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Gracias, guys! I just want to drive this thing in its fast form again haha.
Took her out to the canyons yesterday and beat on the engine in low boost mode (9-10psi). Engine performed well. I swear even in low boost, it feels faster than the first time I built it. I broke this one in more aggressively than the last one so maybe it is... or it's all just in my head. Either way I'm happy about it.
Once I got home, the engine was at 460 miles so I figured I'd do an oil change and turn the boost up.
Question for you guys with built motors: how many miles/oil changes was it until you stopped seeing a sheen in your drained oil? The oil I drained had a faint metallic sheen to it. It isn't sparkly by any means and there definitely aren't any shavings, chunks, etc in the mix. After running a screwdriver through it, I was just able to see faint trails of a lighter color in the oil. I'll run a magnet through it tonight and see if it's ferrous or not. My oil change intervals were right after initial dyno break in, then at 20 miles, then 110 miles, then I started beating on it harder in low boost at about 250 miles, then changed the oil at 460. I'm assuming the mild amount of metal in the oil is due to the longer oil change interval coupled with the fact that I introduced more boost and aggressive driving at this stage. Still, I'm interested to hear others' experiences in case it's something I should be concerned about.
Anyways, I took the car out last night and reconnected the boost controller. My previous boost settings were netting 17PSI in open loop and were set up at about 85-90*F ambient temps at 1000ft of elevation. Last night I took the car out in ~55*F temps at sea level. Anyways, my first pull in 3rd gear, the boost instantly shot up to 22psi and nearly blew one of my charge pipes off hahaha. I pulled over, reset and tightened the charge pipe clamps. Didn't expect to be boost tuning last night but I played with my open loop table a bit until the car was holding 17psi from just under 4k to redline. I did a pull on my way to work this morning when it was a touch warmer and got about 16psi to redline on the same settings. Looks like attempting closed loop boost control again is gonna be my project this week.
Flogged the new motor again last weekend. Closed loop boost control was a little fluctuate-y up above altitudes of 5k but aside from that, the car is pretty well-sorted out. The motor hit its 1,000 mile mark right as I pulled it onto the trailer. Good sign? I’m not superstitious but I’ll take anything I can get.
I’m going to run laps tomorrow and Saturday. Sunday’s up in the air depending on if I feel like I can improve on my Saturday times. Hopefully I’ll have a positive post-race recap at the end of the weekend!
The damn thing didn't explode! I bent a wheel, broke a throttle cable bracket, and sent my battery flying across my trunk, but the motor didn't blow up! Ended up running a 1:58.56 in practice and a 1:58.71 on race day, enough to slide into 19th of 21 in Street class, AKA not dead last
God damn, I need some stiffer springs.
My buddy David and I showed up Thursday night, both of us pretty well-prepared. I probably could've done an alignment on my car before leaving but aside from that, I actually finished race prepping my car early in the week. That being said, I was still nervous about running the motor at full bore on track for the first time. More than that, even, I was bigtime nervous about running with 50 more horsepower at the wheels than I'm normally used to!
My homie David and I before our first session. First track day for both of our motors. David's running a K24 in his car with a ported CNC head. His bottom end gave out after our last track day, low compression in three cylinders. He swapped the head onto a 13.5:1 compression ratio short block the weekend before the race, took it to the dyno on Monday, then was out here racing it four days later. And here I was thinking I was a hero for dropping my new motor in only three weeks before the race.
As it turned out, our cars were perfectly evenly matched. We ran within tenths of each other most of the weekend and neither of our cars could drop the other in the straightaways.
My nerves were pretty high first session, thinking running 270whp for my first time was going to be inconceivably gnarly. To be quite honest, I had been worrying about it all week. Well, worrying usually isn't super productive and this situation was no exception. I think it took a lap and a half to get used to the extra power, then it was game on. I laid down about six laps then pulled back in to make sure nothing was wrong with the car. Success! No oil anywhere, no rod knock, no smoke or flames. My catch cans were about a fifth full but I wasn't all that surprised as I didn't install any scrubbers in my valve cover breathers. While making sure my car wasn't about to fall apart, I was approached by a bunch of guys from SPS racing over in Germany. Dudes showed me photos of a bunch of their Miata race cars back in Germany then complimented mine, calling it a GT3RS spec Miata because of the fender cut and vents haha. I'll take any compliment I can get!
Session two went well. Did another three or four laps then pulled in to check the car out again. I timed myself for the first time and... a 1:59.8! Holy sh*t! I didn't think I'd even run a sub-2 this weekend. I pulled back out to finish the session, pulled in right behind an M3 and was doing a pretty good job of keeping pace with the guy. We did a full lap then I got on the gas coming out of Grapevine. That's weird, I was hanging with him in the straights and now he's pulling away from me. Looked at my boost gauge and it was running at ~10psi. Wastegate pressure. Huh, that's weird, my boost solenoid must have gone out. Went another two corners then got on the gas coming out of Riverside and... the pedal went to the floor but the car stopped going any faster. Sweet! Got 'er towed off track and back into the pits. Throttle cable bracket snapped. Sh*t, I told myself I was going to get a spare... like five months ago. Luckily, Buttonwillow has a workshop on site and I was able to get it welded back together on the spot. Took all of twenty minutes.
My third practice session out was pretty uneventful. Threw down a solid slew of laps, good for a 1:58.56 PB. The car was still holding up well and at this point I was no longer worried about the motor exploding. I mean, if it was going to nuke, it probably would have done so already, right? I was having so much fun with how fast the car was, I almost didn't have time to worry about it.
Anyways, I don't remember if I mentioned that CW13 scares me because I murdered a wheel on the inside curb of the Bus Stop before, but CW13 scares me for that exact reason. Luckily, they filled in the the inside curb that everyone hops with dirt to prevent that this weekend. Due to that, I decided that I'd drop a wheel into the dirt on the outside of the corner exit and flat spot it coming back onto the track instead.
Literally happened my last lap. Ouch. immediately very noticeable hop in the wheel. I pulled off the track and pulled the wheel off with the sun dipping fast. I started by trying to hammer it out but got nowhere with that. David and I ended up stuffing a bottle jack in between a couple two by fours and prying the wheel open that way. Didn't get it perfectly straight but we got it a lot better. I drove the car to dinner ten minutes away and it felt only a little vibrate-y on the highway so I decided I'd likely run it. Our buddy Chase was coming up in the morning and said he'd bring a couple of his 15x9s for me to run in case I had any further issues.
Luckily, the fun wasn't done yet! Saturday morning I woke up and found my throttle cable bracket cracked 90% of the way through again. I managed to pull it off and get it welded again (reinforced with a second plate this time). First session went pretty well for the first half. I was gridded close to the front of my run group and got a decent number of clean laps in. Them on lap 6 or so, I came over Phil Hill and my car died. Damn dude, it's probably fuel pump ground wire pulled itself out again... oh wait there goes all the electronics too. Got towed off the track again. Came back to the pits and looked in the trunk. Found the battery upside down in the middle of the trunk and my battery hold down fully backed out. It also tore my fuel pump ground wire out of its terminal as well. Rad. We got it all back together and fixed my fuel pump ground with about ten minutes to spare before my next session. The good news? I still ran a 1:59.01, so I had at least one sub-2 on the board! Luckily, that was the end of my mechanicals for the weekend. Session two went clean, ran a 1:58.75. Same went for sessions three and four, I ran a 1:58.71 for both, which I was way stoked on.
I only ran competition on Saturday, had to get home by Sunday afternoon. All said and done, it was a pretty stellar weekend! Can't wait to get back out there next year and improve on my time even more!
I was watching the live YT stream. How'd the TF team do out there?
[hijack]
Car ran great minus cracking the manifold in session 2 on Saturday, we had it fixed and back together for Sunday though. He ran a 1:47.98, a PB for him (1:50.X was his PB in 2019) but we were a 3rd set of tires away from a podium in limited, he only needed a 46.92 to nab it. Lesson learn't.
[/hijack]
Nice meeting you and David out there, always a good track weekend when Miatas are well-represented!
Yo, likewise dude! Sorry I didn't chat with you guys more. Keeping my car ready for every session proved to be a full time job haha. Hopefully we can reconvene next year!
Yo, likewise dude! Sorry I didn't chat with you guys more. Keeping my car ready for every session proved to be a full time job haha. Hopefully we can reconvene next year!
That's why we travel like we do - a "pit crew" is a necessity. I'm always amazed seeing guys do it solo, hats off to you dudes.
Yo, likewise dude! Sorry I didn't chat with you guys more. Keeping my car ready for every session proved to be a full time job haha. Hopefully we can reconvene next year!
Just.. turbo miata things. It gets better once you are past the teething stages.
Hey, Stock, update your build thread. I see that you have 23xwhp in your sig and I need deets, I'm out of touch since I disappeared from social medias.
Just.. turbo miata things. It gets better once you are past the teething stages.
Hey, Stock, update your build thread. I see that you have 23xwhp in your sig and I need deets, I'm out of touch since I disappeared from social medias.
I'll fix my sig, it's a typo. Not throwing the turbo setup on until I reset the CW class A time at ASR.
Sorry for the out-of-focus pic here. Also yes, I set my base pressure to 43.5psi after this was taken.
Ever since I dropped the DW200 fuel pump in (the first modification I made towards turbo-ing this car along with my MS3x), I've always dealt with excessive fuel pressure at idle. Like 55psi at idle, tapering down to the high 30s around 45-55kpa, then rising again as it should. At first, I figured I had a partially-blocked FPR, so I replaced the OEM unit with another one. Fail. Still got 55psi at idle. My DW200, which isn't supposed to overpower a stock FPR, was overpowering my stock FPR. I tuned around the weird fuel pressure curve to get the car running proper and then... forgot all about the issue once I was hitting all my AFR targets reasonably well. My VE table looked kinda odd in the low load cells compared to others, but the fuel pressure curve was predictable and repeatable so I was effectively able to tune around it. And I ran it like this for... the whole year without issue.
Alright, with the bigger injectors and E85 conversion being my next upgrade, I decided it was time to stop f*cking around and actually fix the issue. Picked up a K-Power adjustable FPR and a bunch of fittings and installed it all yesterday. I'm planning on doing AN lines for the fuel system eventually, but I had a bunch of rubber fuel line on hand so that'll do for now. The fuel system is now running the pressures it actually should at all engine loads, starting in the low 30s at idle, up to 43.5psi at zero-vac. The retune of idle and low-load cells wasn't as dramatic as I'd expected, but the VE numbers I had definitely needed to be leaned out.
I think I'm gonna grab the E85 sensor and 1000cc injectors next paycheck. Based on my current setup, I should be able to max out at ~300whp with E85. My max allowed horsepower for NASA TT3 is 291 so I'd like to have an "all out" tune for the street, then just be able to turn down the boost by half a psi for races.
Also, not pictured, I replaced 3 of the 5 nuts on my turbo elbow with Stage 8 locking hardware. I found an exhaust leak at the turbo/elbow junction after driving my car home from Uhaul following last weekend's race. That's weird, all the nuts look like they're on there tight and I cranked them down before my final session... I went to snug them down and found the three top nuts just spinning on the studs and not torqueing anything down. Managed to pull them off and found the threads had separated from the nuts themselves. The inner diameter of the nuts was smooth and the threads were helicoiled around the studs. Weird. I took a pick, dug the threads out of the studs and threw the nuts in a bag to be displayed as trophies later on. I still have to replace the two bottom nuts which are a bitch to get to but for now there's no exhaust leak so I'm happy.
I also still need to replace the wheel I bent last weekend. Konig has a sponsorship program for NASA drivers that I'm waiting to hear back from but responses have been slow...
Next up, Injectors and E85... and maybe a seat with more bolstering than my current Sparco Sprint? Anyone wanna buy a year old Sparco Sprint..?
Man it's nice the NA's have a "standard" fuel setup with a return line. I just learned the NB's have a returnless system.. :/ Should work fine just not as consistent as a return setup.
Weekly update: not too much to report. Went into work Saturday and replaced my rear right wheel that I bent a couple weekends ago. Replaced my 25 row Setrab oil cooler as well. I cut open the oil filter from my last oil change and found a couple bits of bearing material from my last motor in the filer element. Oops. I had replaced my OEM oil cooler but not my ACTUAL oil cooler. I flushed the cooler out (multiple times) after I spun a rod bearing on the VVT motor back in August, and decided I should replace it after some further reading. Then that “to-do” got lost in my laundry list of other “to-do’s” for this car. I’ve been running it for 2,400 miles now (1,200 on my backup motor and 1,200 on this motor) so any leftover material has probably exited the cooler, and any damage it could’ve done has probably already been done.
Aaaaanyways, my oil pressure is unchanged from the first startup and the motor’s still running strong so I’m not gonna worry about it for now. I've got 1,500 miles on it after this weekend. I drove it up to the annual Little Tujunga Turkey Run on Saturday and beat on it pretty hard in the canyons. I wish I took a photo of the whole scene. There were an alleged 250 cars at the top this year. One guy's wife even brought a big ol' propane stove setup to the top and was selling breakfast burritos and coffee.
I received the radiator support bar I ordered from another user on here and am going to try and install it this week. Winter probably isn’t the best time to test the performance gains it’s supposed to produce for the cooling system but whatever. It’s been in the 50s in the morning here and my coolant temps are running around 180*f (15* under thermostat opening) for the majority of my 25 minute uphill drive to work. I already need to add some more coolant to my mixture haha. Regardless, I’m still gonna install the bar and then move onto the next project soon, whether it be bigger injectors or a more robust bucket seat. More updates to come!
Well that happened quickly. Slow-ish afternoon at work provided just enough time to chop the core support and get the sucker installed. Stoked to see the difference in cooling. You don’t realize how much space that bumper’s taking up until it’s gone!
I got home last night and my neighbor waved me down and walked over with a couple sets of springs. "Hey man, I'm getting rid of these. I used to have an NB Miata and I bought these springs for the BC coilovers I had on it. They're 14 and 12k. Thought you might have a use for them."
You couldn't have written it better. I've needed a stiffer set of front springs for about as long as I could remember.
Case in point.
My car's currently running on 10k/8k springs and is properly oversteery on track. Not only that, they're too soft for 245 width tires as well. It's fun to drive at the limit but I sometimes p*ssyfoot my way into corner entries because it's so easy to unsettle once the car's weight is thrown forward. Might just be in my head but I think there's time I could shave by negating some of the current oversteer the car exhibits. I'm just gonna swap the fronts for now and see how the car handles with 14k/8k rates.
Got my coilovers torn down today and installed the new springs. Re-leveled the ride heights at 4 3/4" all around as they were before. I suspect I'll be able to actually run some rake with these spring rates and am going to experiment with dropping the front a quarter inch once I get some miles on it. For now, I want to only change one parameter at a time. I'll get some miles in the canyons this weekend and decide if I want to make any other changes before taking the car to SOW next Friday.
Bonus pic from Palomar mtn. yesterday. Motor's got 1,800 miles on it at this point. Don't fail me now baby!
10-30-2023, 03:04 PM
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I'll fix my sig, it's a typo. Not throwing the turbo setup on until I reset the CW class A time at ASR.
