A while back I drilled a few breather holes in my Blender Bottle catch can, which is still, by far, peoples' favorite part of the car. I get so many people commenting on this silly thing.

Regardless, those holes have been pushing out a tiny bit of oil as the can fills up, so I added a quick and dirty baffle to the lid. At some point I'd like to 3d print a custom lid for this, but for now a bit of plastic glued to the inside should do fine.
https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...615a87d8f3.jpg
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I pulled the 5 speed out last Thursday after work. I was able to get it out in 3-4 hours, although a good deal of that was spent struggling with one bolt and chatting with a friend who came over. Thankfully a lot of the work was pretty easy since I had recently touched a lot of these parts when doing the diff swap.

Adding the anti seize to the groove of the V Band seems to have worked better than I expected. The clamp flew off of the exhaust when I got the bolt loosened up. The one on my downpipe required some prying to remove. I think I'll be adding a bit of anti-seize to every V Band from here on out.

I had a couple close calls with some of the starter bolts and the short PPF bolt, so I opted to put in an order with Mazda Motorsports and get some new hardware. I would just pick some up from the hardware store, but they always seem to have different head sizes, and I don't like needing a 17,18 and 19mm to do a single job. The TOB also sounded like a maraca, so I ordered a new one of those.
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The 6 speed had been in an NA, so one of the electrical connectors had been swapped to bullet connectors. Unfortunately the sensor is different from the 5 to 6 speed so I couldn't just screw in the old sensor/plug. A bit of solder and heatshrink later and we're good to go.
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2nd and 3rd had been grinding in the 5 speed lately. Unsurprisingly, the drain plug had picked up a good bit of material and the fluid was full of gold flakes. Assuming I keep following in Z's path, I'll keep this as a spare and throw it back in the car when I blow the 6 speed in a month or two. Maybe I'll rebuild it if I get really bored.

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Parts were ordered last week just before heading over into Washington for a quick ski trip. Pretty stellar views and some great skiing with a couple other Miata drivers.
https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...2d7165a368.jpg


Some parts are showing up today and some tomorrow. @Ironhydroxide sent me a couple 3d printed speedo gears to correct for the 3.6, so those will be getting installed today or tomorrow. Big thanks for that!

I also ordered a turbosmart BOV. I have a couple in the garage and after swapping them around, pulling them apart and cleaning/lubing them I just wasn't happy with any of them. I was getting some weird noises, compressor surge where it didn't seem safe, etc... They were all pretty cheap units, so I'm not totally surprised. Fingers crossed the new one will fix the issues and I can move on to other things.

I'm hoping to have the 6 speed in the car on Wednesday so I can confirm that it's working as it should. We've got about 3 weeks now until our first event and I'd like to have the car together and get some miles on the new setup before beating on it too hard.

Also, maybe obvious, maybe not, but I decided to leave the FM stage 1 clutch in the car for now. I think it should hold the power I'm going to be making with the 2560 pretty easily and I didn't want to deal with resurfacing or buying a new flywheel, breaking in a clutch and possible driveability concerns. I'm planning on running the 2560 for a while, so when I upgrade I figure I'll just do the clutch at that point. I might kick myself for it later, but it seemed like the best path to get the car up and running. FWIW I did some virtual dyno the other day around 205 KPA (~15 PSI) and was only showing around 210 WHP. Even assuming +/- 20 HP for virtual dyno inaccuracies I shouldn't be close to the limits of this setup.

This is the way.

In all seriousness, sounds like you should be safe for a long time on the current setup. You're already aware of this I'm sure, but just don't lug the car at full boost/lower rpms in 4th gear haha.

Solid progress, man. Stoked to see how it holds up at the first event in a few weeks. I know VD numbers aren't gospel but I'd imagine you're making more than 210whp at 15psi now that your intercooler and exhaust are all sorted. You plan to dyno it at some point once you're finished up tweaking and tuning?

Cool updates, jealous as can be of the 6 speed + 3.6. And cool to see another winter sports enjoyer. I ride every weekend and have been for the past 15+ years. You have to holler if you ever come out west, Taos has world class steeps and I'll get you and your friends a buddy pass discount if you are out this way.

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I would really like to. I think we only have 1 dyno in town. IIRC I called them a while back and they wanted something like $375 an hour for dyno rental. It would be really helpful, but I think there's still a bit more I can do on the street to dial it in before shelling out the cash for a dyno day.

The car should be good to handle all the power the 2560 can put out, so I'm not too worried about the absolute horsepower number (since I shouldn't be able to break anything major). Once a few more things are sorted I think I'll get back around to investigating the seemingly missing horsepower. On my old setup (old ECU, turbo kit, injectors, etc...) I was also seeing ~210 WHP. I think I'll do another compression test with a different gauge and then probably a leakdown and see how things look. My compression was lower than expected the last time I tested it (~145 average), but it was a cheap gauge and I'm not sure how accurate it is.

I started a thread about this, which I'll revive when I get around to poking around.

That looks like some phenomenal terrain! We were just talking about Taos this weekend. The crew I'm usually running around with are all on Indy pass so we've been hitting those resorts mostly.

You'd be in good company. I'm actually the only skier in our group, and we've got some pretty well respected Miata drivers among us.

I'll keep it in mind for next season :bigtu:

Well, if you ever consider doing a ProSolo or National event in Vegas. I know a guy for a dyno ;)

Wait...someone is making the speedo gears for a 3.6 on a 6 speed? Because I just finished having my torsen changed to a 3.6 ring and pinion (mated to a 6 speed from an NB) and of course the speedometer is off and the speedo gears are NLA...

He's not producing them commercially, I just saw in his build thread that he had the same issue and modeled/printed a gear to fix it. FWIW I don't believe the gear would be the same for the 5 or 6 speed, and only change based on diff ratio.

I actually swapped the gear out a couple days ago. I'm waiting on some parts (shipping delay) or I would have tested it by now.

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Old Gear


I ended up running a steel pipe cleaner through this a handful of times to clean up the frayed bits.

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New Gear
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Side by side

We'll see how it holds up, but I expect it'll last for quite a while. Swapping them out is a little annoying without snap ring pliers, but doable with some pick tools and patience.

I'm fairly photo-less for this one, but I finally got the parts I was waiting on. They were supposed to be here last Wednesday but a sorting error sent them to Arizona so they didn't show up until Saturday. As soon as I got that throw out bearing I was slapping the car back together.

Funny to think that ~3 years ago it took me 3 full days to change my clutch, and now it's probably a 6 hour job.

I bench pressed the 6 speed into place and got the driveshaft and exhaust bolted back up. Nothing crazy. I grabbed some new hardware from Mazda since I was already ordering the throw out bearing. Better to spend the money now then to round the bolts off next winter when I'm upgrading the clutch (I assume).

The only real hiccup was that I got everything bolted up and realized that I couldn't install the shifter turret with the PPF holding the transmission up. I had pulled the shifter turret to make it easier to install the trans, but didn't consider that I couldn't access the bolts when it was in place. Thankfully that just required loosening the front PPF bolts to drop the transmission low enough to get the bolts in. Annoying, but not the end of the world.
https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...f99506f92b.jpg
Notice that the front 2 bolt holes can't be reached?

The 6 speed is pretty nice, aside from some pretty serious gear lash noise, mostly in 3rd and 4th. I actually dropped the PPF a bit lower today to see if I had misaligned it, but the grinding noise is still there. It was pretty nice out so I took it up into some of the mountain roads and aside from the noise the setup feels pretty solid. The Miata Roadster shifter is pretty nice, and being able to do 70 MPH at 3200 RPM is a nice change.

As always, I've been working on the tune as well. Today I got the second radio panel switch setup as a fan override. This will allow the fans to operate normally, but when I flip the switch it will override the usual settings and force both rad fans to kick on. It's a pretty minor change, but it seems like it'll be nice to have for autocross.

The hardtop came off today too. I managed to pull it by myself, which was less difficult than I expected. I've missed rolling around with the top down.
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Top Down, Wing Up

Good stuff dude! Yeah, 3 days to 6 hours on that clutch job is a pretty nice improvement now that you've been there before. The best thing is that you'll be even quicker with it the next time you pull it to upgrade the clutch again :giggle:

The switch for the dual fans is going to be killer for autoX grids. Probably a long shot but it might even help IAT's a bit as well if everything is heatsoaked? I can't remember, did you mention you used a sprayer for your intercooler between runs?

Oh yeah, I assume it'll help with IATs. I have the classic HDR weed sprayer and spray down my intercooler/radiator between most runs. Tires get sprayed when they're hot/greasy.

I did enable EGO/Closed Loop Lambda at idle in the tune recently, so I'm hoping that helps with some heat soak issues. I often see ~10 C over ambient just driving around town, but I'm thinking the insulation I put around the sensor is just holding the heat in at this point.

Either way, things are coming together. Excited to beat on it in a couple weeks and see how she goes.

Looking good man! I'm a little behind you on swapping in the new diff and tranny. Hopefully start messing with that over the next week. That built motor you got is nice. Should allow for more boosts and more horsepowers.

Nice, I thought you already had a sprayer solution for grid. I had no idea spraying tires down was a thing, though. Interesting.

Hey yeah, Teg brings up a good point. When’re you gonna crank that thing up to 17psi? Lol

^What he said. 6 spd and built motor? My car felt good at ~12psi for the few pulls it made. :D

Trust me guys, I really want this thing to make more power. It's on the list of things to investigate. I've been reading about how to interpret compressor maps, pressure ratio, etc... I have turned the turbo up to ~205 KPA, but virtual dyno still shows around 210 WHP. Our barometric pressure around here is about 90 KPA and the best fuel (aside from the 1 e85 pump in the area) is 91 octane, so neither of those are helping. Virtual dyno is going to be thrown off because of the front bumper and wing, if nothing else, but when I've messed around with those variables (coefficient of drag, frontal area) or the weight of the car, they don't seem to make a dramatic change. Unless one of those was dramatically off it doesn't seem to change the VD estimate by more than 10-15 horsepower.

I'm still learning how to read/calculate compressor maps, but going much above 200 KPA with the 2560 seems like it's going to be getting pretty inefficient, but we will see. There's another guy locally who has a similar setup and told me his setup made ~270 WHP on 91. I think that was 15 PSI tapering up to 17, which is about where I'm at.

As far as I can tell, I always seem to hit knock around 4500 RPM if I advance the ignition much more from where I've got it. I've still got the knock sensor hooked up to the Knock Detective, but I really want to get the knock signal into the ECU, especially considering that knock detection/protection was one of my major reasons to move away from Speeduino.

I've got another thread about the seeming lack of power which I'm planning to revive at some point. Now that the car is back on the ground and the weather is nice I'm probably going to be racking up some miles pretty quickly.

I wouldn't be surprised if flex fuel is added sometime this summer. Power increase aside, being able to check fuel temperature seems like it would be pretty helpful to combat heatsoaking in parking lots.

So VD seems to be fairly confident in the numbers, ignition is more or less in the ballpark, exhaust and intercooler are sorted now...

I should've asked a while ago, but what has the ol' butt dyno been telling you as you've ironed out all the kinks and added more boost?

With the boost turned up the car's pretty dang quick, but not as fast as I think it should be. It pulls well enough and feels healthy. I need to drive that 270 WHP car again and see how it feels now. When I first drove that car it felt like a rocket, but I wasn't used to boost at that point.

I'm still suspicious about how good of a job I did on the engine build, and specifically the head/valves. Another compression test with a different gauge and a leakdown are on the list, but again, not top priority.

I figure there's another 10-20 horsepower in it with some refinements to the fuel and ignition tables. I'll probably double check that VICs is working properly as well. I'm running the default setup for the Link, which I assume is correct, but it wouldn't hurt to check and fine tune the crossover RPM.

Hmm that's definitely odd regarding the virtual dyno. I'd expect more power at ~14psi even with the altitude..? Maybe the virtual dyno is reading off? I've used them before and I guess it's all math as long as you input the correct values. You reminded me, I ought to run one for my Miata and see how it does. With that said, only 91 does kinda suck (we have 93 here), and I would definitely do a compression test and leakdown on your motor just for piece of mind and to make sure there are new issues (if you suspect their might be any), before cranking up the boost. Either that or maybe your tune is super conservative?

When I was looking into the low VD numbers a while back I did a compression test which showed numbers around 140-155 IIRC. It was using a cheap gauge that I've never used before, so I'm not sure how much I trust the exact numbers. At some point I'll find a different gauge to use and see how the numbers look. I've got a couple buddies with leakdown testers, I just need to get an air compressor (I need to get one for other stuff as well).

I figure at this point it could be any one, or combination of the following

• The engine is unhealthy and/or poorly built
• The tune needs to be dialed in. Both timing and fuel are pretty loosely tuned right now
• Something is throwing off the Virtual Dyno numbers (wing, weight, front bumper, etc...)
• I am nearing the limit of this turbo given the low octane fuel and altitude

I'm pretty happy with where the car is at right now though. It runs and drives, handles, stops and accelerates well. The "missing" power is annoying if nothing else. Plenty of other people are running a similar "recipe" and are making 50+ horsepower more than I am. Really I should go rent a dyno for a couple hours and play around, but IIRC the only dyno in the area is $375 an hour and I still feel like there's more I can do through street tuning.

Yesterday I got some material in to make a heat shield for the turbo. I definitely started to melt one of the Velcro cable ties that was hanging a little too far over the turbo. Right now heat isn't the biggest issue, but in the summer I figure it'll be a struggle again.
https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...147e472873.jpg
Note the smooth section where it was starting to melt.

A sheet of embossed aluminum material was about $25 and I used about half the sheet for this heat shield. Aluminum bar was ~$12 from HDR and a rivet gun with some rivets was about $5 from Harbor Freight.

All in, including a new tool, I'd estimate this at about $20-25. I did hear a new high pitched buzzing at WOT, which I'm guessing is vibrations passing between the sheets that are riveted together. I originally planned to JB Weld those together, as well as doing rivets to try and keep them from vibrating, but skipped it. If another rivet doesn't fix it, I'll probably pull it apart and throw some JB weld between the flaps.

My previous heat shield was mounted to the engine and vibrated a lot, which eventually led to the heat shield cracking in a few places. This one is mounted to the chassis and is much less prone to vibration, especially with the stronger mounting and fewer cuts/creases in the material.

It'll probably get a few love taps with a hammer in certain places to add a little clearance, but for now I'm pretty happy with it.

https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...5281312ceb.jpg
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Aside from that I've just done a couple small refinements as previously mentioned. I was having a banging/knocking from the exhaust on startup, but was pleasantly surprised to find that it was just a poorly positioned clamp that I threw on hastily after the transmission was in.
https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...54f76662f6.jpg

I also got bored and decided to see what was under the "patches" the PO had installed in the trunk. Unsurprisingly, there are some massive cracks that I probably should've left alone. I have to assume this was to make space for a sub at some point.
https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...3f78822e45.jpg



The tune's getting better day by day as well. Most of the changes are small, like dialing in cold start enrichment hold times, but they make a big difference in the overall feel of the car. I'd feel pretty comfortable handing the keys to any of my buddies at this point and not giving them a list of things to keep an eye on.
I did add some timing and do some pulls. It sounded clean enough to me, but virtual dyno still put me around 220 WHP at 200 KPA and ~11 degrees of timing. Like I said previously, there are a handful of things that could be at play here, but it's not my main focus right now. I think the next step on that thread is to do a leakdown test. The wing is also only held on by 4 bolts, so I might pull that at some point and see how much of a difference that makes.

The 6 speed and 3.6 are doing well so far. A bit noisy since which seems reasonable considering the pinion damper on the diff was removed and it has poly bushings. 3rd and 4th have some pretty gnarly decel whine between 2-3k RPM and 2nd is a bit crunchy at times, so I'd call it a bit of a lateral move from my 5 speed in that regard. Being able to cruise on the highway at 70 MPH around 3200 RPM is super nice. I expect that to make a huge difference when we're roadtripping this season.