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I just bought frame rails and I'm hoping to get them installed in the next couple of weeks. Thanks for your help with my headlight issue btw. It turned out to be a relay that had decided to corrode pretty much right after it was installed.
Thanks! Good luck with the rails, install isn't too bad. Glad to hear that you got the headlight thing sorted out.
New issue -- when the a/c turns on, the serial to wifi adapter dies due to the voltage drop of the 2 giant spal fans turning on together. I think this also explains why my wideband would stick on 14.7 periodically. The LC-2 gets power from the same source and is set to read 14.7 during warmup. So I think it's been restarting. According to the MS3, I'm only getting a voltage drop of 14.2 - 13.3ish. Need to bust out the multimeter and measure the drop that the LC-2 and wifi adapter are seeing.
So the LC-2 controller and my serial to wifi adapter were seeing a voltage drop down to <10 V whenever the fans turned on. Ouch. The LC-2 would even shutdown when just the cooling fan turned on. So all the fuel tuning I've been doing with VEAL has been inaccurate a good portion of the time because my LC-2 was constantly rebooting and reporting 14.7 during warmup. Hopefully my VE table isn't too dicked up.
I fixed the issue by sourcing +12V from the battery instead of the alternator. Also cleaned up the ground point I was using on the chassis and stuck one of these under the dash to connect all my grounds.
Now the voltage at the LC-2 only drops to 12ish when the fans turn on and doesn't reboot. Serial to wifi adapter maintains a connection as well, so that issue is solved. Just need to run VEAL some more.
Did my first autocoss last weekend, had a blast.
I have a lot to learn! Car was great for the most part. I went with a friend who's been doing autox for a few years and he helped me get oriented. We dialed in the handling by adjusting the rear swaybar to its softest setting to make it a little less tail happy after I spun on my first run.
Had a little bit of drama towards the end. We missed out on our last run because the car didn't start when it was our tun to leave grid. It was the same issue that happened at Laguna Seca -- turned the key, heard a single click, then nothing. The accessories had power (lights, radio, etc), but it just wouldn't crank. Wasn't sure what to do, so I waited a bit then tried again and it fired right up. At Laguna Seca I thought it was the clutch interlock switch not working because of wires in the way, but I'm pretty sure it was just an intermittent failure and it went away on its own rather than because I moved some wires under the dash around. The car did it again before we left, and this time it took around 5 minutes to start again. We made it home and did some troubleshooting.
Tried to start it without pushing the clutch in to see if I coud reproduce the single click and no crank. No click, not the same behavior.
Tested battery voltage just to be sure, it was fine.
Replaced main relay with a spare.
Tested main fuse
Unplugged small blade connector on the starter to see if it was a loose wire or bad connection from the ignition to starter. No click.
Narrowed it down to the ignition switch as the likely culprit. Ordered a replacement last weekend and put it in yesterday.
Held in by 1 screw. Used an offset screwdriver to undo it.
It didn't give me any trouble driving to work and back during the week before I put the replacement in. It's a super intermittent failure so it's hard to say if its fixed or not. Just have to wait and see, but I'm hopeful.
I've just been daily driving the miata without working on it for the past few months. No issues until last Friday when I started it up to drive home from work and the car began to shake violently. Popped the hood and saw that my coilpack was arcing to the engine block. Limped home on 3 cylinders. AFRs were fine so hopefully I didn't kill my cat. That's the 3rd coilpack this car has eaten. The 99-00 ignition system is really terrible.
Thankfully I bought LS coils, the sadfab bracket and ignition wires, as well as Nigel's wiring harness a few months ago. Put those in over the weekend and got my 4th cylinder back. Idle is definitely smoother now, and the car sounds quieter. I think that the coilpack had a crack slowly develop in the insulator, so I was probably getting a progressively weaker spark until it finally let go.
Still haven't pulled the trigger on the turbo kit. The plan all along has been to get the FM stage 1, but I'm having second thoughts. My dream setup for this car would be a 2554R with a 3 inch exhaust, ideally with a catalytic converter, resonator, and the big Magnaflow 12578/12579. I want fast spool and quiet.
Option A:
FM stage 1 kit. 2560R should be responsive enough. Would be the easiest kit to install. I could put the kit on, drive it with the stock exhaust for a bit, then pickup the FM 3 inch downpipe, buy a cat and big magnaflow muffler and have a local shop put together an exhaust for me.
Option B: Kraken manifold, downpipe and 3 inch exahust. Replace the smaller muffler included in that kit with the 12578/12579. Pick up a 2554R, eBay intercooler and piping. It would get me the exact setup I'd like, but won't be as easy to install as the FM kit. Includes the hassles/headache of buying turbo fittings, DIY intercooler piping, etc, etc.
Option C:
MKTurbo. Less money than A or B, but I'd be missing out on a cast manifold and a water-cooled turbo.
Option D: EFR kit
Option C.2: Mkturbo kit minus turbo and source your own. Don't know if he'd do this but it would hurt to ask...
Haha. D is tempting but would lead me down the rabbit hole of built motors, 6 speeds, and an empty wallet. Honestly though I did entertain the thought -- "buy once, cry once." I could just run the 6258 on my stock engine, while slowly putting together a built motor. Aside from the price, the two things keeping me away are the small, but not negligible chance of bending a rod on my daily, and the lack of space in my garage. I don't have enough room in there to pull an engine so the logistics of doing a swap wouldn't be super easy. I'm not even sure I could fit both my car and an engine stand in there, so storing a spare motor wouldn't be easy.
C.2 is a good idea. I've heard a cast manifold is potentially in the works, might have to reach out.
Option B2: Kraken, but have a local exhaust shop make the exhaust from downpipe back.
I have a kraken set up with a TD04 on my 1.6 and the thing spools better than any turbo car I have ever driven. And this is with a 2.5" downpipe and 2" exhaust.
I've just been daily driving the miata without working on it for the past few months. No issues until last Friday when I started it up to drive home from work and the car began to shake violently. Popped the hood and saw that my coilpack was arcing to the engine block. Limped home on 3 cylinders. AFRs were fine so hopefully I didn't kill my cat. That's the 3rd coilpack this car has eaten. The 99-00 ignition system is really terrible.
Thankfully I bought LS coils, the sadfab bracket and ignition wires, as well as Nigel's wiring harness a few months ago. Put those in over the weekend and got my 4th cylinder back. Idle is definitely smoother now, and the car sounds quieter. I think that the coilpack had a crack slowly develop in the insulator, so I was probably getting a progressively weaker spark until it finally let go.
Still haven't pulled the trigger on the turbo kit. The plan all along has been to get the FM stage 1, but I'm having second thoughts. My dream setup for this car would be a 2554R with a 3 inch exhaust, ideally with a catalytic converter, resonator, and the big Magnaflow 12578/12579. I want fast spool and quiet.
Option A:
FM stage 1 kit. 2560R should be responsive enough. Would be the easiest kit to install. I could put the kit on, drive it with the stock exhaust for a bit, then pickup the FM 3 inch downpipe, buy a cat and big magnaflow muffler and have a local shop put together an exhaust for me.
Option B: Kraken manifold, downpipe and 3 inch exahust. Replace the smaller muffler included in that kit with the 12578/12579. Pick up a 2554R, eBay intercooler and piping. It would get me the exact setup I'd like, but won't be as easy to install as the FM kit. Includes the hassles/headache of buying turbo fittings, DIY intercooler piping, etc, etc.
Option C:
MKTurbo. Less money than A or B, but I'd be missing out on a cast manifold and a water-cooled turbo.
FYI, Kraken will swap out the included muffler for the miataturbo approved muffler if you ask him. He is responsive through facebook and I think it was a very minor upcharge to do it. I am still in the budgeting stage of my build but that is what I will be doing.
Option B2: Kraken, but have a local exhaust shop make the exhaust from downpipe back.
I have a kraken set up with a TD04 on my 1.6 and the thing spools better than any turbo car I have ever driven. And this is with a 2.5" downpipe and 2" exhaust.
Glad to hear it, everyone seems really happy with the Kraken pieces.
Originally Posted by andym
FYI, Kraken will swap out the included muffler for the miataturbo approved muffler if you ask him. He is responsive through facebook and I think it was a very minor upcharge to do it. I am still in the budgeting stage of my build but that is what I will be doing.
Thanks that's great to know! What does your budget look like so far and how does it compare to the costs of the various kits on the market? I started to do a rough price estimate on a DIY set up using the full kraken exhaust. Assuming a $50 Euro upcharge (complete guess) for the big Magnaflow:
Fairly liberal with the misc things but I think it's the correct ballpark. I'm looking at ~3.5k, vs the 4k + the cost of a 3 inch exhaust for the FM kit. The more I think about it, the more appealing the kit is honestly. It will certainly be more money, and I'd get a 2560 instead of a 2554, but the install and pre-install research would be much, much more straight forward. No sitting around pricing out fittings and buying/returning various degree silicone bends.
If FM is running their 15% off sale again at Laguna Seca I think I'll just pull the trigger on that. We'll see.
You won't be dissapointed. They are some of the nicest parts on my car (along with the Xidas and BBFW rollbar. Everything else is second hand on cheap)
Just bought the kraken manifold and exhaust with the big Magnaflow. Here we go.
Wait. Wtf? He said he'd do that? I've been trying to get him to do that for like two ******* years lol.
Actually kinda pissed about it. I had to have a local exhaust shop weld together an ugly looking setup with that muffler that wasn't even mandrel bent. And I stupidly got a chambered muffler instead of a straight through on the V2 kraken.
Well... atleast it's good that he's updating things for a V3 I guess. Sigh.
I guess this is why we can't have nice things.
Last edited by ridethecliche; 06-18-2019 at 06:09 PM.
Is this issue completely solved? I have the exact same issue with mine starting and it's driving me crazy. I disassembled and cleaned my stock ignition switch and that didnt fix it for me so I'm wondering if I should try a new one like you.
Wait. Wtf? He said he'd do that? I've been trying to get him to do that for like two ******* years lol.
Actually kinda pissed about it. I had to have a local exhaust shop weld together an ugly looking setup with that muffler that wasn't even mandrel bent. And I stupidly got a chambered muffler instead of a straight through on the V2 kraken.
Well... atleast it's good that he's updating things for a V3 I guess. Sigh.
I guess this is why we can't have nice things.
I wouldn't have thought to ask if andym didn't mention it. Super excited to get this kit, I'll post pictures of it once it arrives. Hopefully with a cat, inline resonator, and the big Magnaflow I'll have a quiet and stealthy exhaust without giving up much spool.
Originally Posted by YankyMate
Is this issue completely solved? I have the exact same issue with mine starting and it's driving me crazy. I disassembled and cleaned my stock ignition switch and that didnt fix it for me so I'm wondering if I should try a new one like you.
I haven't had any problems starting since I replaced the switch. It seemed to happen when I would leave the keys in the ignition for a few minutes and then try to start. I've done that quite a few times while tuning and haven't had any issues. It was really intermittent so I can't say for sure if it's gone.
I wouldn't have thought to ask if andym didn't mention it. Super excited to get this kit, I'll post pictures of it once it arrives. Hopefully with a cat, inline resonator, and the big Magnaflow I'll have a quiet and stealthy exhaust without giving up much spool.
Yeah, I got my kit a few months ago and installed it recently. Wasn't an option then and trust me I asked! Maybe next time if I can't get it sorted locally haha.
Now I need to really figure out a few odds and ends that I hadn't planned for while researching this build because I originally intended to go with the FM kit. Namely, heat shielding, potential hard oil/water lines, intercooler and piping, and an intake.
For heat shielding, I'd like something that's effective and looks at least somewhat clean. I'm leaning towards purchasing the FM or begi shields and then massaging them to work with the kraken manifold turbo placement. I've already swapped the heater hoses to silicone and wrapped them in high temperature insulating sleeve. I'll get additional insulating material for the brake and cruise control lines. The shield will be responsible for reflecting radiant heat from the turbo, everything else will just get wrapped in non-reflective insulation.
The kraken kit ships with water and oil lines, but I would really like to have stainless steel hard lines for reliability purposes. Again, I'm leaning toward buying the FM ones and seeing if they can be bent/finangled to work. At worst, I could connect them to the turbo then chop them near the other ends -- the main benefit is heat resistance closest to the turbo. They're quite pricey though, especially for something that might not even fit.
For the intercooler I need to decide between FM and the fab9 stage 1 and DIY piping. With the FM one, the cold side should be plug and play. In theory, the hot side will just need a bit of finessing and potentially a few pieces from siliconeintakes to make it to the turbo. Might be able to save some money going with the fab9 unit and custom piping, but it wouldn't be as clean and robust as the formed silicone hoses from FM.
Intake will be tricky. Continuing with the theme here, I could get the FM air box. Not sure how much it will run because it's not posted for sale separately on their site. Doubt it will be cheap. Either way some type of air box will be a must have. I really dislike the look of bare cone filters for some reason. Probably because it reminds me of when I first bought this car and it had a knock off K&N filter zip tied to the power steering reservoir.
Picked up this stock muffler for cheap. I pulled off my racing beat power pulse today and will post it for sale once I clean it up. Proceeds will go towards the turbo bits. I enjoyed it, it was a great aftermarket exhaust for adults -- quiet at idle and low rpm, but had a nice sound high rpm. Doesn't make any sense to keep it though with where this build is going.
FYI just installing the vibrant 12800 which is a fab9 without brackets. Fits fine with the FM silicone hoses. Might need to trim them though when I'll do the fog light oil cooler install.
FYI just installing the vibrant 12800 which is a fab9 without brackets. Fits fine with the FM silicone hoses. Might need to trim them though when I'll do the fog light oil cooler install.
Thanks for the heads up! Nice ducting on the intercooler, that looks great.
I have decided to go with the FM intercooler kit after calling them up today. Ideally I'll be able to get a 2554R with matching compressor inlet/outlet flanges and the correct wastegate bracket from their turbo supplier, limit engineering. I'll call them once I'm ready to pull the trigger on the turbo.
Going to skip the oil/water hardlines to cut costs down and avoid the hassle of adapting them to the kraken manifold turbo placement. I'll just pick up some heat sleeve for the oil drain hose from kraken, and possibly replace the water lines with silicone and buy heat sleeving for them as well.
Next major purchase will be the turbo itself. Then in October I'll buy the FM intercooler and hose kit and heat shield. Assuming they have the same sale that they did last year, which was 15% back in store credit, I'll use that towards the airbox, filter and turbo hush kit in a second order later on.
In the meantime, there are plenty of odds/ends to research and buy as well as small jobs to tackle.
Just bought this stainless steel tee fitting to use at the oil pressure sender port for the turbo oil feed. Read a couple threads that mentioned brass tee fittings cracking so I went this stainless piece to hopefully avoid that failure mode. Picked it up from here: Oil Pressure Sensor Adapter, 1/8" BSPT - Engine - Autotech Motoring
From previous posts it looked like TSE offered a similar fitting but no longer does. Would have preferred to purchase from there but hopefully this will do the job.
09-24-2018, 08:12 PM
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