Beside a motor? not much, I blew out a coupler once. Everything else that has failed or needed repair was fault of my superior mechanical abilities.

 

That's not relevant to the question that I asked in this thread. If you're not posting what broke, and how to prevent it, you're not doing it right.

 

Read my build thread and SavingAIDS' build thread. I'm by no means the fastest guy on here, but I've had my share of reliability problems on the track, but I've been through a few major problems and everything seems to work now aside from the brakes.

 

Stock 1.6L clutch started slipping after about 10,000 miles of "nice" driving at 8psi.
Replaced stock 1.6L front brakes with 94+ caliper brackets, aftermarket discs and pads
Getting ready to replace stock 1.6L 6" rearend with 7" 94+ rearend so I can "launch" car
Smoked one stock NB O2 sensor running lean/pig rich with my "bandaids"
Smoked one AFM when re-installing turbo & intake piping (my dumbass mistake, not turbo's fault!)

If I had it to do over again, I'd probably start with a 94 or 95 (1.8L base with bigger brakes & rearend) and immediately install a Megasquirt, big injectors and a wideband. Once I had the MS sorted out and real solid NA tune, I'd do an Ebay Chinacharger with a CSX Racing intercooler kit. YMMV.

 

My 250k mile Torsen differential after fresh bearings, apparently didn't like being launched after I installed the turbo...kaboom.

Most of the stuff on my car that has broken was just stuff that prob needed to be replaced since it has 262k miles on it, only thing mechanical left that is stock is the transmission and axles.

 

My OEM clutch gave in at 8psi. Other than the occasional hiccup, no issues.

 

Well, check out the attitude on the new guy.

We don't keep a lot of secrets around here. Folks have turned their diffs into metal salad, bent rods in all three axis at the same time, cracked pistons in half, poked holes in the side of their engine block, etc. I don't think I've seen any cranks which were actually broken in half, but that's about the only thing I haven't seen.

But like Sav said, it's mostly about not being an idiot. If you run a 1.6-size R&P, or if you do drag launches, then you'll break your diff. If you don't do these things, then you won't break your diff. Simple.

Likewise, all the piston / rod / block failures are mostly due to stupidity. Bad tune, inadequate fuel system, too much boost, etc. If you built it to last, and tune it to last, it'll last. If you cheap out or do a hack job of it, expect to see Mr. Rod open a window for himself in your engine.

This ain't a big mystery.

 

My current motor has some dead *** rings on it, and is chewing through a quart of oil for every tank of gas.

Solution...don't let your dipshit brother borrow your car.

In reality this is mechanical empathy. I know my car, know my tune, and know how hard to push. He didn't...and treated it like his sportbike.

Every other problem was fixed with some datalogging or changing settings in MS.

The first motor in this car died of overheating. Fixes on that are well documented. It now has a PWR radiator, coolant reroute, and some shrouding. Soon to have a hole in the hood.

 

shouldn't have blown if the tune was good regardless of abuse...

 

The only part of the tune I fucked up on was leaving the soft rev limit at 7200rpm.

I though my tune was bulletproof as well...but he admitted to "very high rpm" usage. I'm expecting to see a lot of nice, shiny, blue metal parts upon postmortem.


I hear ya though, and am still scratching my head. To be honest it was a mystery motor anyhow ($150 CL find), and I imagine that the rings were already heading south. As compression gradually got worse, the motor saw higher cylinder pressures for the same load....rendering my previously conservative spark map dangerous.

When he brought it back my OP gauge was dancing around, and there was audible knock where there previously was none. I've dialed boost control back down to 8psi, and the whole spark advance table back 15%. Now everything is fine.


I guess you could say that this could have been prevented with a higher integrity motor, and that we should occasionally run a compression test in order to prevent damage due to detonation. I think the motor went into a nasty cycle of light det>chewed up ring lands>lower compression>more det, and ******** kept wailing on it.

 

(seriously those belts would drive me insane)
Nobody here is retarded enough to **** out a random psi figure and say to stay below that.

 

Update: My alternator bolt backed out today. Damn turbo.

 

When I was N/A had to replace the axles, alternator, timing belt and by then I said what the hell and installed fresh piston rings and rod bearings. A few days later took the cylinder head to a machine shop for some well deserved cleaning now that the engine had been opened, and a new water pump on the works. A few more weeks later and a new clutch and pressure plate with resurfaced lightened factory flywheel, Oil catch can, new sway bar poly bushings and poly mounts.

By then the starter and clutch slave decided to not work anymore. As time passed by the rear struts were useless which one visit to the junkyard made me discover KYB struts in another Mazda.

Since I have gone turbo WITH bandaids, ready or not here it is... An APEX SAFC, Innovate wideband and the low budget DIY Knock sound amplifier, my only problem has been a ghetto worm clamp which has been replaced with T-Bolt clamps, so far car is running fine for about 4 months now at 10 psi.

I do agree that sometimes I do miss the N/A setup, before it felt like a go-kart that I could toss around and felt with much more control on its powerband, now its like a little beast that in two shifts I am already over the speed limit, but still it is a lot of fun to drive as well.

BUT on my first setup I blew two engines with a Rx7 turbine with a swapped turbo housing to .48. It would always blow the piston rings of 1 and 4, and ate up the Stage II Centerforce clutch.