My 94 MKturbo build. PIC HEAVY!!
 

I So I've mostly finished my 94 turbo build and figured it was time to document some of my successes and failures since threads like this helped me tremendously while putting everything together. I'll try to show more pictures rather than ramble on and misspelling every other word along the way.
Some things Ive done people may like and some things they may hate but all in all I'm happy with how it's turning out.

I started with a stock 1994 Miata 165k

https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...854cc5a27e.jpg
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Not to kill the suspense but this is how it looks today. In full disclosure my wife likes the before better than the after. Personally I think she's crazy.

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The entire process has been a huge educational experience for me since this was my first attempt at a turbo build. I literally spent and still spend hours on this site reading and researching and at times laughing at threads started by people who don't realize that with the proper search criteria than can find the answers to all the questions they could have.

I listened to the advice of all the smart people on this site that have forgotten more about Miata's than I will most likely ever know.
I started with a Brain built MS3X (spend the extra and have him build yours) and a MTXL wide band.
At that time just getting the wideband and MS installed and hooked up AND working made me feel like a badass. It's a testament to having someone build your ECU for you that knows what they are doing. The car fired up first try, idled well and made me think this whole process was going to be easier than I thought. That would change however and I'll go into more detail later.

Wideband install

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I spent a lot of time playing around with VEAL and trying to get my AFR's as close to perfect as possible before even thinking about injectors and turbo stuff. Some important things I learned along the way
(This is just my experience in no preticular order yours may differ!!)
*Follow the calibration instructions to the letter and calibrate all nesecary parts.
*Make sure WB and tunerstudio agree. Mine did not and were off by .5 to 1. Fixed by playing around with my voltages in Custom Linear WB in tunerstudio. Now my gauge and tunerstudio are almost dead on.
*Always lock out the cells you idle in as VEAL will screw with the idle. I don't know why, I just know it did and does.
*Set EGO control to 0 before starting VEAL
*Set Min fuel load in advanced setting in VEAL to as close as possible to the KPA cell you idle in. Seemed to help with overrun.

So after many days of tuning and nights researching what I did wrong I felt like I got to a place where I felt comfortable enough and just dangerous enough to take the next step closer to going turbo. I took the advice of Lars who again is a great resource for this community and pulled the trigger on a set of Flowforce EV14 640cc injectors.

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These installed without any problems. I just greased up the o-rings and popped them in. It was a little challenging maneuvering the fuel rail around to get it in just the right position so everything lined up. After getting them installed and everything all tightened down I went back into tunerstudio and changed the required fuel for the bigger injectors. This required me to go back to many days of making tuning runs to the grocery store or wherever all my wife needed to go. Everything needed tweaking but lots of that could have been needed since I'm not used to the tuning game. Eventually I had everything sorted well enough that I was pretty much ready to add the turbo. At this point I had already ordered my MKturbo Kit and was anxiously waiting for it to show up.

Not long after my MKturbo kit showed up!!!
Figured I do the cat pic as well, seems to be a thing around here.
https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...571ca85852.jpg

Once I received everything from Lars I figured it would be easier to just pull the motor and trans since I had to tap the oil pan and fix a bunch of leaks. With the help of my neighbors kid we got it out without any problems.

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I also figured while I was in there I should get rid of my AC stuff and depower my rack. I followed the FM directions and it was pretty straight forward and only took about an hour.

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My next step was to tap the pan, replace rear main seal and anything else that was obviously leaking.

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Omg that meow meow is cute.


What size/offset wheels and which flares?

She's a killer don't let the cuteness fool you!! ��

Rims are 15x9 +36.
Don't tell anyone but I've got 1.5 inch spacers. Guess it technically equals out to minus 2.1 offset?
Flares are Carbon Miata.

While I had everything apart fixing leaks I figured I would reprint my valve cover. I hear it makes the turbo spool faster.

https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...ef54649080.jpg

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Next on the list was checking the fitment of the new rims. TRMotorsports CM3 15x9 +36 with Hancook RS4 225/45/15. I picked the rims up off Craigslist, the seller gave me a good deal since they had brake dust cooked on and said it couldn't be removed. I hit them with degreaser and the pressure washer and they looked brand new.

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I think it turned out looking pretty good. Obviously this is before the flares but to be honest I kinda like how clean it looked like this.

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Not a very exciting thing but I installed my Momo 330mm steering wheel with a quick release and wow what a difference in feel compared to the stock wheel. Makes the car feel so much sportier than before and sure feels a lot better on the hands.

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At this point I was ready to put the engine and transmission back in the car. I installed my FM stage 1 clutch and cleaned up the engine as best I could. I wasn't to worried about making it look to nice since I was skeptical about how long the engine would last since it had 165k on it already and I planned on not being nice to it once back on the road.

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Engine went back in without any problems. I removed the manifold and turbo before dropping the engine back in, I could have left it on but decided it was easier without it not to mention I didn't want to mess anything up.

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Without AC/PS you can cut the drain line a bit shorter to have a straighter shot. I have it long like that to fit around the AC/PS.

Lars it seems to be fine. I remember talking to you about that a while back. I have it clocked a little different than the picture shows and it lines up just fine with no low spots.

Next on the agenda was fitting the downpipe and remaining Exhaust. This again was very easy. Everything lined up well and didn't hit on anything. If there was anything close to hitting I wrapped that area with some left over IC coupling and metal zip ties to ensure no clanks would appear after I started driving it. Greasy rear diff is gross!!!!!

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At this point I was pretty close to firing it up and see if I overlooked anything.

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Fired right up and sounded good.

After the initial start I did a lot of checking things for leaks and making sure I didn't forget to tighten anything down. The only bonehead moment I had was when I went to set the initial timing again and I couldn't figure out why it was idling so high 2k. I checked for vac leaks and double checked everything I could think of. I was about to lose my mind until I noticed my timing light power cord stuck right under the stop on the throttle linkage!!! Once removed it idled pretty good aside from the 200 rpm oscillation. I spent time tuning idle VE and learning what small changes in the VE map can make in AFR's and the way it interacts with the idle.

Once I was happy with the idle I decided to take it out for a quick spin around the neighborhood. I had a smile from ear to ear when I heard my BOV make those sounds I waited so long to hear. It was a short ride since I was nervous something would go wrong so I pulled it back into the garage, jumped out and triumphantly jumped around looking for someone to high five but since nobody was home I settled for a few loud
F%^* Ya's!!! than started looking for leaks.

After a thourogh search for anything out out of place I decided it was time wire the wastegate open and see if I had done a good enough job on porting the wastegate. I found when going WOT I was seeing 3-4 psi on my boost gauge. I knew this was to much so I pulled back in the garage, pulled the turbo off and ported and smoothed a little more. After I put everything back together and took it back out I barely noticed 1psi on the gauge and called it good.

I pretty much much spent the next few weeks taking it out everyday and tuning using VEAL. I started out on Easy and let the software make big changes and eventually proceeded to Normal but when I switched it over to Hard I didn't notice much if any changes in any cells. I guess that's how it's supposed to be so oh well. At this point I was only on wastegate pressure and at most saw 7-8psi. It would always go too rich in boost (10.5ish) even after many tuning runs so I ended up manually adjusting the cells in boost and eventually got it where I wanted 12.5ish at WOT.

The car car idles well and run great!! except the dreaded hot start issues I can't seem to figure out yet. I've read more threads about this issue and tried everything to combat it but no luck yet. IAT sensor on cold side, map correction at 100% across the board adjusted fuel for CLT etc. etc. I'm learning and will get there eventually. All in all it's a blast to drive. I love feeling the boost kick in and all the sounds it makes. I've had a lot of attention at Cars and Coffee and tons of people want to ride along with me when I take it to Autocross. Once I get my EBC I'll turn the boost up a little more and see what this thing can do but for now I'll just keep tuning and learning and hopefully not damage anything.

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Love the car man! Awesome job it looks like so far. In the process of boosting my 96 right now. Kit should be here in a week or two from Lars. Glad it was so easy to install! Went with the FF 640cc injectors as well and they have been great. Would you mind posting your tune so I can see about what your spark table looks like? I know I shouldn't copy it but I'm interested in how it looks compared to mine since we are running almost the exact same setup. Only difference is I just switched to e85. Not terribly far from each other either I believe, went a picked up my rollbar in topeka. Thanks!

Glad you like it. It's been a fun project and I've learned a lot. I'm still learning but running e85 might change things up quite a bit from me running 91 but I don't know. I haven't touched my spark map from the base tune. It's a long story and I'll eventually document it but I had to reload my base map from Brains trubokitty.com not long ago but it fired right up and since I was already comfortable with basic tuning I got things back in line fairly quick.

I just followed what I found on a couple posts here. New injectors and switched when I was empty after tuning the new injectors a bit on 91. Filled up and upped the req fuel by about 30%. Retuned and now everything is good. I added 3 degrees all over but I know some people say that can be a bad idea. I think I'll need to pick up a new fuel pump before long just so I don't have to worry about the fuel needed for the turbo. Might just see what brain's map looks like then and see how different mine is. I want to get it dyno'd and tuned but not till everything is finished with the turbo, seems pointless before that as the closest one is 2 hours away. Anything in mind for what's next? Or just going to enjoy it for a while?

I haven't gotten to the point of messing around with my spark map, haven't really need to but know it will have to be done in order to get full potential out of my set up. I only know of one tuner near me and he isn't familiar with megasquirt so I'm learning as I go. Not to jump to far ahead but my car is a bit different now since I've had some changes in my engine. Not sure if you'll need to upgrade your fuel pump unless you just want to but I'm running 15-18psi as of now and haven't had any trouble with fueling. I had to close the gap on my plugs is all.

Very nice.

Maybe I've missed it, but why no coolant re-route since the engine was already out?

Sooooo everything was going fine and I was having tons of fun with my Miata. I installed a DIYAutoTune EBC and started playing around with boost settings. It worked ok but every time I had it setup half way decent the next time I would go out it would act different. There just wasn't any consistency with it. I'm sure it was operator error but I gave up and made my own manual boost controller and it worked great. I would hit 12psi by 3500 rpm and hold pretty solid with my AFR's steady at 12ish under WOT.

The only thing I noticed that was different from when I wasnt boosted was the occasional blue smoke upon decel and occasionally during cold starts and once in awhile when hitting boost etc etc but I figured with 165k my valve seals were prob shot and kinda expected that.

I was so happy with the way it was running that I felt it was time to head to the DRAG STRIP!!!!!

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This was such a blast!! It had been years since I took a car down the track. My first pass was terrible. No launch control or flat foot shifting (Only because I haven't figured that out yet) just good old fashioned rev hold and dump. Needless to say this didn't work very well. I ended up spinning hard and wheel hopping through first and quick shifted into second. I banged through the gears best I could, didn't miss a shift and crossed the finish line just as I shifted into fifth. I took a look in the rear view mirror to see a little smoke but nothing I hadn't seen before. Other than the Blown S10 that was in the right lane that beat me by a measly 20 car lengths I felt like I tore up that 1/4 mile pretty good for my first time. On the drive back to the ticket shack I was happy that nothing broke, fell off or otherwise made me look like a douche in front of all the other people out there. Once at the shack I grabbed my slip from dude and WTF!... 14.9 at 96mph?.... I was pissed but figured my launch sucked and if I leave better next it would make all the difference and a mid 13 sec run would be a reality!!... lol!!

Second run........ tree'd the GTO next to me than proceeded to watch him make an unbelievable run as he left me like my car died and started going backwards!!... haha!! Crossed the finish line looked in my rear view and this time the smoke was still lingering from half track. Grabbed ticket from dude again 15.2 @92mph. I was going the wrong way. When I shut the car off if stumbled and sounded strange. I knew at this point something was up but I wasn't willing to give up yet. If I was going down I was gonna take this thing down in a blaze of glory.

After letting it cool down for about 30 min I decided I wanted to try one more time and see what happens. When I went to start it up it started than died. It took three tries to get it started. Once I got it started I pulled back up to the line and figured either I was gonna make another dismal run or shut the track down and turn this test and tune night into a car show as pieces parts and oil from my motor was being cleaned up.

Third run......... Actually launched pretty well!!... slipped the clutch a little got pretty good grip and left the line strong. Immediately the smoke screen was engaged behind me and I could feel the car loosing power. I stayed in it foot to the floor all the way down the track crossing the finish line happy that it stayed together but pissed about the loss of power and the amount of smoke in the air this time All the way down the track. Grabbed slip 15.6 @89mph.
I was done for the day. I packed my stuff up, put my tail between my legs and drove home.

Honestly Im not that upset. I took an old motor threw a turbo on it, tuned the basics and proceeded to beat the crap out of it. It drove fine on the way home but did smoke more than normal. Once I got it back in the garage I decided it was time to change my valve seals since I knew they were shot. I would order OEM seals even though they were $8 bucks each. From what I read supertechs and other low buck seals are a waste of money since it's not if they leak it's when they leak. I also decided to do a compression check and leak down test since I should have done this before adding the turbo.

Bad news. Compression readings were 100,115, 125, 100. Wet was a little improvement. Leak down test showed 20-40% leakage (Used a cheap Harbor Freieght Leak down tester) and I could hear air coming out of my dipstick tube. Soooooo...... long story short I said F#%K IT!!... built motor time. Out with the old and in with the forged goodness!!
https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...93c0ed477a.jpg

Got the engine out a quickly and started tearing it down since I wanted to get this rebuild done as fast as possible since I didn't want to be Miata-less for to long. Here's a bunch of typical tear down pic.

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Lots of oily soot in my intake runners and you gotta love that drippy Indian head gasket sealer. (Applied by PO not me)

This next pic is interesting. The obvious problem jumps out at you. I wonder if some of my tuning issues had to do with the timing being off from the start or maybe this happened as a result of beating on it at the track?

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I didn't know people still blow motors... great job...


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lol!!..leave it to me!! It was getting boring having it close to being done not to mention I wanted a reason to build the motor I really wanted.

So I don't have a bunch of tear down pics but there wasn't much to see except for oily dirty parts. I really expected to see something catastrophic as far as failure however everything looked OK there was no obvious evidence of a blown head gasket or stuck rings. My cylinders looked OK and there was no excessive scratching on my Pistons. Although there was no obvious smoking gun the motor was shot, old and obviously was experiencing excessive blow by. I was now ready to start throwing more money at this thing than I would ever let my wife know.

Once I tore the motor down I took the head, crank and block to the machine shop. Had head cleaned up, had new springs and seals installed. Block cleaned and bored .5mm over. Decking wasn't required. Crank was balanced and polished.

New Engine Parts List
Manley Rods
Supertech 8:6:1 83.5mm Pistons
ARP Head Studs
ARP Main Studs
ACL main and Rod Bearings (standard size)
ATI Super Damper
Boundary Engineering stage 1 oil pump
Gates water pump
Gates racing timing belt
VS855 Valve springs
OEM Head Gasket

COOLING
Q max coolant re-route
Meishimoto aluminum radiator
Mishimoto slim dual fan

While the block and heads were at the machine shop I ordered all my parts. It took about three weeks for the machining to get done and when I got them back I was ready to throw things together.

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Plastigauged rod and main bearing clearances. No pics of rod clearance but it was within spec as well.

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Getting ready to drop Rods and Pistons in. It was a bitch getting the retaining rings in for the wrist pins but I eventually got it.

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Minor picture dump. Engine assembly.

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Lifters installed and used plenty of lube.

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Installed coolant re-route. Such a pretty piece to bad it's hidden.

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Dead Fred's ready to see what this thing can do!!

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You don't muck around do ya? Awesome build.

Great job !

Outstanding build and story. My engines doing the same thing, sorta! I replaced my valve stem seals, but in the process I also noticed that one of my intake and exhaust runners was coated in soot.

I intermittently smoke off boost, but once I get on it, if a cop wanted to pull me over, they wouldn’t be able to see me!

OP wastes no time. I like it

thanks!!... this has been a fun project!!

Did you use OEM seals or supertechs?.... I went OEM and have zero smoke anymore.

Started getting last few pieces cleaned up and put on. Cleaned up my intake manifold and got the first look at how everything looked together.
I painted the turbo manifold with 2000' VHT paint. I'm sure it will flake off but I liked the way it looked on the stand.

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I decided I wanted to try the wrinkle painted valve cover like I see so many doing and gave the valve cover a new wrinkle finish which honestly turned out like crap. I'm not sure what I did wrong but the top and flat areas turned out great but the rounded parts seemed to not wrinkle very well.
The picture actually looks much better than in person​ and ​seeing it up this close really shows how bad a job I did. Oh well I'm not building a show car so I don't care.

https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...a759d7a5a6.jpg

Finally I'm ready to drop the motor back in. In total it took me about three weeks to complete. This was my first complete engine build so I took my time and made sure I checked and re-checked everything I did. I went as far as marking every bolt with a paint pen so I didn't accidentally forget to torque something. I meticulously looked everything over probably more times than I needed to. I turned the engine over by hand a few times just to make sure nothing seemed bound up or notchy. Honestly I'm real pleased at the way it turned out. I am confident this thing will be able to handle whatever I throw at it.

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.

Let's fire this baby up!!

I was was so nervous and excited to start this thing up for the first time and the time was here. I had gone over everything in my head on how I would go about the start up procedure and what I needed to check immediately after it fired up and before driving it for the first time. I double and triple checked everything under, in and around the engine. I wired my wastegate open so I didn't induce any boost while seating my rings. I was scared I missed something and kept hesitating turning the key but finally said screw it and went for it.

It turned over maybe twice and fired up!!!....... than immediately died!!:mad: I was happy it fired up but pissed that it didn't stay running. I was a nervous wreck at this point my heart was pounding and I had a lump in my throat, I felt like a kid in the backseat of a car with a girl on prom night :makeout:
I turned the key again and same thing!! Than It dawned on me:idea:. I had remembered the night before I was looking at all the pictures I had taken of the tear down and this picture caught my eye.

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I went back to my build pictures and compared it to this picture.

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Well shit!!! guess all the work I did tuning my engine before the rebuild was all done on a motor with the timing off :vash:

No problem!!...... jumped over to Trubokitty.com and downloaded the base map for my car (Thanks Brain!!!!!) loaded it into tunerstudio took another deep breath turned the key and BAM!!!... Car fired up beautifully!!! Idle went up to about 1400 and started settling down nicely. My focus was on the oil pressure gauge and oil pressure registered almost immediately which made me breath a sigh of relief. AFR's were a little rich but that was fine. Jumped out checked my timing.... dead on!! My heart was F%#*ING pounding, layed down on the ground looked for leaks didn't see any, jumped back in the car almost forgot to switch from fixed timing but remembered last minute, put it in reverse and off I went.

As I nervously drove out of the neighborhood I was on high alert listening for anything out of the ordinary. I was terrified I would hear something catastrophic and see a trail of oil or smoke behind me but that never happened. Honestly the motor sounded different than before. Almost like as if the timing belt was to tight? Maybe it was from the Gates belt I installed or maybe I was just making things up in my head but it was for sure tighter than the old belt!!
I felt some strange vibrations I hadn't noticed before in my drivetrain and that freaked me out a bit but figured it was from tearing everything apart and putting it back together and things were settling back into place. Either way I was able to get it out and followed the FM break in procedures.

After about 15 minutes of driving around I made it back home, pulled into the garage, popped the hood and looked for leaks again as it was running and all was good. I jumped back in the car checked my temp gauge it was good, idle was a little high no big deal I'll tune that later and shut it off.
I sat there in the quiet listening to the little ping ping ping of the exhaust and thought.......... HOLY F%#*K!!!, I F%*KIN DID IT!!

Now I know it's not a huge deal to build your own engine but I've spent so much time reading, researching this site and thinking about this moment, all the while wondering if I could actually pull it off and here I was with my first full engine build and nothing rattled off or blew up or pissed all over and I was happy!!

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Time to change the oil and do some high vacuum pulls to seal those rings?

My morning meeting with the boss to decide on wall color choices and what next to do to the car. She can be hard to read at times.

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:likecat:

Congrats on the first start!

Thanks!! Now I'm excited to see what this setup is capable of.

Since getting the engine fired up for the first time I've been doing a lot of driving in the evenings trying to put on miles and do some autotuning. Since this isn't my daily driver it's tough to go out and rack up any more than 20-30 miles at a time. Like I said I followed FM's break in procedures, WOT from 2.5k up to 6k in third and fourth gear than let off quickly and go full vacuum than repeat about five times. During this time I had my wastegate wired open as well.

Im always looking for leaks when getting back to the garage and so far so good. Once I hit 50 miles I decided to drain the oil and see if there was anything sparkling or otherwise out of the norm for first run Dino oil with tons of assembly lube mixed in. I was super pleased to see nothing but a hardly noticeable greasy smear of assembly lube. No sparkly bits and the oil actually looked like it did when I poured it in for the first time. I even dragged a magnet around in the oil and found nothing. I figured everything must be going ok with bearing clearances and I felt a sense of accomplishment and relief since my nightmare visions of oil that looks like a bass boat metal flake paint job didn't happen. I went ahead and refilled the oil with fresh dino oil and changed my filter. Almost forgot, I cut my old filter open as well and found nothing but clean oil.

Fast forward a few weeks and I now have 200 miles on the engine.

I've now hooked up my wastegate and am starting to go out and slowly get into boost. My first few times out I only got into about 5-6 psi. It was so boring only going low boost after having felt 10-12psi before the re build. I should mention that most of the strange noises I heard from my initial start up and drive have now gone away. I figure most things just needed to settle in except a vibration I had around 3-3.5k that had me a little concerned but turned out my downpipe was contacting the rear of the engine bay. Once I repositioned it vibration was gone. I auto tuned the car in boost and it did a good job but I still needed to go in and manually change some cells since it always wanted to go richer than I'd like under boost.

After making a post on this site asking if I should ease into the boost or just go for it the overwhelming response was to go for it so that's what I did. I felt like my tune at idle was was pretty solid so I locked those cells out in VEAL and slowly adjusted my home made manual boost controller until I hit 15psi on my boost gauge. It was awesome to feel that boost kick in and by 4K I was making 15psi only bad part was I was feeling something breaking up and I figured it was spark. I closed the gap on my plugs to .028 went back out and problem was gone.

Im having a great time with this car so far. I had to pretty much start from scratch on my tune since my old tune was jacked. I still like to manually tune my boost in higher kpa cells since it wants to go way to rich even with autotune but I think I've got it dialed in decently up to 15psi. It's nice not seeing a smoke screen behind me under decel or under boost and I can't wait to see how far I can push this current setup before something breaks or needs upgrading. For now I'll keep tuning and driving and tuning and driving.

So had my first setback. While out tuning and making some hard pull I've started to notice a clanking noise coming from my transmission. It happens when I'm letting out the clutch and it's halfway up. Here's a link to the post I made the other day about it but surprisingly enough nobody has any input on it. Mines not quite as bad as the video but the sound is spot on. I now obviously have the transmission out.

https://www.miataturbo.net/suspensio...g-noise-95084/


Since nobody seems to know exactly what is going on with it I think I've got a game plan in place. I'm going to replace the input shaft seal and make sure my transmission fluid is serviced properly with Amsoil MTG and put it back together. I'm hoping the noise was simply the fluid being too low and possibly not the right fluid since I used Lucus gear oil and maybe this contributed to the problem. I'm wrestling with the idea of just replacing my transmission but just figures I can't find one available locally or anywhere close by. Ive also considered just upgrading to a six speed but again I can't find one close by. Funny enough I've seen several over the last year in my local craigslist but when I need one I can't find one. I would be really pissed to go through all the time and effort to reinstall the transmission just to have it do it again.

Little fender flare install pics. I just like the wider look they give. I went with a set of Carbon Miata fender flares. Installation was simple once you get over the nervousness of cutting your fenders. Every video I watched seem to cut way more than I felt it needed to be. Anyway here's a few pics. I ended up using self tappers until I decide on paint colors for the car but so far I think I'm gonna stick with white.

https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...b410e283b8.jpg
https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...3b9c4c1f2b.jpghttps://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...77a4e98d4a.jpg
I didn't like how high the flare was once the body lines lined up so I lowered the front ones about an inch and will rework the body line later. The rears were fine though.

https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...401cd429eb.jpg

Still deciding on what route to take with my transmission. If I happen upon a good score in the next few days I might just upgrade to a 6 speed if not I guess I have plenty of time now that the colder weather is here to wait it out and see what shakes out.

In for numbers on t3 50 trim on a built motor. Thinking of trying this turbo when I finish my vvt motor before I step up to my cholset

Small update.......... after several hours of mental deliberation I thought about just sealing up my tranny and sticking it back in. When I pulled the input shaft cover and found the seal torn and leaking a lot of gear oil I thought maybe my problem was oil getting on my clutch and flywheel surfaces making it slip or chatter when letting out the clutch. There was oil slung around inside the bell housing and pretty much everywhere. I kept looking on craigslist hoping a 6 speed would magically appear but that didn't happen.

Upon closer inspection of my tranny I noticed more than normal slop when I turned the input shaft by hand. In any gear it seemed to turn about a 1/4 inch before I could feel it engage the gear and I confirmed this by holding on to the output shaft and feeling no movement until I moved it 1/4 inch. It also sounded very "notchy" when turning the input shaft by hand. I knew there were a few 94-97 Miatas at my local LKQ so I headed there to check out the transmissions there. As luck would have it someone had already removed the engine from the 97 that had 100k (I had already removed the driveshaft a few weeks ago). When I grabbed the input shaft on this one there was a noticeable difference from the one I had. It was much less notchy and there was almost zero slop in the gears when I turned it by hand. Luck ally the PPF bolts came loose easily and I walked out with the tranny.

I replaced the seals and put on my TOB since it only has a couple hundred miles on it. Sadly I'm getting pretty fast at removing and reinstalling the transmission. I hate the fact that I'm putting the 5 speed back in since last time I did this I swore if I did it again I was putting a six speed in. Oh well I want to drive my car and have fun so I'll just wait to upgrade till a latter date. If all goes well I'll have this back together in a few hours and fingers crossed my problems gone!!

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...3d5392a688.jpg
https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...fe6d15b635.jpg
https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...21fd42cc45.jpg

Well everything's back together and seems my problem is solved. I'm not sure what really fixed the problem but my knocking transmission seems to be no more. I WILL NOT do this again without a lift. I'm getting to old to be rolling around on the cold ground hitting my head on jack stands and rolling out from under the car every 5 minutes because I need another tool!!..... lol!
I can however get the tranny out and reinstalled in about three hours which is partly due to Lars's v-band greatness on my exhaust. Now it's back to tuning and seeing what amount of boost I can hit without blowing something else up.

https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...bb0aa1191a.png

I've been saying the same thing about getting a lift and rolling around on my back and being too old for this $%{ for at least 5 years.

And last night I was rolling around on my back underneath the Miata...

Had a great day today. Weather was amazing for this time of year. 75 and sunny. Great day to do some tuning. Still staying conservative but starting to push it a little!!

This gives me some optimism to build a turbo motor because I do know how to set the timing ;)

Sun out fun’s out!!!
 

Heat Relief
 

Very nice !
Would buy.