Just your average K24/Drysump/Stocksubframe/S2000trans build for NASA/WRL
 

Edit: Honda stuff starts at post 65.

After 10 years of mostly lurking on this forum, I've finally decided to make a build thread. I've learned a ton from this place over the years but haven't had many opportunities to give back, so I'm going to attempt to document my Ecotec swap. Most of the good ecotec information is buried in facebook right now, and... Fuck. That.

I'll be running this car in WRL GP1 and NASA ST4, and maybe ST5 as well with a detune and a bunch of ballast. Honestly the ecotec swap still ranks pretty low on my list of favorite miata engines, but I decided it's the best fit for my needs. The endurance racing aspect meant ruling out boost, both for reliability and fuel economy reasons. The NASA ST4/5 rules mean I have to keep the stock unmodified subframe, so Ecotec or built n/a BP were really the only two options left. A lightly built BP can make enough power for ST5, but the Ecotec makes 20-40hp more for quite a bit less money, with a much fatter midrange. Plus I've always preferred $700 junkyard replacements over built motors. And 245 hoosiers for ST4 are only $33 more per set than 225 Hoosiers for ST5. And 2250lb ST4 comp weight sounds way more fun than 2450-2500lb ST5 comp weight. And enduros will be more fun with more power, since there will be less getting passed on the straights and held up in the corners by 250hp turbo Saabs that are somehow 2 classes below me. And...

Starting with a relatively clean 2001 chassis that was someone else's failed turbo kswap drag car project. Thankfully he didn't get much farther than disassembling everything and then rattle canning the interior flat black. I bought it for $1000 last fall with no engine, transmission, or interior. Dropped my old 99 drivetrain into it so that it could be moved around easily, and then immediately took it to Mark Mcmahan in Akron for the cage. Picked it back up 2 weeks ago and have slowly been working on all the non-drivetrain stuff while I wait for my swap kit to arrive. Swap kit was ordered in December and should be shipping any day now, but I still have plenty of stuff to keep me busy.

Parts/plans:

Nice. :)

Full custom cage or a Spec kit?

Full custom.

Photos don't work for me

Dammit. I thought google links would work with a public, shared google photos album. How about now?

Just curious, why isn't there any bars tying the halo nodes (diagonal or center)? Seems like a lot of room for stuff to get in/out if the hardtop comes off in a roll over.

:bigtu:

Short answer: I forgot.

Long answer: This is my second Mcmahan NB cage in 2 years.The first one only got about 4 races under its belt before getting totalled in the WRL enduro at Road America last May. Oil down in the kink is bad news. That car had a passenger seat so that I could give ride alongs while instructing, so I intentionally left the roof diagonal out for headroom reasons. I told Mark to make this cage identical to the last one except for a couple small change requests, and I forgot about the roof bar. I'll probably add it myself at some point, but that's a pretty rare crash scenario so I'm not super worried about it.

What seat is that?

PS: welcome, fellow Ecotec swapper!

Tillett B6F. Details and pictures located here:

https://www.miataturbo.net/race-prep...a-84927/page4/

Bauce.

That cagework is legit!

Hell yizz. That cage work is on point...... as usual. Mad jelly of that.

I take it the car will be on 15x10s for both sets of tires?

I'm not sure yet. I'm going to play with spacers on a 15x9/225 and/or borrow a 15x10 from one of the Louisville guys to test fit. I need to see for myself exactly how much fender fucking is required for 10s before making the call.

Not much on an NB as long as you don't have a thooper speshul wide track edition.

I bet it will require minimal fender fucking.

Also, looking for any WRL team-mates?! :D

It won't. The setup on my car that required massive fucking fits on the other car with a flat roll.

I followed your 15x10 saga for a little while but eventually lost track. What ended up being the source of your problems?

Aliens, probably.

I'm guessing it has to be a "death by thousand cuts" scenario. Setup would absolutely fit on the blue car with a flat roll.

Thanks. The weirdness with your car is one of the things that made me want to see the fitment in person with my own eyes on my own car before making the call. I'm less scared now.

Hey if it makes you feel better, nobody has had these issues with 6ULs. ;)

Correlation = Causation on the internet, right?

Made some progress on the car this weekend. Saturday was dedicated to destruction (removing the last of the sound deadening, removing OEM seat floor mounts, etc.) and Sunday was spent making parts to mount the steering column. Pretty happy with how this setup came out. I cut the factory brackets off of the steering column so that there was just a round shaft left to clamp onto, then made a clamp out of 3/4" aluminum. The shaft collar and sheetmetal extension brackets were intended to only be used for mockup and measurement purposes, but the column is rock solid as-is. I'm still going to make a final set of one-piece brackets out of 3/8" or 1/2" aluminum but that's much lower on the priority list now. These will do for a while.

https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...377a2cfbc1.jpg
https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...3f589ca8d0.jpg
https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...09a7872ac1.jpg

Also did this. I've never really liked the spec miata pull cables for external trunk release, so I disassembled the factory trunk lock cylinder, removed all of the guts, drilled a 3mm dowel hole through the cylinder and through a spare key blank, and then pinned the key in place. I bought this silly anodized titanium key off one of the forums a few years ago and figured I might as well finally use it for something lol. The only weirdness is that I had to enlarge the hole in the bumper cover for the key to fit through, but it isn't noticeable unless you know.

https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...bd8059fab5.jpg

Oh... nevermind i read this time. Disregard. Nice blue key. :D

Can't wait to see this guy out at the track!

i like the progress so far. will be following.

Also, I can confirm that 15x10's fit fine with a flat roll in the front and a flat roll and slight pull in the rear without issues on an NB chassis. I run that setup with 245 RS4's

Version 2

https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...45e36f1588.jpg

Driver's view with rearview camera and a poorly installed side window.

https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...5013ab9dd1.jpg

WRL just started allowing ballast this year if you want to always run the fiberglass doors and not mess with putting two sets of numbers on two pairs of doors, check out the rule book for what allowances they are making, nothing crazy but easily enough to offset the doors

Glad to see you sharing this stuff publicly man, you're a real genius with this stuff

Oh, and I'm really digging your garage poster selection

I just saw that this weekend. 150lb ballast allowed this year, but you have to take a 0.2 p:w modifier for running ballast. Weird rule. I think I can get to the weight I need with steel doors and an oversized battery and be able to run at the lower p:w ratio.

Swap kit arrived last Friday but I’m still having trouble getting an engine. I had been eyeing 3 or 4 good $700-800, 15-20k mile engines within 90 miles on car-part.com, but when I started calling around trying to buy one last week they were all already gone. Opened my search up to almost 200 miles but still couldn’t find anything with a combination of price and mileage that I liked. Finally just said fuck it and paid $1330 shipped for a 2017 Buick Verano LEA with 23k miles from LKQ. It was supposed to be delivered today, but instead the tracking website showed a “delivery exception”. After 30 minutes of phone calls, the motor is still in Georgia because LKQ chose a freight company that doesn’t ship to Kentucky, but the engine still made it onto a truck somehow and then had to be returned to LKQ. What a clusterfuck.

Anyway, I went ahead and transferred the holes from the "racer" flywheel adapter and redrilled my flywheel for the ecotec bolt pattern. The ecotecmiata guys recommend a grade 10.9 flanged hex bolt for this location but I'm not sure this flywheel can handle the added diameter of a flanged hex bolt. I might just stick with these 12.9 socket head cap screws. Still need to check clearance to the clutch disc.

Pictures...

https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...4c124b0fda.jpg
https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...1c83aecfef.jpg
https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...8d68ebd328.jpg

FYI someone on Facebook mentioned that they bought a rebuilt LE5 from Alpha Fab Industries for $1k + shipping. They should be able to provide you with a good LEA engine as well and their customer service is absolutely superb.

Good to know. Low miles LE5s are getting hard enough to find that an alpha fab rebuild is probably a really good option, especially at that price. There are still plenty of good LEAs available though and I would definitely prefer a sealed OEM engine over a rebuild. My LKQ order hasn't been cancelled so I'll hopefully have an engine by the end of the week.

The cheapness of OEM GM parts continues to surprise me. I bought a used CTS pedal off ebay a couple weeks ago for $40, just because it's what was recommended in the swap instructions. I started to mount it this weekend but wasn't a big fan of the GM angle bracket, so I started searching for how other people had done it. After finding Ryan's thread with pictures of mounting the Camaro pedal, I decided I wanted to go that route, and Amazon had a brand new GM pedal for $64 shipped! I really need to start looking up new part prices before buying used ebay stuff. The Camaro pedal is also about half the weight of the CTS pedal, probably all because of the metal angle bracket that's no longer needed.

Also pictured here is a 2011 equinox engine bay harness that I got for $128 shipped. Not sure yet how much of it will get kept, but it should have all of the connectors I need and was barely more expensive than buying the 3 ECU connectors alone. I bought an E39 ecu also, but after following portabull's thread today and then talking to Matt at ecotecmiata, it's possible that I bought the wrong part number E39. Will update once I figure that out. It was only $22 shipped so no big deal if it's wrong.

Camaro pedal- AC Delco 22741799
Connector- AC Delco PT2712
Wiring harness- 20913053

Pedal mounting:
https://www.miataturbo.net/engine-pe...-85075/page11/

https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...e0a8072c74.jpg

Was it E39 that doesn't support Miata tachometer output? My E67 drives Miata tach, but it doesn't have a VE table. Instead, it uses a combination of tables with some formula. My tuner was not amused. You should check whether E39 is similar before you commit. Someone on Facebook is about to release MS3 wiring schematics specific to our swaps.

MS3 now supports DI?

Yeah, Megasquirt and Haltech can't control direct injection yet, and I'm currently not interested in spending the money on a racing ECU that can control it. I'm keeping the engine portion of this swap super simple, so HP Tuners should easily do everything I need. Plus I get a classing benefit in WRL by using a flashed stock ECU instead of an aftermarket standalone.

Matt at ecotecmiata has been super responsive and extremely helpful. I've been really impressed so far. He checked the calibration numbers printed on the cases for me yesterday and it looks like both of the E39 ECUs that I have are for V6 cars and won't work. I need to find an E39 that came out of a vehicle originally equipped with an LEA, such as a 2011-2012 Equinox. He suggested buying it through car-part.com, and calling the junkyard to 100% confirm that they're shipping me the exact stock number out of the correct car I need, not just an identical part number ECU. The hard part is that V6 and 4cyl cars have the same GM part number, so you really have to go through some effort to find out what car it came out of and not just buy based on part number. I'm sure this has already been covered in multiple swap threads, and I probably even read it at some point in the past, but I'm just learning it again. The LEA never came with a manual transmission, so at least I don't have to deal with that added complication on the ECU side. The automatic calibration is the only option and apparently works fine with the right tweaks.

LKQ still can't figure out where my motor is. Multiple phone calls again yesterday, and at 4pm (while I was in Tennessee) they left a voicemail saying it was delivered and signed for. I'm in the shop now, and it ain't here. The plus side of this is that once the motor gets delivered, I will have the opportunity to discuss compensation for lost time. Fingers crossed that I get a 2017 23k mile LEA for like $400 shipped. Lol

Make sure to prep your oil pan and trans adapter.

Sand the paint off the oil pan where it seals (you may have to wait for your engine to show up first), then scotch brite it for a few hours to prep the sealing surface.

Then for the trans adapter I had to countersink a hole or two a little deeper so the counter sunk bolts sat flush.

Also, we lengthened a few of the bolts to take advantage of every thread available. You just need to grab some longer ones obviously, then start shaving the ends off until they fit just perfect. i.e., they ship a 45mm because 50mm would be too long, but a 50mm shaved down to 48-49mm is perfect.

Yeah I'll definitely be paying close attention to bolt length. I was a little surprised when I opened the box of parts and saw that the adapter plate is 1/2" aluminum, not steel. The full 12.7mm of thread engagement is already borderline for an M12 bolt in aluminum, so custom length bolts are definitely worth the effort for any holes that end up being blind on the backside after bolting the plate to the engine. It would be nice if the adapter plate were steel and the oil pan aluminum, instead of vice versa. The oil pan weighs 17lb!

LKQ update:
My engine is still in Georgia. The "delivered and signed for" notification yesterday was from the freight company returning the engine to the original LKQ location in Georgia, for a second time. LKQ used the same exact shipping company, twice, even after the engine getting returned the first time because that company doesn't deliver to KY. Twice now the engine has been loaded on a truck, driven around Georgia for a little while, and then returned to the same location. If they get it fixed and shipped with a different company tomorrow, I should have it by Wednesday. Or maybe it will get loaded on the same truck again and driven around Georgia for a few more days...

:bowrofl: :facepalm:

Motor arrived last Tuesday and I've been making some good progress, but we had an emergency come up at work last week which is going to steal all of my free time for the next 2-3 weeks. I spent a ton of time in the garage this past weekend to make up for all of the miata time I'm about to lose.

Motor arrived with zero accessories, a busted intake manifold, and multiple broken sensors, so I spent the end of last week ordering and sourcing the remaining parts that I needed. There were also tons of shards of plastic in the intake ports when I pulled the busted manifold off, and the valves were open on 2 cylinders, so I had some fun with the bore scope and airblow trying to clean the plastic out of the cylinders. This motor has been full of headaches so far... I'm half expecting it to explode on the first startup.
https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...c265850d56.jpg
https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...91d961244c.jpg
https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...88a40f811b.jpg
https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...43d10b244c.jpg
https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...52bd1310f6.jpg

The starter that I got had some interference with the motor mount bolt. The bolt cleared, but the nut wouldn't go on. Just needed a little touch with the grinder. I was told this is a rare issue that only happens with certain starters? :shrug:
https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...5187a3c245.jpg
https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...263ced7f89.jpg

The oil pan looked really good in visual inspections, but the sanding block showed some high spots that would have caused sealing problems without plenty of RTV. I spent quite a while cleaning it up.
https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...9576634823.jpg
https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...1b7c3cc967.jpg

The welds on one side of the pan also interfered with the bolt heads and needed a little work with the die grinder.
https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...777130ab92.jpg
https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...7f0338634b.jpg

I waterjetted a plate for the Camaro pedal and got it welded up.
https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...fc6456b17e.jpg
https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...68eeb4cd82.jpg

Welded in the mazdacomp subframe braces.
https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...54f59f38c3.jpg

I've read about 1 or 2 people having problems with the motor mounts sagging over time and causing the oil pan to touch the steering rack. It seems to be a really rare problem, but it's easy to see why it could happen when you look at the motor mount design. The driver's side has to have this shape to clear the starter, and I guess the passenger side is shaped the same just for symmetry and ease of fab. I already had the subframe on the bench and the welder out, so I decided to add some supports underneath the mounts.
https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...4ba92ab32c.jpg
https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...5f2f71a56e.jpg
https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...a6f996a4cc.jpg

I drew up my reinforcements in CAD and made an 8.5x11 PDF file for anyone that wants to copy them. PDF attached below. Just print it with scale set to 100% and then measure the dimensioned lines to confirm that the scaling is correct.

I kind of had a plan for the cooling system based on internet pictures and reading, and I finally got that finalized once the motor arrived and I could see how things work in person. I'm deleting all of the water stuff on the back of the head and installing a block off plate with sensors. It's a semi-common mod with the dune buggy guys that use this motor, so I'm not worried about fucking up the flow routing.

I forgot to take a picture of mine, but here's the OEM ecotec routing for reference. The standard miata setup is to use a really long hose that routes around the back of the head toward the driver's side, under the intake mani, and into the normal miata radiator lower port. So if you include the OEM GM hardpipe, you're literally going all the way around the motor to get to the INLET of the water pump.
https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...3b8b17488d.jpg

In that picture you can see the FWD chevy coolant pipe on the back of the head, which is coming from the radiator outlet. The heater core connector on the right is the hot water outlet from the block, which just passes through that aluminum housing without connecting to anything else. The one on the left is the return from the heater core, and then that flows back into the water pump. Thermostat is located at the arrow. So as far as I can tell, the thermostat only ever sees cold water from the radiator, and partially cooled water from the heater core. Weird. The temp sensor is mounted in the hot water section of the housing.

Here's my original blockoff plate with the OEM coolant temp sensor and a 1/8NPT port for a 15psi SMi water pressure sensor.
https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...73291482f0.jpg

As I was going to install the blockoff plate, I realized that there was going to be zero flow around the water temp sensor. The port that I'm blocking off doesn't run straight into any cooling passages inside the block... it gets supplied by that cast-in rectagular channel with the imprinted QR code. I stuck a bore scope in there and couldn't see any intersecting passages all the way to the front of the head. My borescope isn't that great so there may be passages somewhere along the path, but there definitely aren't any within a few inches of the blockoff plate, so definitely no flow immediately around the temp sensor. So I decided to remake the blockoff plate with two 1/8NPT ports instead. One will be a bleeder nipple, and the other will be the SMi pressure gauge.

On top of the water outlet at the front of the block, there's a coolant nipple that doesn't get used in the miata swap. It was originally M8x1.25 with a crush washer, but there was plenty of meat around it so I drilled and tapped it to M12x1.5 for the factory temp sensor.
https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...bc2ec84cbe.jpg

I started searching for an OEM-application radiator that was roughly miata sized but with ports on the opposite sides. Scion TC and EP3 Civic Si were the two closest I could find. The scion radiator dimensions appeared to be a little too wide to fit inside hte miata frame rails, but I found an all aluminum CSF crossflow mis-priced on Amazon for $75 and I couldn't say no! It took a small amount of cutting and a lot of hammering, but I got it to fit. No in-car pictures yet until I can get some brackets made, which I can't do until the motor is in and I figure out final radiator placement.
https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...85b043d24b.jpg

And the final piece of the puzzle... I'm going to weld a 90 degree elbow on the back of the water pump housing for the radiator hose connection. It took a lot of rockauto, amazon, and google image searches, but I finally found a 2004 Maxima V6 thermostat housing that has an elbow shape that's almost perfect with the correct hose diameter for the Scion radiator. I'll chop the elbow off of the housing and then make a circular aluminum adapter that goes from the water pump ID down to the coolant neck OD, and then have a friend TIG it up for me.
https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...0da27fda71.jpg

I decided I'm going to do a (partial) PPF delete to make more room for exhaust and to keep from having to do a crossover pipe under the transmission, which would make the exhaust the lowest point of the car. My test fitting says I can definitely fit a 2.5" pipe on the passenger side once the PPF is gone, maybe larger. Getting past the trans is the hard part and then there's tons of room to cross back over to driver's side under the driveshaft. I have parts drawn in CAD for the trans mount but haven't started on them yet. A friend was in serious need of a diff mount for his J-series V6 swapped enduro car that recently got a BMW trans-swap and has a race in 2 weeks, so I went ahead and made 2 sets of my diff mounts.

I debated on a bunch of different designs and finally settled on this one. I could have probably saved a few more pounds by doing a simple bracket that welds to the rear subframe, but I like the simplicity and super easy install of this design. It bolts to the double-thickness lap joint of the trans tunnel where the tunnel and rear bulkhead sheetmetal come together, so it should be super strong. I don't know if mazda made multiple PPF variants with different cutout shapes, so I left the PPF bolt holes out of CAD and intend for them to be transferred and drilled on the car. The PPF will get chopped off right in front of the bracket, after the holes are drilled. I'm also replacing my old poly diff bushings with Miataroadster delrin diff bushings.

https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...f4a81864ba.jpg

https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...678d9eef68.jpg
https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...0d121dad80.jpg
https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...7e7e502a89.jpg
https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...93239e3d7b.jpg

I've been putting together a Google spreadsheet with with all of my part numbers and info related to the swap, just so that I can keep track of all this GM stuff that's new to me. I decided to just go ahead and make the spreadsheet public. I'm also going to encourage the ecotecmiata guys to make their own public google spreadsheet to make it easier to find this kind of stuff. The swap manual is pretty good but still leaves out a ton of small details about which parts work best.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...it?usp=sharing

Wow, I should have used that camaro pedal on my car. Good work Jeff!

Hello Jerfspeed.

How much for a turn key Enduro ready Ecotec NB?

Just saw this thread for the first time. Awesome to see someone else going through with this swap with some new solutions to some of the common issues that arise. Look forward to seeing the future progress! maybe my ecotec swap will be done in the near future lol. Iv'e been slowly working on it for the past few months with very limited time available.

Perfect response!

PS - PPF mount installed this weekend and looks great, drives great around the neighborhood and is old race tire street burnout approved. The real test is this weekend's enduro at NCM

With a partial PPF delete, you'd need a support for the diff and for the trans, right? What are you doing about the diff?

The part that I posted is the diff mount, not the trans mount. The trans will get its own separate mount. It will be a horizontal crossmember style mount bolted to the floor pan right inside of the frame rails, similar to what the v6 and v8 guys use.

Curious to see the mounts. On our car we have the ppf still and am wondering if this may be a better option.

I also like that approach as it makes swapping to a beefier transmission more straightforward. Very cool.

https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...1718c3b9ab.jpg

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...d9495f33e1.jpg

GM uses a cheap oil pressure switch with M12x1.75 coarse threads, which is apparently super uncommon in the switch/sensor world. I could only find two 1/8NPT adapters available with that thread pitch and they're both really thin wall brass with a terrible reputation for breaking, so I bought some 3/4" stainless hex stock and made my own.

https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...33b9d5e5c5.jpg

https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...900c914b85.jpg

More pics in the google album:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/LlEglGcCUEkd8dcj1

Which oil pressure sensor are you using?

It's a Race Technology sensor that I paid way too much for a few years ago and then never installed. I probably would have used a Longacre SMi sensor if I hadn't already had this one. I just bought a $60 15psi SMi sensor to use for coolant pressure and externally I can't tell it apart from this expensive Race Technology sensor.

https://www.race-technology.com/us/r...-fuel-pressure

Wow, that's crazy expensive. Probably adds 7hp.

You'd recommend the Longacre over the AEM 30-2131-150?

Yeah I don't remember how or why I convinced myself it was worth the money. I had a Race Technology dash at the time so maybe I just wanted the easy button for calibration.

The AEM is probably just as good as the Longacre. I don't have any personal experience with either.