Are you still running the TDR oil cooler kit? I'm thinking about a setup and wanted to ask if you kept your OEM oil warmer or yanked it. Biggest concern with adding an oil cooler and keeping the OEM oil warmer is spacing out the filter too far and interfering with the intake manifold brace. I'm thinking that it will probably need to be trimmed/cut but figured who better to ask.. I'm likely going to use a Mocal thermostatic plate and maybe a 19row Setrab mounted behind the radiator where the passenger side rad fan used to be. I'm thinking I shouldn't need a big cooler since I'm only shooting for low 220 whp. Less power = less heat.

 

Yessir, I sure am. I've had the TDR-based kit on my car for almost two years now. I swapped the supplied oil cooler out for a Setrab 25 row last year after the original one ate a rock on track, but all the other components are what came with the kit.

I've been running the supplied -8 push lock hose and fittings since I got the kit with no issue, but have been wanting to swap to -10 line for a bit. Yesterday I asked TDR customer service for the female thread size in their sandwich plates so I could swap over. While having that conversation, Dan told me that they now spec all of their kits with -10 line instead of -8 now.

I ran the stock oil cooler tucked in my right front wheel well with no issues at 210whp. Mild ducting but not fully sealed. I should probably duct it a bit more TBH but oil temps haven't been an issue for me. The highest I ever saw my temps get to was 250*F on a 95* ambient track day. With the Setrab 25 row, I saw my temps at 210whp drop maybe 10* from where they were before. It's nice to have the Setrab on my current setup with ~270whp on track, but probably overkill for 210-220.

I'm running my factory oil warmer with the lines capped off because at the time I thought "less coolant lines, less failure points". I plan to reconnect the coolant lines to it at some point. My oil takes really long to warm up on cold mornings. I'm also fairly convinced the thermostat in my TDR-supplied sandwich plate is either stuck open or not doing anything. I'm running a Skunk2 manifold with no brace, so space under the manifold isn't an issue.

 

Popped in the new diff housing today, and might’ve had the biggest breakthrough in the driveline vibration saga yet.

Don’t mind the helmet and my gear bag. I was anticipating not finishing and having to ride my bike home from work today lol.



So in another thread, I’ve been talking to SixShooter and RichBobby a lot about the driveline vibration I’ve been having. Six and I have almost the exact same setup and he has no vibration. ZF6 transmission, Miata diff, currently running a PPF to the transmission crossmember instead of the KPower PPF delete brace. The last difference in our setups I could identify was the fact that he’s on rubber diff bushings and I was on poly.

Well lucky for me, my replacement diff housing came with OEM rubber bushings installed. I figured it was worth a shot to try one more thing against the vibration. Now, I didn’t have the OEM rubber lower bushings anymore, so I drilled out the ID of my lower poly bushings a touch to fit, and mounted them up. I briefly brought the car up to 4,700rpm in 6th gear on the way home (roughly 90mph) and almost couldn’t perceive any vibration. I’m gonna take it back to work tomorrow, get it on a lift and have a buddy drive it up into the vibration zone so I can put my hand on the diff and see if it’s still vibrating violently. That’ll be the tell all.

I already ordered the Getrag swap kit, so it would make perfect sense if I fixed the vibration issue two days later. I’m not gonna hold my breath, but I’ll update this thread once I have a little more testing time.

 

Cool thanks man. Ya I definitely don't need a big cooler for low 200whp. A 19 row should suffice. For ease I was thinking of mounting it behind the radiator but I guess we'll see how spacing is. I was thinking of removing the oem oil warmer as I want to keep the oem IM brace (I can just cut part of it as needed) but I guess I really gotta just start taking things apart and see how things look.

Ya one of the big drawbacks of a big oil cooler is that it takes a LONG time for oil to get upto temp, especially if the temps are cool. I haven't measured it specifically on my honda but I wanna say a good 10-15mins for oil temps to hit 150F+. This is with a 25row setrab and probably ~7qts of oil in the system (it has a thermostat in the sandwich plate). It sucks for the street since I'm deterred from driving the car on shorter trips because of this. I definitely don't want to oversize the cooler on the Miata.

 

Yeah, you’ll be good with a 19-row no problem! I originally mounted my oil cooler behind the radiator when I was still NA, but had to move it after I installed the turbo due to clearance issues with the charge pipe. I could’ve changed up the bracket to bring the cooler closer to the radiator, but would’ve only gained an inch or so of space. It was tight, but probably doable. I’ll be interested to see what you go with on your car.

Yeah, the big ol oil cooler makes sense that it’d do that, but I thought the thermostat in the sandwich plate would do more as far as allowing oil temps to come up. I mean I’m not helping things by having the oil warmer removed but still. I’m with you too, I’ve deferred doing short trips in the car when it’s cold out because I know I’m gonna have to baby it the whole way there and back.

 

Mine fitted, but I stacked it as close to the rad as possible, and sealed it so the rad output flows through it. I will be reinstalling this and monitoring it for effectiveness with the new engine, as well as warm-up.

https://www.miataturbo.net/prefabbed...3/#post1637501

 

I monitored oil temps on my honda when it was still NA and stockish and oil temps always take time to come upto temp even in a stock car. In low load/cold temps it's normal for oil temp to sit under 160F even. I was surprised just how low oil temps are (just putzaing around) on a stock setup but I guess it makes sense. After removing the stock oil cooler/warmer, adding a higher capacity oil pan and an oil cooler unfortunately it's no surprise oil temps take noticeably longer to come upto temp now. Just the tradeoffs we all make. I'm not sure what a "safe" oil temperature is to start pushing the car these days but I figure ~150F should be ok..?

 

On my full fat race engine in the atmo racecar, the engine builder said 80*c for the oil, but that was to protect the aggressive high lift cam lobes, I imagine stock(ish) cams would reduce that figure. On a cold morning (around freezing), after an open tow on a trailer, that engine could not be warmed to anything near that, until I installed a proper oil/coolant heat exchanger, which instantly fixed the problem and linked oil temps to coolant.

 

I remember Emilio posted on a different thread that on a BP running 15W40, safe oil temp to start pushing the motor is ~175F (80C just like Gee stated).

Obviously different engine setups and oil weights are going to affect that. I’ve been running 15W40 in mine but will be swapping to 5W40 when it gets cold next winter.

For sure it’s a worthwhile tradeoff for these applications, but I’m still gonna get slightly annoyed driving the car on the street when it’s cold out haha.

 

Like I said, I am a fan of the heat exchangers, IIRC oil tracks coolant by about -10*c, then as you push it hard it exceeds it. If low oil temps are a problem, this is a simple solution. You might need a good radiator, and All-of-It radiator sealing/ducting if you also run in high ambients, as the radiator has to shed both coolant and oil heat.

 

Yeah, that figure tracks true for me. My oil temps are generally ~10F below coolant temps when that car is fully warmed up and oil temps will sit at around 230-235F while coolant is at 210F on track. Warmups are a different story. My oil temp will usually only be around 150F when my coolant hits 195.

@Gee Emm are you running the factory oil warmer in your car as well? Can’t remember if you mentioned that previously.

 

Diff housing swapped, PPF reinstalled, rubber bushings left in, driveline vibration mellowed out and just perceivable at 110mph. It was a good car weekend.




Took the car up to the mountains yesterday evening. It was perfect out and there was next to zero traffic in the zone I went to. I’ve been making sure to drive the car hard somewhere every weekend recently so that I don’t start to resent all the work I’ve been putting in on it. All it takes is about ten seconds once I’ve got it on a mountain pass to remember it’s all worth it.

So about the ongoing driveline vibration issue: rubber upper diff bushings seem to have decreased the severity another ~85%. The vibration zone pre diff housing/rubber bushing swap was from around 4,200-5,800rpm in 6th gear (around 90-125mph). I did a handful of pulls on the freeway to further test it yesterday. The vibration basically can’t be felt until about 100mph, at which point it can be faintly felt if you’re looking for it. At 110mph it becomes apparent but is much more akin to the common 65mph Miata shimmy in terms of severity. It no longer feels like it’s going to detonate something in the driveline.

That being said, I believe the bushings are just damping the root cause of the vibration. I’m hesitant to track the car like this still, although SixShooter said in another thread to just send it lol. I’m probably being a bit of a baby about it.



Oh, the digital dash is absolutely sick, too. Being able to make adjustments in TunerStudio straight from the dash with the mini wireless keyboard is almost too convenient. I was able to pull over and make a couple adjustments to my boost control in seconds once I got up in altitude yesterday. I need a display with external controls for brightness, though. The screen’s just a little too bright to be left on at night if you’re not in a well-lit area. I’ll get another ordered this week

 

Glad to hear the vibration is under control now. When you made the initial post about the bushings I was wondering if that was a fix or more of a band aid that simply masked the vibration. I guess you get to be the guinea pig on that one.

I wonder if there's an auto dimming feature you could implement for the dash. I've been appreciative of that on my AEM gauges, it really makes a difference at night.

 

I feel like I've been a guinea pig for the last month straight lol. Just hope someone can extract useful information from my blunders one day! Yeah, now that the vibration is under control somewhat, I feel much better. Getrag is still gonna go in the car and now I know for sure I'm gonna run an OEM rubber nose bushing to dampen any other vibrations. Stiff bushings are much less necessary now that the transmission is solid mounted on a crossmember and doesn't move around nearly as much.

I believe there's a manual dimmer that can be programmed via the RPi but information on the forums seems to be conflicting on whether it works well or has adverse effects on the display. I gotta do some more research. Agreed, though, the auto dimming gauges are a must!

 

Glad you got to enjoy the car some. Sometimes I forget how absolutely epic my car is until I take it out and flog on it a bit. There's not much that can compare to a well sorted turbo miata as far as raw handling, feel, and power/weight are concerned, especially as a whole package.

For the raspi, I just set mine to a much dimmer dashboard overall. I wanted to come up with some sort of auto-dimming as well, I had a few ideas but I never perused them. One was just to use the system clock and have a script that will auto-dim it after 8pm or something. Another was to add an external dimmer so I can just have it on a switch/****. Another idea I thought of was a light sensor to see when it's darker and dim it for you. Interested to see what you come up with!

 

No joke, man. Driving this thing on the surface streets to work and back with traffic all around almost feels like I'm putting it in a cage. I occasionally forget how much of a missile this car is until I have the space to do a proper pull in it haha.

When setting your dashboard brightness, did you do so via the Pi or the display? I need to play with that a bit tonight. I read that you can manually change the backlight by modifying one of the text files in the /class/ folder, but found conflicting comments from users on whether that works. The light sensor or clock ideas would be pretty cool!

Fun story: we had a customer come in the other day with complaints that his new Mustang was too sensitive to outside lighting and was dimming the screen and turning on the headlights every time he drove under some shade. He just had the windshield done up with 35% tint. The ambient light sensor is inside the vehicle on the dashboard. Buyer be warned

 

For me, sitting in the idling racecar fresh off the trailer on a freezing morning, watching the oil temp move smoothy up behind the coolant was cause for celebration - no more trundling around the paddock trying and failing to get it up, even the warmup lap was insufficient. As soon as the car moved off, it was 80* by the time I got to the marshalling area, the warmup lap could be done worrying about tyres and brakes, without trying to hold down the revs - heaven on a stick!

@Gee Emm are you running the factory oil warmer in your car as well? Can’t remember if you mentioned that previously.[/QUOTE]

No, that car (racecar) was definitely not running that thing. I have asked several times if anyone has datalogged the temperatures, nil response. Finding how much the coolant temp drops across it would go a little way to discovering how much it does (if anything), but the other part is less discoverable - the mass flow of coolant through those tiny lines.

The one on the RGM was reinstalled as part of the engine rebuild, only because I didn't think to tell Mania to not do it. It will be coming off as part of the reinstallation of the remote filter and oil cooler.

 

Ya for a racecar that you can't get upto temp properly before beating on it that's definitely a problem. Laminova water/water oil coolers are slick. A few s2000 guys run them but I haven't seen track cars with them. I'm sure someone on the interwebs has run them on track cars I guess I could do some digging. Ideally a good water/water oil cooler is the "best" setup as it gets oil temps up the fastest but I believe even the largest Laminova cooler (which isn't THAT big) isn't big enough for a track car making >350whp. The largest one should be big enough for a low 200whp miata though.

 

Tinting a front windshield is illegal as hell in not a good idea anyway. Also can't use polarized sunglasses with it which would really suck.

 

No, that car (racecar) was definitely not running that thing. I have asked several times if anyone has datalogged the temperatures, nil response. Finding how much the coolant temp drops across it would go a little way to discovering how much it does (if anything), but the other part is less discoverable - the mass flow of coolant through those tiny lines.[/QUOTE]

Yeah, that’s really nice not having to worry about warmup temps on your first few laps. I hate pulling out of the paddock and having to wave by cars that I’d be quicker than because I can’t go full throttle yet. I’ve made it a habit to get the car started and warmed up extra early before every session especially on cold mornings. Would still be nice if I could start the car 5-10 minutes later without worrying about it.

In reference to warmup times with and without the factory oil warmer, I only have anecdotal data. I immediately noticed my oil warmup time increased without the warmer, and I wasn’t even focusing on it. I’ll keep better track of it this time when I get around to reinstalling it.

I need to make a couple removable block off panels for my radiator and oil cooler as well. Car already runs too cold in the winter to begin with.

To be clear, he got the tint done himself elsewhere. Agreed, though. When I was 18, I thought it would be a sick idea to do 35% tint on the windshield and limo tint on the side windows of my Econoline van. That thing sucked to drive at night lol.