I’m hoping it has a solid positive impact as long as it doesn’t turn out like the last trans swap Watching Wingman’s 1st-6th pull POV and listening to a couple of those 10 speed auto Mustangs last weekend has me hyper aware of how much slower I’m shifting lol.

Curly, you did post those guys’ site a couple pages back but then I derailed all the trans talk with that race report. Sorry, lol. I’ll grab one of those manual park release mechanisms from them. Would very much like to be able to move my car around without turning the engine on. I was originally thinking of making some kind of bracket to lock the lever in the disengaged position, but it’s probably better to retain the pawl function so as not to have to rely on the handbrake after track sessions, etc.

Wasn’t gonna post any updates today but since I’m here I might as well. Brought the car to work this morning to do an oil change and give everything a once over. While I was there, I mounted the MAXX on the parcel shelf and started cutting up the larger of the two harnesses it comes with. I don’t have the necessary depinning tool, so I just trimmed all the circuits I’m not using down to about 4 inches. Clipped the outputs for the cylinder 5-8 injectors and ignition coils, as well as a couple extra inputs and outputs (this thing has a LOT of extra I/O). Wrapped the remaining portion of the harness in convolute and will drill the firewall and run it through next week.

Conveniently, my car has an unused connector right next to the ECU, which I believe was for the rear window defroster. All four pins have switched 12V present, so I’ll splice those together and use them for power.

 

Looking forward to this swap... I also can't keep up with this thread it seems

 

It doesn't help that the thread keeps darting back and forth between projects and events. I'm also trying not to get too behind haha.

Alright, this Sunday will just be a laid back track day. I'm not gonna push too hard or stress on anything since last weekend was a race weekend an-- hoooooly sh*t, we're in the Sub-1:55 club.

Not gonna lie, I'm pretty proud of this lap. Left a tiny bit of time on the table at the exit of turn 1, but otherwise hit basically every single one of my marks which almost never happens.

Yesterday ended up being pretty damn good/exciting. It rained overnight but the weather eased up in the morning and gave way to ~60 degree temps and cloud cover all day. I was acting as a general instructor for my buddy's organization, and my original plan was to go for a PB attempt in the first session, then swap to my smoked tires and help some newbies and give ride alongs.

That didn't last long. My first hot lap, I PB'd with a 1:55.57, 1.1 seconds faster than my previous best here. Apparently an extra pound of boost, splitter tunnels, swapping my Toyo R's for the RC1's, and bigger wing endplates added up to more speed than I expected. I will say, the tunnels made for a noticeable increase in front end traction in high speed corners here.



Naturally, I got excited seeing the time, pushed another hot lap which was on track for a 1:54, then went two off at the last corner, 50/50'd the curb, and tagged my exhaust in such a way that it popped out of all the hangers. Had to do a lap of shame with the muffler intermittently dragging on the ground. I was pretty amped knowing this car was capable of going sub-1:55, though, especially since just a couple years ago I was pushing hard for a sub-2. Got the car on jacks and checked for damage. The muffler got scraped up but was fine. I put the exhaust back on the hangers and added some hose clamps to keep movement down to a minimum. The turbo to manifold v-band shifted and loosened a bit, but stayed connected. I think the downpipe and turbo braces I made might have actually saved it. I checked the band with a flashlight and didn't find any obvious cracks or damage, then tightened it back down and it wasn't an issue for the rest of the day. I'll replace it *again* soon-ish for peace of mind...



After seeing the possibility of a 1:54, I ended up leaving my new-ish RC1's on the rest of the day, but continuously got teased and had extraneous factors keep me from beating that first hot lap. Sessions two and three, I had a bunch of pretty good laps but had to make at least one pass on each of them. Then on the fourth session, I was on another heater but my throttle body died two corners from the finish. Code P2119 for actuator control/performance. Funny enough, I've never had a spare throttle body for this car until buying that spare trans from Prestige a few months ago. They were nice enough to throw a spare throttle body and starter in for free with the price of the trans. I should've swapped in the spare a while ago, as the motor sounded a lot healthier than the one that was in the car when I originally tested it. Did a quick wiggle test on the TB wiring, plugged in the spare TB and confirmed that spare actuated while the one in the car did not, swapped said TB and was back up and running pretty quickly.


Fab9 mani doesn't use a gasket, though. Had to re-RTV it and let it dry for a little bit.

Final session clicked perfectly, there were only a handful of cars left on track and it was still cool out so I was out of excuses. Pulled a really solid lap together on lap three, got the coveted time, and pulled off before I could mess anything else up lol. I pulled into the pits and proceeded to give two-lap ride alongs to friends and other drivers for the next 30-40 minutes until the car fuel starved and I was out of ethanol jugs. Pulled 'er onto the trailer under her own power. Can't ask for anything more than that.

Even got a solid bike ride in on the way to the track Saturday afternoon, until it started raining. Luckily Buttonwillow has heated showers.



Alright, that's all for track stuff. Back to 8HP stuff this week. I'm not gonna be able to make a ton of progress during the week, but am hoping to trim and wrap the MAXX's secondary harness, then run both of said harnesses through the firewall and splice in the harness side of the inline Deutch connectors by the end of Saturday. Then I'll install my "new" engine harness in the car and see if I can hash out a base tune decent enough to get the car to run next week/weekend.

 

It's incredible that you can do half the wiring for a trans swap, do a track day, ride your mtb, and plan out the rest of your trans swap in less time than it takes me to read about all of it in your thread.

 

Im waiting for the post where he picks up another 2.5 and rebuilds it for the 8hp swap.

 

He's probably done it already and it just waiting to post about it so we don't get overwhelmed

 

What impresses me the most is that he's a Mechanic by trade, so all of this is after work and weekends after slogging through flat-rate work all week. Honestly our guy is a legend.

 

I felt this in my soul. I’m convinced Zak is a bot designed to make me feel that my pace is inadequate.

 

Oh, don't hype me up! I just have zero patience. It's not a virtue lol.

I actually did finish installing a set of Fab9 cams and setting lash in my newest backup motor just before procuring the 8HP. That'll sit in backup for now, though. I'm not gonna regap the rings or do EcoBoost head bolts on that one, too much going on all at once already. I'm glad it's ready, though. The current motor has sixteen track days on it at this point (eleven boosted), so statistically speaking it's due to blow up any day now.

Ended up getting some sheeeeit done this week and here's where we're at now. ECU is powered on and I've got it piggybacking throttle pedal data and IAT from the factory ECU harness, as well as controlling the fuel pump and reading AFR from my wideband controller.



I started by replacing my wideband controller early in the week. My Innovate gauge has been giving me the E8 code of death more and more often the last couple months. At first I thought the gauge or smoke from my exhaust at idle was just killing sensors, but after going through a couple, I realized it had to be something else. Swapped the Innovate with an AEM 30-4110 unit and I've had no issues since. While I was installing the new controller, I spliced in the output circuit to an analog input on the MAXX. Figured that was easier than using the MAXX's internal wideband controller and having to wire up another harness to the engine bay. The MAXX has a bunch of controller settings preloaded, so all I had to do was punch in the AEM controller and it took care of calibration.

Since there's no basemap for an NC in the MAXX database, I needed to grab calibration data for a couple things. One of the sages on the 2.5 swap FB groups was nice enough to give me the coil dwell settings he uses in his destroked 2.4 turbo RX8, along with CLT and IAT sensor calibrations. Unfortunately, he's on a Haltech which apparently does temp calibrations based on voltage, and the MAXX uses resistance in its tables. Rather than do math, I opted to use my current sensors to get some resistance readings at different temps. I took CLT readings from the engine harness at different temps (checked via ECUtek on my phone), and used my spare MAF sensor to do the same thing outside of the car for IATs. Calibrating IAT from here on out should be easy as the signal wire is currently feeding both the MAXX and factory ECU, so I should be able to just look at both and adjust the MAXX's reading to match what the factory ECU is saying.




Why yes, those are my extremely professional flex probes, thank you for asking.

Ran the harnesses through the cabin and firewall on Wednesday I think. The smaller secondary harness was able to fit under the factory door sill trim but the larger harness needed to be mounted next to the driver seat outside of the trim piece. I was able to run it in such a way that it's not in danger of getting tagged by my foot while it's on the dead pedal though. Hopefully I won't even have to worry about that soon, as I'll just be left foot braking full time with the 8HP (probably not, though).



I'll grommet the holes once I'm sure I didn't forget to run any necessary circuits to the engine bay.



I'm gonna leave the body side of the factory ECU harness plugged in to control a bunch of electrical functions. It's still got a few circuits I need for the MAXX, though. Both accelerator pedal position sensors, brake switches, IAT, all three relays for cooling fan/speed, and the fuel pump relay ground. I was hoping I could just run the two APP sensor signal wires to the MAXX for control. While this did work, and APP sensor values read correctly in MTune, the MAXX gets angry that its 5v and sensor ground circuits aren't being used, and sets a code that will disable DBW control. I'll run the MAXX's 5v and sensor ground circuits to the APP circuitry once everything else is ready to go. The MAXX also set a code for an open IAT circuit, since I'm only reading the signal wire and the IAT isn't connected to the MAXX's sensor ground. IAT still reads and it doesn't seem to affect functionality, though. We'll see if that's a problem later. I'll probably just clip that wire at the ECU connector and connect it to MAXX sensor ground later on too.



Ended up having two issues with getting the ECU to power on and connect to the laptop. First was my power source. That connector I found on the parcel shelf with the four power wires turned my test light on, but I never checked the actual voltage there before connecting those powers to the ECU. They were actually 6 volts and not 12. Bummer. Had to find a different 12v source for power. While I was troubleshooting that, I checked in the MAXX help page and also found that my laptop was one of the known three models that won't interface with the MAXX. If you have a super cheap ASUS laptop, check the part number on the MAXX help page and be warned. I was overdue for a laptop anyways, so I grabbed a slightly less cheap Dell 7420. Seems to work well enough so far.

Think I'm gonna try to wire up the fan control and brake switch circuits tomorrow morning then start splicing the male side of the connectors into the MAXX harness so I can hook it into the engine harness I stripped down last week. The fan on this thing has three speeds from what I've read. Low speed is relay one activated only, medium is relays one and three (and might only be used when the A/C is on, I think I read?), then all three is for high speed. Is there any reason I shouldn't just run the fan at high speed full time when it's activated? Maybe that's just laziness talking and I should wire in and set up all three speeds...

Completely unrelated but cool track pic.

 

Though it "works" I would not rely on the external wideband controller, especially when using Analog reference.
Ground offsets have ruined many an engine.

Yes it's more wires, but the Maxx wideband controller is built in, and has options to not heat the sensor until the engine is already running, saving your sensor from getting the thermal shock from the first fire humidity.

On my piggyback setup I actually tied both OEM ECU and Maxx Sensor ground and 5v Source together. (I measured both beforehand and they were within 0.1v on my fluke, so figured I'd not burn out a 5v regulator in either unit)
I haven't had the maxx complain at all, and the OEM ECU hasn't had an issue.

You can back calculate Resistance from voltage, so long as you know the pullup resistor value in the haltech. It's a simple voltage divider circuit with the sensor being on the ground drain side.

 

I've always used the standalone controller/wideband and just fed the Maxx a 5V AFR signal. I kinda like having a separate house for AFR's so I can find it quickly at a glance.

 

I've gotta side with Iron on this one. I fought fueling issues for a long time until I realized something was going wacky with my AEM o2 + analog signal. And that was after chasing every single ground on the motor, ensuring the ECU was grounded to the same point, confirming star grounding technique, etc. It could have just been a shitty controller, but.. swapping to CAN input controller fixed it. I'd go with the onboard controller on the MAX if possible.

 

I ran my car with the analog Innovate wideband signal for a while, then switched it out for CAN bus/RS232 connection. Night and day. It goes from being vague and wander-y where you can see the echo of the square wave heater power switching in your logged data to a rock solid and reliable signal. If you're using an external controller, a digital signal bus to the ECU is a must-have IMHO.

--Ian

 

You have to use it to your advantage. We had to swap the transmission in the Lemons Miata for a race in a few weeks. Zak came over and he and another team mate swapped transmissions in about 2 hours. They would have been faster, but they were waiting on me to change the seals and notch the transmission for the ecotec starter.

 

Dang, thanks for the input as always guys. That's mostly why I post everything I do on here. Hadn't given a single thought to the pros/cons of each wideband option aside from ease of setup haha. I don't remember ever having an issue running an analog AFR input to the Megasquirt on my NA, although I did end up manually finessing the voltage settings a bit to get my ECU AFR to almost perfectly match what the gauge was displaying.

Iron, thanks for the heads up on tying factory ECU and standalone 5v and sensor ground together. I assumed that would cause some sort of issue but didn't have any evidence to back that up. I'll probably do the same there as well.

I ended up monitoring AFR, pedal position, and IAT on the 30-minute drive down to RB's house on Saturday. The preset AEM 30-300 gauge settings were about 1 AFR point off in the ECU vs what my gauge was saying. I thought the 30-300 and 40-3110 gauges used the same calibration, but didn't look it up, so shame on me maybe. I manually input the 30-4110 voltage calibration on the drive home and the gauge and ECU AFR's seemed to match perfectly. I'll take your guys' advice, though, and will try to get the MAXX internal controller wired up once I get everything running.

I got 90% of the MAXX harness wired into the connectors I'm using to mate it to the factory engine harness on Saturday morning. Took a few hours, I think it totaled about 30 circuits. I still gotta splice in a few circuits from the body side of the ECU: clutch position, brake pedal, fan controls, and maybe one or two other circuits. I also gotta get the engine to TDC and mark the damper and front cover so I can set base timing. I'm gonna try and knock that out this week then spend Saturday tossing the other engine harness in the car and maybe trying to get it running

 

Getting closer to crunch time with the ECU install. Still got a couple other things to do on the car like swapping back to street tires and pads and swapping out that manifold v-band that stretched when my exhaust yeeted itself at the track. Decided to tackle the v-band last night. Got the turbo off in record time, checked the weld turbine housing (looking good), and... faaaack.



This definitely happened as a result of the exhaust coming off the hangers and yanking on the turbo/v-band. Might have been immediate or happened later during the track day. Dunno. I've been driving it around for a week and a half since then with no obvious concerns. Dropped it off at the welder this afternoon. His weld on the turbine housing is still holding up so I'm not too worried about him putting a weld on this flange either. The chip is actually probably in the lowest stress area on the flange, as it's tilted away from the engine. That scratch on the right looks like a crack but is just a scratch/wear from a previous v-band failure.

Since the manifold had to come off and the car and it was gonna be down for a couple days anyways, I pulled the factory engine harness out last night and plugged my new one in. I overestimated the length of my new stripped OEM harness and it's too long in a few spots and looks kinda ugly. I'm gonna save myself the grief and not post any pics until I trim and tidy it up. I only need to splice in a few more circuits, but the car's basically ready to try and start once I get the manifold back.

I also found that the other guys who signed up to beta test the 8HP45 to PPF adapters are all currently setting their cars up with various MAXXecu's as well, and I found one guy (https://www.mazdaspeedy.com/) who has his NC running on MAXX, but is still finalizing his 8HP swap. The dude in question was nice enough to send me his tune file so I could confirm my trigger setup was correct, as well as double check CLT and IAT sensor calibrations and DBW settings. He also shared that he was able to configure the ABS CAN unlock command into his tune, keeping the ABS module from getting angry and disabling itself with the standalong. So far he's only tested it on the street, and said he'd release what he did on M.net if it works on track. Everyone's got a plan until they get punched in the face, but for now I'm fairly confident my basemap will get the car to run, or at least close to it.

Still figuring a couple other things out, but luckily there's a pretty solid support group for MAXXecu questions on Facebook. Going through the auto-blip tab in MTune didn't show any obvious ways to trigger a rev-match in manual cars without a gear selector input. I asked about devising a way to blip like my current ECU setup using the brake and clutch switches as the only inputs and was almost immediately shown how to do so via a different set of output options. I know I'm barely scratching the surface here, there must be so many cool things you can do with this software haha.

 

to your manifold.

 

Damn, thats a fat chunk out of the manifold. My condolences.
Since I'm assuming the 2.5 doesn't have as extreme vibrations as the K24, I'm assuming this is from exhaust stresses. Might be worth redoing your bracing to directly brace the turbo(if possible) and add a flex joint post turbo before the next exhaust mount to the body so that the turbo stresses are completely seperate and isolate from exhaust stresses.
I'd personally be skeptical out about welding that big a chunk of manifold and having it last. Might be worth sourcing a spare/replacement and keeping it on hand before future failure ruins a weekend.

 

Yeah, mega bummer. I thought of both of you and your hotside failures when I pulled it out haha.

100% the chunk cracked off due to exhaust stress. Again, the whole damn thing popped off of every hanger (four on the muffler and one midship mounted to the PPF) and was just hanging off the car for a lap or maybe even a lap and a half. The only thing supporting it was the v-band and my (janky) turbine and downpipe braces. I think the braces are the only reason the turbo stayed attached at all actually. Totally doesn't surprise me that the manifold cracked the way it did. My crack on the turbine housing happened the same exact way, loose v-band leading to turbo rattling on the manifold leading to crack-age. I'm hoping the weld will hold for our June race in Buttonwillow (still fairly confident since the weld on the turbine housing held up for six track days now), but yeah, I'm grabbing a spare manifold. I think I've got a line on one in the States that the guy's been trying to sell for months.

 

My friend used to weld a lot of Volvo manifolds. He said the manifolds needed to be heated up to 500F in an oven before and after he TIG welded them. I don't know if that helps.