https://www.miataturbo.net/diy-turbo...2/#post1169647

It's possible I misunderstood you though.

Yeah as I said later in that thread it's not a big difference either way , but if you're looking for maximum idle vacuum then yeah you'd want it closed

Not too much to report as of late but I've been trying to dial in EBC with the help of a friend.

Tomorrow, though, I'll be running on wastegate pressure since I'm signed up for my first autocross event. It's a skills day but it may be a bit wet.

I'm stoked!

Get a video!

Henceforth, all seasons will be known as lolseasons.

I had a blast, but holy crap I couldn't stop going sideways! The second I got on the gas, the car would just start spinning. Honestly, that's something I've never done before, so it was a fantastic experience to learn what to do when you start losing the rear and everything starts getting all slidey like.

One of the other miata guys there took a video. You can tell it's me because my tires sound like they're dying every time I start doing anything other than going straight.

Yes, that is an MGB at the end. He was driving the piss out of it and it was pretty fast!

An NA 99 AE was like 5-6 seconds faster than me on this course where the best time for a novice was ~51 seconds. We were hoping to swap cars for a run but it didn't end up working out. I was wondering how his significantly better tires would have helped out.

I kinda regret selling my 'race' wheels now, but I think that learning on this setup will teach me good habits. I know I need to learn a lot of throttle control, braking zones, and trying to do one thing at a time. With more grip, I have a feeling that I could get away with a few bad habits at first. With these tires, I know right away when I'm trying to do too much at once. Learning to control the slidey bits is definitely an adventure. I was totally calm during the parts where I lost control a bit which was pretty reassuring.

At one point on course, my car made a huge BANG noise and I had no idea what it was... I'm hoping it was an endlink bottoming out against the rotation or something because the car drove fine afterwards and felt fine on the drive home. Totally freaked me out in the moment though!

Looks like fun. And with lolseasons you run a much lower risk of breaking things

Wish i could've enjoyed it with you :( Id look into rubbing on your tires or maybe even launch control? I've set it off accidentally before, not sure if its that type of BANG tho

There's a small chance that I'll be picking up a VVT motor which spun a bearing. The motor still ran when it was pulled.

I wanted to pick it up so I could take it apart and play with it and potentially use the block for my build. I guess the block would need some machining to smooth out the crank etc, but could one assume that the head was fine? Looking at the oil flow in these engines, any debris should have ended up in the pan or in the fuel filter since the oil doesn't go directly from the block to the head after the fact. Or is the assumption that everything is fucked till a machine shop looks it all over.

Might be fun to take this thing apart, but if it's going to cost 100's of bucks to get it right then it's not quite worth it.

I would not pay more then $200 for the VVT motor. The chances that shit got to the head and did damage there is a real possibility. I have seen heads completely destroyed from motors that had a spun bearing, I have also seen the head being fine from a spun bearing.

Yeah, it'd run ~100 bucks for the engine, but I think he pulled off the crank pulley to use on a different motor after dropping and denting his.... haha.
If anything is effed with that motor, outside of the crank needing to be polished, I'd just call it quits. Put in the time to take it apart and put it together for learning sake and call it a wash after that. It wouldn't make sense to spend a ton of money machining that one since my stock motor is fine and I can probably do the rods only ish over the winter on that when the car sits.

You can always pull off the valve cover, then pull a few different cam caps and check for scoring there. If you cam caps look good in several places you should be good to go.

Yeah, the best case scenario I see here is that the head is okay! Thanks for the info Lars.

$100 is a great deal either way.
I hope you're ready for that motor to nickel-n-dime you though. I don't know how complete or incomplete it is, but stuff like oil pump and bearings, etc.

Aint that the trust about being nickel-and-dimed. I swear you price out that motor build, you are like $1000 or slightly more then that, then after spending $3.5k you finally have a running car.

This is one of the reasons I kind of just want to build my own block. I know everything works and I can prolly just get away with doing a dingle ball hone.

I'd obviously get a new oil pump, bearings, rings, etc...

Big decisions would be:
-suck it up and get Pistons?
currently have coated 94 Pistons so 8.8:1 compression. Should be good for 350 as is.
-oil pump: stock or BE?
I'm not really big into having a crazy high revving motor. Thinking the vvt pump should be fine. 7k should be plenty. BE pump would be 300, 400 if I get a vvt head. That's a nice chunk of change!
-crank dampner?
BE pump does the same thing and is cheaper, even though it's pricey. 949 doesn't make the damper anymore so its only ATI right now.

That's the short of it.

My car sits in the garage from mid-late November through mid march. Should give me time to get a motor built.

My goals for this car are always changing as you all have experience with yourselves. I can't see going bigger than a 2871 churbo. Past that point I think I'd no longer be comfortable with the car on the street.

I really enjoyed the autocross outing the other day and I want to be cognizant of function there. Past a certain point, a car isn't useful on course since tire choices get stupid expensive and a car isn't really a street car any more. This all obviously different for folks trailering a car and trying to be competitive.

Realistically, im a student that's enjoying tinkering and learning about this stuff. I mostly want to do this to learn how to do this. 260+ rwtq sounds ridiculous for the street haha.

if you don't have a goal, or your goal is constantly changing, it's gonna lead to a LOT of wasted money. been there, done that, have the t-shirt. seen dozens of guys do the same.

there's nothing wrong with it either, as long as you know that it will happen. just read through the build threads here, and see how much money was spent by your average guy.

the ironic part is that the guys that are constantly jerry-rigging their cars/setups in the name of money saving, are almost always the guys that spent the most by far on their car in the end.

As someone who went down the same route you have. Leave the stock motor in the car. Enjoy 220whp for years and actually driving the car. Put all that motor money towards hookers and blow.

QFT

Where was this autocross event? I'm going to an event in Ayer this weekend.

I'm not doing anything in the name of 'money saving' to be honest. I'm just defining goals slightly differently. The purpose of this project was for me to learn car things. I wanted to learn to build an engine, which is why I'm going this route. Looking around at posts on this site, folks start saying things get sketchy north of 300 and there's a ton of work required everywhere to get the car to work well. It just seems headachey.

Haha, dammit Lars, you're supposed to be an enabler! I just want my rods to stay in the block. Building something on the side without stressing about it sounds good too though.

Why are you recommending not putzing with stuff? Didn't you have good luck with a rods only build?

Gah!

Loudon, NH. I actually want to go to Ayer this weekend, but I think I'm going to help bytevenom get his car up and running since he can't make it.