When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.
Thank you Curly, you da man for getting those measurements. I know that it’s not the ideal way to fix it, but I did find a vendor called Yez Racing out of Australia advertising inconel studs in a length that will work. It was honestly pretty cheap to get them over the pond, about 60 bucks total shipped. The website wasn’t too clear on exactly what material they were so I asked them to reach out to the vendor, and they came back saying the studs are inconel 625. I know FM uses 718 and I’m not sure what TSE uses. Regardless I think the heat specifications for both 718 and 625 are similar. Not sure on strength. I haven’t had time to compare that and other specs. This will still be mainly a street car so I think it’ll be fine. I’m in Maui for a few weeks and will post a review of em’ once home.
Edit: I got curious. Inconel 625 has got the yield strength of a grade 8.8 fastener, the tensile strength of a grade 10.9 fastener, and is good to 1800F. Inconel 718 is heat treated making it much stronger. For the street, it should work.
Last edited by festersays; 07-14-2019 at 06:25 AM.
Update time. Since my last post, I have the new inconel studs installed and resbond in, stage8 fasteners set up and in use. I finally got my idle to a point where I’m super happy with it - all of the CLI settings are working, idle advance is working, and for poverty MS2e I don’t think it could be a whole lot better. So that’s finally another thing that’s sorted out.
Since the turbo went in, I’ve been rolling on really old Nitto NeoGen tires that have seen winter and snow. I’ve tried to get by with them, but they’re just no fun anymore especially at autocross even N/A. So I found a deal on some Conti ECS’s that’ll get me by on the street and should be way more fun at autocross. Which speaking of, the next I plan to go to is next week. So between then and now.. tires need mounted, and I need to replace the tired stock clutch
Now here’s where it gets silly. I needed a winter beater.. Here she is. I got a hell of a good deal and the drivetrain is in great shape. It’s got pretty terminal rust and I’ll be surprised if it’s front frame rails make it until spring, but besides that it’s been good to beat around town. How comfortable a stock NB is makes me really wonder if I made the best choices with compromises/stiffness/etc. with my NA.. turbo fun will always win but I guess this is a great reason to keep two cars around.
Conti ECS are the way to go for a DD Miata. They perform pretty well in the rain, too. I am very pleased with my set. The one downside is that they can't be used in lower temps. If you live up north it's no biggie as you'd swap to winter tires, though.
Oh yeah, I'm already finding that I like them a lot better then the old worn out tires. The grip is nice for the street and not bad at autocross either. I had these road force balanced and my highway shimmy is completely gone... It's like I'm driving a different car.
I'll try and edit some pictures in later, but I ended up doing my clutch job over night Friday, and drove straight to PittRace Saturday morning for autox. Keep in mind I am NOT a mechanic so I was a little worried that I might break down... But all was well. The FM1 happy meal is great and very easy to drive. Being sleep deprived at autox is not something I'd recommend, but it was still a ton of fun. We did a go kart session there also which was way more fun then the electric karting places we have around town.
Several things I'm noticing as weak points in my car... The suspension. I feel like it's TOO stiff for the street/autocross. I have FM Vmaxx coilovers, RB front and rear bars (solid) and the matching endlinks. I know I have a lot to learn about driving but I'm getting the car to understeer in some corners and I hate it. I feel like I should be replacing the rear bar with a stock one and seeing what difference that makes.. Along with double checking the preload on the front bar to make sure it's neutral. The other thing is burning oil out of the compressor housing. I hate it. When changing the clutch I was able to see where (again!) the turbo is weeping oil passed the hotside seal and leaking out the bottom. Occasionally I'll leave a huge trail of smoke just driving out of a parking lot. I've rebuilt the turbo (myself) and replaced the hotside seal more then once. I don't think it's due to blowby/backpressure. I think I'll deal with it for now but over the wintertime I want to replace the turbo. I'm still on a pretty tight budget for this car so I may find another used nissan turbo or if there's a chinacharger worth considering I'd even be open to trying that. I'll do more homework on options.
I went ahead and did no rear bar at the last autocross event and my times dropped significantly, and I liked the way the car behaved a lot better also. I'm pretty impressed too with the Continental ECS tires I got awhile back, I feel like this was my first real opportunity to push them and they didn't disappoint. I haven't had an opportunity to drive on tires with serious grip, but until I can swing a dedicated autocross wheel/tire setup I think then I think these are a great compromise tire for me. Here's a pic from the event.
Going back and forth from driving the FM VMAXX NA to the bone stock NB has made me really want to switch it up to a DIY Bilstien build on the NA turbo car. I want a setup that's super plush on the street but can hold it's own at autocross. I dunno if that's asking too much, but over the winter I'll try. Calling @sixshooter , your original 400/350 Hard S setup seemed like exactly what I'm looking for and I think I'll try and replicate it. I've got a lot more homework to do but that setup plus stock sway bars might be what I'm looking for.
Other than disconnecting the rear bar, I've just been driving the car as much as I can before it's too cold out. I turned the boost up to 10 psi and dialed in the fuel to accommodate it. Man is it fun. Over the winter, I think new valve stem seals are in order.. If I leave my car idling for awhile, or a really long stop light / train, I'll get smoke out of the tailpipe like this. To rule it out, I checked the bottom of my turbo again and it's no longer weeping oil so I think that oil seal finally decided to start cooperating.. Maybe it just needed to boost more.
I'm not sure what rates the VMAXX have f/r but that can effect how the sways work or hurt the balance.
I recently went to Xidas and haven't put my Bilsteins up for sale yet. 550/350 wasn't plush like 400/275 I had previously. With the FM sways front firmest and rear softest 400/275 was balanced. If using a stock rear bar I would change to 400/300 to maintain balance. There's nothing wrong with using the FM bars front and rear as long as the spring rates are matched to the bar rates to create neutral conditions in cornering.
Last edited by sixshooter; 10-19-2019 at 09:24 AM.
Well in an unexpected turn of events, my job is taking me from Ohio to Georgia for 2 years. The pro to this is I'll be pretty close to Road Atlanta, and the one huge con I can see is that I probably will need to pass emissions due to where I'll be living in Georgia. Even if I stayed in Ohio I'd need to deal with emissions, but I'd have the comfort of my garage and all of my tools to make the hardware and ECU changes I need to. My car is a 96' and so this will be the last time it needs emissions done. I'm weighing my options on what the heck to do and the immediate thoughts I have are...
1. Is running a voodoo box REALLY that bad and ok to deal with on low boost? I only run about 8lbs as is and it'd be in a sense an 'easy' button since I could pass emissions and not have a ton of extra wrenching to do (this will be my daily, I don't want to mess with the uninstall/reinstall injectors/o2/etc).
2. Would it be super suspect if I completed the emissions dance in Ohio, registered the car at a family members address in Ohio, and just had all mismatched addresses on registration/drivers license to be able to keep the megasquirt in?
3. Maybe I should sell both of these cars for a NC that will be way more comfortable and reliable of a DD in that type of heat? Or another fun car?
4. Find a shady inspections shop in GA that's megasquirt friendly?
5. Partout?
6. ??
This is a bittersweet crossroads I wasn't really ready for but at the same time it'll be a good way to get out of state and see a different perspective.
The job is in Duluth, really close to Johns Creek. Looking into it more there's only several counties that require emissions and go figure where my job is going to be, most of the surrounding counties require it. We visited down there looking for where we want to rent and that area we like just happens to be outside of the emissions testing area... So I may have lucked out.
Wow. So, I can hardly believe I haven't been here in 2 years. A lot has changed. +1 kid, -1 house, and the new house build is underway now. As far as car updates I don't have much. Being a dad, good husband, and finally finishing my bachelors degree trumped driving, tinkering, all that. The car although neglected over the last little while, still runs like a beast. I've thought about selling it or trading up to a NC for the comfort, quietness of it. Who knows. Maybe one day I'll actually do it, but the car is still just too much fun to get rid of.
Anyway, now that I have time I wanted to post an update about some work I did a few years back that so far has stood up to the test of time. My car had some rust bubbles starting in the usual rear rocker area. I don't have access to welding tools or the skill but feel like more info should be out there about a non-welding fix that's miles better than foam and bondo. I wanted to get it taken care of before anything worse happened. Here's beginning state.
Once I peeled that back, this is what was underneath. Mostly surface rust, which was nice to see.
I got going with the flap disk and got it to this state.
So here's where we stray from the normal weld in your patch method. I cut a backer piece of steel, and used SEM auto bonding adhesive to 'stick' it in place. I think the product was SEM 39747. The black paint is POR15 just to seal the surface as best as possible. Where I sanded down to bare metal was so the panel bond would have something fresh to adhere to just in case the POR15 had some adhesion issue.
The next step I took was bending a custom patch panel. This failed miserably as you'll see in a little bit. I have no experience bending metal and most often when I need to, I get a vice and BFH and call it a day. I dunno. Maybe if I had more patience this would have gone better, I'm sure it could have. Anyway, onto the pics. While the panel bond was drying, I added some screws to keep things firmly in place and to hopefully make sure this thing stays put forever.
Once dry I added a layer of bondo to smooth things out. I wanted to wait for another day to actually texture it and paint, but didn't want to leave the bondo bare. I'm no body guy but have heard that bondo can absorb water and turn to mush. I added a layer of glossy black and it exposed this issue. The panel was NOT flat with the rest of the car. You can see the reflection where there was an additional ridge where there shouldn't have been in the rocker. I contemplated if I cared. I did.
After tearing the old panel off, I actually went and found a rusted out shell nearby. I brought my angle grinder and cut a patch from that cars rocker, but further up where rot doesn't really take place as easily. This was a perfect way to get a patch that fit like a glove. Below is back to the same state with the new patch. Not pictured are the screws I added to hold it all together while drying.
And... this unfortunately is where I don't have a 'finished' pic. But. The last steps of the process were adding a layer of bondo to smooth it all out. For texture, I tried 'hammered' paint, and didn't think it was a passable match. I did more digging over on m.net and found that another SEM product worked well. SEM 39793 'Heavy Texture Chip Guard". The thing I'll say about this is that the application for this stuff can be tricky. It's basically a solvent with the 'texture' added into it. So that means if you end up spraying it over a painted surface, you need to be really careful. I did a few test sprays on the first patch panel I made and going heavy turned the entire thing to goop. I actually called SEM and talked to a rep about it, and they recommended very light coats over already painted surfaces. This actually worked. I will try and grab a photo tomorrow of the finished product how it sits today, 2 years later. Till then, this pic from autocross the other day that shows the side I worked on will have to do.
All in all, I'll say that this works so well that it'd be tough to even tell there was work done. I'm not trying to advocate that this should replace welding patch panels on for this repair, but if you're like me and don't have the access or ability to weld then it's a good alternative.
07-14-2019, 05:52 AM
0
