No more fan cycling since the 180°F thermostat install. The housing is a pain in the ass and I had to buy two PVC wrenches from home depot and the threads leaked. I broke it apart and just Teflon taped the threads without leaving any overhanging into the housing. I'm tired if this janky ass housing. Hopefully I won't have to split it again anytime soon.

It's already dark and cold today, but I want to wire up the LS coils soon. Then ship the car off for tuning.

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1447283940


LS2 coil install


https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1447283940


LS2 coil install


LS2/7 Coil installed today using the Singulär brackets. THERE IS ONE ISSUE i'm worried about. These brackets position the coils and spacers such that it's pressing against the cam angle sensor connector on the VVT valve cover. I have a spare on hand but I don't know if there's enough space to slot the holes. Hopefully it doesn't break. I had an oops moment with the wiring and it was an interesting time troubleshooting with the output test mode. So firing order was all off initially.

The FM wires may need to be shortened, but they aren't too bad right now

Washers underneath.

It's pressed up along it's side, it'd have to spaced up quite a bit, quarter inch or more.

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...p;d=1447285649

We had the same problem when installing mine.

We pulled off that spacer where it contacts, then took a grinder to the spacer to create clearance.

Edit: also, it's hard to tell from that photo but I'd suggest using locking nuts on the brackets. Mine came loose once after very little driving. Replaced with nylock and have lasted through about 2500 street miles and 3 track days without issue.

Thanks for the input. I suppose I'll be pulling this apart sooner than later.

I have two serrated flanged nuts in a jam nut configuration for now. I'll run out and get some lock nuts tomorrow. I was thinking about trying to drill a hole into the rod for a cotter pin, but probably more trouble than its worth.


Idle is smooth, and these things are loud! But I hope they don't flap out at higher boost like the Fab9's.

Finally, done with all cooling and engine mods to dyno it. I don't think the rings are happy though, I'm scared to do a compression/leakdown test because I don't want to build another motor. It get's kinda puffy early mornings.

TO DO:

I got NB knuckles all around, they just need new bearings and hubs. Control arms came in today with poly bushings. My ball joint's are TOAST. Have Cordycords powdercoated rear subframe on standby. Gotta find a diff/housing to pop the 3.63 ring/pinion into for less downtime.

I'd like to take care of the rear in one go. But fronts take priority.

Car looks good :). At what power level did you start having issues with the fab coils? Curious as I am thinking of getting some. Hope your dyno time goes well and you can enjoy the car

well, I'm not certain because it's been an uphill battle troubleshooting and getting things to work slowly with this car. Earlier there was no VVT table populated, but it made 301whp @16psi. As soon as I tinkered with VVT, and played with retuning, the FAB9's would flake out at higher RPM under load. I couldn't tell you exactly as eyes where probably deadlocked onto the road. I think it's when the AFR dipped under 12 with full boost (~18-20psi) it would just misfire through that band. I don't want to make it ultra lean up top, I'll leave these adjustments to the tuner.

How does one check to see if the Knock sensor is working properly?

I'm about to take my car to a tuner on Saturday, and want to make sure everything is set.

@patsmx5

There is more to it than "working properly"

You have to have the knock module installed, and set up windowing.

Knock module is installed, whats windowing?

You set up when its looking for knock, and what is knock and what is normal engine noise. There is a good thread on it around.

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1447370496


https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1447370496


https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1447370496



This is what I have. I wonder if I've been destroying the motor this whole time and not realizing

Oh my god, such a recent thread and it didn't show up on my radar.

I wouldn't even know where to begin dialing this in. It looks so arbitrary to my brain

My opinion is you need to figure out when it's knocking, and then what your knock sensor shows when it's knocking. I did this a couple different ways. One, was just add timing at 2K under load until it knocked. I could hear it, it was bad... knock sensor hit 100% by the time I could hear it. And no knock was under 20% for reference at this same RPM/load.

Second was to read the plugs and determine if it's detonating. I kept getting faint spikes in my log on a couple different cylinders at certain RPMs (6,800 mainly). Figured it was fake knock. Nope, it was real. Checking the porcelien on the plug with a 10x magnification and good lighting showed tiny black specs and aluminum on the plugs. I pulled timing and made per-cylinder adjustments since I had 2 cylinders in particular that were consistenly worse than the others.

Now I can read the plugs and see they're clean, and coorelate no-knock to what the knock sensor says, then adjust the band up about 10-15%. That way if it says knock, it is in fact knock.

Copying other peoples numbers isn't going to get it dialed in unfortunately at least for the threshold.

I run my windowing as you posted though, 20* window starting at TDC.

Routed the piping through the fender area, this clears up space near where the A/C compressor will be remounted. For now, I just let the air filter sit downward versus in front of the radiator. Hopefully this helps facilitate some better airflow through the hood vents. I also got the fancy aluminum undertray. Trimmed a bit for my intercooler. Passengerside is a lot more complicated because of the piping is jacked. Hopefully I'll get that side on soon.




https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1447455472


https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1447455472


https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1447455472


https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1447455472

Routed the piping through the fender area, this clears up space near where the A/C compressor will be remounted. For now, I just let the air filter sit downward versus in front of the radiator. Hopefully this helps facilitate some better airflow through the hood vents. I also got the fancy aluminum undertray. Trimmed a bit for my intercooler. Passengerside is a lot more complicated because of the piping is jacked. Hopefully I'll get that side on soon.




https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1447455483


https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1447455483


https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1447455483


https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1447455483

That undertray looks awesome.

http://lrbspeed.com/product/na-miata-aluminum-belly-pan/

I'll buy your undertray when you buy one of those ed.

God dammit. Why must you post that? Now I have to spend money.

I don't like the hook tabs, but the rest is awesome.

It has a nice diverter built in on the top side which directs air up to the radiator rather than letting it pass from the bottom. Be careful if your I tercooler sits lower than the radiator and bottom of the stock air am trim piece. This piece is required as it uses the 4 bolts up front. My begi unit sits a tad bit low so it pulled the bumper downward slightly. Not a big deal when the sides are mounted but I have a lot of snapped m6x1.0 to drill out and retap for the passenger side to mount. The driver side I had to bend the rear most tab upward and will probably just use a self tapping screw or a rivnut

It's very cool, but I personally wouldn't buy it for my application. I had to cut my stock undertray a LOT for intercooler tubing and brake ducts. Not interested in repeating that process with aluminum.

Yea, totally understand. My stocker wouldn't work well with the intercooler and because so many snapped bolts reduced mounting possibilities, the stocker just wouldn't do for my application. Half the reason I rerouted the hot side was to simplify the holes cut into the tray and reduce the aggressive wiggles and pinching between the sway bar when it was routed from the front side (prohibiting the A/C compressor from mounting up)

Dropped the car off to get tuned. Hopefully it doesn't blow up in a week or find that it has shitty compression and leak down

I'm stoked!

Tuner just called in, did a leakdown and started tuning. In no particular order, using 100psi input, the leakdown reading/results are:

91 psi - 9%
92 psi - 8%
92 psi - 8%
93 psi - 7%

They said that there was some infrequent spark blowout at 22-24psi, so they had to gap the plugs to 0.028"

I'm getting giddy

:likecat:

It made 351WHP, working on getting the chart but I'm away on travel right now. Also I'm still on the stock (medium) IWG can. I'm reading the Full-Race EFR tech document, and it says not to pressurize this can over 19psi. Uh Oh.

:likecat:

:likecat:

:likecat:

How did you like PTuning's dyno? I have yet to get on it, but I was around when they will building their facility back in 08-10. One day I want to get up to get on it and try it out.

That's real stout.

Thing must rip like crazy

:likecat: hope you have an extra transmission handy

Their Dyno seems to be a "heartbreaker" but it doesn't matter as I have nothing to bench the gains against. I don't know if they've tuned any Miata's in stock trim. I think there was a dyno day recently, I'll have to poke around the local group.

As far as their service/review of PTuning:
From what I've read, they seem to be a bit pricey in terms of parts/labor custom jobs. Tuning seems on par with the NOVA area, but Ken knows WAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY more than I ever could about megasquirt. I was just in for an alignment and he spent two hours going over my map and explaining what things meant, why you do this or that, how this could change. As though this is what he did because it was fun puzzle for him.

Every correspondence I've ever received from them was concise, and friendly. It made me comfortable enough to take my car there for a retune than other "Miata" shops in the area.

Like every shop, you hear stories. But not only did they ballast the driver side and dial in the alignment exact as I prescribed without any ± values, they went out of their way to help me locate and isolate other issues while the car was on the lift. My brake lines are apparently too short when steering lock to lock. I had an oil leak from the pressure sender. Little things, but nothing that they had to go out of their way for.

They walked me through the entire process of their tuning and setup of the vehicle down to the drivability and waiting for several cold mornings to dial in cold start and idle. To calibrating the knock sensor after tuning was done to ensure that the signal that was being read was noise vs knock. They called in to give me progress on benchmarks and made me aware of the timeline with each update and what they planned on doing.

As far as my transactions with them, I'm satisfied until proven otherwise.

I do as a matter of fact! Picked one up locally for $600


Now I'm just looking for another diff to install the 3.63 gears so I can reduce the mechanical advantage and truly shred gears.

:giggle:

Sounds like a legit place.
I really like places that go the extra mile like that, it's always worth every penny extra to go to someone like that.

That is very good to hear. They were the first shop that I bought any performance parts from way back in 2005. They had a small hole in the wall shop that mostly did mail order and web sales. They were sponsors of CDC for autox so I spent a lot of time hanging around bullshitting with them.

Once they started looking into moving and becoming a full service performance shop I pushed it heavily. I remember talking to them about hoy they wanted to build the dyno room, so that it was climate and sound controlled. It was ages ahead of what any other dyno shops in the NoVA area could offer. Ken is definitely a good tuner.

The only negative things I have heard were back when they first opened. There were a few people with miata's that got alignments and they did not tighten the bolts enough. From what I understand they quickly fixed the people car and started torqueing the alignments bolts tighter and no problems since then. Prices are a bit high, but their quality shows off why.

One day I am hoping to get up to NoVA for a weekend and go out and get on the dyno. Will probably go with my friend and his late 60's Camaro and see who can make more power. If it happens I will probably do some sort of meet there that day. Maybe even an MKTurbo dyno day.

They will go above and beyond for customers, but they do charge appropriately for it. It is honestly one of the few shops that I would consider having do any work on any of my miata's if I could not do it myself. At one point in time if you were out of town and getting major service done, they would even put you up in a hotel for the night.

Let me know, I'll attend an MKTurbo meet! Why do they seem relatively underrepresented in the area? Is it because they are "All the way in Manassas?"

Probably just a different automotive demographic? They where big on scion at first iirc? But they've tapped into the Honda and Subaru scenes.

Remember that if you're using EBC or an MBC, the wastegate can isn't seeing the full pressure of the intake manifold. You're fine :party:

Ah shit

EBC possibly will, depending on how high you turn up the boost and how well ebc is tuned. With oscillations it could see 19psi or more.

whew

I had already ordered the new can

Holy fuck I love this build.

you're more than welcome to take it off my hands :D

Don't tempt me!

Though you have my attention.....

*piqued, dammit.

You actually still wanna sell this thing?

Remember that time I was going to buy it? lol

Fixed. Lol

Yea, it's always for sale, I just don't know what a reasonable price is.

So come to find out, the knock sensor does not register in Tunerstudio. So things that could be wrong:
-The knock module is not installed correctly
-the knock sensor is not wired in correctly
-the knock sensor is faulty

I'm giving Braineack the benefit of the doubt since he knows these things back and fourth. I will try switching the ground to a sensor ground right back to the MS3x instead of chassis ground. I'll try to pick up another knock sensor. Criminy I'm tired of these wiring shennanigans

The IACV may be getting stuck which is why I've been having such difficulty with idle settings. This makes sense. Currently the tune is set to open loop and is very stable. I got a spare IACV (used) and will swap some day.


In the mean time I have ordered parts and am expecting more coming in:
V8Roadster tubular control arms
NB Rear Subframe (freshly powdercoated)
NB Front subframe
NB steering rack (hopefully)
NB uprights all around
ARP wheel studs
949 Hybrid motor mount kit

FWIW I had a dead on arrival Knock module on my MS3 PRO. Ended up testing everything possible, then hooking a 3.5mm audio jack from my laptop to plan a sine wave sweep into the knock module, and then piggy-backed a set of ear phones directly to the knock sensor wires and listened myself as I the sine wave sweep was transmitted into the wires and the MS reported 0.0% the entire time.

Then mailed it to DIY and they confirmed it was bad, and then replaced it.

Got it back, dead on arrival again. Tested everything. Solder looked good. Then pulled out a 10x magnifcation and looked at the solder, it looked like shit actually. Sent it back AGAIN. They resoldered the board, tested it and emailed me a log of it working, got it back, been working every since.

Also, FWIW, if you knock windowing has negative numbers, there was (probably still is) a bug where it will report 0.0% all the time. So you have to run 0 or a higher number. Reverant pointed that one out to me, I reported it, they ignored my email to fix it.

And finally, I have a new/never used/in the wrapper EFR high boost can I'm not using.

Fuck.

I was in Texas last week, I'm sad I didn't pack my car in my checked luggage so you could scope it out for me.

In the end, I didn't end up using the high pressure can I had ordered. As it was explained to me, the wastegate should have no issues as far as what max boost is seen. The boost control solenoid is designed to switch ports at the designated frequency. When the solenoid is off, boost pressure is sent directly to the wastegate and so should never see more than the spring pressure. When the solenoid is on, the wastegate and atmospheric ports are linked instead while the reference port is shut, similar to having the wastegate seemingly be disconnected. If there's a situation where the wastegate is seeing 19+psi, then there will be more issues than just the wastegate.

I'm afraid to ask scott for any more help. Wonder if just sending it off to DIY would be appropriate.

The right thing to do is to wire a 3.5mm audio plug into the knock sensor (one to knock, one to sensor ground, no poloarity just pick L or R channel), then plan a 20-20,000Hz Sine Wave Sweep from youtube at a low-ish volume into the megasquirt. If you don't get a huge reading on the MS, and your software settings are as I said, knock module is bad, send it for repair.

Also nice power! Meant to type that in first post, got too caried away. 350 wheel is nuts!

I just ordered some bits to revamp the fuel system. New fuel lines for everyone! Just need to get fuel pump and FPR. Flex Fuel by spring time!

I had the awesome opportunity to meet up with forum member lvw yesterday and picked up a diff I could use to rebuild with the 3.63 ring and pinion. I'll have to drive around and get some quotes. It was really great to talk and geek out over miata stuff. It makes me want to meet more like minded folks over bbq or some huge install day.


Does anyone add zerk fittings to v8Roadster control arms?

Future works
FUEL: fuel rail, lines, fpr, flex sensor, fuel pump

SUSPENSION: NB front/rear subframes, v8Roadster control arms, rebuilt/rebearing NB uprights

DIFF: OSGiken + 3.63 final drive

ENGINE: Oil cooler

BODY: rust repair/new fenders

BEER: Weienstepaner Hefeweissbier

What fuel system bits did you get. Going AN lines? Or just new rubbers. What fuel pump/afpr

Excited to see more people running flex fuel, I've got a sensor I'm installing soon.

You should add zerks to the arms if you are running poly or delrin bushings. If you went full baller and got the spherical arms probably not as necessary.

I'm replacing with PTFE coated AN lines. Looking at the DW300, FuelLab 818 filter and maybe a Radium Engineering FPR since it just takes the drop in Bosch regulators. If you need more fuel pressure, there's an OEM 4 bar you can drop in.

These are the Poly busing arms, but not all the bushings are split. So on some I'd have to drill through and align. I'll do some info digging to see what size and placement.