beautiful work

 

Oh man, can't wait for mine

 

your rods and ARP hardware showed up today. That is all.

 

As did my rings and gaskets. If only my Curly would show up ...

 

If only my free cervasas would show up...

 

Upper manifold of my square top was ported to the Skunk2 TB today. Pics tomorrow. Also dropping off the DRB header for coating tomorrow.

 

Cervesas. Please. I know what you like.

 

I think Finishline did a good job:





Camera autofocus sometimes gets wigged out by satin black surfaces.

 

Looks awesome. How did you like finish line? Good turnaround time?

 

Quoted two weeks, did it in one. Their office would be impossible to find without Google; I did not believe my phone at first, but it was correct. It's kind of colocated with a crappy motel. Never would have thought a legitimate business would be located there. Maybe hash oil extraction.

 

That's funny. Place that does my ceramic stuff in Arlington fits that description. They keep their costs low and just hammer away at the work. Can't complain.

 

Progress. Curly is moving along with the motor; I believe he has everything at this point but the Kia water neck which should get there today or tomorrow.

I pressure tested my intercooler & piping today. Sadly, I did not discover a massive boost leak in my recirc valve, it seemed to hold pressure fine. I did find that I needed to tighten one tbolt at the intercooler. But no smoking gun for my wavering boost line, which is what I was hoping for. It is possible that something else was loose. When the motor's back in and all the plumbing is hooked up correctly I'll run the test a second time.

A schrader valve, a hose barb fitting and a couple of sewer pipe fittings from Orchard Supply Home Racing:





There is no good plastic pipe equivalent for 2.5" OD intercooler piping. That piece was 2.25, it leaked a little bit but not enough to matter. I put a bead of epoxy to make a lip on each piece.

 

Dumping boost through the PCV into the head? I certainly had that problem. I don't know/can't remember if you are even running a PCV system anymore

Also, forgive me but what is a "bromex" exactly?

 

^I believe it is a bro of Mexican descent.

 

I've been running the 323gtx pcv valve. Maybe it leaks. No way to test it while Curly has my head in his "game room" ogling the ports.

Bromex is what these socks are made from. No SFI or FIA rating, but completely flame resistant.

 

There is a rainbow coming from that unicorns ***. ..but did you see that base board tho? whoever cut that **** in has a steady hand.

 

I can test your pcv with the smoke machine at the shop after hours. Let me know.

 

Curly has had the motor for a while and things have happened.

He took it apart:




Bearings after 135k total miles, 15k boosted, 2500k track/autox were worn, but still serviceable. Internally the motor was very clean. I ran Mobil1 0w30 for 30k of that and Mobil1 0w40 for the last 2k miles. I like that oil. I did run 2 oil changes worth of Rotella T6, but my engine didn't seem to like it as much, and I got some smoke puffs on heavy engine decel on hot track days. Didn't ever have that reported with 0w40 last year, but also none of my track days were as hot as those in 2013.

Things went to the machine shop to get cleaned and honed and balanced.


Then Curly started assembling things






BP26-10-271 because reroute:





As the motor sits before Valentines day:





While Curly has been working on the motor I have gotten some other things done.

Got the squaretop ported to match the Skunk2 throttlebody.

Before:


After:


The squaretop by itself:




Thursday and Friday I worked on the oil cooler brackets. This took longer than anticipated, mostly entirely due to my lack of proper tools for any kind of freeform metal cutting. But Harbor Freight cutoff wheels and the Dremel can eventually get it done.




What else? I ordered 225/45 RC1's for my 9's for track days.

And I acquired this, because (JDM YO!) I like the needle placement at speed. And who doesn't need a 180mph speedo in their miata?
Edit: Yes it's a KMH speedo. However, there is a Nifty Gizmo devised by PO of the gauge cluster to allow the speedo to be MPH.




Tomorrow, hopefully, after I feed and water and exercise the childrens in the AM, I will get the old cluster out, the OEM ECU out, get the new cluster in, and the MS3 in.

Must remember to disconnect FP relay ... must remember to disconnect FP relay ...

Maybe after sweetheart wakes up from her night shift I can get the last of the noisy metalwork done on the brackets.

Oh and Bonus - we learned on Wednesday we would be getting a sizeable tax return, so Hoosier A7's for autocross have appeared in the budget. Sweet!

 

I'm rocking the same tacho needle placement, it's so much nicer when you are doing track days:

 

Miatas @ MRLS, Oct 3/4 Run Group B. I thought about registering for A but I have only done a couple of days overall with unrestricted passing.