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Second session of the day. Point bys early, then some good fun chasing a bmw after we were both stuck behind a mustang for a couple of laps. Laps 5/6/7 are the best.
Still lots of time to be found as I find the rhythm for this track.. Lack of ABS apparent at 12:00.
Children, behave. My exhaust does what it needs to. I don't know that the Racing Beat header is going to gain me much over my current header. As for the rest of it, I am content to run it as is for now. It may not be 3", but it doesn't have any restrictive bends and it gets the job done. With the Enthuza muffler it's plenty loud enough to be heard in the cabin with the hardtop on at 100mph while wearing a helmet & earplugs. Good enough.
Edit - besides, in a few years when I go EFR and start showing C5 and C6 vette owners my tail lights, that will be the time to replace the whole thing anyway.
Huh. How about that. Garage work inbound next week.
I feel a discussion from 6 years ago is worth mentioning now.
Savington: Why FM's radiator over ours?
Me: I have fans and a shroud already which will bolt up to the FM unit, and I save weight vs the TrackSpeed unit both in radiator weight and coolant weight.
I would have gotten yours, if I knew for sure I needed it. The FM radiator plus the shroud and fans I have will be tons more effective than stock, and should be enough for my needs for several years.
The TrackSpeed radiator looks to be an awesome piece of kit. If I hadn't already had on hand the shroud and fans I may have ended up with it instead. But since I have them, that's the way I went.
Curly: There's a place to save weight on.
Sav, you need to realize that in order to sell you're going to have to buy a bunch of FM decals and put them on your radiator.
In all honesty he probably doesn't need it though, as long as he doesn't expect to race July-August.
The lesson here is, there is one radiator available to the miata community that is superior to all others. That is the TSE radiator. You can look up my previous build thread, and follow the saga as I try to cool the car with FM's crossflow radiator, or you can just skip to the present, where I did nothing but install the TSE radiator and enjoyed stupid ridiculous coolant temps.
It sits there, doing its thing. Conveying myself, and the kids, and the dogs, from the French Doors to the back yard. Holding up the Traegar. Holding up the teak outdoor table. Never a complaint.
But The Deck, despite not being a complainer, has issues. The stain is 4 years old now. The main traffic path is visibly worn. The top railings, which get the most direct sunlight, were visibly degraded.
And so my life this past week has been filled with pressure washing. And sanding. And pressure washing. And applying chemicals, and pressure washing. And making my house and garage look ready for a scene from Dexter to avoid the splattering chemicals.
I have discovered that sanding is hard but effective. Applying chemicals, then pressure washing them away, was supposed to be easier. I have discovered it is not.
So tomorrow it is back to sanding. This has the disadvantage of creating fine sawdust. This has the advantages, though, of not requiring the house and garage to be wrapped in plastic, thereby not preventing access to the garage and the back yard, and of allowing multiple persons to work simultaneously more easily.
I predict tomorrow I shall buy an orbital sander, to complement the one I have borrowed from Curly, to enhance the **** out of multiple person sanding efficiency. I have already purchased a belt sander. Pro tip - if you need a belt sander, you need one with a trigger-on button. Key Feature. If you don't think you need it, you don't actually need a belt sander.
Had a good day at The Ridge last week. Pulled the data off the RaceCapture. I like it; I didn't have something right in the obd2 link so it didn't get TPS, rpm, coolant temp, etc but everything else worked well.
I need to move the water port plugs that came with the efr. They're reversed from how I need them. Removing them is proving a challenge. I've tried heat, and have hit them with my Bosch electric impact, which admittedly isn't a beast of a gun. Is there a trick to doing this? Or do I just need moar impact.
It's kinda funny, you can see your head raise a bit for T3 and T9 so you can see the apex.
Car did much better than the last time it was at the ridge, when it was stripped for parts and left on jack stands all weekend.
Edit: I had to move those plugs around this week while I figured out where I wanted to run water lines. Each time I removed them I was surprised at how tight they were, despite not putting them in very tightly. Good luck.
So the answer was 2' breaker bar and just muscle it. Thanks Andrew for the quick response, on a holiday weekend no less. I put wayyy more force on it than I was expecting to.
Replaced front main seal today. The oil leak was becoming excessive. I spent quite a bit of time last week cleaning subframes and trans and ppf etc.
The list
Install oil source line
reassemble front of motor and valve cover
Drill and tap mixing manifold for coolant drain fitting
Fit water lines to turbo
Test fit turbo
run coolant in from back of head
Shorten oil drain line as needed due to using the more optimal engine out bung location
Drill tap intercooler for iat sensor
Mount intercooler, test fit FM hoses
Final reassembly
Oil, coolant fill
Change MS to use GM iat sensor
Profit
So, due to the elimination of all the little coolant lines through the sandwich plate and the throttle body, the water inlet Port into the mixing manifold had been tapped and plugged with a bolt. I spent some time today at different places looking for a solution to get a barb on there again, and it wasn't going to be feasible. There was not enough material there to bore out the existing threads and tap new threads, say for 1/4 npt, and they could not find anything AN fitting wise or adapter wise or otherwise that would thread into the existing threads and then allow me to have a barb. So I ordered a new mixing manifold from Mazda, having exhausted both my parts bin and Curly's parts bin looking for one that had been unmolested.
I have become quite proficient with the damper puller and with reinstalling the ATI damper, probably put it on and off 5 times today for various reasons, none of which are important to you people, doesn't matter, moving on.
Timing belt stuff is all put back together, valve cover is on, oil line is run, tomorrow I will be test fitting the manifold and turbo and the mixing manifold and checking my coolant lines and oil feed line and then find out what I need to do to the oil drain line.
Coolant feed will be from the barb on the back of the head.
Progress.
Last edited by Mobius; 09-12-2017 at 01:04 PM.
Reason: grammar
Time! Time waits for no man. The new one is installed.
In other news, shmancy turbosmart regulator doesn't clear the hood. Bogus. Maybe if I can find. a right angle barb.
I will only be using the count return line as I am routing the fee from the back of the head. Tomorrow I will pick up: another m14-6an adapter
6an to 5/16 hose barb
Oil line needs about 5 inches taken off, and I'll be getting a right angle 3/8 npt to 10an fitting for my bunghole.
Actuator problem fixed, it was the barb and there's a second port for it. Will probably put a piece of foam tape on the top of it to cushion any vibration impacts it may still have with the hood, as clearance is very tight.
Putting the iat sensor into the intercooler end tank required equipment upgrades.
From left to right:
Iat sensor requires 3/8 npt
--> required 3/8 npt tap (bought at my local orchard hardware supply)
--> required bigass tap handle (not bought at my local orchard, they don't sell it)
And
--> required 37/64th bit
--> which required 1/2" shank drill
The batteries in my 3/8th cordless Porter Cable are dead, and replacing them even with the cheapest eBay sutions was 2/3 the cost of the new drill anyway.
07-14-2017, 11:14 AM
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