Super strange about the blowby issue disappearing but glad to hear it's solved!

 

Yeah me too lol. Wish I had better direction other than, "go back to conventional oil".

OH, another thing. My friend saw my prop valve and said that it looked backwards and very front brake biased. He was right. I adjusted it to be 3.5 turns out and holy **** the car is so much more stable during braking and doesn't nosedive as much. I honestly don't think I was using my rear brakes at all. The car rotated more before, but my straightline braking is so much better. I cut 4 seconds. 4. off my last PB on Main.

 

Wow nice catch! That has to be a huge difference in feel and braking. I remember trying out diff pads on my other car and too much front bias made it easy to rotate (since it transferred more weight) but made braking less stable and longer. I asked my friend Dave if he saw a blue Miata and he said he looked up the results and said you ran ~2 seconds faster than him. He ran a 1:24.5 in a stock CTR and won his TT class. 1:22's is quick!

 

Absolutely massive difference. I remember seeing your friend Dave on track, he was flying. Hoping to break the 1:20's one day, I know the car is capable, I just need the ***** for it

 

Motor is back out of the car, was only in for like 5 weeks. Takes about 3 hours with normal floor jacks from wheels on ground until motor/trans fully out. Have some oil leaks around the new turbo fittings, not sure if clamps are just loose or what. I don't THINK my welds have porous holes in them lol

Swapping to a supermiata clutch while it's all out again. XIDAs will hopefully show up sooner rather than later

 

How come it’s back out aside from the turbo fittings and clutch swap? Did I miss something?

Motor pull in 3 hours on jacks is really good. That’s about what it takes me to do it in a lift, although I go the lazy way and pull the trans first instead of removing the whole assembly together.

 

It's back out because I find it much easier to do a transmission swap with it out and I wanted to check out why it was leaking so much oil. I've had some issues with the new transmission so I had to send it back to them to take a look at it.

It's much faster to pull with the help of someone. My buddy and I pulled it last Nov. and we had it out in line 60-90 mins

 

Ahh ok, makes sense. Damn, 60-90 mins with a buddy sounds awesome. I need to enlist a homie to come over and help next time haha.

What issues are you having with the trans? Can't remember if I read you were running a Walter Motorsports 5 or 6 speed maybe?

 

Yeah it was a new Walter Motorsports 5 Stage 3 5 speed.

Overall issues that I had were a loud whine that developed in all gears but 4th and poor shifting/having to go back to neutral a few times to get into gear without forcing it.

The quick and skinny is that I had been having issues with the transmission quickly after install. I broke it in per their directions via a phone call (put as many miles on it as possible, then change the fluid before first track day). Use Ford Motorcraft. Don't force shifts.

First day it was fine, but it was also a wet day, so not a lot of strain put on it. I also ran it on wastegate pressure (7psi, ~220? whp) for the first weekend. Second day, about halfway through, I started hearing a whining noise when in 3rd.

Unrelated to the whining and not the cause, at least to my knowledge, is that I used an IRP 5 speed shifter for this install. I had issues with this as IRP does not supply directions and it is a little different than the 6 speed. 6 speed requires you to push back only one of the dowel pins, so I did the same. You actually need to push back both for the 5 speed. This caused issues fully engaging into 5th, making me think 5th/R was having an issue. This is important because I reached out to WMS about it. This may have done some damage to shift fork and maybe some synchros, but I really don't know much anything regarding internals of transmissions. I went back to brand new OEM after the 3rd track day.

So I drained and replaced the fluid and did another track day a week or two later. Power level was also increased to around 16psi or maybe ~300whp?, torque curve still pretty lazy. Eventually there was a whine in every gear except for 4th. It sounded pretty sick, like straight cut gears. Me and everyone that heard it figured it was normal since it was a Stage 3 transmission. I sent some videos to WMS and they responded saying they thought it was the input shaft bearing, which can be damaged during an improper install (hanging the transmission off the input shaft while tightening). They advised I ship it back to them to inspect.

Once they got it they basically told me I had destroyed/abused the inside of the box and that the gearset was not rebuildable. The input shaft was in-spec (meaning install was fine) and that there was a chip in the mainshaft. Was told the chip can be caused by strapping the car down on a trailer/dyno or a rear impact. None of which happened since I've had the box. The mainshaft normally has a small steel ball, but when it came out and chipped the mainshaft, it damaged the rear bearing, starting the whining noise. It started making the bearing noise on the second day, at significantly reduced power, well under the ~400-500 whp the box is apparently supposed to withstand, even though there are no official power numbers from WMS. Mind you, I did not provide my own core NB 5-speed, WMS offers cores for an additional charge. I do not know if they replace the mainshaft from the donor boxes.

They also mentioned it appeared it had been run dry, which didn't make sense to me. I didn't move the car in neutral around the shop dry. When I fill it I pump in with a hose until it drips out, remove the hose, and wait for the dripping to slow. I typically get much more than the "threads" amount of fluid in my drip pan. I then shine a flashlight in to see if the level is good.

Personally, I think there was an inherent issue with the mainshaft, outside of my control. This is only because I started having bearing noise almost immediately. I have no idea what other damage the chipped shaft and ball bearing could have caused or if it could lead to any of the other issues that WMS saw. I own any of the issues with the IRP and I will not be using them again. Maybe there were some issues with the clutch I've been using, I have no clue, it's had seen about 10 track days and very limited street miles. I've since replaced with a new Supermiata Sport Clutch.

Reading on the forums, I heard/read nothing but good things about WMS. My experience was not what I expected and overall mixed with them. I've left a lot of details out. I suspect the move from GA to TX has growing pains and they are still working things out, maybe I just got unlucky. Maybe they will read this and have something to say, maybe not. I don't think it matters anymore and there is really no way for them to know how I drive. Maybe I'm hard to work with, but I've also never had this happen with any other vendor or part. I was reluctant to discuss anything about the whole thing as I didn't want to throw anyone under the bus. If I could go back, I would have instead gone with one of the BMW swaps and avoided this whole thing.

I have a 2nd stage 3 transmission from them, along with the new SM clutch. Engine/trans are in, but need to button up the rest of the car. I'm honestly not confident at all this box will hold up to even 350whp on track, which the 6 speeds can do for much cheaper and longer before breaking. They've since shipped a new transmission break-in sheet with their builds, which recommends different things from the original conversation I had with them. Take that as you will

 

I pulled my Miata thousands of miles on a tow dolly with 5 and 6 speeds with no issues. Pushing around the shop isn't a likely problem, dry or not.

At your power level, any minor deviation from ideal in the box is probably a major problem.

 

Welp. The 2nd one broke on 2nd track day with zero warning. Followed the new break in procedure to the T. Not looking forward to dealing with this.

 

F*ck. Pouring out a cup of XT-M5 for the dead homie now...

How much power were you running when it busted?

 

Lol, appreciate that

This was between 300-350. My logs show roughly 18-20psi which should be somewhere in that range. It was a hot day for TT and HPDE (90 ish), but I was only running 3 laps + cooldown for TT and never to checkered for HPDE. Was running the "newly recommended" Motul Comp 70w140 and I added some heat shielding between DP and trans prior to break-in miles. Shifts were super smooth up until it I heard marbles

Going to pop the fill plug off before pulling and stick the borescope back in there

 

Jesus man. Thanks for the report, I had considered their boxes instead of a 6 speed when the time comes, as I do enjoy the 5 speed gearing and feel, but it sounds like a 6 speed is still a better (and much cheaper) choice. Keep us posted on what they have to say. I hate when companies jump to blaming the customer like that.

 

Yep, happy to have some "results"

Prior to all of this, the internet has everyone praising them. That wasn't my experience. I agree that the 5 speed gearing is better for track use too. The 6 speeds would at least last me multiple track weekends with the same driving style/habits, so that would naturally eliminate me as the factor here. The 6 speed just last longer in my experience.

Been typing up an email to them as I take breaks from work today.

 

How did the transmission drama with Walters work out?

 

Oh yeah, I don't post here a lot lately, but to answer your question it worked out I guess.

I sent them the original email and then spoke with them on the phone a bit. They had me send them logs, tune file, and asked some questions. A few weeks went by and then I got a call from them. It was a rep from a partner shop who said my tune looked good, no issues in the log either. His only gripe was that my rev-limit was a bit high and aggressive. He gave me some pointers on this and said the old setup wouldn't have caused the transmission to explode in a day, just add more wear.

After a couple months they called me out of the blue and told me they would ship me another box at no cost. I was shocked. It arrived a few weeks later with some cobwebs on it and the bellhousing was cut for some ford swap.. I just held onto it for a bit, never installed. I sold it earlier this year.

Since went back to 6 speeds as they last more than 1-3 track days and they cost significantly less. Usually lasted about 6 months to a year of mixed driving. I've since pulled some power in the mid-band and havent had any issues this track season. Finally dyno'd the car and it makes 380hp/320tq