Trackspeed's '02SE "Acamas" - EFR6758, TSE motor, 500whp or bust
 

I’ve had the rough idea for this car kicking around in my head since I decided to sell Theseus, but it has actually started to come together over the last few months, so it’s time for a build thread. (Cool parts, new products, an awesome street car, and mediocre photography incoming)

Attachment 233315

I picked up this 103k mile ’02 Special Edition a few months ago. It’s fully loaded, including ABS (that will be important later), and there’s no Tupperware. The 02SE is probably my favorite Miata – it’s got all the perks of the NB2, one of the best colors to come on a Miata, and it’s the last year of the 3.909 Torsen. I never figured I would actually find this exact car (02SE, ABS, no Tupperware, in budget), so I was just searching for NB2s with ABS, but good things come to those who wait, apparently.

The purpose of the car is to act as a development mule for some new stuff we’re releasing over the next year or two. Our turbo kit is obviously the largest one of those items, but certainly not the only one. I’ve got a Reverent/MSLabs MS3 Basic and Flow Force 610cc injectors lined up, as well as a DW300 fuel pump and Fuelab FPR ready to replace the stock pieces. There’s a Racelogic TCS box waiting for installation as well, which will be fun to experience. Down the road, it will get an EFR6758 and a forged bottom end, but that’s probably 12 months out. I’ll run the EFR6258 with the stock bottom end at first.

It came with me to COTA in April, so to prepare for that event I did a few “basic” upgrades to it. Current suspension is Tein Flex, 7/6k rates, and I don’t know how people tolerate it. Perhaps I’m spoiled by the tweaked gen1 XIDAs in Rover, but I don’t even think my 700/450 Koni 8041s were this uncontrolled over large pavement transitions. I had never planned to keep the Teins very long, since I just wanted to evaluate them before moving onto something better, but they are surprisingly bad IMO. The wheels are 15x9 Nickel 6ULs, wrapped in the new 225/45 BFG Rival S. Front brakes are our 11.75” Gen1 kit, which will get swapped for the upcoming Gen2 version so I can drop the 5mm spacers in front. The rollbar is a Blackbird GT3 bar in single diagonal flavor, and the Lotus seats on Flipside Customs brackets are probably the best thing I’ve done to the car so far. The 3.909 Torsen was swapped for the 3.63 OS Giken that never made it into Theseus as well.

Blackbird GT3 single diagonal bar, powdercoated in 3% gloss black. I believe this is the only rollbar that works with a hardtop, a glass-window softtop, and a weld-in harness bar.
Attachment 233316

Lotus seats on Flipside Customs brackets. So comfy. No hole for substraps, so no harnesses, but it's a street car. I will probably set up an FIA/6-point setup that drops in for track use, but these will be the standard seats the car runs around with.
Attachment 233317

The goal of the car is to build an exceptionally competent street Miata, that can also be taken to the track. Essentially, I want to build the Mazdaspeed that everyone wishes Mazda had built. I know how to build a very competent race car, and I’ve done that a few times to good effect, but a true street car is something I’ve never really done. Theseus in its early days was a race car with 700/400# spring rates, fixed-back FIA seats and 6-point belts, gauges all over the place, and license plates stuck on the back. This will be a distinctly different build from Theseus in that there will be virtually no concessions made to the streetability of the car. I’m not willing to sacrifice A/C or even P/S, I want to keep my cruise control, I want to hear the radio on long drives, and I still want to be able to do lapping days. It will never be as nimble or engaging as Rover is on track, but that’s OK – it’s a street car. If I want to drive a race car, I have one of those too.

OK, with the intro out of the way, we can make with the building and the threading. First order of business is to get the interior nailed down. You can see that the rear carpet was left out, since I haven't had a chance to cut it for the rollbar, and the previous owner was a slob with a dog so the interior is being steam-cleaned tomorrow.

The Blackbird bar and Lotus seats are already in, and the cheap, awful, PO-installed eBay soft-top is getting replaced with a black Robbins vinyl top, but I’m mostly interested in seeing what the forum’s thoughts are on closed cell foam/butyl combos. I have a bunch of Dynamat, but I want to replace the carpet foam under the carpets with something a little better as well. I haven't decided whether to try and spend the time cutting out individual strips of Dynamat to lay in low areas, or whether to just cover the car in it and call it a day. I'll do that before the deck carpet goes back in, see how much of an improvement it makes, then carry the end solution through the floorboards too.

I’m also interested in opinions on a Bluetooth/Sirius-compatible head unit and door speakers, if anyone feels strongly about certain items for those. Recommend me stuff, MT :party:

YES!

Very excited for this :party:

Having done the WHOLE tub in dynamat, I'd have to report that it's overkill and not really needed.

Strategic locations is better, unless you're bored and have a ton of the stuff.

The closed cell stick-on mat (such as Raammat or many others) is also good stuff.

Remember: dynamat for vibrations, closed cell foam for actual noise. I'd do the "knock" testing method and apply where needed, and then just cover everything else in the foam if I did it again. (vs exactly the opposite, as I did in the white 01)

I've heard the same. I'll probably do the rear deck area in strips, then decide how to do the floors from there.

Any recommendations on closed-cell foam? Worth buying it with adhesive or butyl backing, or just buy the stuff in a sheet and use a spray adhesive?

18psi is (partially) correct, and my sound stuff is my greatest regret.

Don't just dump lots of dynamat or equivalent. It's not what you want.

I'm currently making plans to build a car with goals similar to your goals, Sav. My plans are to clean all pre-existing sound damping/dampening out of the interior, completely. Then I'd go in with a product like Second Skin Spectrum, and put initial coats of that down covering the interior. I'd also be using spectrum as an undercoating on the exterior as well. (Edit) I've been debating just using spectrum as a thick undercoat as well, FWIW.

Next step would be to put a product like Dynamat (Frankly, I'd recommend RAAMmat or (better yet!) Dampliflier pro, for several reasons, but that's another topic) in areas prone to vibration - especially door skins. Most especially door skins. As 18psi said, don't put it everywhere - both 18psi and I made that mistake.

Next step, applying an MLV barrier. Finally, applying a CCF barrier. MLV is very important, and if I had to only choose CCF or MLV, I'd go with the MLV (Assuming it's like Luxury Liner Pro, of course.)

Anyways, that's just how I plan on doing it in my future build. YMMV. Please remember that I HATE non-exhaust noise in a car, and am willing to pay for it both in weight and in money.

Also, I'm in the market for a perfect 3-spoke Sport wheel in all black, as well as perfect NB2 door cards in all black. I dig the brown interior, but not with the tan seats, and I don't want to risk dying the seats and screwing them up.

I would use the sticky-backed stuff. Spraying makes a mess, and without any sticky backing the stuff moves around quite a lot. The coating stuff Blaen is talking about spraying is cool too (I think Tom from Toms Turbo Garage on YT uses similar stuff called "lizard skin" on his Miata? look it up) but you'd need to basically strip and prep the whole tub to apply it.
For dynamat the doors (both inner and outer skins make a huge difference, the rear shelf, and I'd lay some down on the trans tunnel cause it will help keep it cooler. (this is all of course in addition to the spots you find with the "finger tap" test).
The foam you can't really "overdo", so go nuts with that stuff if you want. It keeps the panel squeaks and rattles down, and just cuts down on noise. Of course the biggest thing to cut noise is a hardtop, but looks like you want to keep this bad boy versatile.

People laugh at me trying to make our miata's quiet, comfy, and basically "lexus like", but I gotta tell you it's so enjoyable daily driving a car that doesn't have crazy loud squeaks, rattles, vibrations, etc.

You'll love it.

Looking forward to this.. :bigtu:

Tan door cards to mach the seats? I might have a set of those.
<br />Also, in for updates. This car is gonna be cool

The previous owner of this car had a dog, and the interior was pretty gross, so I had the interior steam-cleaned today. These guys did Rover a few months ago after the interior molded over (don't store race cars outdoors under a cover for 3 months...) and they did a fantastic job, so I called them out to do this job as well. Pulled the seats and the center console out so they can get it as clean as they can. A little expensive, but worth doing right at least once in a car's life.

Attachment 233314

After reading about others and 18psi's experience with sound deadening I decided to install some as well.

Can you explain the "Finger Tap" test?

You can tell by knocking on a panel how dense/supported or thin/unsupported/prone to vibrate it is. It might be an ancient method, and I bet someone has a better way by now, but it works. knock on the sheet metal on your door and it's all tinny and loud (where it's not supported by the beam), knock on something like the seat belt pillar and that sucker is like a rock

I tried reflectix for sound deadening, while it was an improvement, it has nothing on the better products out on the market unfortunately.

Subscribed because I'm a loser who loves my Tein Flex 7/6k. Ignorance is bliss.

EDIT: I'm always looking for a notupperware 03 SE. Good job finding yours.

Subbed for sound deadening/heat management.

Andrew, why vinyl over cloth for the Robbins?

Vinyl is easier to keep clean and doesn't require re-treatment to maintain its waterproofing. Cloth is a little nicer but I don't want to deal with the added maintenance aspect.

I Dynamatted my doors and love the new solid "thunk" they make when shutting closed - even feels more solid when driving, hard to explain but definitely different (less tinny maybe).

I spent ages cutting bits to fit so that the inner doorskins were clad as much as possible, only to learn later that it's just as effective to apply in a checkerboard pattern (ie. alternate "squares" with Dynamat and no-Dynamat). This would have saved me a LOT of time, been easier to fit/shape the "squares", weighed half as much and use half as much.

PS: Don't think you can get away with using a hairdryer on the dynamat - it will only last about 15 minutes when cranked right up. I now have have a hot-air gun which performs double-duty as a lethal hairdryer.

FWIW most likely they're either resting on the bumpstops, or have no droop travel, due to wrong combo of body length and preload settings. As a quick check for the rear, just measure the wheel-center to fender-lip distance. Repeat with rear jacked up at the differential. The difference should be 1.25~1.5 inches. If it's far from that, there's your problem. Easy to fix to make it better before you swap em out.

And the knobs should be run somewhere near full soft. Any stiffer, and they're really bad.

The opposite. I will leave the door cars and steering wheel alone and dye the seats to match the rest of the interior, car is too nice to mess up.

I'm curious to know what your experience is with NB returnless fuel systems, in particular MSMs (only slightly related to this thread). I've tuned one MSM, and the fueling was all over the place, fairly difficult to nail down consistently run to run. The dyno operator was the one that tuned Ed's MSM (absurdflow setup), and said it acted very similarly. On the flip side, Lazarus has a MSM engine with a '99 fuel rail and NA FPR, and we can get very consistent AFR graphs.

Are you finding more consistent fueling with the fuelab FPR? Or is it simply because you want a higher fuel pressure?

Dopple was telling me a while ago that you can source just the black panels from Mazda apparently. Melt a few tabs on the back to take the saddle brown stuff out, melt a few more to put the black ones in. He did the same for his SE. Not sure where he sourced them though.

Also, I have the black Nardi out of my '01 LS, but it's no where near perfect.


The one you said won't run low enough to stay within the constraints of a stock block? :party:

I'm worried about the tan not matching. I'll do all black with the tan seats, which will look fine (to my eye at least). If I hate it, I'll pick up a set of black Probax seats and sell these. No way am I risking ruining a $1200 set of seats with dye.

Fuelab FPR is because I know the DW300 will overpower the stock FPR and cause fuel pressure fluctuations. If the fuel pressure wanders all over the place, then I'll know it can't be done and I'll convert the car to a returnless setup, but I want to try it first because it's really simple to just drop the FPR into the stock system.

No rush, I'll just keep my eye out or ask someone like Tom @ Parts Group to pull the first perfect set he finds and send them my way.

Pretty sure I've said the exact opposite of that, repeatedly :party:

FTFY, I think.

Oh, maybe I'm thinking of another EFR, the numbers all confuse me.

<p>I have on of the Nardi wheels, but the airbag has relieved itself from the middle. :)</p><p>https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1433008548</p>

That's not a black wheel though.

Looking forward to watching this build.

Started on the Dynamat. Did the low areas on the fuel tank panel. Doing the low areas on the bulkhead cover seemed like not enough material, so I did the high areas. It's less tinny, but these panels are so thin and poorly supported that I might have to do the backsides as well.

Attachment 233312

Attachment 233313

Just use black vinyl dye to re-colour the inserts black; 5 years ago I did that on my MSM's silver coloured HVAC fascia and you'd never know it wasn't originally black.

What about taking your car to a professional shop where they will guarantee the job?? Your car has a very cool interior, that NB is called a Shinsen or some like due to the fact is a rare Special Edition (only year with that particular interior).

In my opinion, the Car deserves an interior and with those seats matching it would look really cool

Andrew, smart move on not using dye on those seats. My old Buddy Club seats I tried to dye, and due to the flame retardant cloth came out looking like shit and ruined them.

Sadly having an interior shop make custom seat covers is $$$$. It was cheaper to buy new seats then to pay them to make new inserts.

As far as noise isolation goes, spraying new rubberized undercoating (after wire wheeling off the old crap) made the most difference in panel resonance.

Ahhh, so this is the car you were talking about. Kinda funny seeing you build a street car again. ;)

It looks like we are going the same paths here, except yours will be far more concise with less changing directions and over-complicating/overthinking things. In for win!

I think cordy recently had some lotus seat inserts made.

I have a pretty damn near perfect Nardi in black. Used for about 35K miles. You pay shipping and free advice when I assemble my new engine....

Horribly neglecting this thread, too busy actually building the car.

Turbo system is in, for those of you who didn't see it at MRLS. The manifold is production ready, everything else is in various stages of prototyping. Also swapped in one of our radiators to make sure everything stayed cool. Ran at 5psi at MRLS and everything ran smoothly.

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1445027806

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1445027806

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1445027806

Dynoed on Tuesday after MRLS to confirm my power estimate (160whp). Butt-dyno is finely tuned:
https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1445027806

After MRLS, I added a 3" Enthuza exhaust and got the PS/AC hooked back up (parts didn't arrive in time for MRLS). We're up to 175-180whp now at 6psi. Next up is an EBC valve and/or medium boost actuator. Also need to get an oil cooler and reroute installed.

It sounds good with the Enthuza. :)

--Ian

I've been dialing in the EBC over the last couple of days. Still on the low-boost actuator and using the Pierburg valve that comes standard on every B1-frame EFR. Most settings swiped from Soviet, with a couple of tweaks for 1.3.4 (Normal output polarity instead of inverted and my own PID numbers).

Attachment 233310

Attachment 233311

Boost target is 160kpa above 50%TPS, 140kpa below that (wastegate is ~140kpa)

Thoughts? I get a little too much overshoot on big RPM rises (low gears), so I'm inclined to raise P a bit further (I've been as low as 20), but as P goes down, it doesn't want to find the target in 3rd and 4th, which makes me inclined to drop I a bit as well to reduce error on longer pulls.

Once I get this dialed in, I'll go back to the dyno for 8psi and 10psi pulls, then swap the 6758 in and get some spool comparison data, and then it's time for a built shortblock. :party:

Couple things.

1. Set the min and max DC for the boost control. It will make it easier for the code to hit its targets. (Multiple pulls increasing DC from 0 until you see a difference. Then start at 100 and do the same. Make sure overboost is working :) )

2. Use the initial values table. It will help with the oscillation by giving it a better starting point.

3. Lower the delta. You can use less P with a lower delta because the DC will be kept at 0 for longer. For example: when you are spooling currently the PID algorithm is trying to hit 160kpa. But it can't, because the turbo won't do it. So you end up with it winding up until suddenly it can't and you get overshoot. By lowering the delta (start with 30kpa) you let the PID algorithm rest while you spool.

4. Another thing to keep in mind is that the slider IS active in advanced mode. So make sure to dial it in in basic first.

5. Try some D. Might help with the overshoot but shouldn't impede reaching your targets in higher gears like lowering P does.

Car looks fun.

Ballsy order of operations :)

Thanks. I was thinking about reducing maxDC% a little. It seems to want to stabilize in the mid 30s, so I'll set it at 60% on the way home. I really want to avoid the initial values table, because those values are going to change as the target boost changes. If it comes to that, I'll enter some numbers there, but I want to see if I can do it without.

From what I remember the initial values table is a 3d table that's rpm on one axis, target boost on the other, and DC on the Z. You can basically copy your open loop table over to it. (You did tune open loop first like everyone says right ;) )

One last tidbit. Not sure if this applies to 1.3.4 (they may not have fixed it) but on 1.4 you can set min duty to something above what makes your turbo spool fastest (0% = wastegate closed) and it will hold at 0 until the delta is reached. It used to hold at your min percentage before. So really your min and max should be reasonable close together. The PID algorithm will have a much easier time working in a smaller range. You can be more aggressive and get better response.

The initial value table is important, you want it to put the DC close to the desired value when the EBC algorithm first kicks in. It has to use *some* value as the initial duty cycle, and if that value is way too high then boost will spike before it can control it, if it's way too low then it can drop the boost fast enough to drop it below the delta. That leads to a really violent oscillation as it kicks in and out of EBC mode.

And yes, it's a 3d map based on target MAP and RPM. It changes if you change the VE of the engine.

--Ian

But Sav mentioned changing with target boost. Don't need to worry about that because it is a 3d table.

1.4 uses a bias table where it is based off of the table the entire time. Though IMO it doesn't work well yet and needs some sort of temperature modifier. Also might just be my setup.

Aha, that makes more sense. OK, that's definitely worth using. And of course I didn't tune open loop before. :party:

0%=wg closed? I have it set up so that 0%DC = wastegate boost so if it fails, it fails to wastegate boost. Do you mean that 1.4.0 will let me set maxDC% to 60%, and it will hold the duty at 100% until the delta pressure is reached?

I am tuning on 1.3.4 right now, but I will switch over to 1.4.0 at some point soon.

Will input a min/max DC%, take a guess at initial targets (based on datalogs, it wants ~35% for 160kpa), and take some pulls on the way home tonight.

Yes. It will hold at 100% in your case until you reach x below your target boost (x = delta setting). Try it in 1.3.4. It was a bug in a 1.4 beta that may have been changed in 1.3.4 also.

Memory fail. Sorry. It will hold at your max value. The bug was that it would always be at your min value even when not trying to hit boost. Made for annoying clicking when it wasn't 0% DC.

Start with open loop at 100% and spool. Lower by 10 until you spool slower then back up 5% etc. Thats your max. I then give it a 5% buffer to be safe.

Max and min are the duty cycles at which the hardware valve is fully closed and open. That is, if you pulse a given solenoid at 1%, that's probably not enough for it to open at all, so 1% and 0% are equal. Similarly, it's going to saturate before it gets to 99%. Mine are set to 10 and 70.

By setting the max and min duty cycles you're telling the PID algorithm the range that it has two work on. Imagine min/max are 10/70, but you have them set to 0/100. As the RPMS climb, the PID algorithm is going to wind its output value all the way up to 100 trying to make boost before the turbo is physically able to do so. Once it *does* hit the target RPM, it's now going to have to work its way back down to 70 before the changes will have any effect on the boost level, which will slow down the response time. It will also also build up a lot of I contribution, so it's probably going to undershoot before getting back to where it wants to be.

IIRC, you can tune the values sitting still, just increase the DC on the valve until it starts/stop making noise. :)

--Ian

Hey Sav,

What fan did you use with your radiator and how did you wire it with the stock MSM harness setup? And how bad does it kicking on affect idle/droop?

I am using the OEM main fan, no A/C fan. The car is an '02 so it has separate fan plugs.

Sorry meant to reply to your email last night, I'll try not to forget tonight.

aidandj has given about the best closed loop EBC advice I have seen recently. Ken and James did some talking about EBC tuning at the MegaMeet 2 weeks ago. You should get upgraded to 1.4.0 firmware sooner rather then later. Drop the delta value to around 50 to start, then lower it once you get closed loop working well. Start with open loop and get relatively close values in that table. Then move them over to the bias table. It helps out a ton to have those close values close to make EBC work better.

Interesting. I am hearing both that 1.4 boost control is better than 1.3.4, and that it is not as good. Is there consensus?

Its different. I don't think 1.4 is perfect, but it is very very easy to get "close". I talked a bit about it with Savington at MRLS. IMO 1.4 gets you really close really easily, but the bias table is weighted too much in the equation. I have a thread open on msextra where a temperature modifier has been discussed, but i think the bias table just needs less weight.

I have a vm setup with the build tools and am going to try and change it and if it helps a lot I will suggest it to Ken. Currently I don't know enough about the code to ask him to change it, but changing it myself and getting good results will help.

I am also trying to hit 3x my internal wastegate spring with EBC, So tuning is extra hard for me.

PID tuning is the same in 1.4 you just need a very solid bias table. (Which is easy to get)

Once 1.4 is perfected it will be better than 1.3.4, and way easier to tune. You can get very close to perfect using just basic mode.

Here is some info about the new method of boost control

Setup mode is really cool. You put it in setup mode and it uses all of your closed loop boost control settings, except it doesn't use PID. So it uses your target delta, and then treats the bias table as open loop. This way you can tune your bias table starting with the RPM you hit your target delata, instead of just open loop where you have to hold the wastegate closed manually.

So you run setup mode. Find your bias table, then turn on simple mode. Raise the sensitivity of the slider until you get a little bit of oscillation, then use advanced mode to tune out the oscillation. You shouldn't need much P because you are using the bias table to get close to your values, and the PID is for minor corrections.

Somehow forgot to add the link to my thread over on MSextra. Its a really good read.

Megasquirt Support Forum (MSEXTRA) ? Tuning Boost Control With Bias Table (View topic)

Ex of my bias table:

It is not very finely tuned because I have been messing with it a lot lately. But you can see how I don't even start it until 3400. My wastegate does a weird thing where it needs a lot more duty randomly at around 5250, you I have a hump there, and then PID doesnt have to take care of it.

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1445968246

:love:

OL tuning went fast. This IWG is a beast. This is 33% across the board. A little overshoot the whole way through. 30% was too low so I settled at 32.

Attachment 233307

On to closed loop basic, target of 160kpa. 250 is too little P to reach the target, but too much to not oscillate the valve:

Attachment 233308

350 still isn't enough P to reach target quickly, but there's enough I to force it up to target boost at higher RPM:

Attachment 233309

I'm thinking I will go back to 250 and start tuning the advanced PID numbers from there.

Sounds like you got it.

When you switch to 1.4 just put your open loop table into the bias table. Then do basic again. I have a feeling with how good the BW IWG is you won't even need to touch advanced PID tuning.

Test it on a "cold" (forgot you were in cali :) ) morning on the way to work too. Thats when PID has to work the hardest against your bias table.

I want that turbo. Very jealous.

Is "cold" where it's below 60 in the morning?

For me yes. All systems react differently. I expect you to not have many issues. I do, but thats mostly from pushing too far above waste gate pressure I bet.

I'm close, but it's still not there. Turning Advanced PID mode on smoothed out the oscillations in the duty cycle curve, but it would still dip down to 10-11% as the boost came on, which was preventing it from ever reaching peak. At this point, I'm up to 400 on the slider, down to P5 I5 D0 on the advanced settings, and I've raised the initial duty from 32% to 37%, and it still doesn't want to overshoot. I have so much P in it at this point that I'm wondering if I've missed something.

Attachment 233306

You say P is 5. That's barely any P.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PID_co...portional_term

Basically only 5% of your current error is being applied to the corrections. So its barely being corrected at all.

See how each step boost duty increases a little bit? Adding P will make it increase more.

This shit gets confusing. I still don't have a good way to tune it all. When you find one let me know ;)