Simba, nice work on the porting. I did the same with mine and it's definitely worth some power.

Bloop, I like your car and headlights! But you should get a few more people to take a vid of that burnout . I don't think you have enough.

 

There was plenty more, its a tradition at the end of our cars and coffee to line up burnouts right here, they get a little crazy

 

Bloop, those headlights are great. When I inevitably revisit the headlights in the future I might look into that. I've always been interested in doing something like that but never enough to dig in an commit to it.

That also makes me realize I'm not even sure I've seen any photos of your car. For the amount we've gone back and forth I'm surprised.

 

Theyre well worth it, wd40 gets the butyl off for future reference.

Yeah I realized that ive never actually posted a photo of it at all. Just a description. I've wanted to start a build thread, but I always figure ill get around to it later, gathering what I have of photos from it and all 5 other miatas I had to add as a footnote would take forever, not to mention trying to remember half the stuff I've done to it in the <2 years ive had it. Im always doing something to it regardless.

Typing that made me try and remember everything and it was a trip. Those photos dont do the color justice though. Maybe I'll do a build thread.

Did you ever decide on a fan setup?

 

You should definitely do a build thread. It seems like you're crafty enough to show off some interesting projects.

I still haven't decided on a fan setup but it's on my mind. It's getting cold enough here that it isn't an immediate concern. My main fan is on the fritz right now and occasionally the connector decides to stop connecting. I'm surprised how obvious it is when I'm monitoring coolant temps. I can tell almost immediately when the fan disconnects because I'll see coolant temp at 195C instead of 185C pretty much immediately. I was cruising up our local ski hill this weekend and pulled over to reconnect the fan before driving the main stretch of the road. Even in the cooler temps I think the car would get pretty hot driving uphill without the main fan.

I've contemplated going the Chevy Volt fan route like @Ironhydroxide. I don't really want to have to run extra relays/breakers but if it keeps the car cool it would be worth it. I've also thought about trying to replace just the main fan and leaving the stock AC fan or trying to find a super strong main fan (like 2800 CFM) to replace the 2 existing fans and leaving part of the radiator open to free flow air. Still debating on removing AC as well. I haven't even been able to use it much for the past 3+ years but I'm still reluctant to pull it. I got lucky on some of our road trips this year with the weather being really nice, but it would suck not having AC when driving 5+ hours home if the sun was really beating down.

Also, on that note, and because Z is always posting cool photos from his mountain drives I figured I'd finally snag one. I took a couple good drives this weekend in the mountains around town. As usual there was a good bit of traffic, but still some good open stretches.

 

HOLY BATMAN 195C?!?! what kind of head you got on that thing?

And for a car that sees track as well as autox/street I'd probably go with a C7 fan next time around instead of the volt fans.

Volt fans are good because they are almost direct fit, and a TON of flow WHEN THEY ARE ON FULL BLAST. when they aren't on full blast, there's nowhere for the air to go if it's moving faster than the fan is currently told to spin. So there's that downside.

The C7 Fan has flappers to exhaust the air around the single fan when it's faster than the fan is moving. It is a bit taller than the Volt fans, but not immensely so. and the width is pretty much dead on for miata framerails as well (got to cut off the OE bottom brackets, and add your own "fixing" to the bottom)
Here's a terrible picture of the C7 fan in that VQ35 miata


Edit:
the Volt fans are 12" DUAL fans per shroud.
the C7 is single 14" fan per shroud.

The C7 flows ~ 3200cfm (iirc, can't find the link right now)
twin volt fans run ~3600cfm (again, iirc but 1800cfm each 12" fan)

 

You didn't hear about my newly machined inconel head? The phone app I use to monitor temps and such uses Fahrenheit for some reason, hence the confusion. Definitely meant 195F.

I'm finding some Spal fans that are 12" and supposedly pulling anywhere from ~1600-1900 CFM. I believe the stock main fan is about 1400 CFM. My thinking right now is to upgrade the drivers side only since that's the one that's getting flaky. I figure having 2 fans also gives me some redundancy if one were to fail.

I have also thought about going to a single with bypass flaps, but for whatever reason am not as convinced by that. Still more research and thinking to do.

 

I too thought all those people in the burnout pics were AI-generated

No firsthand knowledge on the proposed fan setups here but I cut a ~2x4" hole in my fan shroud and made a flapper out of a silicone baking sheet a few months back. Made a small but noticeable effect on coolant temps when it was hot out.





Seems like a single big PWM fan with flappers on each corner of the shroud would be the holy grail as far as max airflow when driving in anger, no? Something like this?

https://arhindrichs.com/store/p/arh-...ta-fan-upgrade

The fact that your coolant temps jump up while driving without the main fan is kinda perplexing to me. I always thought the fan(s) only moved air if the car was travelling under ~20mph?

From the famous Supermiata cooling blog post:

 

I'd be lying if I said I didn't go out to the garage at lunch the other day to try and DIY a flapper for my fan shrouds as well, but there isn't a ton of extra room on the OEM shrouds. It still might be worth a shot later though, I'm sure I could come up with something.

I'm also surprised by the difference the cooling fan makes when moving. IIRC Iron suggested trying to disable the fans at highway speeds and it was immediately obvious that the car was going to overheat which is contrary to what everyone seems to say on here.

I did pull some of the tape off that I had sealing the fans to the rad. I figure that would decrease fan efficiency but allow for more air to free flow through. Hard to say if it made any difference though.

I know that fans aren't usually pointed to as a weak point for these cars, but I figure its worth trying. Its one of the few parts of the cooling system I haven't touched and my drivers side fan is on the fritz anyway.

 

i cant remember if i ever mentioned mine, but this kit is what I got and it solved all of my issues, i dont beat on mine in autocross or anything like that, my hometown is literally called levelland, all plains and no hills to be seen so I never stress it that way. But those fans do pull some insane air. I fit them both on a mishimoto shroud that I chopped up. If youre going to spring for the one spal, This two pack is a good value, and you get an extra just in case you want the ac fan too.

 

The way I see it, Any fan that is going to pull 1500cfm+ is going to need better wiring than OEM can provide anyways.

Might as well spend only a little more, and get a LOT more airflow with the fan on.
https://www.rockauto.com/en/moreinfo...315155&pt=2181

 

Got bored at lunch yesterday. Z, here's your flapper. I expect this to change cooling efficiency by +/-1.32%

I did apply some heat after the photos to try to shape it to the fan shroud, but that didn't work super well.

 

Sh*t, I hope you finish that cottage cheese before it goes bad. Maybe you can put it in one of those workout bottles you used for your catch can.

 

Well the wastegate actuator is about tapped out. I turned it up another 4% duty cycle and gained about a pound of boost, but turning it up another 5% didn't get any more. I suppose it's not surprising give that I'm about 3x the wastegate spring pressure. As much as I don't really need to turn it up more than this, I probably should've gone with the 11.6 or 14 psi wastegate.




Also, is anyone familiar with how the SAE correction works on virtual dyno? I'm assuming you check the box, enter the pressure/temp for the pull and it's supposed to correct to SAE conditions like a real dyno would. Originally I thought it was doing the SAE corrections automatically but when I thought about it I couldn't see how it would know a local pressure unless it figured out how to pull it from the log somehow. If I correct for the pressure measured at our airport and the IAT in the logs I will see a ~20 HP increase vs the raw data which is more in line with what I'd expect. I should really just go to a dyno...

This is without the corrections




And with the corrections

 

To test whether the corrections are accurate or not, do the run in 4th gear and see if you still have said gear after 3-4 pulls

You keep reminding me, I really gotta download VD. Maybe I'll do that and start messing with it this weekend...

 

Uncorrected ill get maybe 210whp on a 3rd gear pull, thatll jump up to more what id expect it to be on e85 and hella timing to like 235-240whp. Not sure how it works, I use whatever baro reading and temp's it says when i lookup "baro in (x) town right now" Not sure which number is accurate.

 

Dude, please know that I'm fully clenched on all of these pulls, especially when I do them in 4th. As much as I still rip on the car carelessly around town, for some reason "dyno" pulls get me nervous. It doesn't help that the transmission rattles around the whole time. Honestly the wastegate limitations might be a good thing...

A couple small updates. I've been working on modeling a new wastegate bracket with an offset for the 2860. Right now I've got a stack of washers, but I have toyed with the idea of getting a spacer machined by a friend or SendCutSend. I thought I had the model correct, but then realized that the turbo housings have different spacings between different holes. I assumed it was uniform, because why wouldn't it be?

Below you can see that both of these brackets roughly align with the holes.



However, you can see here that the brackets don't align with each other. I'm really glad I caught this before going and ordering a batch of these.





So, next step was to pull the actual bracket I've been using under the stack of washers and get that drawn up in Fusion. Printed at 1mm for a prototype while the actual part would/will be cut from 1/2" aluminum. Not quite perfect, but pretty close. I think I'll enlarge the bolt holes about 0.5-1mm, maybe move their positioning a tiny bit and we'll be in business. I might put out a feeler for a group buy on these since it seems like other people might have the same issue.






Unfortunately I failed on another project today. I've been pestered by an idea of a 3d printed intake box/shield for a while now and finally decided to try it out. My measurements were off so the base didn't fit around the filter, but thankfully I only printed the base and not the whole assembly. I also need to get these print settings dialed in. You can see it's pretty stringy in the photos. Ideally I'd like to create a piece that will suck air in from the drivers fender well, wrapping the engine bay bits in a fiberglass heatshield of some sort. I'm not sure how much of a performance benefit this would be, but it's been rolling around in my brain long enough that I need to make an attempt at it.




Also, cool mods planned for the winter. We've got Ice® to install.




And, partially as a checkpoint for myself, a photo of the engine bay as it sits today.

 

what do you top out at in 4th?

also,
i know function over form is the name of the game, but if you ever want some nice looking loom cover that is serviceable and pretty easy to apply - this harbor freight vanguard split loom was really nice imo, 25ft for 10$ got me the majority of my bay, and it has held up pretty well to the oil and heat.


Shouldve taken better pics when i did this
The loom on the actual coil connectors is not the split loom so ignore it, but the main bit between the im and vc plus the others is.

 

On the airbox; currently working on something similar, but feeding from the fog light opening. Currently designing a version that feeds from the bumper opening as well, for people that run brake ducts on their fog lights.

 

According to KMiata's gearing calculator top of 4th should be around 112 MPH. The clench comes from imminent transmission grenading more than the speed though.

I've actually used that loom wrap for my computer cables in my office. I've thought about using some on the car loom as well but have been lazy about it. I found out about Tessa tape a while back and went crazy with it, but I'm not meticulous to get a great result.

Good work on that inlet. In the long term I'd like to get something together that surrounds the air filter with a similar extension that runs into the fender well. I should probably get some scans of the engine bay, it would speed things up greatly.