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After about 2 weeks I finally got a new oil pump and after checking everything I could on it to make sure it was good I put it on the motor and lo and behold no more tight spot. Now that I had a functioning oil pump I went ahead and put the rest of motor together, oil pan, head, valve cover, intake manifold etc. Putting it back in was short uneventful affair and soon enough I was putting coolant lines back on and getting ready for the first start of the new motor.
https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...fa5d4283e6.jpg https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...e7bf986c17.jpg https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...3b5cf4df3c.jpg https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...7e8e0626e0.jpg |
It is now march 2024, before attempting to start it I adjusted the tune slightly to account for the increased displacement and compression. After some cranking with no fueling, she built oil pressure very quickly, and after a compression and leak down test I had the green light to start it... and she fired right up. I quickly bled the coolant system and set the base timing and went on the initial run to seat the rings, and she drove great, it felt smoother than it ever felt and pulled so much harder. After seating in the rings I brought her back and changed the oil with more breakin oil, did about 30ish miles of light city driving, then brought her back again and changed to conventional oil for the next part of break in process. I saw nothing concerning on the drain plug or in the oil after I changed it so I was confident that I put it back together correctly and 2 samples sent to Blackstone confirmed my thinking which is further backed up by the next 1000 miles being uneventful, with no leaks, oil consumption, or anything breaking. Now that it was properly broken in I changed the oil again (Rotella T6 my beloved), and street tuned it, and she gladly revved all the way up to redline with no complaints. I haven't had the chance to put her on a dyno yet, but if I had to guess, i'd say its making about 125-135whp.
https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...af5d5e8d48.jpg https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...ce0e1e6c29.jpg https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...dcf086a6f8.jpg Finally got to clean her after sitting for months collecting dust |
Now that my car was finally running properly again and seemed like it would stay that way for the foreseeable future, I turned my attention to the suspension. About a year prior to my engine blowing, on a black friday deal I got Flying Miata's handling kit with the V-Maxx XXtreme track pack coils, and their adjustable sway bars and endlinks. I installed the sway bars and endlinks the same day they came in, but held off on installing the coilovers as I wanted to replace all the bushings and joints in my suspension in one go. It took me a year and half to get around to it as something else was always needed fixing on the car that took priority or the specific part I wanted was sold out and/or not available for purchase. But finally the stars aligned and I got ahold of all the bits I wanted and I got to work. In one go I installed coilovers, lower and upper ball joints, all new polyurethane bushings, new alignments bolts, sway bar bracket reinforcements, and rolled the fenders. I was going to install new outer tie rods, replace the cracked steering rack boot, and steering rack spacers, but I was sent the wrong tie rods so that part of my suspension had to wait. The one redeeming quality of the absolute shit pile of miata I had was that it had literally 0 rust on it, so this went smoothly with no broken bolts, having to replace more than I wanted because they were destroyed upon removal, or even needing to pull out the torch (except to burn out the old bushings). After everything was in I eyeballed the alignment, luckily I was close enough I could drive it to the alignment shop. Overall a 1.5in drop made the car look a hell of a lot better, and even though I installed what is technically race car parts, it still rode better than it did before (30 years old rubber sets a pretty low bar).
https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...bc658ee0e4.jpg https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...9623496eaf.jpg https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...3c1b37026c.jpg https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...117f8eb16b.jpg https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...97bb199dff.jpg https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...4f65d9d927.jpg https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...7b08a0d07d.jpg |
This is last part of what I did to my car in the past. After having driven my car around extensively in the summer, I noticed a pattern, after a while of driving my car would shut off when coming to a stop. after looking though some data logs I found that the culprit was my intake. My iat sensor was located under my intake getting constantly cooked by hot air coming from the radiator and heat radiating from the header, and the intake was bare aluminium with no heat reflecting tape. Specifically what would happen is that when I would coast to a stop, so much heat had built up in my intake tube and body of the IAT sensor that within half a second of getting off the throttle and stopping the flow of "cold air" my intake temps would spike 50-80 degrees and would lean out the fueling so much and so rapidly that my engine would shut off. I fixed this by moving my iat sensor to my plastic airbox as that wouldn't heat soak as bad nor transfer heat that fast. I also put heat tape on the intake to further slow heat soak and fashioned heat shield around the iat sensor to hopefully reduce contact with the hot air coming out of the radiator.This worked perfectly, before it would hit a peak of 80 degrees over ambient and would reach that temp after a second or two of coasting and/or the engine being off, to now only going up to 20 degrees above ambient and taking a whopping 17 minutes to get that "hot", small enough and taking long enough that it gives my wideband enough time to react and keep the engine going.
https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...26f7544816.jpg location of old iat sensor now blocked off by a plug https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...6554d1f55f.jpg https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...e52c28be89.jpg https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...702369fbdf.jpg |
Now that i've gotten the past of my build fully uploaded (well at least the highlight reel), I can finally start posting about all the sub-projects im doing, these won't be as organized as the rest of the build thread, as I kinda jump around between these sub-projects depending on how im feeling, what parts came in, and what time I have to tinker with it.
Anyways, here's the boost I mention at the very beginning of the build thread. https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...0e5f93ed17.jpg Its take off turbo from an 04 msm, I was able to confirm that it was a good turbo, that just had a blown oil seal so all it needed was a rebuild. It has zero shaft play and spins freely so i'm pretty confident that I can get something put together based around this. all in all, not bad for $200. An msm turbo was not my first choice in how I would boost it, but the dirt cheap price of entry for a cast manifold and downpipe makes this perfect for my budget track build as I only plan on going up to ST4 at the max. |
I'll be the first to say it, it's a little bit of a shame to put that setup on your awesome built motor. I mean, for the price that'll get you boostin', but eventually you'll want more. By the time you get all the supporting mods for that setup you'll be in at the cost of a decent setup (I.E. kraken), and the supporting mods (I.E. FM enchalada) won't swap over to a different setup. As long as you are OK with doing it twice, go ahead and slap that on and make some decent power (leagues better than N/A), but that motor deserves more eventually!
Zak was selling his 2560/kraken setup for $800 for reference, which would be a solid setup on the car and flow near 300whp. Anyways honestly not trying to hate, I swear, I'm not that guy. It's just the IHI MSM setup has all the lag with none of the power, it's notoriously not great. I'd throw it on a junkyard motor for fun, but with the investment you've made into that motor I'd step up the turbo game a notch! My $0.02, though I'll be following your thread any way you go! Glad to have you in the club. |
I’ll +1 that thought. You won’t make more than 200hp, unless you want to wear out the turbo faster, and your built engine will be a bit pointless. The only 2 MSM turbos I’ve popped have been with heavy track use. They’re absolutely SCREAMING for mercy above ~5500rpm, where you’ll be sitting at constantly.
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Originally Posted by Fireindc
(Post 1656819)
I'll be the first to say it, it's a little bit of a shame to put that setup on your awesome built motor. I mean, for the price that'll get you boostin', but eventually you'll want more. By the time you get all the supporting mods for that setup you'll be in at the cost of a decent setup (I.E. kraken), and the supporting mods (I.E. FM enchalada) won't swap over to a different setup. As long as you are OK with doing it twice, go ahead and slap that on and make some decent power (leagues better than N/A), but that motor deserves more eventually!
Zak was selling his 2560/kraken setup for $800 for reference, which would be a solid setup on the car and flow near 300whp. Anyways honestly not trying to hate, I swear, I'm not that guy. It's just the IHI MSM setup has all the lag with none of the power, it's notoriously not great. I'd throw it on a junkyard motor for fun, but with the investment you've made into that motor I'd step up the turbo game a notch! Lol in all seriousness, these dudes know what they're talking about. You'll definitely get the bug after dropping that first setup in there and want more power and spool shortly after. Either way, the car is gonna be fun, but you might as well put something in it that'll let you get the full squeeze out of that built motor! (I swear I'm not just here to try and sell my turbo lol) |
Originally Posted by Fireindc
(Post 1656819)
I'll be the first to say it, it's a little bit of a shame to put that setup on your awesome built motor. I mean, for the price that'll get you boostin', but eventually you'll want more. By the time you get all the supporting mods for that setup you'll be in at the cost of a decent setup (I.E. kraken), and the supporting mods (I.E. FM enchalada) won't swap over to a different setup. As long as you are OK with doing it twice, go ahead and slap that on and make some decent power (leagues better than N/A), but that motor deserves more eventually!
Zak was selling his 2560/kraken setup for $800 for reference, which would be a solid setup on the car and flow near 300whp. Anyways honestly not trying to hate, I swear, I'm not that guy. It's just the IHI MSM setup has all the lag with none of the power, it's notoriously not great. I'd throw it on a junkyard motor for fun, but with the investment you've made into that motor I'd step up the turbo game a notch! My $0.02, though I'll be following your thread any way you go! Glad to have you in the club.
Originally Posted by curly
(Post 1656824)
I’ll +1 that thought. You won’t make more than 200hp, unless you want to wear out the turbo faster, and your built engine will be a bit pointless. The only 2 MSM turbos I’ve popped have been with heavy track use. They’re absolutely SCREAMING for mercy above ~5500rpm, where you’ll be sitting at constantly.
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Originally Posted by Z_WAAAAAZ
(Post 1656829)
Thanks for the plug! Yeah, $800 for my turbo/manifold/elbow, or $775 if you go and give cats on 20 of my posts!
Lol in all seriousness, these dudes know what they're talking about. You'll definitely get the bug after dropping that first setup in there and want more power and spool shortly after. Either way, the car is gonna be fun, but you might as well put something in it that'll let you get the full squeeze out of that built motor! (I swear I'm not just here to try and sell my turbo lol) |
Originally Posted by plszmr
(Post 1656836)
800 for the hot side of a kraken setup has me thinking, do you mind if I PM you some questions about it?
Either way, yeah shoot me a message and we'll see if we can work something out that makes us both stoked! |
Originally Posted by Z_WAAAAAZ
(Post 1656837)
Dude of course! Yeah shoot me a message with what you're curious about. I'd rather hook someone up on here and see the stuff get used haha. I've got a low-hanging but useable downpipe and couple other bits as well that I could throw in for cheap to help out, although I don't know what shipping on exhaust components to AZ will run.
Either way, yeah shoot me a message and we'll see if we can work something out that makes us both stoked! |
So about 2-3 weeks back we got our first few days of nice weather in arizona, where it "only" got to 91 degrees, perfect convertible weather. So I decided to drive the miata that day... and it broke. The small coolant hose coming from the oil cooler/warmer got a small tear (I probably tightened the clamp to tight) and it acted like a pressure washer and completely soaked my timing belt. Thankfully I was able to get it fixed and be able to limp home, but I had to fill it up with tap water. Now I had been accumulating parts to get my coolant system exactly where I wanted it, new coolant tank, supermiata radiator, cast impeller water pump, so I was able to get started fixing it pretty quickly, all I had to order was a new timing belt kit as the old one was making an interesting noise, and this was good excuse to get a 36-2 trigger wheel in preparation for switching to sequential injection. All the old stuff came out with no complaint, same thing for the new parts, and then I hit a snag, the alternator pivot bolt wont break free. I tried for hours to get it loose and it just wouldn't budge, heat, pb blaster, nothing. So now i'm letting it marinate in some speed sauce (1 part acetone/1 part ATF),I'll try again every days to get it break loose, if not, then i'll put more on and try again the next day.
https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...c8182b13a4.jpg good soup https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...eaa26f2c3d.jpg https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...000e1f9bb9.jpg couldn't get ahold of cast impeller water pump when I was building my motor, better late than never I guess. https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...5ea519d312.jpg https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...eb5593d958.jpg https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...2da39d2570.jpg Forgot to write down what I used for lower radiator hose last time, spent 2 days trying to find one that worked https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...aa18bfeda7.jpg https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...b442da5889.jpg https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...c9ffa31471.jpg New coolant tank and made some new brackets/ clips to prevent to coolant hoses from rubbing on anything https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...86bfd4b317.jpg I found that old hose had nearly rubbed through, so I cut up the old to protect the new one until I could think of something better. https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...3be5c086f9.jpg https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...fe43bd3ea1.jpg fucker wont come loose |
After about 2 weeks of having the pivot bolt marinate and some creative use of wrenches and a cheater bar, I finally got it to break free. After about 15 minutes of work I got everything back together and a new alternator/water pump belt on. I used a coolant pressure tester and let it sit over night to check for leaks. After confirming that their was no leaks and quintuple checking that the timing belt was on right (not making that mistake again), I started the coolant flushes. I spent the next 3 hours doing the flushes, it took 10 flushes and 15 gallons of distilled water to finally get it so the water would come out clear. After all the crap was out of the coolant system, I put half a bottle of redline water wetter in and filled the rest with distilled water, after making sure their was no air bubbles, I sealed everything up, and took it for a test drive. Everything worked perfectly, the Super Miata crossflow radiator worked great, the different location of the inlet let me get rid of the double sharp 90 degree hose that I had to use when I had the mishimoto radiator, which also had the added bonus of the radiator hose no longer touching my intake, the thinner core also worked out great because it allowed me to run a single Oem fan which was able to cool it off better than the mishimoto dual fan shroud because it was able to seal against the radiator better and it also pushed it back far enough that it wouldn't touch my intake. Overall everything worked perfectly and fit even better than my previous setup.
https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...2eb19494d9.jpg only dropped 1.7 PSI overnight, combined with no puddles on the ground made me pretty confident that it wouldn't leak. https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...cb875aecc2.jpg https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...d6c9761ba0.jpg https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...e8ddebeca7.jpg What 15 minutes of Arizona tap water does to a mf https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...d67d8840b1.jpg I've been driving it around for the past week and a half now that the weather is finally nice, and have had no issues with overheating in an conditions. Whether that is due to the new radiator, fan setup, and/or cast impeller water pump... or the fact that its not 117 degrees outside im not sure. Either way it works, so I'm happy with it. |
Originally Posted by plszmr
(Post 1656808)
and rolled the fenders.
https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...97bb199dff.jpg Just info for next time. |
Originally Posted by Ironhydroxide
(Post 1658268)
Looking good, but see those washers on the bar you turn to pull the fender out..... yeah, they're conical seat so you don't damage the lugnuts, or the fender roller. you can get them off by unscrewing one of the balls from the shaft.
Just info for next time. |
The last 3 months have been relatively boring. My car has essentially been bricked because my junk2 throttle body had rattled itself loose and in order to re-tighten it, I had to remove and disassemble it completely and the gaskets didn't survive the disassembly process. So I bought a new gasket set and then started the waiting game. Now my usual process is to make a simple thing complicated, and I was planning on doing exactly that. The plan was to port the inlet for the intake manifold to match my TB and then clean it out completely and polish the runners, and then after all was said done, I was also going to paint it. I quickly decided against this because I was tired of everything with the car spiraling out of control and just wanted to fix a simple problem with a simple solution in a timely manner... and then I was hit with the news that the gasket set was on backorder. Guess I should have done the intake manifold process after all.
I didn't do much in the 3 months my car was down, I accumulated a few parts and here and there but for the most part it just kinda sat there. But I did do one important thing, I finally ditched my AEM wideband for a spartan3. The problem with my AEM was that it would always burn out the sensor very rapidly, sometimes it would last only 15 minutes, sometimes I get lucky and it would last 2 whole days. After going through AEM warranty process enough that I couldn't get any new parts, I just kinda gave up on having a functioning wideband, I heard enough bad stuff about other brands that I felt I would just be swapping from one pile of junk to the next, until I heard about the spartan3. Once the new gaskets finally arrived, I put everything back together with the install of the new wideband and the car ran perfectly fine, and the spartan3 worked exactly as advertised. My afr's are safe so I didn't feel pressured to change the tune immediately, I'm going to get it cross referenced first by the wideband that's integrated into dyno at my tuners and the emissions tester machine at the dealership I work at (it can measure afr's... can't hurt to get a third opinion). Once im 100% sure that it's working properly, i'll start adjusting my tune (and putting in more go fast parts). https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...925eec0ce3.jpg It rattled loose enough that you can see a gap between the TB and adapter plate. https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...b49486fca8.jpg Got it back together and re-installed https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...01f075a798.jpg https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...6830993bc3.jpg https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...f5f84b9734.jpg Mounting solution for it was less than perfect, just a few zip ties, but it will keep it from rubbing on anything or being melted by the headers. I also made a temporary heat shield, that I will replace with a more pretty version once I get a better mounting solution. |
So one of the projects I'm doing is putting my interior back together. I'm not trying to put it all back in, but a passenger seat and a dash board would be nice, in addition to some de-janking here and there... and I wouldn't mind it rattling less.
When I installed my roll bar all I had was a dremel and some cutoff wheel and some tin snips, this resulted in some pretty gnarly hole on the rear deck. After about a year and a half I decided that I was tired of looking at them so I decided to make some covers. I used an angle grinder to get rid of all the edges of the hole that look like bear had clawed it, then I got some paper and cut them to fit in between all the stuff in the way but still cover the holes. Now that I have some good templates Im going to make some covers out of aluminum sheeting. And while I was poking around in the area, I found some loose bits that was causing some of my interior rattles. https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...fa05c72332.jpg https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...e198f7fa90.jpg https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...437fe40673.jpg https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...3b1019d9d9.jpg https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...1bb2a8737b.jpg |
I had also found a pair of free seats on FB marketplace, they were a pair of tan leather seats from an NB. They had been sitting outside for a while, so when I got them I had to spend an hour cleaning them up. I had grabbed them with the intention of cleaning them up, keeping the passenger seat to use, and then selling the driver seat. But before I went to sell the passenger seat, I tried to see if I could trade both the tan leather seat for one cloth passenger seat, and I found someone willing to do the trade. So I traded both seats for a cloth seat that match my other seat way better than the leather seats could have, I cleaned it up, used the old seat belt buckle and seat belt I had hanging round, and the TDR dog bone. After telling my friends and coworkers that I now had functioning passenger seat, I was bombarded with demands from all of them to ride in it.
https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...b9cda0cc55.jpg https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...5c68ffac96.jpg https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...3e3011a834.jpg https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...6fbbd638a9.jpg https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...5e6348a9ee.jpg Who knew a 6ft4 300 pound man would fit in a miata |
I have also found a 1.6 dash, and it was in pretty rough shape. It was absolutely filthy and had several cracks... but it was free. So first thing I did was clean it up and get all the dirt and other crap off it so I could see what I was working with, and after it was clean, I counted 7 cracks. So I did the next logical step, a dash cut. I cut the bottom of the skin off, but kept the center console areas intact so I could use the tombstone area for a gauge and switch panel, I also took out all the ducting and removed the wiring harness. After cutting the dash I got started on plastic welding all the cracks, thankfully everything went well and now the dash is no longer in danger of falling apart. All that's left now is to sand the welds down to be somewhat smooth and then flock it to keep it good shape and reduce any reflection in my front windshield.
https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...c4e8694e93.jpg https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...5f2542cafc.jpg https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...b35ba79162.jpg https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...6fb84fbb27.jpg https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...9f370a28dc.jpg https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...50386efd42.jpg |
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