a little on the warm side (low 80's) and boost "only" hit 6.3psi. Baby boost over here.. Warmer weather means lower boost. I expect the track day will be cooler and while it'd be fun to have more boost I'm short on time to mess w/ it. So, it is what it is. Another 1-2psi won't make a meaningful difference anyway. If it's cool out in a couple weeks it should be back upto ~7ish.

 

Its all coming together nicely by Discord brother! Pumped for your track day.

Can't say enough about the Beer Money ecu. For under a 1000, you're getting an onboard wideband and a Canbus multi-gauge.

Z - def hit up Jesse on the nc ecu - you'd be right back on tuner studio (that could be good or bad

 

So probably the least fun part of this project has been completing the ducting and trimming the plastics. There's nothing fast about it and it's just a pita. Putting a piece on, test fitting it, cutting it, rinse and repeat 20 times.

So I was going to use sheet aluminum but I have a giant sheet of 22 gauge galvanized steel just sitting in the garage (I used one part of it to seal off our old fireplace years ago when it wasn't in use), so that's what I used. It's a bit of a pain to work with but being sturdy is a plus. I made templates for the side pieces out of cardboard. Fortunately if you do one side the other is very similar/almost a mirror of one side. There's only one 10mm bolt on each side but I taped all the edges to seal things up so they aren't going anywhere.







After making the side pieces, it became clear I needed to make a big piece to seal off the bottom of the intercooler to the radiator. I was too lazy to make a cardboard template and just started with some measurements and just kept trimming the big sheet and marking/drilling holes for mounting it. It has 5 mounting points, 2 on the bottom of the intercooler and 3 at the rear of the radiator. I also needed to seal the bottom so I bought some insulating foam from HD. I'm pretty happy with how this turned out. It looks pretty nice and is pretty sturdy. It overlaps underneath the front bumper inlet so it should direct the air to the coolers.




Here's a few pictures of the insulation sealing the radiator.





Trimming the stock plastics was a royal pita and super tedious as you'd expect. Mark where to cut, take it off, cut it, put it back on. Repeat 20x.. I thought about making another piece to attach the bumper to the oem rear plastic undertray but after trimming the plastic it mated up nicely w/ the sheetmetal so I just used a few self tapping screw to attach it.




I bought an air diversion plate a while back and figured I might as well use it. In hindsight it probably wasn't worth it but it did save me a little time. I had to trim it in a few spots to fit. I didn't snap pictures but I taped all the edges of the ducting around the radiator and any gaps to seal the opening for air to escape. If the car overheats I'll be quite surprised honestly.



Also, filled up the car with gas today and I forgot that I remember it didn't get to full on the gauge. The wires I didn't keep out of the way of the float switch. I pulled the fuel pump and just had to zip tie the wires for the pump that were keeping the float from going all the way up.

Finally, boost has been fluctuating a bit (on the low side 6-7psi). I have it lying around and have a little time before this weekend so I'll install the MAC solenoid. I still have to swap pads but that doesn't take too long. I have a bracket coming tomorrow and get to play w/ it. BMM has built in boost control so we'll see how it does. Traffic sucks so badly around here but I need to take the car out for a bit tonight to make some pulls and see how the tune is looking and what the boost curve looks like. It looks like it falls off a bit on the top end.. With the boost control I could just raise it a bit at higher rpms or at least keep it flat.

 

Finally got a chance to take the car out to do some pulls and boost looks pretty good to me. It looks to hold a steady ~7psi, and starts to creep a bit from ~6200rpm upto 8.5psi to redline. I'll have to monitor it under different conditions, but on track I expect to be spending a whole lot of time in 3rd gear and higher, so I don't think i'll need more boost. How much boost are other kraken top mount folks running and what kind of power would I be making at ~7 psi. Would I even be at 190whp? Just curious, guess I gotta poke around the interwebs.

Also, coolant temps look to fluctuate ~195F but I guess that's to be expected as the Supermiata reroute is supposed to have a 195F thermostat, and my radiator fan kicks on at 195F. Coolant temps maybe touch 200F but drop after that. Oil temps only got upto 190F but that's to be expected unless I'm really pushing the car. Oil pressure with hot/warm 180F oil is ~20psi with an 850rpm idle.

 

Good stuff man! I think making ducting and other “custom-fitted” pieces was probably my least favorite part of building my car haha. Your ducting looks great! I’m sure your temps will be fine on track.

My stock NA8 motor with your exact kit and 197k on the clock (but solid compression numbers) made 195whp at 8psi creeping up to 9 at redline. That jumped up to 210whp at 9psi creeping up to 10 after preloading the wastegate actuator with a couple washers.

Bet it’s a blast and can’t wait to see the car hit the track!

 

So first off I'll say it was a fun weekend. Car stayed in one piece which is good, with some minor hiccups here and there, but that's to be expected. Beautiful weather (about perfect for the track) and a good time hanging with friends.

Backing up to the boost controller. I got it wired up top the ECU but never enabled it and hooked up the vacuum lines. Honestly I will likely wait a while before touching it again as the car felt good and doesn't "need" more power. Weather was cool, 40's in the morning but warmed upto mid 60's and sunny in the afternoon. Last time I was at Dominion raceway was 2016. Dominion is an interesting track in that it's relatively new. I want to say it was built in 2015 or 2016. For whatever reason though they didn't plan for too much runoff and there are a bunch of walls in spots, which for a new track is disappointing. There's a circle track that racing happens on, but the road course it mainly just HPDE/TT type stuff. The layout doesn't suit well for racing. When I did an event back in 2016 there were a few humps/bumps on the main straight that they've fiixed, which is good, but runoff is the same. Quick layout so folks can see what I mean:


Anyway, first session I was relearning the track and just taking it easy since the car went through a lot of changes. Second session towards the end I was picking up the pace and car felt good. Happy to report coolant temps were rock solid throughout the weekend. I haven't pulled the logs off the BMM ECU yet to get an exact number but just glancing at the gauge periodically I don't think they eclipsed 205F and would usually hover around 200F. Oil temps for the weekend peaked at 210F with mid 60's ambient temps which is nothing. I'm thinking on hotter days the oil cooler should do just fine. Boost looked to vary a bit, holding steady ~7psi and creeping at times to 9psi. I'll pull the logs and go over them eventually. I think the engine is burning a touch of oil. I added a 1/4 quartish of oil after some sessions, but it's not bad. I need to check the catch can also. I religiously check the oil after each session as that's a sure way to kill a motor. I probably was running it w/ a touch extra but I prefer that. Obligatory shot of the car before the first session. Also a shot of the gauge in the stock cluster. I like the simplicity of the setup and not having pillar gauges. I think I want to get a 2nd can gauge to replace the coolant gauge. Another minor thing, the car drinks gas and I only did ~2 sessions between fill ups. I forgot to fillup after 2 sessions once and the needle would get to E with things sloshing around so I had to come in after only a few laps.






So, how did the car feel w/ the turbo? The car's a fu**ing blast. Most of the track is just in 3rd and 4th gear, except for the main straight which almost tops out 5th. The torque is awesome, and the car was very balanced. It rotates nicely trail braking but is pretty neutral. At higher speeds the rear gets a little light w/o any aero (through the uphill esses which are a lot of fun) but not bad. Brakes feel awesome as well, no issues all weekend. So on to the bad.. I'm pretty sure I have an open diff, or a broken Torsen. Powering out of turns, it was doing an inside tire burnout (my buddy Dave said from the pits) on some tight turns. At first I was like hmm.. the revs climb like a slipping clutch, but it only happened coming out of turns. Then the tire would hook and sort of jolt you forward. Anyway, I tried to manage that a bit through the weekend, but losing a ton of time as I almost had to wait till the wheel was mostly unwound to hammer down. Also, the circlip on the wastegate took a vacation after Dave took the car out for a session. Fortunately I borrowed some safety wire from an event organizer (forget his name, but I owe you one!) and that worked for the rest of the weekend. I need to take the wastegate arm and bend it a touch as the angle is not perfectly flat to the actuator arm. Surprisingly it didn't seem to affect the session and must have popped off coming off track.




In terms of other issues, I did notice a small puddle when returning to the car Sunday morning. I think the radiator hose connecting to the R theory waterneck seeped a touch when the car cooled down and pressure dropped in the system. It didn't leak when the car was running, the diameter of the water neck might be slightly smaller than oem or I just need to crank on the clamp more. Didn't affect the weekend. Fortunately, no issues at all regarding bolts coming loose/etc. I didn't check them w/ a wrench yet, but I didn't see any exhaust leaks around any flanges. The exh manifold studs are new and came w/ nordlock washers. I gave the turbo a "wiggle" test cold and it's snug. Stage 8 locking hardware hasn't moved either. Hopefully that bracing is helping vibrations.

So knowing I'm not a great driver I had my "Stig" take the car out for a session. With me sitting passenger and spinning the rear tires everywhere coming out of turns he clocked a 1:36.3 with me in it. He thinks it'll easily do a 1:34 or faster with a proper diff which is quick for what it is. My best of the weekend was a 1:37.95, so let's say 1:38. It's a fun car. I will get some videos up later from the gopro. I let Miguel (with the Mustang) take the Miata out for one session and he said he spun it in one turn.. lol He's not used to the short wheelbase cars and probably the quick countersteering required to catch the rear. I had a few drift moments which were fun as well. Also, met a nice dude, Jeff with this nice K swapped miata. He was moving and faster than me. His stories of blowing two motors being turbocharged before weren't very comforting, but my car made it through the weekend. I have noticed a similarity in all these blown motor stories, and it has the words "turned up the boost" in them.




Other fun for the weekend was I took out my buddy's Mustang. I want to say it's a 2015 or 26? Not sure. It's a base w/ performance pack brakes, a different intake manifold, intake, and exhaust, running 305 square. I think tires were older Contri Extreme contact tires. All I can say is holy moly.. the car fu--ing boogies. I thought it wouldn't be very responsive and the weight would be prohibitive.. not at all. The last Mustang I really pushed was an older mustang without an independent rear suspension and crappier front suspension, and this was not that car. One word to describe it is "composed." Power wise.. all I can say is I want a v8. You breathe on the throttle and it lunges. Turn in was surprisingly super crisp, suspension was very smooth and kept the car stable/settled (compared to the Miata w/ the BC coilovers which is all over the place lol), and stock aero is much better and very composed at higher speeds and confidence inspiring. I put the car in track mode for my session, and I'm not sure if it was doing anything. Admittedly I was off pace for sure and didn't push that close to the limit, but it was enough to leave me very impressed. The car is bigger of course but on track it wasn't bad at all. I know everyone says Vette is the "easy button" to go fast affordably but I think this gen Mustang should be added to the list. He's been tracking the hell out of this car (and turning quick times, he ran a 1:33 flat at Dominion) for a few years now and it's been very reliable. Props to Ford. The coyote v8 is solid. Edit: Oh ya one thing I forgot to mention.. the brakes on the Mustang. WOW. Those 305's, giant calipers, and pads.. Man they bit hard and gave you a lot of confidence. The car's just *VERY* well balanced.



Also not so good.. the car died otw home. Electronics started acting funny and knew something was up. Putted as far as I could and the car died. Haven't diagnosed it fully but pretty sure the alternator died. It's the one thing I haven't replaced or touched since getting the car. Sitting on the side of the expressway w/ a small shoulder is sketchy to say the least. I won't bore you with the details but roadside assistance came by w/ a jump pack which got me to the regular shoulder off the express lanes, and Miguel brought his mustang battery which got me from the highway shoulder to a parking lot ~1 mile away. There were no tow trucks available for hours when I first called. 3 hrs later after I got home a tow truck met me immediately and I got the car home. All's well that ends well despite a little drama. If anyone has recommendations about a good alternator, please let me know. It seems like alternators are a common problem (not sure why) for Miatas and I'd like to not have to worry about it again.



Fun times.. I don't think I'm gonna do a track weekend next week so that's probably it for me this year. The open diff really sucks. That and the alternator are obviously at the top of the list of things to fix.

 

Damn, quite the action-packed weekend man. Congrats on the car making it through its first track day! The teething issues seem to be what one would expect and I'd still call it a win since the alternator failure wasn't related to anything you did with the turbo.

Track looks like a fun layout but I could see how the lack of runoff might get scary. Especially at the end of that long front straight. That thing must be long if you're almost topping out 5th there. With a 4.1 that means you're probably hitting ~130mph if you're just below redline? Proper quick haha.

 

Ya.. can't blame the alternator on the track day.. First time I've had to be towed after an event and knew it was coming one day. It's a fun track, just a big let down for a brand new track, but is what it is. So I messaged the old old owner of the car and it's a 4.3 open diff. Gearing is short so I thought it was a 4.3, but I was wrong obviously thinking it had a torsen. I sorta questioned it back at my last event at Shenandoah but sorta forgot about it to be honest. In hindsight I should've known then.

Top speed from datalogging on the main straight was ~118. Now I gotta make a decision this offseason. At this point it's probably wise to put a 6 speed in it while I'm swapping the diff (have some headroom and some safety margin), but I'm really not sure if I ought to do a 3.6 or 3.9 FD. Comparing the gearing, the 3.6 is just a touch shorter than the existing 5 speed with the 4.3, with an extra gear on top. Whereas the 6 speed with 3.9 would be shorter and closer together.. I like the existing spacing with the 5 speed but it'd be nice to not have to worry about it as much.

 

A couple quick videos from the weekend. My buddy's best time was a 1:36.3 w me in it. My best time was about a 1:38 flat. Sorry, the camera wasn't very secure apparently and shifts a bit side to side. You can see the tach jumping as the inside tires were spinning.

Stig:

Me:

 

Looking good man! It seems like that's the stabilization feature on the gopro causing the side to side motion and not the camera mount itself.

Fun looking track but you weren't joking about the lack of runoff. I'm sure it stops being a bother after a handful of laps, though. Facilities look super nice, too! The buildings surrounding our tracks out here are all falling apart lol.

 

Is that what it was? Interesting had no idea that was the stabilization software.

Ya a bunch of tracks here on the east coast don't have too much runoff which sucks compared to the west coast tracks I've seen. You guys don't have trees in So Cal whereas here everywhere is a forest unless you clear trees. I'll take crappy facilities and more runoff. Dominion is sort of a one off where it has nice looking buildings because it's brand new but a better planned track would've been much better. I think it's an underutilized track because I don't think any actual racing takes places on it. Not sure how they thought people would ever race on it with the design/layout they chose..

 

I agree with Zak, definitely looks like the GoPro is trying to compensate for the G forces. There's probably a setting that allows you to turn that tracking off without losing all stabilization/smoothing.

Either that or maybe the camera is just getting scared and trying to look away in the corners

 

Lol, that's my personal driving strategy. What you can't see can't hurt you.

Yeah, makes sense. I'd take the runoff too. We actually get some decent foliage down where I'm at but all of our tracks are out in the high desert, an hour or so outside of Orange County/LA/etc. Makes total sense as there's real estate out there for days, and any tracks around here that have residential areas built around them later on don't last long due to noise complaints.

 

Found a local alternator/starter rebuild shop and the guy Dan seems like a stand up dude. So apparently my rotor died on my alternator and that part isn't available. He said one of the wires broke and he could have a custom one made at 2-300$, but it might not be worth it. I ordered a remanned AC Delco from Rock Auto to get the car running, it says it's a rebuilt Hitachi? Who knows.. I will be on the lookout for spare alternators and bring one back to Dan to rebuild to have a spare. I poked around online and was curious to see that mazda "sells" remanned alternators, but sadly found that they are discontinued and no longer available. This website for example lists the part, but I called and it's discontinued. :( https://www.mazdastuff.com/Mazda-Mia...r-0a-10305.htm

So, if anyone has thoughts on alternators and reliability I'm all ears as it seems like remanned ones are hit or miss. Apparently the new made in China ones are not good, so I won't bother with one of them. I guess as a precaution and something that's simple/easy to do, I'll redo the engine grounds to the chassis (the one by the dipstick has seen better days). I'm all for simple/preventative maintenance.

Onto the next topic.. changes for next year. Honestly, I don't want to change too much at this point, but I know 3 things I ought to "upgrade." I need a new torsen diff, and I thought about different ratios and keeping the 5spd, but honestly it seems like switching to a 6spd is just the more prudent choice (it's stronger), especially since I'm swapping the diff now. On that note I like the gearing with the 6 speed and the 3.6. It's just a little shorter and tighter than the 5 speed now w/ the 4.3. Is it the fastest choice? No. Probably a 3.9 or 4.1 would be "ideal," but I wouldn't mind a taller 6th for highway cruising also, and plus w/ the 6 speed I can turn up the boost a bit w/ less fear of busting the 5 speed. I bought a 6 speed and am on the hunt for a 3.6 torsen.

Next thing is aero.. I'm honestly quite torn on what to do in this regard. The "easy" button seems to be the 9lr front air damn and big ****, but I would like to keep the car streetable. I need to dig through the aero thread here on the forum and see what people say/recommend. If anyone cares to chime in I'm all ears as well. Does adding just a splitter do much for front aero? I'd like to think the front hood vents actually help a bit aero wise. Then for a wing, I know there's the 9lr street ****, the big ****, and some other options like an apr gtc200.. Like most 90's MY cars, the miata would benefit a good deal from a rear wing, that much I know.

Finally, the BC coilovers are better than the stock suspension but the damping is pretty bad. I will get some xidas but Ed was saying to choose an aero setup first before choosing spring rates, so trying to sort that out. Anyone have suggestions regarding aero/suspension I'm all ears.