Thanks guys! Another good data point on the oil. FWIW I'm running the Boundary "Stage 3" pump from FM and have deleted oil squirters. No baffling in the oil pan.

The vents I have on order are similar to a lot of the other offerings in design. They will ship flat and I'll bend the louvers so they will protrude above and below the hood a bit.
Here is a link if you want to see what they look like - MiataFab Hood Louvers
It's definitely possible to do it on the car, and with a steadier hand and better tool ( something that cuts easier) you could probably get away with it. I think the cleanup afterwards probably took as much time as removing the hood would.

Another bonus picture. My roommate and his girlfriend are heading to a Autocross Prosolo in Washington this week. Check out the tow rig. This car will see 20+ hours on the highway and a dual driver Prosolo weekend over the course of the trip. It will be loaded up with 2 people, camping gear, tools and tires for the majority of the trip.
https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...46fa55bfff.jpg

Those little things are great! I used an almost identical one for several years hauling a big plastic box for tools and four tyres, before I bit the bullet, got a car trailer and towcar.

Thanks for the link on the vents, I like not cutting the bonnet supports.

Yeah, no problem! We'll see how they perform. There were a handful of options of a similar style that were more expensive. We'll see if I pay the price in performance, but that's why I ordered all 7.

Honestly if I only end up using 3 I bet I could sell the other 4 and cover the full cost, or close to it. RTheory's 3 panel option is more than I paid for 7 of these vents and I don't think that includes powder coating!

That trailer is pretty cool. I believe it's from Leroy Engineering. It used to belong to another AutoX friend who used it with his 86 but sold it to my roommate.

That trailer is rad! Godspeed to the little car for all the abuse it's about to take haha. Sounds like a fun trip, though.

One of my favorite first Miata vids I ever watched was of this guy and I always thought it was so sick how he used his wing as a tire carrier haha.


Took me a second to realize those vents were shaped to avoid cutting the hood support. I've not had an issue with my hood getting too flexy at high speed, but cutting the support in multiple places caused it to flex and rattle against the hood itself. Had to use small pieces of dynamat in multiple spots to calm the rattle down.

I'll have to watch that one later, although I saw the bit where he's got his tires on his wing. I'm surprised that worked, I would've expected the wing to crack or something.

My other roommate has taken his car 6 hours each way to the track with the trunk open, tires sitting in the opening with a jack handle through the center bores. Dude is a savage.
https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...f35f544454.jpg

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...526799e650.jpg

One photo from last weekend, glad to see the passenger looks like they're having fun.

Also, I'd be curious to hear what people think of this little chirp that my turbo makes. I often hear it when the car is coming back to idle from higher RPM. Not in all situations, but often enough.

My old 2560 made the same noise, although that turbo died. I did check this one a couple days ago and didn't notice any difference in shaft play from when I first got it.

You Tube

Adorable.

Haha, thanks. I was more curious if it was an issue. Not sure if that's something I should be concerned about or not.

A while back I did a write up on how to get AC signal into the speeduino for AC control and idle up, which is ironic because my AC hasn't worked at idle at all this summer. To be fair, I've been worried about my coolant temps without AC, so I was reluctant to turn it on.

Took the car out today and realized that the AC Idle up settings were far too aggressive, causing the car to idle in an area of my fuel map where I had a lot of fuel dialed in. That was to assist AE from idle, which was a band-aid and I believe I've remedied that issue now. The car was trying to idle at something like 12 or richer, which was causing a ton of timing to be added to compensate, so no wonder it wasn't happy.

A quick correction to the fuel table and the AC Idle Up values (IACV added and RPM target added) and it started idling with AC engaged. Still not perfect but it's at least usable now. When I get the car back out in the heat I'll give it another go and monitor coolant temps to see if it will work when it actually needs to. Still waiting on those hood vents to show up, but I'm hopeful those will help keep the temps in check as well.

So, lesson learned. If you actually tune your car, it will work properly.

Love the a-to-b-to-c issues like that haha. Not any sort of a master tuner myself, but it feels good when you find out the issue you have is being caused by a slew of things upstream from where you thought the problem might be.

Also landing on dialed in idle settings is so damn satisfying lol.

For sure man, super satisfying to think through a problem and have that "a-ha" moment when you get an idea of what's going on.

The best part is that I went back to update my thread where I did the write up and post my new settings. The settings I posted in that thread when I first wrote it were almost exactly what I ended up at today, it was just an older tune. Nothing like chasing your own tail.

Been a busy couple weeks for me so I haven't gotten much time with the car. Spent most of the last 10 days between a couple bachelor parties, including a trip to Boston.

The hood vents I ordered a while back were supposed to arrive a few days ago but they never shipped. Apparently there were issues with a batch of them being ruined. I cancelled that order and put one in with RGR Engineering who make the same style. Hopefully those will be here in a couple weeks at the latest. We roadtrip out to Montana for a big regional autocross in a couple weeks, so I really want to have them installed for that.

Looks like that chirping/whining noise I mentioned a while back was the blow off valve. I deleted the BOV yesterday because I was curious to see if it was possibly leaking boost and/or causing that noise. I bought a cap that I thought was going to fit, but was way too big. I ended up plugging the BOV port with a plastic tube wrapped in gorilla and aluminum tape. Janky as hell, but it worked for the handful of pulls I did.
https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...4097704ef9.jpg
https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...9b90fe373f.jpg

Sounded pretty cool as well. I always wanted a fluttery turbo. I was having way too much fun with this.

I'm still thinking that I have a boost leak somewhere. My main reasoning for this is that my virtual dyno numbers never seem to eclipse 200 HP. The graph below is from yesterday. I know VD isn't perfect, but I've seen many instances where it's been within 10-20 HP of a real dyno.
Previously I had done some boost leak testing but since the BOV was still on the boost was just leaking out. I think I'll try again now that I should be able to get a more accurate test.
https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...dc58c2912c.jpg

I'm really tempted to pull the trigger on a Kraken kit. Seems like it would take a lot of variables out of this equation and fix some annoyances like having to remove the downpipe to remove the turbo, having to use sealant on the downpipe to exhaust flange (2.5" vs 3" flange), lots of silicone couplers and clamps.
Also, it would probably save a good deal of weight over my current setup.

Final easter egg/teaser for the post is that August 15th can't come soon enough.

Hear me out. Gorilla tape-wrapped plastic tube in the BOV bung, plastic sippy cup catch cans on both sides of the motor, soda can patch on the charge pipe tubing, Monster/Rockstar cans w/ hose clamps for all the exhaust couplers. Epic setup!

Good luck with the boost leak testing tomorrow. Curious, what PSI are you targeting during these dyno runs and where is your wastegate reference line plumbed to? I think you might've mentioned it way up in the thread but I can't remember.

God... I know lol. I promise this is a temporary measure. I just wanted to see if the BOV was causing power loss. I should probably put that corn can intake back on at this point.

I'm targeting 180 KPA and tapering up to 192 after 5K rpm to keep the torque from dipping too much. Base pressure here is around 90 KPA.
Those virtual dyno graphs report around 13 PSI, which is right about on target. However, I would expect the car to be around 225 HP at that PSI.

IDK, maybe my weight estimate for the car is way off or the wing is affecting the drag coefficient more than I expect.

I hope you know that I'm not joking and would actually respect that setup very much lol :likecat:

Wish I were closer so I could tell you what I thought via the ol' butt dyno. Those estimates for sure seem low but I'm not sure how much restriction your charge piping/intercooler are causing.

I won't be surprised if the car heads that direction. Who knows, maybe soon I'll have a dual Blender Bottle catch can setup. With a handful of thrift shops and hardware stores in the area, the sky's the limit.

After work yesterday I did a compression test. I didn't suspect anything was off but I've never done one on the new engine, or the car at all for that matter. Pretty simple process and we already had the tool in the garage.

EDIT - I did not remove all of the spark plugs when testing, so these numbers are probably wrong.
https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...e3c027e30b.jpg

It was looking almost perfect until cylinder 4. I'm not sure what's up with that, but most of the reading I've done online says that 10% variance is as much as you want. I'm not really concerned about this, but it's a good data point for the future if nothing else.

I ran over to my friends house and grabbed the boost leak tester. I still had the BOV deleted and man, that fluttering sound made me giggle the whole way.

Got the boost leak tester installed and ran it up to something like 10 PSI. Our tire inflators gauge starts around 20 PSI, so I wasn't able to get a perfect idea of where I was at, but I was able to get air into the system. To my surprise I didn't notice any leaking. No hissing noises and it maintained pressure while I was listening around the couplers. If there is any boost leaking out, it's not enough to cause a major power loss.
https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...b50544b5f5.jpg


I also snagged a few interior shots because why the hell not. I think this build thread is 99% engine bay stuff, so might as well put something new in here.
https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...35171ebe94.jpg
https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...f1e0ea5909.jpg


So, having found nothing majorly wrong I figured I might as well go out and enjoy the car. I took the laptop, fixed a bit of the fuel map that I screwed up when trying to dial in AC at idle (pulled fuel that caused the car to stumble a bit in start/stop situations), and flogged the car around town and some country roads. Chopped some teenagers in a new Jetta, which might be my first real kill in the car. Overall, a nice night. One of those ones that makes you smile and say, "Damn, this car is fantastic".

Still no clue why VD shows such low numbers. At this point, I feel like I've done my due diligence short of checking the intercooler for blockages ( I did flush it with acetone when I was rebuilding the engine) or doing a leakdown test. Especially in the cooler air, the car feels quick and pulls well.

Hey man, if she feels good and is mowing down Jettas, I'd take that as a win! Damn, it's just nice when the car's running right and you can focus on enjoying the thing. Curious to see what VD says after you update the intercooler setup.

Given your car's current color scheme, I think it'd be appropriate to start putting a white strike on the front fender for every "kill" you make from here on out.

I do have a white touch up pen from my Subaru that's laying around somewhere. Maybe we'll start a tally. The hood vents are going to come unpainted, so I'm thinking I'll go flat white with those as well to accent the stars.

Same. I was hoping to find a smoking gun yesterday. My eventual goal for the car is around 350 whp, so I figure I'll be moving to a Kraken setup at some point. I'd probably pull the trigger on that, as I just had a bonus pay out at work, but given some of my other recent purchases I'll probably hold off for a while longer. Maybe that'll be a winter project.

Also just realized I screwed up that compression test. I left the plugs in all the cylinders except for the one I was testing. I'll have to test again with them all pulled and see if it changes much.