Look like rubbing issue solved, good luck in VA.

Your fitment is garbage

Great thread, and fun car!
Subscribed to see how you make out at future events!

https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...16e75fbe1c.jpg

*Record scratch*
*Freeze frame*
*Baba O'riley begins playing in the background*
Yup... thats me... how did I end up on a flatbed with a smashed front end at 9am on a Saturday? Well to tell that tale we have to go back to the previous day....


The 6hr trip to Norton, VA went smoothly. The mountains and views of that area make the trip much easier on the eyes. Unlike Pine and Dragon, there is ample amounts of paddock space for those without bigrigs, so finding slots to setup was easy.
Much like Pine Mountain, there is a pre-event party held in the center of the town. Except Norton doesn't have a town square, so they shut down a block of main street for us. Food, music, and a chance for locals and drivers to mingle.
https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...c7d290db9a.jpg

I put my trash fitment to use and hardparked as best I knew how
https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...a32a2354fe.jpg

At some point we went and scounted the hill. It was MUCH steeper then videos had portrayed. Especially in some of the double switchbacks, you're ascending a few hundred vertical feet in less than three turns. We decided that there were effectively three "straights" where one could open up and get into high 2nd/3rd, and each ended in tight hairpins that exiting with good speed would be critical. The hard part would be carrying that speed and exiting with traction.

With that basic scouting done, we turned in at one of the local hotels. Sidenote for future use, I HIGHLY suggest camping for anyone able to do so at this location. The campgrounds at Flag Rock are gorgeous and views spectacular, while the hotels are... umm... not high end to put it nicely, and I have fairly low standards.
https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...34f20ba66a.jpg

Day 1 of competition dawned and everyone prepped for their first runs on a slightly damp course due to showers that had passed though the evening before. The start line was about 1.5mi from our paddock space in town so we were given police escorts to and from, which was actually nice to use to put some heat into the brakes and gearbox before heading up the mountain.

First run up I just stuck it into third and kinda cruised my way up the first "straight". Came around a blind kink in the road at about ~70mph and realized too late I had already reached the end of that "straight" and the next hairpin had arrived. I went to the brakes, but the road was damp, tires cold and they just locked. I pumped them a few times but I just didn't have the room and went right off into a ditch at about 20-30mph.
https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...1274617c98.jpg

Zero chance of getting myself out of that ditch and I didn't really know the condition of the radiator, so they put me on a flatbed and hauled me down to the bottom of the road. Unfortunately the SD card in my Gopro corrupted 30 seconds into every recording, so I have no footage from this incident or anything from Saturday.

https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...4241a58ef4.jpg

The local running the flatbed earned his money over the weekend. While I was the first to go off into what would later become the Turn 3 Pit of Doom, I was far from the last, as 6 of the 8 accidents over the weekend would be at T3, and some cars hit it with faaaar more speed then I did, going through the ditch and starting to ascend the bank on the other side.

Once off the flatbed and out of everyone's way, I had a chance to do a quick damage assessment. The oil pan and radiator looked to be OK and while completely crushed, the nose and splitter weren't about to fall off so I drove it back to paddock while keeping an eye on the gauges. A more thorough disassembly in paddock confirmed that the major cooling and oiling systems were fine, but my radiator ducting was crushed, alumalite splitter blade crumpled and folded, and splitter mounts cracked.

I borrowed my buddies truck and hopped over to the local hardware store to procure a sheet of plywood, some misc hardware, and a circular saw. The nose/airdam I left on the asphalt heated sun, and when I returned it was soft enough to mold back into shape, so that was salvageable. With some questionable methods and a ton of zipties, I built some new splitter supports, enough to support the nose and keep the front end mostly together. My off was early in the morning during the first run, and I had the car patched up enough to run again right after lunch break.
For the lolz, I didn't bother to trim the big plywood sheet, and so I present to you... Splitterus Maximous.
https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...27b9cbf213.jpg

Yes it dragged at anything over 20mph, but it had the intended effect of forcing me to take it VERY easy my first complete run up the hill, so at least I had SOMETHING on the timing screens. It was a very uncompetitive time, 17 seconds back from the rest of my class that were on their 4th runs, but by golly, at least I had made it to the top.

I trimmed down the splitter to a more reasonable size and elbowed my way into some other run groups to try and play catchup, and by the end of the day I had fought my way back to the first page of results, 3rd in class and 7th overall.
https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...5fe4eb7eb5.jpg

This hill is... well its relentless, busy, and brutal for lightweight, RWD cars that don't make much low end torque. It is VERY similar to Pine Mountain and its complexes of tight switchbacks. In car videos do NOT do the elevation changes justice, especially in the switchbacks. Here's an outside perspective that shows what we are dealing with much better... now remember this is only one of two double switchbacks, and there are 5 more single switchbacks.


It was at this point at the end of day 1 I realized my gopro had been stopping all recordings after 30 seconds due to a corrupted SD card. So I both didn't have footage of me doing earthmoving, but more importantly, had no footage to review for the day ahead. Obviously this is a pretty big handicap as I'm normally able to pull 2-3 seconds back after reviewing footage and making adjustments for the next day.
In discussion with the other Miata drivers over dinner, it was mentioned that they had to go down to 1st for the double hairpins to get some sort of reasonable exit RPM's. I had been using 2nd and even with the extra half liter of displacement over a BP, it was bogging pretty hard. The hill is just so damn tight and steep, the penalty of an extra shift and wheelspin on exit was worth it to avoid single tire fires and diff destroying tire hookups on corner exit.

Day 2 dawned on an already dry course. I did one warmup run then started pushing as much as I felt comfortable with again. 1st was definitely faster for several corners, but it was absolutely savage on the gearbox... the syncos do NOT like getting hammerfisted in at those speeds and let it be known.
Third run of the day I clicked off my quickest time, a 1:57.4. 20 second improvement over my first full run of the weekend, 4 seconds back from class leader, and 8 seconds back from overall leader.
For reference, the Turn 3 Pit of Doom is at 45 seconds. They put cones on the left hand side for day 2 to help visually reference people for that corner since they had so many cars go off there the day before.



I managed to fend off 4th place by just over a second and held onto my 3rd in class, moving up to 5th overall. After the way the weekend started... I'll take it.
https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...02f836e1fa.jpg

Once again, fastest Miata up the hill!
https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...eabd588f1c.jpg

There was a point, sitting in the car, yelling at my steering wheel with an upfront and personal view of a mud ditch, when I didn't think I'd be able to even make it up the hill, so to be able to play catchup and still get a podium feels like a huge personal accomplishment to me.
The car was never 100% after that hit... besides the(minor, for this hill) aero loss, I'm pretty sure my alignment was knocked off. Grinding 1st so many times has left the rest of the gearbox feeling notchy, 5th already grinds, and reverse is sticky, so I think it's seen its last shift after two seasons.

My splitter supports need a complete rebuild... the metal supports are bent, twisted and cracked from the off. I don't joke when I say that plywood replacement was held on with a 10mm bolt, two elevator bolts, and a bunch of zipties.
I think I have an engine plan for 2023... still working on some details, but hopefully it's not a completely stock junkyard motor for next year. Already I feel the need for more power. Between that and my new purple crack addition, heroin seems like a soft drug.
I may or may not run one more NASA event before the year closes... I got my provisional TT license back in April, but I still need to do a TT event for a full license, and I'd rather do that before they forget I exist. Want to go back to Road Atlanta when its cool out and see if I can click off a low 30 with these newish A7's.

https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...943a9b26ef.jpg

Nice job. I think this event had more offs than any other hillclimb in recent history, including several of the top performers. Seemed like there was another off every time my FB feed refreshed.

Nice recovery, and definitely a nice story to tell! Regarding elevation change, this is more or less every typical hillclimb around here hehe

Looks like a fun event and hill to climb!
Sorry about the off, but glad there is no serious damage.

I don't know if you tried this, but I've found a double-clutch downshift into first gear to be much easier on the syncros. Takes a bit of practice to nail it while heel-toeing but is definitely nicer to the equipment.
In other cars/transmissions it is the only way you can actually get first gear to engage at speed.

I think 2021 Pine was also a bit of a mess. Not as many as here, but certainly close. Must be something about a new hill that does that, as 2022 Pine was relatively clean IIRC.
Does double clutching actually do anything for a "modern" transmission? I had thought that was only for old school, non-syncroed transmissions. Or is it just the fact that it's a slower shift and allows the syncros to catch up a little bit more?

My buddy Erik said he spent some time talking with you. Hope you talked him into 275s and cutting fenders.

Wow, sorry to hear about your 'off', happy to see your good recovery - well done!

I have always believed 'double shuffling' done properly (a lot of people just blip the throttle, clutch in, between gears ) eases the load on the synchros, with benefits to synchro life. That belief however is uncontaminated by any facts that I am aware of ...

275's, yes absolutely. I don't remember if fender flares were discussed. I know NB's can fit a good bit more tire under under pulled fenders then NA's can, but don't know if 275 hoho's fit in that realm.
I honestly don't think this is an issue for any other gear except trying hard downshifts into 1st, when the trans REALLY doesn't want to catch up to the aggressive change in gearing. For aggressive track use at higher-then-stock-power, I just treat 5spd transmissions as 2-3 year consumables. Weather they die from gear/synchro wear, bending a clutch fork, or just general clunkiness from being hammered into gear lap after lap. Yeah if one were to really baby the transmission for every shift and take steps to keep the trans cool, you could probably get 4-5+ years out of a 5sp transmission running at ~170ft/lbs. But the closer you get to the pointy end, the faster things wear out.

Or maybe I'm just a ham fisted brute when it comes to shifting transmissions and a "new" transmission every few years is the price I pay for that.

So this second junkyard K24 has... never been completely healthy. While it ran well and seems to make equal power to the first motor(from here on out, referred to as motor #1 and motor #2), it has had a constant stream of glitter during oil changes and in the filter media.
https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...4d97c7d84e.jpg


The first few changes I just told myself it must be old bearing material left over from the implosion of motor #1 that didn't get fully cleaned out... but when the amount of glitter didn't lessen during oil changes #4 and #5 I knew there was something amiss.
Additionally, the motor had become very slow to build oil pressure on cold startups. As in, crank crank crank fire......... running... (3-4 second delay).. running... and there's my oil pressure! I'd made it part of my routine to crank with the ECU off for 10-15 seconds to prime everything before throwing the avionic buss on and starting it for real. Definitely not normal. I was REALLY crossing my fingers during the Flag Rock weekend, hoping that it didn't let go while I was 6hrs from home in the middle of nowhere.
But now with a lull in activities, it was time to dig in and see what was going on. Out comes the engine for the... 6th(?) time in as many months. Yay!

Soon as I had the valve cover off, I noticed some issues.
https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...992e11b55e.jpg

Hmmm... yeah that cam lobe isn't exactly perfect. While that's the worst one, there's some amount of pitting on basically every lobe.
https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...18dda8c22e.jpg

The pitting isn't consistent with oiling issues though... more likely corrosion damage from sitting. Motor was probably outside at the junkyard and got some water into the valve cover(actually I think I recall there being water in the oil pan when I first got it, so this tracks) that ate into the cams over time. No idea how long it was in the junkyard.
This doesn't explain the slow oil pressure build though, so I continued to dig in.

Popped the oil pan off and... ummm.. yeah.
https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...1107499c8e.jpg


Okay... not good, but doesn't explain the oil pressure... OH!

https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...81e075ba21.jpg

Hmmm... well that DOES help explain things.
Those four allen bolts hold the pickup tube to Kpower's oil pump adapter. They are installed at Kpower and... apparently aren't locktited or lockwashered? The threading was fine, but three were backed off several turns, and the 4th was hanging out in the bottom of the pan. Between that and the broken support bracket, the pickup left some dings in the pan that I *think* explain my glitter issue.
https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...ae66b03d0e.jpg
https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...32d4871745.jpg

And so my love/hate relationship with Kpower continues... I sent them these images just stating what I believed had happened, fully expecting a "tough tiddies, but here's a new one at 50% cost, good luck". To my surprise they informed me they had a V2 pump adaptor/pickup design they would send me for exactly zero cost. So that was a pleasant surprise.
Upon chatting with a few other Kswappers... we realized I'm probably far, far from the first to have this happen if they:
1: Designed a completely new pickup tube/adaptor that doesn't rely on those four tiny allen head bolts and has a much stronger pickup support bracket.
2: Are replacing failed V1 oil pickups at no cost
3: Didn't seem surprised in the slightest, just sent a new one out immediately.

Also Kpower has M&M's with the Kpower logo printed on them now. Interesting.
https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...e554779c52.jpg


After the failure mode of motor #1 I pulled apart the rod bearings just to double check them. One bearing had a tiiiiny little nick in it... definitely not fatal... the rest had normal looking wear for the motor's age.
https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...cf48acc994.jpg

So at this point, I figured I would probably be fine slapping some new rod bearings in(for peace of mind), grabbing the cams out of motor #1 and tossing them into motor #2, installing Kpower's new pickup design, and we'd be good to go, glitter issues hopefully solved. This plan was immediately scrapped when I tore into motor #1.
Quick refresher, motor #1 is the original motor I installed in the car, ran for ~1000 miles, made very stout dyno numbers, then had the #1 rod bearing completely go AWOL one night while highway cruising. Its been sitting in the corner of the garage as a builder core for when I got the hankering to build an engine from scratch. On the stand is engine #2, on the floor is engine #1.
https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...9ded469e39.jpg


Unfortunately the cams out of engine #1 are... not ideal. I ran this motor for 10-15 miles trying to limp it home once I heard the start of rodknock, and it seems this was enough time for bearing material to get everywhere inside.
https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...caf3f54f80.jpg
https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...a87b230a4b.jpg

It's not the worst cam scoring I've ever seen, and honestly I've seen cams with much worse damage run well for many many years. The worst of it is probably the damage to the head. Kinda sucks to scrap an entire top end like that.
Regardless, I wasn't thrilled with the idea of putting either set of damaged cams back into the motor, not with the RPM that I spin this motor up to.

And so... the trip down the deep, dark rabbit hole began.
https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...0cebcf7bab.jpg


4 Piston makes a set of billet cams for the R40 head. At $2400 they are pricey, but also comes with an adjustable exhaust gear and billet rockers. Advertised as being worth ~30whp on an otherwise stock engine. But...
They also offer fancy seeee nnn seeee porting of the R40 head... said to be worth 16hp "conservatively" by itself, but more with the cams as they were designed to compliment each other.
With all that porting and cam work, the motor will probably shift its powerband a little higher... so why not valve springs for a few hundred more RPM/overrev protection?
Of course... if I'm doing cams, porting, and springs, I really should do high compression pistons to really make the most of it... a nice 13:1 setup would still be streetable on 93, and loading it with E85 for track would put down some killer N/A numbers.
And if I'm doing pistons, I might as well bore out the cylienders a mm or so to maximize my power gains. Which also means I'm doing rings.
And since I'm this far, wouldn't make sense to not do mains... have a completely fresh zero mile motor capable of 310whp+ on E85. I even have a spare block in the corner of the garage that needs machine work to be useable again anyway, and I would get the chance to build my first motor! Would be perfect!

....
.......
..............

And then I priced all this out and realized I would be in it for $6000 before machine work+whatever I screwed up building the motor and slapped myself back into reality. That's simply not in my racing budget and a homebuilt N/A K24 reving out to 9K is a fucking ticking timebomb for heavy track use.
So after doing some number crunching I think I'll just do the cams+valve springs+CNC porting. Should be a nice ~50whp bump, have some additional overrev protection/valve control, and won't loose any reliability... because I've had nothing but reliable motor so far /eyeroll.

So tore down engine #2 even farther. Off with yer head!
https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...0d879874ac.jpg

Cylinder walls looked ok. Some wear... nothing major. #1 was the "worst" one.
https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...9fa1ea90b3.jpg

And a bench overflowing with head and oiling parts. I really need some more workspace.
https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...6e01811e49.jpg


Also scooped a Miata 6spd local for a good price. Gears all turn, was claimed to have been "inspected" by walter motorsports and given a clean bill of health... zero proof of that though. Goodbye, old beatup, dirty 5spd. Heeeellooo "fresh" clean 6spd!
https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...74ce5faafc.jpg


So here's the rough plan.

4Piston's goodies *should* be worth ~50whp, which puts me in the ~280whp relm on E85, and probably ~220ft/lbs for torque. Getting close to the limit for a tracked 5spd, but should be plenty safe for a 6spd and a motor that doesn't make much on the low end. I'll just have to make a mental note not to slam shift 4th.
Pairing the new 6spd with my 4.3 diff should make for a pretty peppy N/A build. Short gearing will allow me to keep it in the upper RPM range where the motor will be happiest. I played around with a few different gearing ratios in the Kmiata calculator and 4.3 seems to make the most sense for the tighter hillclimbs like Pine and Flag Rock, while not being too short for Road Atlanta. If I do somehow hit 140mph at RA(lol) or find the gearing is completely awful and I'm shifting too much, I have a 4.1 R&P sitting on the shelf and would just need to find a spare diff to install it into.

https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...2f492e0a16.png


And as a closer... Ed, I think you were right when you calculated I had spaced the SM clutch pressure plate too much. I never noticed any slippage, but there's definitely more heat marks on the flywheel then there was when it last went in. I'll adjust the spacing as needed, I think you had calculated exactly what I should have spaced it to earlier.
https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...8ec03057ef.jpg

This exact same failure happened to me...but the 4 small screws in adapter block actually eroded their way through the pickup tube adapter. I didn't notice anything was wrong until I went to do an oil change and two of the small M4 screws came out on my magnetic drain plug.

https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...063f12d96.jpeg
https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...2e770a0cba.jpg
https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...cce1444694.jpg
Luckily my engine didn't suffer any damage that I could find, and kpower was good about replacing my broken stuff with the new updated parts.

I need to order a magnetic drain plug ASAP!

Also adding a magnetic drain plug to my list after seeing this

Nice job documenting it all!

While more heat marks aren't necessarily an indication that the spacers are too big, they could be. I didn't/couldn't make an exact calculation but back on page two I guessed that you'd optimally want about half the spacing you ended up with. The disk thickness difference was .5mm and it worked with the old disc with no other changes so it stands to reason that any spacing over .5mm would allow it to disengage. Going to .8 or even 1mm should give you plenty of leeway while restoring some clamping force. But also since this time I've learned that the pressure plates maintain their clamping force over a decent range so it shouldn't be super critical. I'd say if you swap in 1mm washers instead of 1.6 you'd be safe. .8mm probably fine too. The biggest risk is having to pull it out again......

Otherwise, good luck on getting it back on the road, crazy about that v1 pickup.

Well that just goes to support the theory that this issue is fairly widespread with the old pickups. I wonder how many people have broken pickups but don't log oil pressure, and thus don't realise it's happened.
Unless someone has a link to a plug that fits the Kpower pan, drilling a small hole in BOTH plugs and epoxying in small neodymium magnets seems like it would be the best bet.

Kpower's "V2" oil system installed. Definitely a much better design then V1. Had to do some hammering to the windage tray pan to make it clear, denting in the side along the pickup about 1/4" was enough to prevent rubbing/rattle.
https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...2bf847f20f.jpg
https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...f46a323e9c.jpg

Since the motor was down that far and a few of the rod bearings had some scuffs, I did new rod bearings. Honda has a madding assortment of bearing sizes and a 15 step process involving 5 digit patterns, color coding, stamps on the block, phase of the moon and inverse coaxial tubes. I got annoyed with it after 20min and just ordered "standard size" King bearings. Spec is 0.0013" to 0.0024", and plastiguageing all four bearings confirmed these were the correct sizes to replace my OEM "green" bearings. YMMV.
First time I had actually put rod bearings back into a motor I had torn apart, so I felt very important ordering plastigage and assembly lube off of Summit. None of these have spun yet *knocks on wood* so I guess I didn't screw anything up, even though I absolutely eyeballed the 90°+90° torque spec on the(reused) rod cap bolts.
https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...f86f6f0dab.jpg


Before the motor went back together completely I had one more modification to do. Kpower's oil pan design... annoys me. The front sump hangs lower than the subframe, and since it's forward of the wheels, it's the lowest/forwardest part of the car, first to hit rocks/curbs/roadkill before the wheels can contact and lift the chassis. There's no room to stick a skidplate under it, and splitters don't fit unless your running them 1" off the ground. As a result the leading edge of the pan gets beat to hell.
The part that annoys me is there's 1/2" of dead space in that front sump below the oil pump, the pan could have been much higher and out of harms way. Pan height and leading edge carnage:
https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...cb482338b4.jpg

So I did the reasonable thing and chopped the bottom of the pan off. You can see by the amount of the drain bung removed how much space there was. I actually took this a step farther and ground down the very bottom of the oil pump 1/4" or so- enough to remove that little "wing" around the lowest 10mm bolt, and just evvver so slightly into the bolt itself. The oil pump and pump adaptor are both solid aluminum for the next 1/2" of space, so there's no worry about cutting into actual oil passages here(You can see the finished cut in the very first picture of this post).
https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...74e106460e.jpg

My welding still isn't as nice as Kpower's but does the job so far. Fully welded the outside, and welded the inside of the leading edge. It's probably smarter to weld the entire inside as well, but I didn't have a torch/cup that fit and welding aluminum is still very time consuming for me.
https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...6db964896e.jpg

I added a drain bung for the front sump that had a magnet built in. Also drilled a small hole in the rear sump plug and epoxied in a small neodymium magnet.
Many hours of cutting, fitting, and welding later, I had a leakless pan that sits about 3/4" of an inch higher.
https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...aadc200e64.jpg

I should now be able to shove a thin skidplate/splitter edge under the pan to protect it. Note how much lower the rear, unmodified sump hangs in this picture.
Unfortunately I botched the angle of my drain plug a little, so it's now the lowest part. Hasn't been an issue or made contact in a few dozen street miles with the car still set to its lowest ride heights(4" pinchwelds all around).
https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...b13c940261.jpg

I also took this opportunity to throw in a new OEM chain. I had opted to reuse the ~110K mile one on one of my engines, but after hearing a few stories of lower mile chains snapping on the track I decided it wasn't worth the risk. Old chain went into the spares bin, new chain went on the motor. Datapoint, there was... maybe a half link's worth of stretch between the ~110K mile chain and a brand new one. Is this good? Bad? Expected? I haven't the slightest idea.
https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...d591bb296a.jpg

With the motor in the car I moved onto the next big change, the cooling system.
When I tore the car down after Flag Rock, I found a nice big gash in the radiator fins where the ducting had been forcefully shoved back into the radiator during my ditch exploration. I had missed seeing this when I did my RUD in paddock, and somehow... it wasn't leaking. Really dodged a bullet there.
It was a $100 ebay unit, so I wasn't super torn up over it. But I had been kicking around some ideas for a new setup anyway, so I just moved forward with those.
While helping a friend remove a blown up 2.0/install a new 2.5 for his NC, I noticed that the stock NC radiator setup is angled. Perfect.
Nice big CSF radiator ordered from Supermiata. I think this is the first time I have ever bought a "real" radiator, not some knockoff Ebay unit. It's definitely a nice piece of kit.
https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...f53218a8c4.jpg

Obviously it... doesn't drop right in. Duh. Built some brackets to hold it, then reused sections of my swap hoses to make it all fit.

https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...131ff03aff.jpg

Drivers side was pretty easy. Same hose that is used for the Kpower kit, just cut, and a few inches of pipe installed. I still had pipe left over from my custom rear water neck, so put those to use.
https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...d657a450a4.jpg

Drivers side was a little more complex. I opted to wrap it under the exhaust next to the motor.
https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...fe417cf14d.jpg

I found a nice tube of stainless steel in the scrap bin at work that fit my rubber hoses perfectly and had the bends I needed.. It was part of an exhaust stack that would see 800F° temps... so it should be OK next to my header with 200° coolant in it. Certainly saved me from doing way too many pie cuts with aluminum tube.
https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...cc2aa49958.jpg

Only downside to this setup is I've tripled the amount of hose connections/failure points, but I'm fairly confident that they should hold up. I added weld beads to all the new tubes, and nothing has leaked or been an issue so far.
With the modified rear water neck, the super low radiator(all coolant hoses now point up, no more peaks and valleys), and drilled Tstat, bleeding this setup was a breeze. First try, 20min of idling at temp with a few revs and done.
https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...d0dd8e6a21.jpg

I was more than delighted when my partially rebuilt motor didn't immediately spin a bearing when I fired it up. Also happy to report that the new Kpower oil system fixed the slow-to-build-pressure issue I had been seeing. Cold starts have full oil pressure within 1-2 seconds of lightoff, warm starts have pressure basically as soon as I start cranking.
The 6spd also took some getting used to. I was able to reuse my 5spd Gracing shifter by just shaving a little off the bottom. Put 2qts of unicorn tears into the trans and it honestly shifts better then any of my 5spds have. Have my 5spds just been already beat to hell by the time I got them, or was this 6spd actually rebuilt? No idea.
The gearing(4.3+6spd) make this car a rocket though. Spins first, second, and chirps third on cold tires. Lots and lots of shifting is the obvious downside.