redursidae

Next in the timeline was Flyin' Miata Summer Camp 2022! With the car aligned, an IACV, and new trumpets, it was time to get some stickers! These arrived just in time and I recon it was 1% HP gain per piggy!



Also, this is how these trumpets sounded now:



Scooter was washed and ready for the 10 hour roadtrip! and the majority of these pictures were taken by Tim.



At one point we were going around a U-Turn in an insanely fun section of mountain road and Tim pulls over to take this picture. A favorite of mine.



On our way to Ouray, enjoying Million Dollar Highway, we came up on a group of RVs parked at a pullout. We had a set of radios for communication tuned on the walky-talky band and heard them say "Check out these MX-5s coming up. That must be so fun!". Yes dear stranger, it was a blast!

Stopped at Ouray for a break. No A/C and manual steering was doing a number on both of us. This was on a very hot day for Colorado. I had never felt a chassis heatsoak and radiate heat like this before....



We eventually made it after many insane elevation changes, fantastic vistas, and neither car skipping a beat!



The next day was autocross, in which neither of us were going to participate in. We went by to spectate for a bit, then went downtown to checkout some art and museums. Later that day was a cruise through Colorado National Monument. I'm really bad at taking pictures so this is all I have from that afternoon, and neither of these were taken by me....





The last day was the meet and greet at the FM Headquarters, and I was stoked for that. It was such an awesome day meeting fellow enthusiasts and all the FM staff. I got to chat with all of them, at least for a little while and can only imagine how exhausting that can be for them. At any rate, I learned a lot and made great acquaintances. A gentleman that was driving in-front of me through the National Monument said something about "the exhaust of the car behind me sounded really nice through the tunnel, and it was loud!". I don't remember if I told him it wasn't the exhaust haha.









That last picture is also one of my favorites because it reminds me how accomplished I felt after getting Scooter all the way to Grand Junction and back on what was a very homebrew tune, and my first standalone ECU. We had both come a long way! The drive back home was very fun, and the next mods were already in boxes at home. The engine was consuming around 1QT of oil per 400 miles at this point.

redursidae

I keep having issues with pictures unattaching if I take long writing a post. Any suggestions on how to attach pictures better?

Z_WAAAAAZ

Ahhh mega derp on my part. I should've looked closer. So cool! I envy the guys who have the ability to make/3d print one-off parts for their cars.

Great feedback on the alignment. I'm with you in regards to high camber and having to drive long distances to wail on the car. My car's had 3*+ of camber in the front for over a year and I was driving nearly 200 miles to the track before I started towing it. Getting to the canyons from where I live is a 50+ mile drive minimum as well. Felt so wasteful killing my inner edges with all that mileage just to go rip the car hard lol.

Road trip looks like it was super fun, albeit a little bit hot haha. Looks like you guys covered some solid ground! My buddy and I are actually toying with the idea of driving out from Cali in July to race Global Time Attack at PPIR. We'll be passing through Grand Junction via the 70on the way. Any must hit roads you remember from that trip? The one near Colorado National Monument looks pretty sweet on Google Maps.

I've also noticed that pictures seem to disappear if I start a response on here and leave my computer for a few hours. No clue how to get around that...

redursidae

Thanks! It is fun being able to make small parts. Lately I've been making GoPro mounts for the Blackbird bar, and designing a mount for my external GPS too. If you have something in mind shoot it my way and I'll give it a crack!

Highly recommend doing that drive, if anything just for the experience. There are a lot of awesome roads on the way to and around Grand Junction, but I don't know if they would be on the way for you, since we launch from New Mexico. Off mind, going through Grand Mesa was bananas, Million Dollar Highway (US550) between Silverton and Ouray both ways, and Colorado National Monument is a must as well. One of the most fun road I've driven was CO-92, the closest end to US50. It has great twisties, sweepers, U-turns, straights, great views and super smooth. There is a beautiful lookout/rest stop that I highly recommend, Pioneer Point. But there are so many awesome roads in Colorado that you could chart a route, look for paved backroads around it and likely have a blast in the Miata. As long as they're paved Sometimes the driving isn't mind-blowing, but the views are.

Z_WAAAAAZ

Heck yeah dude, love to hear that! I was gonna say, it seemed like the 550 would have to be your guys' route. I've only been out that way when driving from Moab to Durango a few years back. That was in a Ford Econoline van, though. Definitely not the most fun canyon carving vehicle.

Maybe we'll detour and unload the cars to drive the 65 to Grand Mesa then. Silverton to Ouray looks incredible but is probably a bit out of the way. Same with the 92. All of those roads look insane though! So many awesome routes you could put together through there. Agreed on the views as well. I've been to Aspen and Vail a few times in the summer and that whole stretch of mountains along the 70 looks like it's straight out of a Hallmark postcard. Jealous you guys got to drive through hours of that in the Miatas.

Funny you'd mention the GoPro mounts on the rollbar. I've actually been meaning to pick one up for mine. They're for a 1.75" OD? If so, I'd happily buy one off of you!

redursidae

yep, 550 is a constant for us. There was a lot of traffic and construction on our way back in 2023 which was a bummer, but still great views. Ha, it is a much different drive in a Miata than a van! You'll like Grand Mesa though. It's scenic and fun. I-70 does have awesome views too! It's wild how beautiful different areas of the US can be.

Shoot, that's cool. Yes, it is for a 1.7" OD bar. My bar is closer to 1.77" OD (45mm), but the print is slightly larger to allow a felt or rubber insert that prevents marring and helps with grip. I'll send you a PM, and if you like it, maybe buy me a coffee or something.

Z_WAAAAAZ

Seriously wild. I remember the Pacific Northwest having my favorite views in the US until I visited central CO in the summer. They're pretty damn close now haha.

And sweet! That's perfect. I usually slap a little mastic tape on the inside of clamp mounts to dampen vibrations. Seems to make the GoPro rely less on image stabilization. Ill buy you two coffees for your trouble.

slug_dub

Redursidae, love a good ITB car. The thought of ITB'ing my car crosses my mind several times every day.
However your thread is so far lacking a video with driving ITB sounds, only idling. I demand driving

Hi hello, I'm still here and so is that Scooter... and tbro is still around if thats who you meant

Gee Emm

Good to see you here SD, I'd heard you had Scooter - not been washed away yet?! Yeah seeing the name brought back memories of Slammer and his exploits, especially at Wakefield - that has to be 20 years ago now!!!! Did you buy it from his estate, or later (from tbro?)? All that stuff has disappeared from the forum, so hard to trace things when they crop up again.

redursidae

Thank you, and you’re correct! The truth is that most of the videos I have pre-2023 don’t make it justice, and usually were very shaky. I promise some are coming in the next update, including a 7400 RPM flyby at the track!

I’m very curious to see your Scooter though! Do you have any pictures, videos or build thread to share?

redursidae

The next milestone after FMSC 2022 was taking the car to the track again. This time it had fresh suspension, a good alignment, and felt good overall.

There were a few notable things this day:
1. I had a sparkplug come loose on the way to the track. I noticed the car was knocking a lot, took off my earplugs and heard an odd popping noise. Tightened the plug and saw no damage from this.
2. Had a LOT of knocking going on at the track. It was good data because it showed my sensor and configs were working. But it wasn't because of ignition advance, instead it was lack of fuel! Later on I would learn that the Innovate wideband was reading richer than actual because of voltage offset, and I almost popped this motor trying to get some fuel economy. It also explained why I had to idle at 14.0 instead of 14.7....
3. Got to drive around the track with a Yamaha R6 and also chase my friend Tim. Lots of fun this day.

First to address the lack of driving videos!

7400 RPM fly-by:



Chasing Tim around Sandia while trying a new line:



I supposed I haven't mentioned the exhaust in the car much, but it is a stock replacement unit from Rockauto, sitting behind a cobalt midpipe with a catalyst. I had a local shop cut the cartoonish tip off the muffler Scooter had and put it into the Rockauto unit. Likely a restriction, but I was after a quiet exhaust so that the ITBs is all I hear. Trust me when I say that it is loud in the cabin at WOT. For comparison, the sound the GoPro gets is roughly what I hear in my helmet.

A few more pics from the trackday:







After this trackday I wanted a way to keep an eye on AFR, Coolant and eventually Oil Temps without having my tablet plugged in. I also decided I wanted a CAN based wideband controller. I installed a CANChecked MFA 2.0 where the oil pressure was in the dash. Also ordered a Spartan 3 controller, and an FM 10" LBBK!









Unfortunately, this is also when issues began to surface all at once, and the car wouldn't see another trackday or much driving the rest of the year. I also had to drive the Stealth to Florida and get that project going after years of ruminating and dreading it.

Not Miata related, but turbos are cool!

slug_dub

Ah that sweet sweet sound

I’ve got a thread here for my car, it’s been a bit since I updated so I should: https://www.miataturbo.net/build-thr...another-89305/

OptionXIII

Awesome stuff, that ITB sound is always incredible!

I need to look into that multi function gauge display. Seems like it'd be a lot neater than adding a bunch of extra gauges. I am not sure how much I trust my 34 year old NA6 oil pressure gauge I swapped into the cluster, and having an oil temp gauge in one of the AC vents is not ideal on days where I really want the AC on max.

redursidae

I took a read through your thread and really like your car. It sounds very nice! Would love another update on it soon.

Thanks! They sure make driving the car fun.

It's a CANChecked MFA 2.0 for MX5; I recommend it. This one worked great on MS3, but unfortunately has a bit of trouble with the Link G4X I run now. CANChecked support sent me an updated firmware that fixed most of the issues, but the shiftlight is buggy (flashes continuously) when it activates, so I turned it off. The new version adds WiFi, an updated UI, fully configurable CAN stream, and CAN switch capability, which is very tempting. But this one is doing its main job well for me, and I could spend the money elsewhere for now.

redursidae

As I mentioned in the last post, the end of 2022 was tough for Scooter. I had issues show up one after another, and wasn't able to track the car or drive it much by the end of the year. This post won't be in good chronological order because I rather mention the issues and how I fixed them.

Issue #1: Fuel pressure drops and fuel leaks

From day 1 of installing a fuel pressure sensor I noticed that fuel pressure was dropping to ~48 PSI at full throttle, sometimes as low as 45psi.



I asked shops and people around and was being told this is normal with large injectors on a returnless fuel system. Mhmmm, odd; but these injectors are not being worked hard, and if so, how does the ECU account for this? MS3 doesn't use the fuel pressure input to change pulsewidth, but when set to "returnless" it does change it based on a calculated differential fuel pressure. But I just had a feeling something was wrong with the hardware. One Friday I was letting the car warmup to go to work when I start smelling fuel out of the engine bay. Lo-and-behold there was a massive fuel leak from the pressure regulator attached to the fuel rail.



This regulator was provided by Borla, and although not used in this system, they told me to leave it in place with no vacuum reference, so I did. I contacted Borla, and they sold me a block off plate to eliminate the regulator. They also sent me the wrong bolts for said plate. I got some at the store and bolted it all together.



With the regulator blocked off, the car started and the leak was fixed. I went out for a drive and it was bucking like a horse at part throttle ~3.2k RPM, but was fine at WOT and idle. What the hell.



A quick peek at the datalogs showed the fuel pressure was fluctuating wildly at part throttle (Peak of 63, valley of 38 PSI)! But held closer at idle and WOT. BRUH. This may not be nearly as noticeable in a plenum setup, but with ITBs the pressure caused by the short runners does weird things, and differential pressure moves around a lot. Right away I knew the fix was to add a fuel pressure damper, and this means that the regulator was acting as a damper. Some googles later I found this adapter from radium engineering that allows the stock fuel pressure damper to be installed.





BUT, yours truly had gone gorilla on the AN cap at the end of the rail, and ganked the threads....nice. I bought a tap to rectify the threads and sent it.







Took the car out for another drive and the issue was fixed! I didn't find any datalogs from the results, so I'm sorry for that. But what is that noise when I hit a bump?? And why does it go away when I brake?

Issue #2: Play in Bushings?

A couple drives after fixing the fuel pressure issue I start noticing a noise coming from the left rear suspension. It went away touching the brake while driving, and it got worse with bumps or when the rear was unloaded. The car didn't feel weird, but it sounded serious. Checked all bolts, and all was torqued to spec. Checked for play in the bearings and WOOAH dude, what's that? The RLCA bolt was moving. I could actually move it with my hand up and down, side to side. FAK.jpg . Disassembled the bushing to find this:



I contacted Sean @ SADFab, and he said this could be caused by something being loose, or the spindle having play. I promise all was torqued to spec, and the spindle doesn't have any oddities going on, but he didn't know what would be causing it otherwise. Maybe I screwed up something in the install? At any rate, I decided to swap the orientation of the bolt, and swapped the sleeves with the right side. I also remembered I hadn't greased these in a while, so decided to do that too. After some fumbling the issue seemed fixed. 1 year later, and the play hasn't returned. If any of you have any insight or suggestions as to what caused this, I would really appreciate it.

Issue #3: Brake fluid leak

Around the time I took the car to FMSC 2022 it sprung a brake fluid leak by the rear calipers. It seemed to originate around the hand-brake adjusting bolt. Not having a lot of time before the trip I bought a replacement set from Rockauto and got that fixed. Unfortunately, the Rockauto ones started seeping fluid from the same place....but I realized it only happened when I used the hand brake. Really weird. I was already planning to install the FM LBBK before winter, which would delete the hand brake, so I began getting used to not using it. It was time for some nicer brakes (and less weight!), so on went the FM LBBK!



Issue #4: Warmup, Cold Idle, and Weird VE Table

Since day 1 of installing the ITBs and the DW550 injectors things just looked very weird with my VE table and the warmup was overly rich, even with 100 in the WUE table (around 20% richer with no WUE). In addition, the cold idle wasn't great even with the IACV plumbed to the vacuum manifold, and I had to help the car idle for a couple of minutes in a cold start. DIYAutotune support wasn't able to help me with the VE issue, and DW told me the injector data provided was correct. This warmup issue made me really want closed-loop EGO during warmup, but MS3 doesn't have a nice way to change AFR target at different coolant temps or engine running time. In hindsight, I should have ran closed-loop EGO anyways with a long post-start delay. But even more in hindsight, the injector data was/is very wrong. I'll mention more about the tuning when we get closer to current times. I was tired of going in circles with this issue, plus wanting more OEM functionality and future expansion made me want to get a Haltech or Link G4X.

Here is what the VE table looked like by the end of 2022:



After some emails with Kris @ KORacing (and lots of research) I ordered a Link G4X NB1 plugin. One live session later he had setup really good injector data for Scooter. The tune became much more predicable since then. There is still some richness going on at cold idle which I'm chalking up to the odd IACV plumbing, phenolic intake gasket, and DW injector behavior when cold, but it isn't anything that closed loop EGO can't take care of. I'm very thankful to Kris for his huge help.

A few pics of the Link ECU and what the VE table became once I tuned the car in 2023. One thing to note is that this VE table is Hybrid Alpha-N, compared to ITB mode in the MS3 table above. Some of you may notice something was still very wrong with the Link VE table.

Pretty board




USB Connecton and CAN Bus 1


The expansion looms for extra digital, analog, and temperature inputs.


MAP line, and decided to put CAN and USB to the rear


Connected to the ECU for the first time. Yes, it was 6 C in the garage.


VE Table by the end of 2023


This was it for Winter 2022. By March 2023 Scooter was running well, cold starts were much improved, and I was enjoying learning a new ECU ecosystem. The setup at the time was Link G4X, Spartan 3 wideband controller (CAN input), fuel pressure sensor, and the usual other sensors to run the engine.

curly

iTrader: (25)

Yes...one of us! One of us!

Kris is great, I've been working with him since....many years. He helped me understand the limitations with MS, and convinced me to switch to Link after tuning a number of MR2s, BMWs, and then some Miatas on the G4x platform.

Quick hint, you can right click on your fuel table and click "reverse load axis", and it'll look more like a MS table, which I still prefer.

redursidae

haha yes. I've enjoyed the G4X and wish I had installed it sooner. The manual alone is worth everything.

Thanks for the hint! I should use that for the comparisons here on the forum as most people are used to seeing the power row on the top. Going to update the picture above.

redursidae

For 2023 I had a few goals for Scooter:

- Begin building (or finding) a replacement engine. The original BP-4W was burning 1qt of oil every 350 miles. With over 177k miles (a large portion being hard miles), and at least one 9k RPM overrev, what more can I ask of this little guy?

- Race in the local ABQ Super Lap time attack for the 2023 season

- Make it to Flyin' Miata Summer Camp 2023 and participate in their trackday

- Have fun and learn more car-tooning

So I got right to it and picked up a junkyard motor and spare 5 speed. No warranty, no returns.

This picture was actually taken in July 2022....the engine sat outside a while.


Finally on the stand in 2023


I went to turn it and it was seized. I had checked it at the junkyard, so I guess I caused it by letting it sit outside too long. One disassembly later and 3 sets of piston rings were rusted, along with a few valves. Great. It was my first time tearing down an engine, so at least got that out of the way. The search continued.

Since I can get a bit dumb in competition, I decided to play it safe and got me a Schroth SHR Flex to go with the Schroth ASM harnesses. An MPI Mazda Cup wheel got into the mix with an NRG Keyway quick release and an MPI hub.









I had wanted one of these MPI wheels since I first saw them in the MX-5 Cup Racecars. I love how it feels. It's a very ergonomic wheel and sets the mood really well

Next, put the car on scales to corner weight it. First two pictures are no driver, and 3/4 tank of fuel




Now with me in it and 3/4 tank of fuel. 50/50 cross, 51.4/49.6 F/R


Didn't have to touch a thing!

To keep the spark going, Scooter got a set of Denso COP wired for sequential ignition. I ordered these from GFB Development and were a breeze to install. This was the first start with them:


Zero fuzz on the ECU side, just two extra wires for the Coil 3 and 4 signals, change the ignition dwell and tell the ECU to use Direct Spark. I can't say I've noticed any performance gain with these...but they look nice. I also didn't have to adjust the ignition offset, which was surprising.

And before the first round of time attack it was up to an oil change, greasing the bronze bearings, greasing the sway bar mounts, aaaand the Jongbloeds don't fit the LBBK. DUDE. I had forgotten to check the fitment an it's the night before ABQ Super Lap Round 1

So on went the Konigs and the Continental Extreme ContactSports once more. Those poor poor tires.









Video of the time attack session that day. I had to go into this trackday with a test and tune mentality. It was the first time on track with the LBBK (the brake bias wasn't dialed yet), not on track tires, and first time with the Link ECU here too. Lots to learn. But it was a successful day, aside from flatspotting 3 out of 4 Continentals I'm heavy on the brakes....



The times were nothing to write home about: 1:39s (Spec Miata mid pack is around 1:35 to 1:36. A fast Spec Miata hits a 1:32), but I was stoked with the car and the event. Great community.

My father-in-law asked if Scooter could hit over 1G in the corners, and since one of the cool extras of the G4X is the internal G sensor, I threw some dots on a scatter plot to show him.

Z_WAAAAAZ

Cats given out. Still enjoying reading the thread. The Link having a G sensor is a cool feature!

With your custom mount, did you have to crank the exposure way down on your GoPro to get footage from the outside of your car to show up? I used the mount you sent me for the first time yesterday and the angle came out spectacular! Unfortunately, I didn't mess with any of the camera settings and the footage came out all overexposed since the camera adjusts for the darker foreground of the interior. It's pissing rain here but I'll give it another go next weekend.

redursidae

Thank you, and glad to hear you're still enjoying it.

I haven't figured out the exposure issues fully yet, but yes I have to play with the ISO setting, and also try centering the frame on the outside to give it some help (I think Emilio said to do that in one of his posts). Checkout this video about the ISO settings: . Let me know what you figure out, because I still have to fiddle with it every time I use it, and more often than not I just forget to configure it and have overexposed videos.