First update this year
the last rebuild lasted about one week, sadly the head was cracked, the water on cyl. 3 was not HG's fault
so.. I bought an ms3x kit, an ecu connector, a vvt head and a new set of gaskets, and yesterday it ran for the first time in months!


But now I have a problem... I can't get rid off the vvt1 error displayed, and the vvt is not working.
If I run the test mode I can use the actuator, and it works (the engine runs very bad as advance is increased at idle), but seems that this error "locks" in some way the vvt output

I can't find anything in the manual, did someone experienced this issue? Everything else runs fine

 

Do you get the VVT error1 when car is just keyed on or actually running? What firmware are you on?

 

only when the car is running...
the firmware is the lastest, 1.5.0
I verified the timing 5 minutes ago, it was fine

 

I found the issue, I had to play with minimum and maximum degrees:
adjusted minimum since advance was zero degrees with zero duty cycle
maximum was minimum plus 45 degrees

Now it works fine

 

It's time for some updates
During the time I ran the car with water on cyl. #3 I damaged the piston. Not that much, but enough to save some money and do a rebuild with fresh pistons, bearings and rings.
Oh, and a new block since old one was off by 0.01mm because it ran for 80.000 since turboed
That's the new block (nbfl one, with bigger thrust washer.. doh!), bored and resurfaced to accomodate 84.00 mm supertech's




bought another crank from a vvt engine, ARP and acl race (these from trackspeed)

Started the assembly and stopped because I had to order the vvt thrust washer

 

Waiting for the washer, I started working on the wiring, deleting the lpg ecu, wiring and sensors and letting the ms3x to control directly the lpg injectors, using a couple of relais to switch the outputs, and a resistor box to increase impedance



Added some gauges also: innovate for oil temperature and pressure, plx for afr ratio and depo for EGT




Started assembling piston and gapping rings




and... it arrived!!
The last piece of the puzzle!
(yeah, of course)

 

The car was stop by almost 5 months at this moment, so I decided to buy a stock vvt engine to ran the car during this eternal build.
Oh, and an european squaretop manifold
This is the relocation for lpg injectors




the stock vvt




time to work for additional wiring:
-lpg injectors
-C and D coils (full sequential from now on)
-grounds for lpg electro-valves
-new wiring for mishimoto heavy duty 11" fans
-lpg tank level signal
-oil pressure and temperature sensors
-wideband
-lpg pressure and temperature sensors






I ran it n/a for the moment, since the 6758 and 1 bar wastegate is too much for it




On the left the relay and fuse box for fans and lpg electrovalves




mishimoto dual core radiator and 11" fans

 

lpg setup - this is really interesting. @patsmx5 will likely be very interested in this.

perhaps you can share some more info about it?

 

The lpg setup is now very simple: I've got a 30L tank in place of the spare wheel, 8mm I.D. feed pipe and the biggest lpg reducer I could find on the market: landi LI10 turbo maggiorato: 250kW of flow, meaning that it can go even further the "safe" stock specifications (probably 300kW). RIDUTTORE GPL LANDI LI10 M10X1 AM TURBO PER VETTURE A INIEZIONE ELETTRONICA GPL | eBay

After the reducer I'm using a set of 4 apache IG1 injectors with 4mm noozles https://www.ebay.it/itm/IG1-Apache-4...kAAOSw4GVYIZNu

Cheap, but worth only 55 kW per cylinder. Exphensive alternative is the landi bigger ones that worth 85 kW per cylinder, amazing!!, but exphensive, more than ID1050's

To drive directly these injectors (really low impedance: 2 ohms) I made an external module to drive them in peak and hold, a switch drives the relay box to switch injectors, opens all the electrovalves and puts to ground the tableswitch pin. After, the ms3 has the dual fuel activated, so no enrichment at all is activated, since the lpg does not need any.

Easy enough?
Oh, and with the same advance table, I've got around 10hp more on lpg on virtualdyno, this with stock engine and n/a

 

I continued to assembly the engine:







billet oil pump:





modified the vvt plate for arp mains




and... bottom end: done!





Oh, meanwhile I bought my first 3d printer: the tevo tarantula!
here I'm printing some miata accessories:






Remember when I talked about the p&h drivers?
Well.. dead time for the apache injectors was around 8 ms (massive!) with the resistor box, so I made this board:




It's completely stand-alone: internally regulated, active flyback protected, and configured to give full duty since reaching 1A or 3ms. Now the car can even start on LPG without any issue


After that, I finished the engine bay wiring and installed the mishimoto radiator+fans combo
The fans are incredibly powerful!! I think I will never have any problem with I/C+ a/c in the summer



Finally running again! (sooo slow)

 

Time to assemble the head (I ran really rich last time)




cometic HG





gates water pump




aaand, the best piece I made with the tarantula!





bought flywheel arp's because, why not




a little reminder for me

 

This time I choose the act xt 6 puck, competition clutch stage5 cannot handle over 300hp





Preload is like double the competition clutch one



And there's a spring more. No doubt this will handle all the torque




Stock engine out






and built engine in!




Of course I forgot something... dat evil plug behind timing cover!





Everything back in place.
Breack in will be made naturally aspirated




Since alternator was very often near 80-100% (fans absorb 25A each) I bought an FD alternator




It's literally plug'n play, only difference is it's regulated internally at 14.5V






This is the current state of new build. I made around 300 km, but will wait till a thousand to reinstall the efr

I'm waiting a set of ID1050, a turbosmart dual port actuator (I have in mind to activate the ms traction control), and a hondata 4 port solenoid, just to lower the minimum boost I can run.
I can't wait to finish the breack in, it's since march I don't drive it

 

I'm stuck at the moment with a tuning issue...
didn't the low compression engines can handle more timing?

A log of the 77xxx miles, completely stock vvt engine




Built engine, same tune (tuned ve table of course) and same condition: knock everywhere. Just 10.5:1 vs. 8.6:1 pistons

 

Check base timing again with the strobe light. Be sure timing belt marks are aligned correctly, too.

Even with the same ve table it may run richer or leaner and require Auto tuning to reach the same AFR as before.

Cooler temperatures can make more power and sometimes cause more power or more boost at the same RPM and detonate.

Also a dirty injector can cause this by not having a good spray pattern or not flowing as much and being individually lean on one cylinder.

Those are the first things that come to my mind. I'm sure there are more. Pull the spark plugs and look to see if any of them look different.

 

Turned out the issue was... well... a loose exhaust hanger that resonated at that rpm

Breack in is done and street tuned with turbo fitted

that thing is FAST.

 

I've had two issues last week..
stock fpr vacuum hose pops out every time I ran more that 21psi, leaning to 19:1 under boost
stock efr bov makes weird noises over 20 psi

www.youtube.com/watch?v=lg9fhMZIlv8


I saw something aftermarket like the turbosmart
https://www.ebay.it/itm/Turbosmart-K...cAAOSw0HVWADIo
does it fit the 6758?

 

With the FPR reference hose, use a very small zip-tie on all of those small vacuum hoses to keep them from pushing off.

 

done, now it's solid

remember back in 2016 when ian built a can display with a nextion and an arduino?
I'm working on my version: very interesting display


that's the warning for high EGT's

 

I love it!

 

The display is finished! Only issue was that the temperatures are send in farenheit via can, but it's easy to convert them before they are sent to the nextion

I'm stuck at around 300 whp because of 750's limit.. so I bought a set of ID1050, DW300 pump and AEM fpr with an6 lines and fittings
Oh, and a oil cooler with mocal, beefy AN10 lines and black nylon pipe





But the car also started to misfire after 200kPa. gapping the spark plugs to 0.6mm didn't solve the problem completely, so probably the issue was related to spark plug wires













and while I'm waiting for a set of iridium spark plugs, I installed these extended reach spark plugs, equivalent of bkr7e, but with the spark 4mm more closer to the piston






It's the first time I do a job like this, I know it could be done better, but now misfire was vanished even at 350 kPa (creeped while tuning for CL ebc), so I'm done with ignition now