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My Boundary oil pump is leaking oil. Bolting a tow-bar to the Miata after work and dragging it's carcass over to Kotzur Racing Thursday evening. The plan: weld up or possibly reroute the coolant line that fit the factory turbo, confirm that the oil leak is indeed coming from the Boundary oil pump seal, replace with OEM seal, finish IC piping and begin next steps for the tune (COPs, BOV, boost gauge, wideband, etc.)
The slow, arduous process of me DIY'ing a 500hp build continues. The car made it over to Kotzur's as planned, but I insisted that everyone over for weekly "shop night" let me do it all myself whenever possible. It ended with only the turbo side of the IC pipes being fab'd, but it was satisfying to get my first fabrication project under the belt. Matt did all the welding in exchange that I detail all his cars upholstery. I trailered the car again this passed Thursday but was too tired to concentrate hard enough on the TB side of things. The sensors have me at a loss as far as mounting bungs and vacuum lines for both the TB and turbo side of everything. (No MAF)
Hate seeing her on a trailer.
This is the spot directly behind the driver side headlight
Tack welded mock up.
Tack welded mock up again, underside view
Decent welds for a quick sit down. Function over form this time (done for free by Matt @ Kotzur Racing)
My apologies if the images are coming out too large for most monitors, it looks proportionate on the mobile site. Just logged on to the laptop and had a good laugh looking at my thread.
So I found that I'm dealing with some issues that other owners are dealing with as well. Both the faulty set of Supertech valve stem seals, and a leaking oil pump/crank seal on my Boundary pump.
I'm taking care of the pump seal today as I am unable to deal with the valve stem seals on my own without help from Matt @ Kotzur Racing Heads.
While getting to the oil pump, I noticed a giant chip in my crank gear. How fucked am I? And what on earth would cause that kind of damage if nothing struck the gear during disassembly?
Most likely someone previously tried to pry it off. It’s small enough you shouldn’t have any issue, although that lip does keep the timing belt aligned, along with the back face of the main pulley. New ones are easy enough to get.
Fair enough. Anybody got tips for getting the Woodruff key out without messing it up? If not I'm sure I can just grab another one from Mazda if I have to yank it out with Vicegrips
This is more of a life update than a Miata one, as the car hasn't progressed much since my last post (I now have TWO IC piping sides finished whooopeee!). When I started the build I was making really good money with AT&T and thats why it seemed like I had something new to throw at the car every other week. But some personal demons had me hopping from job to job since 2016. I recently found a badass welding gig that's letting me learn on their dime, and I should be in school for it soon. Either this year or the next. But I assure that the build hasn't died, and I haven't fallen off the face of the earth like some 500+hp builds have. It's been a while since I stayed involved with the forum, but I'm hoping this new stage of employment and a stable living situation will finally let me live out the (now nearly 4 year old) dream lmao. Right now she's still not tuned, and I've got one hell of a wiring mess under the hood. In my infinite early 20s wisdom I decided to give this build the full beans before doing everything in steps, obviously. And now I'm paying the price both from a financial standpoint, and an organization standpoint. Once I figure out what vacuum lines and sensors I can delete with the ECU, and get my paychecks flowing again, I'll start updating and possibly back track to previous posts to catch myself up on what steps I should take next.
It seems in my ever-pervasive negligence I've missed out on the ability to buy a complete fuel kit, because I can't find the one I originally planned to use. I believe it was the Flyin' Miata kit? I remember it was about a grand and had some GM flex fuel components with it too.
If anybody has a quick rundown of what I'll need to get close to that setup it would be greatly appreciated. Sorry for the long absence, life gets in the way sometimes but the project is still a go!
Any update? I feel like I saw someone on Instagram that had purchased a very similar build to yours. Hope you're doing well.
Yep! Car still exists, actually had to trailer it to a new place I moved into. I was thrilled to find that ignition kits are now plug-n-play, so that's next on my list. It drove up the trailer under its own power, idles smooth and currently sits on a battery tender in my new garage. I can't remember if it was @18psi who said it, but I believe I am now one of the folks who is eating crow and no longer wanting to be in the 500+hp club, hahaha. It's just been a very turbulent stretch of time that overlapped with a project that deserved more from me, that I wasn't able to give until recently.
I am however doing great, I appreciate you asking. I took care of me before the Miata, and now she's got some obvious signs of being in a garage untouched from 2018-2022. I don't know, I remember how big of a deal this car was to me almost 8 years ago, and I'm figuring out how to return to that feeling. I sorted out the leaks, and have plans to get that ignition kit going. Wideband is installed and I should be able to get a basemap going before I hand the car off to Trackstar in DFW for some mild boost on this overkill setup. Open to offers if anybody wants to help me downsize in any capacity just to speed up the process of making it roadworthy again. I don't foresee any attempts to make my RX-7 transmission fit, or custom axles etc. I'm just ready to drive it at this point.
Saved myself some hassle on the bodywork side. Back in 2015 the door was creased near the driver side mirror. It wrinkled in a way that would be hard to fix without cutting and welding. I can do it and have someone paint it, BUT I happened across a completely perfect Velocity Red door for $200 at the beginning of this month. Didn't bother haggling the guy because it was a great deal and became one less headache.
I've done some thinking over the years about that exhaust manifold, and some of the concerns from more senior members about whether or not it's pragmatic. I've decided for sure that I'm definitely going to ditch it. Only difficult part about the decision is whether I jump to the FAB9 top mount w/ v-band flanges or commission the same fabricator for a re-do. I like his skill but I believe he took the ideas of a severely ADHD 23 year old me entirely too literally (which is my fault, not his) From what I can gather, those of you who have purchased the FAB9 kit are happy with it! I only wish they had a v-band option for the full exhaust setup they offer as well. It would be a pain in my *** converting back to T25.
In other news, next week I should be making some headway on getting the ignition kit sorted.
HORRIBLE but very unsurprising news. The questionable manifold design indeed failed. What caused this remains unknown to me. As you're all aware, I was going through some things and neglected the car once I broke the motor in. It never saw boost and was kept in my garage for years. Given the fact I decided to step away from the forums and dealing with my build for a bit, I'd say it's a blessing in disguise because things could've been a lot worse had this thing failed under boost.
As previously stated, I wanted to ditch the manifold anyways and reminding myself of how many v-band points I had on my setup led me to walking across the complex to my garage to verify visually...thats when I noticed how bad the situation had gotten. The collector is cracked 75% around and there's at least one runner that I can tell that has a crack on one of the welded pie-cuts. Very disappointed, but it's not like it wasn't expected. You guys called it years ago and it's been on my mind ever since, despite letting the car sit for a few years.
Failure at collector Failure on pie cut for the runner
Welp, didn't waste any time trying to get this car back on the road. Figured I would start from scratch since the financial aspect works out. Found a dirt cheap stock turbo kit. Similar miles to my chassis, we're gonna rock with it until I get word from the Fab9 folks about whether their top-mount V-band kit will be compatible with my 3076 setup. Suffice to say I'm done with one-off custom stuff whenever possible.
Naturally, even if that top-mount does let the Garrett clear my hood, Ill have to figure out something with my external wastegate. Perhaps more expensive in the long run than just trying to source a local fabricator again. We shall see, but for now, smol power!!!
New battle scar found. The the weld for the flange on my FM mid pipe is cracked all the way. Likely the result of stress from poor fitment attempt when asking to temporarily make it work with my downpipe until I could run a full 3" all the way through. My engine builder suspects the welds just weren't ever strong to begin with, and now that I'm a welder myself I don't see the point in doing custom exhaust fab work for a car that has such a massive aftermarket.
Good news is, I do have a downpipe kit and intake kit coming from FM today. I ultimately decided that I'm going to nix the monster HP plans. I'm not interested in swapping transmissions or doing custom rear end work anymore. Keep a look out in the classifieds for my turbo and, RX7 Turbo II trans. I should be able to fix the midpipe flange myself, then we'll see how quickly we can get this baby back on the road with the stock MSM turbo. Definitely gonna keep an eye out for a bigger EFR in my near future once I get the MSPNP dialed in.
Plan for the next few days: take all the GTX setup off, get my EBC installed instead of using the manual one from the FM kit and start calibrating the wideband since I rewired it yesterday. Was getting a lot of signal noise for some reason. I do remember my electronics flickering the last time I messed with my radio because the aftermarket head unit had a loose wire, perhaps forgot to pull a fuse. Can't say for sure but that's where I am today, and I'm very excited to see how drivable the car is after all these years.
The predictions about this manifold cracking might as well have been prophetic. If any of you are feeling confident enough to start a cult, let this be part of your considerations 😂
Finally got the stock turbo get reinstalled. 2 week nightmare of sourcing the right banjo bolts for the oil & coolant feed lines (block side). Who knows what I did with them when the motor came out 🤷♂️ Got some generic steel ones online, let's hope they hold up since Mazda doesn't make the oil feed line anymore. Called 4 dealerships in San Antonio area, only 1 "could" help because my VIN is for a Mazdaspeed and apparently certain dealers aren't "allowed" to deal with Mazdaspeed cars of any kind. Not even to look up diagrams lol. Crock of ****? Maybe.
As one would expect, installing MSM turbos is like playing Doom on Ultra Nightmare difficulty w/ Famine activated. Installing the exhaust kit was like being quizzed by Dora the Explorer. Took all of 5 mins.
At some point during the next 7 or 8 days I'll get the FM intake kit installed, and thank the heavens above I was lucky enough to still get the O2 signal modifier despite them stating they would not longer sell it anymore. YES the PNP-Pro will still get put to use, I just desperately need this to be a running car ASAP
06-28-2017, 01:06 PM
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From what I can gather, those of you who have purchased the FAB9 kit are happy with it! I only wish they had a v-band option for the full exhaust setup they offer as well. It would be a pain in my *** converting back to T25.
