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yeah that, was wondering if it was just that the sensor wasn't grounded to send the signal...but sounds like the controller is actually whats bad.
AEM would agree with you.
I got a copy of the receipt from the seller and I think aem will take care of things. He bought it in November so it's legitimately brand new and was likely defective since it had issues with such little use.
My study schedule should open up a bit more after I take an exam on Thursday.
It's going to be atleast the end of March/early April till I get the gauge back. Is there anything I can do till then?
I have suspension stuff on order to do the DIY billies so that's good. I need to install the roll bar, but it needs a round of plastidip and that's not really all that possible given the current weather. I could try to heat up the garage and do it in there with some tarp.
I'm guessing I shouldn't mess with the fuel pump or injectors at this point right, since the car hasn't ever run on megasquirt? I'm just trying to get this done in a reasonable time frame so I can hopefully get this thing built even if its running at like 6 psi for the next bit I'll call it a success.
Sorry for the meandering post, but tldr: what can I do to move things along that don't don't include hurrying up and waiting? Is there anything worth doing on the narrowband if I cap off the wideband for now?
Can the intercooler be mounted and attached without making a mess of things re: starting the car NA?
Last edited by ridethecliche; 03-14-2017 at 02:11 AM.
My study schedule should open up a bit more after I take an exam on Thursday.
It's going to be atleast the end of March/early April till I get the gauge back. Is there anything I can do till then?
I have suspension stuff on order to do the DIY billies so that's good. I need to install the roll bar, but it needs a round of plastidip and that's not really all that possible given the current weather. I could try to heat up the garage and do it in there with some tarp.
I'm guessing I shouldn't mess with the fuel pump or injectors at this point right, since the car hasn't ever run on megasquirt? I'm just trying to get this done in a reasonable time frame so I can hopefully get this thing built even if its running at like 6 psi for the next bit I'll call it a success.
Sorry for the meandering post, but tldr: what can I do to move things along that don't don't include hurrying up and waiting? Is there anything worth doing on the narrowband if I cap off the wideband for now?
Can the intercooler be mounted and attached without making a mess of things re: starting the car NA?
I think it is a waste of time to use the narrowband for anything.
Yes you can mount the IC and coldside pipes. Just throw a filter on the side of the IC.
I think it is a waste of time to use the narrowband for anything.
Yes you can mount the IC and coldside pipes. Just throw a filter on the side of the IC.
I think I'd talked to you about doing this in the past, but wasn't sure if it would totally throw off the base tune. I guess I have something to keep me occupied till the end of the month now!
Thanks man!
Side note: Were you able to figure out the singular bracket for the MS3X?
Short update, but figured I'd keep this thread going.
Drove down to CT on saturday to buy a few things from Piston. Got a set of wheels, RB front sway bar, stock rear with better endlinks, and a bunch of clutch stuff. Got to meet Forrest and drive his car. The EWG dump wasn't as annoying as I thought it was going to be. I think I might still route mine back to the DP because stealth. It definitely felt weird to drive an NA.
Pretty stoked about these avantis. They need to be cleaned off though. Any recs for what to use? I was thinking that I might rattle can them black after cleaning them and then throwing a layer of clear coat or two on them. I used some goof off on them, which probably wasn't the best idea since I realized that it can take paint off, but it didn't seem to do anything to take off the brake dust.
We got a bit of good weather here for a day, so I checked off a few things on the 'to do' list.
Roll bar I bought was plasti-dipped black over white paint over the original black... I really wanted to strip it down to metal and repaint it black and then clear coat it but it seemed like a lot of work. I finished plastidipping it and then cleared over that. Looks much better now and it came out okay. It was windy at times which didn't help the texture, but most of the imperfections will be covered by the padding that I'm going to get anyway.
I might have been a little too aggressive with the hammer...Going to need new captive spacers.
I'm going to try to clean these up as well when it's nice out again and sand down the rust spots and put a bit of silver paint or clear on them.
The front bump stops actually look pretty good, surprisingly. The rears are toast, but the 'fat' part of them actually looks fine. I got extended top hats for the reads from Ryan_G which should be helpful. Looking forward to getting these done when I visit my folks again. Stefanst graciously offered to help me cut new grooves for the captive spacers to move them down a bit.
I wonder if I can get anything for the stock MSM springs... They're red and mazdaspeed sooooooo
The AEM gauge was also repaired and is on its way back to me now. I'm really hopeful that I can get the car running on megasquirt this weekend or early next week. That would be fantastic.
Looks like you are moving at a good clip on this build. I'm jelly in a lot of ways!
What is your plan for the MSM Billies? I mean, I know you are going to build Better Bilsteins, but what springs, rates, sleeves, etc. are you planning on going with? Being that it takes less than 2 hours to swap a Miata suspension... If it were me, I would have installed them as-is to see if I liked the Billy thing (and to get an idea of spring rates for my purposes). If so, I would customize from there. If not, I would get my money back out of them an move on. Whatever you do, you will need all new rubber bits. You can get new bushings for $8 per corner from Rock Auto. New bellows come with bump stops for $12 to $15 per corner, and that is the cheapest way to get new bump stops. This is not a place I would skimp or cut corners. The suspension has everything to do with the handling of the car, and with your drivetrain's ability to put its newfound power to the ground, and with your enjoyment of allofit.
I have those Advanti rims. I grabbed mine from TireRack, when they had their holiday sale. After only 3 full track days, the paint is basically ruined from brake dust. Mine have dust embedded in the clear coat. I have no idea how you might get them cleaned up, but if you figure something out, I'd be interested to know.
Looks like you are moving at a good clip on this build. I'm jelly in a lot of ways!
What is your plan for the MSM Billies? I mean, I know you are going to build Better Bilsteins, but what springs, rates, sleeves, etc. are you planning on going with? Being that it takes less than 2 hours to swap a Miata suspension... If it were me, I would have installed them as-is to see if I liked the Billy thing (and to get an idea of spring rates for my purposes). If so, I would customize from there. If not, I would get my money back out of them an move on. Whatever you do, you will need all new rubber bits. You can get new bushings for $8 per corner from Rock Auto. New bellows come with bump stops for $12 to $15 per corner, and that is the cheapest way to get new bump stops. This is not a place I would skimp or cut corners. The suspension has everything to do with the handling of the car, and with your drivetrain's ability to put its newfound power to the ground, and with your enjoyment of allofit.
I have those Advanti rims. I grabbed mine from TireRack, when they had their holiday sale. After only 3 full track days, the paint is basically ruined from brake dust. Mine have dust embedded in the clear coat. I have no idea how you might get them cleaned up, but if you figure something out, I'd be interested to know.
Steve!
Thanks for the kind words. I'm not quite sure how anyone thinks that this is moving fast. I feel like I'm perennially stuck in place. I honestly thought I would have been done by now since I have just about everything that I need for the build and a few things that are 'extra' so to speak. I feel like I've hit just about every snag I could have along the way.
My megasquirt had a wire off, the aem wideband had an issue with the gauge that needed to be sent in for warranty, I stripped the threads in the nut for the seat belt attachments for the roll bar, and I have yet to start the car on megasquirt. To sum it up, I'm seeing why some people never end up finishing these builds they start! I have an insanely important exam in 2 months, so I'm hoping to put a few hours a week into this to clear my head.
We're getting snow again tomorrow, which sucks, but I got the roll bar buttoned up today. Hoping to install that and the sway bars over the weekend so the car can be started when the weather gets better.
TLDR: I managed to strip the nuts in the frame of the car that bolt to the seatbelt tower. So I ended up tapping them and buying new hardware and padding from hard dog. I also decided that I hate plastidip and ended up trying to strip the bar, but clear coat over plastidip made this obnoxious. I managed to get most of it off with goof off on a towel with some elbow grease and then used krylon rust tough enamel flat black followed by semi flat/gloss black to refinish the bar. This is what it looks like now. Not bad for a rattle can job!
Steve! I'm not quite sure how anyone thinks that this is moving fast.
Maybe I just read the thread fast!
Looks like good progress to me--especially compared to some other build threads, like (cough, cough) mine. I can't believe you are even attempting this while in med school. I know I barely had time to breathe back then.
Looks like good progress to me--especially compared to some other build threads, like (cough, cough) mine. I can't believe you are even attempting this while in med school. I know I barely had time to breathe back then.
You're a doc? Rad!
Yeah, I take step one this year. Was supposed to be in April, but I moved it back to late may/early june due to some health issues earlier in the year. We start third year orientation/rotations at the end of april, but I'm deferring a block till fourth year which should help quite a bit. Step is kinda sorta important! I usually end up trying to put in 10-12 hours at school in the morning and then try doing a 1-2 hrs in the garage after the gym if I have the time/energy. It's kind of nice to zone out and do that, though I often end up listening to lectures while I'm working...
I was a doc. I quickly discovered I hated being a clinician, and other opportunities were extremely limited for me back then, during the height of affirmative action. I used my science education to get my nose under the tent in IT and became a roboticist and had my soul sucked that way instead. Now, instead of helping people (who won't help themselves), I put people out of work. Something went wrong somewhere...
I was a doc. I quickly discovered I hated being a clinician, and other opportunities were extremely limited for me back then, during the height of affirmative action. I used my science education to get my nose under the tent in IT and became a roboticist and had my soul sucked that way instead. Now, instead of helping people (who won't help themselves), I put people out of work. Something went wrong somewhere...
Oh wow!
A lot has definitely changed in medicine, especially in how practices are run etc. over the last few decades. I'm not really sure what I want to do but I'm interested in quite a few things. I think there are parts of medicine/IM I really like (like PM&R), but I think psych is fascinating. We'll see how the cookie crumbles. I'm doing my psych rotation in an inpatient lockdown unit. I'm pretty excited about it.
What is your plan for the MSM Billies? I mean, I know you are going to build Better Bilsteins, but what springs, rates, sleeves, etc. are you planning on going with? Being that it takes less than 2 hours to swap a Miata suspension... If it were me, I would have installed them as-is to see if I liked the Billy thing (and to get an idea of spring rates for my purposes). If so, I would customize from there. If not, I would get my money back out of them an move on. Whatever you do, you will need all new rubber bits. You can get new bushings for $8 per corner from Rock Auto. New bellows come with bump stops for $12 to $15 per corner, and that is the cheapest way to get new bump stops. This is not a place I would skimp or cut corners. The suspension has everything to do with the handling of the car, and with your drivetrain's ability to put its newfound power to the ground, and with your enjoyment of allofit.
I realized that I never answered your question about the suspension, so here goes!
MSM suspension has about 65k miles on it so it should be good to go for a bit.
I bought sleeves from advanced autosports because the height is supposed to be better and it doesn't require cutting. I ordered springs etc from summit and went with 450/300 because that's what Savington and a bunch of other people recommended.
Post #9 here: https://www.miataturbo.net/suspensio...lsteins-91477/
(And on the note of number 9...)
I bought honda bumpstops, though one set of my bump stops looks pretty pristine surprisingly...
I was definitely thinking of installing the suspension as is, but wanted to do things once. The MSM's aren't supposed to be all that great stock, but lend themselves to this purpose quite well. I also have a racing beat front sway bar going in probably before the rest of the suspension.
I think Stefanst is graciously going to be helping me put the suspension together as he has access to a few things that will enable us to cut the grooves for the circlips a bit lower. I also ended up buying new circlips because I bent a few of them knocking the perches off.
That should just about cover everything!
Last edited by ridethecliche; 04-02-2017 at 12:10 AM.
OK. You have a solid plan. Your plan is almost exactly what I would have recommended. I just wanted to make sure you weren't going to cut corners to save a few bucks in a critical area, where corners should not be cut. You're good to go. Carry on with your bad self!
OK. You have a solid plan. Your plan is almost exactly what I would have recommended. I just wanted to make sure you weren't going to cut corners to save a few bucks in a critical area, where corners should not be cut. You're good to go. Carry on with your bad broke *** self!
Bytevenom came by today and helped out for a few hours and we were able to knock a few things out. Roll bar install is now completed other than some trim piece installs which I'll get around to at some point. Both sway bars with the supermiata adjustable endlinks have also been mounted. I had a few issues in the rear with the bar not being centered, but I'm going to try to mess with that tomorrow. I watched the 949 install video a few times, but if anyone has some advice please let me know! I'm not sure how manageable it's going to be to access the endlinks with the car on the ground and not on stands.
Hoping that I'll be able to get the car off jack stands tomorrow evening and try to start 'er up!
I really need to clean things up in here... soonnnn!
Oh hey, I spy a roll bar!
Here's bytevenom helping out.
We got pretty acquainted with this view and my cold garage floor. Garage is connected to the house but gets no heat so it's heated by a radiating oil heater and my room heater. It stays at about 55-60 in there so it's not too bad to work in there with a sweatshirt on. I'm definitely not complaining though as it's a solid workspace!
I'm starting to come to terms with the reality that this turbo build likely won't happen till after my exam in two months. The way I have things set up now, I'll have about 2 weeks off after the test till I start rotations. I think my best bet is to do all the supporting mods till then if/when I have time and then try to get the build together over those two weeks. Hopefully I'm wrong about the timeline and it'll be sooner, but it is what it is. Given how everything has gone so far I'm basically starting to allocate twice the time for anything I have to do!
Hey, Whats up fellow MassHole here. (From Fall River) Picked up my Miata in January. We'll have to meet up sometime this summer and do a cruise or something.
03-10-2017, 05:23 PM
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