LTurner1

Realised a flaw with my build the other day, which is the oil pump casing (billet gears inside) is a 1.6(?) version that doesn't have the mounting point for the trigger wheel sensor.

Luckily my engine builder can create me a bracket to hold the sensor in place without me having to replace the pump with a different one.

I'm actually also about to make some more orders from the US, multiple sellers involved, I need a few more parts... inconel/locking hardware, thermostat blank, freeze plug and billet water pump inlet from Hawley performance, then possibly some sort of adjustable FPR system, maybe the FueLab one, I've got a Walbro 255 pump to wire in and I don't trust the OEM FPR. Whether or not I couple this with a dual feed rail or similar I don't know yet.

I've figured out the coolant routing around the engine thanks to a discussion with pysber_0ptix.

I think most of what's left now will be figuring out all the wiring. I'm going to make a list of everything and document it in here though because I'll end up forgetting.

der_vierte

always enjoying your updates.

As far as fuel goes, the stock fuel rail and FPR should be just fine. I would give it a try, because upgrading later is a super easy and quick task, no annoying stuff

LTurner1

Suppose I best update this...

I have had a crazy few months at the start of this year, you've probably read about the pressures Jaguar Land Rover are under, so I've been putting in a lot of hours to help the project I'm in, succeed. In doing so, I've had very little time to spend on anything other than flight training. As for that, I'm now 7 exams through the 9 required, and roughly halfway through the flying hours I need for my license, the biggest plus point recently was that I've now done 3 hours solo flying on my own and I'm still alive

I decided at Christmas that if I was to push for it, I could get my commercial license in a couple of years but at the sacrifice of the Mx5 buid. I did a whoopsie when I totalled up the parts cost in a spreadsheet and made a LOUD expletive when I saw the total... there lied literally my commercial pilots license training fee's...

So, I've already begun selling a load of parts, I decided that the best of both world approach would be to sell the engine, turbo and other expensive parts which were all still brand new and then restore the car back to a standard-ish state. My plans are to rust proof it, respray the shell and look at putting a VVT block in it seen as I already have a VVT head kicking around and an Ms3e. Seems a real shame to have never built it but the flying has to come first. There's also the chance for me to buy into a plane at the flying school so I can build my hours much quicker and I can't miss out on opportunities like that.

BBro

Sad we won't get to see all the new shiny stuff go on but it sounds like you made the best decision and the Miata can be built any time. Congrats on almost completing flight school! I actually always thought about becoming a pilot instead of doing engineering and I still do, but I'm almost through school now and I just don't see it happening.

LTurner1

Well if it makes you feel any better, I've been a software engineer for 8 years having done a degree in it, and I'm looking at career changing now that I earn enough to fund it!

LTurner1

Well... I said I was selling everything, and then I started realising how much I was losing anyway selling the parts.

Since selling a good portion of stuff I started regretting the decision and stopped selling for a bit, then just started restoring the shell anyway so as I could at least put a stock car back together.

Started by grinding down the crap inside the front wings and the cross member using a wire wheel on a grinder, cleaning it all down, using POR15 metal prep to sort the surface rust out and then more cleaning and degreasing and finally applying POR15 paint. The plan from here is to do the entire underside of the car like this, with two coats of the paint, then UPOL Raptor bedliner tinted red to go over it. That should hopefully be enough protection for a good while!

Some pics of the progress...





After all this work the car shall not be driven in wet conditions (goddamn salted roads).

As luck would have it, during the last couple of months I've been doing this, I got a promotion at work, payrise and a bonus... so then I figured I may as well just use the bloody engine I've had built anyway. So... yes the car will be using the new engine, but I've already sold the sexy manifold and EFR so I need to look at options now, because I can't afford to purchase those particular parts again.

-Lew

sixshooter

iTrader: (12)

Kraken and whatever turbo you can get a good deal on.

LTurner1

Yeah, the Kraken setups are looking appealing.

Turbo wise... wondering whether to go down the Holset route and see how I get on. I'm yet to do any reading on here to see if it's been done much, but they can be picked up cheap in the UK at least and from what I've read could be a good choice.

Might as well go for good power to make use of the engine.

sixshooter

iTrader: (12)

Are there holsets that are not optimized for the diesel engine? If they are diesel turbos they won't be all of you are looking for. Besides, you want something that Kraken can easily make a downpipe to fit.

LTurner1

There's a pretty useful guide on them here: Holsets

I'm looking at the HY35 as I think going to a HX35 may be too large. I feel like giving them a go, half the price roughly to what an equivalent Garrett would cost me and looks as though a lot of big power builds on various cars are using them.

If it doesn't pan out, then I'll just need to have a downpipe made again, as the flange should be reusable for another T3 turbo of some description.

The plan I think will be to use a Kraken exhaust and leave the rest to a local(ish) fabricator to make the manifold and downpipe, as they're pretty big and I want to maybe look at sitting it low down. Simply because it looks like I'll need to run an external wastegate and that won't be feasible with the Kraken kit.

Decisions need to be made, I'll be doing a lot more reading first, but I sure as hell can't fork out £1600 for another EFR.

LTurner1

Cars aside... my flying is going great. Hammered through the navigation phase and completed my QXC (qualifying cross country) flight on the Sunday just gone. That was a flight from Blackpool to Sleap (1hr 15m), then Sleap to Caernarfon (1hr 15m) and finally Caernarfon to Blackpool (1hr 05m).

Feels great to be flying on your own somewhere, rekindles the sense of adventure that probably a lot of you felt when you first get your driving license and can explore.

I've got some revision hours to do before my final skills test now and a radio-telephony practical exam and I'm done.




By this point I was exhausted. There were all sorts of air shows on I had to avoid marking the D-Day landings, as well as every tom, dick and harry out flying because it was a sunny weekend.

borka

iTrader: (1)

Why not go with a standard T25 kraken kit and a T25 turbo?
T25 turbos are cheap, and plentiful

Dont compound bad decisions.

Making a custom manifold/dp with ewg at a shop is a bad decision. And will be more expensive.

LTurner1

Compounding bad decisions is my forte.

I'm looking at a whole bunch of turbos at the moment, I don't see a T25 suiting my power goals.

Current favourites are;
Holset HY35 - cheap, T3 flange, would need ext wastegate
GTX3071R - Could use with a Kraken kit, often for sale on eBay
EFR6758 - Again, can use Kraken kit, but would need to be second hand, new prices here are just pain

-Lew

Caterpillar

If you're looking for a Holset with an internal gate. Try a HE221W, It has a T2 flange and fits on the Kraken manifold but you do need to make a custom downpipe flange.
They are available in Europe and should be good to around 380bhp.

They are mostly used on Saabs and other TD04HL based cars. (it's basically a TD04 with a better turbine wheel design).

LTurner1

Thread revival time again...

I've had an interesting 8-9 months or however long it's been since I last posted. I had a real push nearing the end of last year to continue my flying, I'm glad to say that in September I eventually passed, and have taken some family up so far...

Here's me trying to stay awake after my intense skills test to conclude my training. 2.5 hours of everything being thrown at me whilst trying to navigate a low cloud base.


and a few weeks later I received my official license



A life goal achieved for me, great feeling and utter freedom to explore.

From here I was looking at doing tons of flying and figuring out how to fund my commercial training so I took the decision to start selling all the parts from my Miata to fund it, I sold some of the exciting parts I'd bought and had raised a good chunk of cash. I had a break from flying towards the end of last year to finish my house off and unfortunately in that time, an airline called FlyBe went bust, they were one of the few I could look at getting into post-commercial training, and then with the current CoronaVirus and problems there the aviation industry has basically all but disappeared for me. So I made a decision to stop pursuing a career in it... So... that leaves me back to being a petrol head again, albeit with the awesome weekend hobby of going flying when I want.

So I'm back to building the car again...only minus a lot of exciting parts d'oh!!

At some point just before Christmas I got the engine delivered that I had built, if you look back a few pages you can probably see some of the progress pictures of that, thank god I didn't sell this too. Being the most expensive part! I've basically decided that I'm going to do this build properly, even if it takes me a couple of years to get it done. So I got the engine on my stand and will work on it from there.






There are literally hundreds of questions and things I want to figure out again, what bits do I buy, what power goal, etc etc. So no doubt I'll be getting back up to speed on here.

This engine should be good for 400bhp but I don't know if I want to venture into gearbox problems so I might tailor this to be a bit more conservative even knowing the engine can provide me with a lot more. I did originally buy a 6758 but this time I'm thinking either 6258 or a 2867R/3071R. Kraken kit looks the most appealing too with ease of everything coming in one lump. Nice strong and easy to work with manifold etc.

So I guess that's it, I'm back and looking forward to getting this thing built.

Once this CoronaVirus nightmare is over with I'm going to get the shell sent to a proper bodyshop and have them repair all rust, underseal it and respray the whole car. That's probably the best starting point for me, gives me time to collect all the bits I sold too... turbo, manifold kit, brakes etc etc.

And here's a pic of my cat, just because,



-Lew

portabull

congratulations on getting your license.

LTurner1

Thanks!

Being in pretty much total lock down in the UK has provided me with A LOT of spare time, even just the lack of commuting has saved me probably 2 hours a day. So I'm finding a lot of spare time to get in the garage and do bits on the car here and there. The first little project is going to be a raspberry pi project displaying some data from Megasquirt, I've already flashed a new image onto the pi added a Mazda splash screen at boot and then it loads a blank page for now, but I have a week off next week so I'm hoping to churn through a load of code whilst I'm off. Looking at talking to MS over CAN and already have a few open source libraries I can make use of to do it all, I know I could run TunerStudio on it but that's really bloated for what I want, I'm hoping to be able to swipe across the screen to rotate through maybe 3 different displays.

The other project I've been doing is rebuilding the diff. I picked up a 3.6 Type 2 Torsen a couple of years ago and it had sat in my garage since. After having a read on line I found a rebuild guide and a kit containing all the bearings (KOYO) and OEM seals so I figured I'd learn something new and do a full rebuild, it's gotta be nice having a fresh diff right?? I've ordered myself a Dial Test Indicator and some calipers that are large enough to span the gap for the bearing preload, so I'll be blocking out a full day in order to ensure that I get those settings absolutely perfect, if anyone has any tips on this please share!

I shoved the cast iron casing in an electrolysis bath overnight, and also put the aluminium casing in the dish washer, both have come out excellent. The cast iron part got treated to POR15 metal prep quickly and then POR15 rust prevention. I will be finishing off both with POR15 top coat, although the cast iron part will be glossy black and the ali part stirling silver.

I could really do with a hydraulic press, unfortunately I can't just drive to my mates and use his... and they're about £250 new here and the only other thing I can think of using it for is fresh hub bearings. So I might have to be patient to fully complete this part.

Anyway, some pics of my progress so far with it...







-Lew

der_vierte

That looks very good, got a 3.63 torsen on the side also and you might inspired me a bit to service it. Crazy times right now, but i'm also doing more work on the car, because of more free time.
Hope you can enjoy your car on the road this summer! I'm gonna work my *** of over easter to get this goal!

Zed.

I used malt vinegar to de-rust the pigs-head when I built my diff (does same job as electrolysis, takes longer but needs no power) and our dishwasher is called the Partswasher had a cylinderblock in there lastweek
https://i.imgur.com/Mv52n5V.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/iLnaNNy.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/2YhDl91.jpg
shame you've given up on the UK forums but I know they're just about dead now & nuts flatlined when vs took ownership

Rich.

LTurner1

I'm not expecting to get this back on the road until maybe summer 2021 to be honest, I want to build it right and it's going to cost a lot of money to get it where I want it, so I'm prepared for it to take a while.
I assume you're aware that Darren, the original creater and maintainer of Nutz, passed away about 18 months ago? He was a really nice bloke and did an excellent job setting up and running Nutz, completely pointless on there now, especially with the wealth of knowledge on here.
Looks like you did a good job of yours too! how did you find the rebuilding part? any tips?

-Lew