Look at my hover car



Some proper cooling products



I bought some HPS heater core lines, they have done me well in the past. I also wrapped them in the DEI foil.





More Nick Nacks



I took the top of the intake manifold off, I was going to swap the shinny one out for a stocker but after looking at it, I like the polished one better so I tapped some lines in the back and threw it back on. The fittings are not screwed in all the way to the hilt but they super tight. I was afraid I was going to strip the threads out.





Timing belt install, looks pretty good. I haven't done one of these in a while. I was way out of practice. Thankfully I bought a FM tool kit a few years ago.





Throwing it all back together. I usually do a great job painting valve covers for my friends but when I go to do my own, I goof up a bit. The front had too thick a coat of paint on it so it crinkled a little weird.



I ordered some Garage Star rails, the funny thing they were cheaper to buy and ship from moss than direct from Garage Star. I bet they get a deal on shipping since they are a bigger company.




Now for the part with questions, I followed everything I knew about oil catch systems. I went with a dual can, non vented setup. When I started the car, It did not run right and sounded odd. So I vented the can on the intake manifold side and the noise went away. The car still ildes a little high. I though this was strange. I could not run the filter in the pic because there was so much vacuum. Maybe my PCV valve is bad?? Also look at the other can and see if it is right. This has me puzzled.






The blanket didn't come with any mounting hardware, so I used SS saftey wire to tire it on.

 

Here is a short video of the vacuum I am getting through the can, that does not seem right...




My car without exhaust sounds like a cummins. I was going to see what difference was made without that restrictive resonator but I wasn't making the correct about of boost. So I need to address that first.

 

So I "think" I figured this out. Somebody please look at this and tell me if I am right/wrong on this. I have been lurking this form for a while trying to learn a proper oil catch setup. Someone really needs to post a definitive THIS IS IT NOOBS!!!! thread on catch cans.

So to cut the story short just look at this terrible pic and see what you think. The car idles correctly and sounds correct. I've not driven it yet so no telling if it is truly right.








I hope this is right....



Moving on, its hot as the sun here. The temp is 97 the heat index is 113... ugg I want to make sure, I take care of my cooling as best as I can. So I took some temps.....



Here were my test so far all are in F:
Ground temp 129
Actual temp 97

Before startup:

• Hood 122
• Manifold 114
• Brake fluid 125
• Front valve cover 117
• Rear valve cover 119

After 30min drive with mixed throttle mostly highway:

• Manifold 395
• Brake fluid 140
• Front valve cover 203 ( I think I measured wrong)
• Rear valve cover 155
• Read of turbo 255
• Front of turbo 205

I think I need a turbo heat shield. I want to reduce damage done by the turbo's heat, I know in this heat I'm liable to melt something. Any pointers would be good.

So far this is what I've done to help with heat:

• Enclosed bottom of engine (mostly)
• Added some radiator duckting
• vents in the hood (would be better behind radiator)
• wrapped stuff in foil
• used high temp exhause paint on mai, turbo, and exhaust
• wrapped downpipe
• turbo blanket

 

No catch can for noobs because it depends what you are trying to do. Plug that vent and you have a setup similar to mine. No need to plug it though.

 

Is the PCV even doing anything if there's a check valve on the vacuum side?

Doesn't the PCV close under high vacuum anyway (albeit not very well)?

Why have a PCV at all?

 

im i seriously looking a video of a catch can plumbed directly into the IM and someone is trying to figure out why it has vacuum??

 

your going to see vacuum on the intake catch can there. don't put a filter on it. you basically just gave yourself a huge boost leak.
if your going to run a filter on the catch can (intake side) plug the hole in the intake manifold.
if your going to run a filter on the catch can (turbo side) plug the hole in the intake pipe.

what you have done is take both the catch can methods and combined them.

If you need an emission compliant system you cant (properly) run these systems vented to air through the filter. so you would seal the catch can and run the hoses to a vaccum source like your pre-turbo intake pipe or your intake manifold with a check valve like the pcv.
If you don't need an emission compliant system, you run the valve cover breather with no check valve into the catch can and the can will have an air filter on it. this type of system isn't connected to the inlet piping or intake manifold at all.

choose a configuration, don't mix them.

 

So I realized in the shower this morning how dumb I was last night and how I effectively did nothing. My issue was the strange noise I was getting from running the combo


Right you are the PCV valve does nothing just like the intake manifold can, it does nothing in this set up.

I was pointing out the fact that blocking that port caused a funky noise. In short I'm an idiot.

Thank you, that really sheds some light on this. I've have been reading the daylights out of this forum and it seems there is lot of discussion on this, but what you said makes a lot of sense. I think I am going to go back to the old set up I had. I did have to deal with a bit of PCV smell but the polished cover looked far better than the by red job I did.

 

Back to the way it was, the car runs fine now. Ugg this oil catch stuff ruins my brainpan.

 

if you wanted to run it plumbed back to reduce odor, take your little air filter off the catch can and run a hose from that to the intake (pre-turbo).

being that there is a catchcan in there and the extra large hose size of your system you wont be getting much if any oil to the turbo wheel itself. plus you've removed the restriction that is the PCV that way! being that the PCV closes with boost you would only have the driver side vent in boost in a stock like setup. what you have is definitely better.

 

We had a get together today, doing all the prep work for the 8-9 hour drive to MATG

 

Sooooo riddle me this, I removed the terrible resonator and just put in a straight pipe. The first thing I noticed was that my car was not any louder but the turbo was WAY louder at least on the low end. I didn't expect that. The only thing I can think of was that the resonator was super restrictive. I mean the inside of that thing was not 2.5" I haven't measured yet but I think it was more like 1.5"

Positive notes are:
Way better spool, I'll get some log data soon to prove how much
Way better sound
The power
Better response from the BOV (still delayed a bit)

My butt dyno tells me at 15psi I'm making the same HP that I made at 19psi, so I'm just going to crank it up tomorrow and see what I get. I hope this was my bottleneck.

 

Did you ever figure out why you were making 250 hp at 18psi? With a turbo that size on a 99 head, that just makes no sense at all.

 

Me too. Looking forward to data.

 

quite possible that your restrictor resonator was holding you back.

not all exhaust components are built the same.

 

I noticed that all my pictures make the pages load slower, so here are some more.......

A last minute temporary heat shield, this is only there to protect the brake reservoir.





I drove the car some more, I can't say I'm making a ton more power on the exhaust fix. I'll get some stats and timing map posted soon. I have a feeling it is in the timing map. Anywho, time for MATG so no more time for that.




THE POWERRRRRRRRRR

 

What kind of resonator was it? I just threw mine back in just for the road trip lol


Also, regarding blow off valve response, how long is the line and how wide is the hose? I found shorter the line and fatter the hose helped response. Wheras there was some damping/latency with skinny

 

So I went to MATG and had a great time here are some of the 1,500 ish pics I took. I talked to so many cool people and got to drive the dragon in a variety of ways.

Since I'm always behind the camera I thought I would grab one of myself. I really liked the shirts.














Now here is where the trip was ruined. I let my best friend drive the car, he road the 10+ hours to get there with me, it was the least I could do. I trust him with my car. He went for a cruise through the dragon, nothing fast and was creamed by another miata. He was in his lane and was going about 15mph behind traffic. The other car came toward him too hot and locked the brakes up, he hit my car and spun it around.

He hit the car so hard a chunk of his bumper and wheel were found inside my wheel......

Everyone was ok, my friend was not at fault but my car is in sorry shape. The tow truck damaged it further loading and unloading it. Looks like this shell is a loss, the under carriage is supper bad.










I've overcome with emotion on this. Like most of you guys it is a choice to have a miata and mod it. with kids and ect it is not cost effective to keep the car. So to have this happen close to me sorting it out is a pain.

I'm going to make sure insurance pays out on this and I'm going to come back hard

I'm thinking about finding a clean white miata to transfer my drive train into. This won't be the end for me for sure. But it sure is a big set back. My goal is to have a 300HP miata by spring.

 

Hey man, it was a pleasure meeting you both and so sorry you had one heck of a story for your first MATG. Looking forward to your resurrection build!! Glad you got it all home safely!

 

Nuuuuuuuuuu!!!

😭😭😭😭😭