ofspunk7

So I am not sure who is local to me, but I thought this may be an ok place to share this info. I am hosting a driving event for anyone that is local. I posted up the event on Facebook under our page NF Performance. I also have a thread posted on our local Subie forum - LINK HERE



NF Performance May Driving School​


When: Thursday May 7th
4:30pm Sign In and Course Meeting
Parade Lap 4:50pm
5:00pm 1st Group on Track

Where: DCTC – Dakota County Technical College

Cost:
$100 Per Driver
- Includes NF Track Day Tshirt and a Meal Ticket (Pizza and Beverages)
- Family Member Meal Tickets are an additional per person $5
- Additional NF Track Day Tshirts $12 (while supplies last)
- Meal Ticket + Shirt Combo $15 (while supplies last)

What:
This is a driving school, NOT A RACE EVENT! Anyone who does not obey the rules of the driving school will be booted without a refund and risk the ban-hammer for future events. Rules will be posted online and also available at the event. Drivers will be sorted into groups based on their experience with us and driving. Each group will have instructors assigned to a specific driver. Groups and schedules will be handed out at the day of the event. A map of the course we are going to run will be posted prior to the event and available at the day of the event.


Google Doc Link to Rules – https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B9...ck0&authuser=0


Sign Up via Payment (starts April 1st)

OneTwo

iTrader: (2)

Cool build looks like it's coming along nicely!

Did you already swap in your new brakes? I'm curious why you decided to stick with a 7/8" MC over moving up to a 15/16" or 1".

I swapped to a 1" and The pedal feel is much better than with the 7/8".

ofspunk7

It was based off the advice of the people I was working with on the whole brake package. It was indicated that a OEM master would be fine for my application. I thought I would need a larger MC, but the experts thought otherwise. They have lots of knowledge around brakes and racing, so I took their advice.

Currently the car is waiting for me to reinstall my Hard Dog Rollbar. I took it off this weekend when I was installing my new harnesses. I figured since I had it out I would paint it. Put on a final coat last night, I hope to install it tonight. Then configure my harnesses. There was a noise in my transmission after we cracked it. Once the roads are clean here I would like to tackle the transmission noise before I touch the brakes. Once the tranny is finished I will move on the brakes and other goodies.

ofspunk7

Well, over the weekend I wrapped up the car. I would have taken more pics but my free time was here and there and most of it was pretty late at night. However, I did get some shots.

Here is the makeshift paint booth. It actually did a good job of keeping the overspray contained. Usually I would paint outside or near the garage door. However, I wasn't expecting to paint this weekend and it was in the 30's and 40's. So I had this setup and a garage heater going with the lights.



Keeping the car clean and using my longboards for the first time this year. LOL



The mounting brackets cleaned up nice. I am really happy I toook the time to paint everything. I wish I would have taken a shot of my roll bar. I sort of got caught up in making the most of my free time and just started working.



I find the weirdest things working on Miatas. While preping the floor for my passenger harness I found a golf pencil under the carpet. WTF?



Finished Product.
1. Schroth Racing Harness + Pads
2. Clean and Painted Hard Dog Roll Bar

ofspunk7

The car is alive and active. Transmission is fine, but I am going to put the car on the lift this week to hunt down my rattle/noise.

Wheel was off one tooth on my first drive. Also the horn didn't work. My battery was out of the car so I forgot to test it before my first drive. Straightened the wheel and fixed the horn last night.

Test drive this morning to pick up diapers. I made sure the box of diapers was safe and harnessed them in.

ofspunk7

Well I was able to drop the car off at my cousin's house so we could put her under the knife again. It is time to get boosted.

I forgot my G12, so iPhone pics for all....

Here is the 92'... I took her motor and turbo, but she will be a monster when he is done with her.



Having a lift is awesome. Having a low car means you need to get creative when putting it on the lift.



Once on the lift this is the max height I was allowed to use. I guess it is only fair to set these limits when someone of my mental.... limitations ?!?!? ..... is allowed to use power anything.



Wheels off, time to remove the bumper and start taking off OEM badness to make way for boosted goodness.



Bumper off so we can get the intercooler setup.



This came down from storage over the winter. Everytime I look at the powercoating he did on this setup, I fall in love all over again.



From this angle the car looks really dirty. I miss my freshly painted engine bay. I really need to work on cleaning my hood this summer.



Intercooler mounted up. It actaully worked out pretty slick. I guess when swapping from a 92' to a 91' you will run into things that just mesh up very clean. We had to make one bracket.

ofspunk7

Something I learned from my Asian friends when we pulled the engine on my WRX. When you need a bit of height, use your wheel as a step stool. This allowed my cousin to work on the intercool and I could pull stuff from the engine bay.




Airbox gone, time to remove this header. I have to say, this header has bugged me. Even though it isn't in bad shape for 24 years of use, I felt so dirty putting on this clean *** engine. So I was very happy to remove it.



My cousin wanted to clean up the dump tube for this setup before we put it on my car. Some grinding and welding on the flange. I took it home to paint it.




New header and EWG


New exhaust. I realize now that I forgot to take a pic of the OEM exhaust that replace my Jackson Racing exhaust for 3 whole drives. Oh well, it was worth the $30 to pick it up for those 3 drives. I am going to be putting both up for sale soon.



This is where she sleeps until Thursday night


I just love this garage and the Miata ****

ofspunk7

Well I took home a few things to clean up and paint. I have to say I am a fan of this high temp paint I picked up.

Here is the EWG dump tube. My cousin did a quick repair on the flange. So I cleaned it up with a wire brush and got it ready for paint.



I love my license plate bracket. However, i noticed the base looked sort of abused. So I also took it home to clean up and paint.





I went at it with a wire wheel. I really need to find a vice for my work bench. It would make cleaning this stuff up so much easier. It will go on my list once the dyno tuning is complete.





I have to say I am really happy with this paint. It really looks great. I look forward to touching up things in the engine bay that still require the "Jeff" treatment. Not that my car will be on that level, but I will do my best to strive for his OCD greatness.

oregonmon

Nice work, attending to all the details.
With the front lip painted, have you thought about painting the rocker panels white as well?

ofspunk7

Yes, it is on the list. The front lip was dipped white. I think I will do the same with the rocket panels.... As a temporary fix. I would rather not paint the body myself. I have a buddy that paints. I would like to have him repaint the car down the road. My front bumper requires some love, and a few other minor spots. 91' white paint, need I say more.

ofspunk7

Lots of garage time in the next two days. First project...

I moved my water temp gauge out of my circle vent. Hooked up power to the Defi Boost Gauge and my AEM UEGO Wideband. Put the UEGO and Water temp where the radio was. The radio will be going up for sale. Put the Defi gauge where the water temp used to be. I am going to make a very nice gauge plate with my buddy. However, we were not able to get to it before my turbo swap. So Home Depot and an attempt to spend under $10 on a band-aid solution. My $3 gauge pod (for the time being).

Just the power is hooked up to the two new gauges. I need to run sensors now.

ofspunk7

I was able to accomplish a lot today. I didn't take as many photos as I would have liked but here is a good summary.

First job was to take out the stereo. Next I wanted to swap the location of my water temp gauge. I wanted to run my boost gauge higher up. Since my water temp and AEM UEGO Wideband can have similar faces I put them together. A good friend of mine is going to help me create a very clean tombstone. Similar to some of the stuff we did on my old WRX. So for now I wanted a cheap way to mount my gauges. We will see how it all buttons up tomorrow. So far I am happy with it as a band-aid solution.

Here is where my water temp gauge was.


Behind my tombstone was pretty damn dirty. Something for the todo list.




I got all the gauges wired up. I did a youtube video above of the startup. I never really took a good picture of it mocked up. Tomorrow I will.


So the gauges were done. I also hooked up my GrimmSpeed Manual Boost Controller. I plumbed the Boost Gauge sender into the engine bay and setup the MBC for when engine work started. Next we drained the gas from the gas tank... which involved smelling like gas. Also, I didn't need to add that extra 4 gallons prior to driving to my cousin's house. The one cool part of the job was doing it with a lift and rolling table jack. Talk about tools for the job. Once it was empty I went to the fuel pump. Pulled back the carpet and muscled it around the roll bar. Then I got access to this. 24 Years of road dust.




Took the pump out, swapped in my DW300. I didn't grab a pic of the new pump... so enjoy this photo of a stock fuel pump.


Also, the screw on the bottom of the FP assembly was a PITA. Lucky for me my cousin has a bag of tricks for, what seems to be every car issue. Needless to say he made that screw his bitch.

ofspunk7

And now some engine bay stuff. Driver's side FMIC pipe.


Driver's side FMIC pipe up to the snail.


Header, Turbo, GrimmSpeed MBC



A view from the top. I still need to.....
- Replace my breather filter.
- Duct some intake goodness.
- Create a heat sheild for the brakes.
- Paint my engine bay where we made room for the downpipe.



Here is my HKS BOV. My cousin picked this up in the early 2000's. I am super happy to get a legit one.




Hello new exhuast.



Here is what I am coming back to tomorrow morning.
TODO:
- Clean up extra wire from boost gauge sender
- Clean up extra wire behind the wideband and temp sensor
- Put the tombstone back together
- Start on the MS3 install

ofspunk7

This came in the mail. My daughter (2 years old) helped me pick out the color. Now I need to go to Mazda and get it cut. My OEM one is too bent up to copy.

ofspunk7

Some of the progress today. I have to leave shortly and take my daughter to gymnastics. Here is my progress so far this morning.

Defi Gauge mounted


AEM UEGO Wideband and Water Temp - in my $3 band-aid gauge pod






Next is the ECU. Time to toss in the MS3 Basic that Rev built for me.


Old vs New ECUs





I took some advice from Curly in a different thread. Megasquirt Mouting - https://www.miataturbo.net/diy-turbo...ounting-52826/

Here is my velcro setup. I am going to run stock location for now. I need to search for a USB cable when I get home. I ran to Best Buy to pick one up and wasn't about to pay $20 for 6ft of USB. Depending on what I have at home I may just order the 10ft one on Amazon for $4. Right now I will just have the cable fed somewhere loose. I plan to mount it in a nice fashion, but right now we have time for functionality. The pretty stuff can come later this summer.

ofspunk7

Got more done tonight. Again, I failed to take a ton of pics. I was more caught up in getting everything wrapped up. I believe that all we have left is to fill the car with E85 and we can turn the key.... well I say that but I already know that mostly everything is in working order. Fuel pump was tested for a quick prime. ECU is working. Gauges are working. The only other parts that I think we have to swap over to my car is the diff off of the 92'.

My cousin was able to capture me working on the ECU. I was pulling a boost line to the MS3.


Got everything hooked up. This is my temp USB solution. I have a 10' USB on order from Amazon. However, I wanted something tonight to connect the MS3 to my laptop.


I was able to connect my laptop to my MS3. First off, I forgot that Rev sent me install/boot up instructions. I blame that on my awesome memory. After some head scratching and failures at connecting the MS3... I went to google. I did some searching and realized that I needed a USB driver. Rev had sent me a link to the driver but in the time between his email and today the link had gone bad. I was able to find the website and driver he had linked me to, based on words in the hyperlink. Then some more google searches turned up a thread on M.net where Rev confirmed to someone else where to find the driver.... I was happy that I had found the correct driver.

Link - http://www.ftdichip.com/Drivers/D2XX.htm

So I downloaded it and proceeded to follow the directions Rev sent me... which would have made life easier in the first place. Everything connected up and I was able to run Tuner Studio. While I messed with the laptop and Tuner Studio my cousin wrapped up the fuel system.




I am very excited to dump some E85 in the tank and fire the car up! I need to put in some time reading more about Tuner Studio. Now that I know the ECU will talk to my laptop, I need to learn how to add some fuel and timing for the E85. I am guessing everything I need to know is already posted on MT.net.

ofspunk7

Well, i never thought cutting a new key would be so much work. I brought my Mazda blank and Ultra Light Blank to Mazda to cut them both via VIN. My OEM key was bent up and not in duplication shape. Mazda cut their own blank and turned away the ultra light. Then Home Depot, Ace Hardware and 5 locksmiths turned me away. Some google searching led me to discover some 350Z cars came with Titanium keys. So i called Nissan and they said they would give it a go. They were super cool about it and cut the key for me.

thasac

iTrader: (3)

How low are your intercooler pipes? The images of the intercooler mounted suggest the connection are very low ... like, too low.

I say this having had a similar setup in the past. The intercooler and piping got pretty banged up even at near stock ride heights. Seems most (both vendors and forum members) try to keep their intercooler setups at or above the radiator height.

ofspunk7

I had the same comment and concerns when we installed it. However, these pipes have had a few seasons and a few thousand miles on them while in my cousin's 92'. They don't have any scratch, scrape or contact ware on them. I plan to continue this tradition. He did a good job when he fabbed them.

thasac

iTrader: (3)

Upon further review, it appears the connection points are close enough to the center line of the front wheels to render the height a non-issue.