Wax air valve and tuning
 

Hello gents,

My 1996 car with the OEM ECU just sprung a leak in one of the small hoses between the oil warmer and the throttle body. I was thinking about removing all those annoying little hoses, however I learned that next to the IAC valve there is also some air valve with a wax pellet that closes when the coolant is warm. It helps cold engine warm up. So if I remove all those tubes the valve will be always cold and always open (unless when the engine is really warm and heatsoaked).

Here are my questions for peopel with MS ECU or any ECU really:
1-If you didn't remove those coolant lines, how do you take into account the fact that the valve will close when warm?
2-Can I just remove those lines, maybe even plug that air valve, and only use the PWM IAC valve to control idle and just increase the iddle speed based on coolant temp?

Thanks!
Seb

ps:bonus question:Can EGR be used with MS so I can save the planet?

1. Warm Up Enrichment (WUE) has an autotune function in TS that can compensate for whatever you have arranged.

2. Yes.

Bonus round: If you really want to, sure.

is your 96 a EU 1.6L?

Ok thanks 6shooters. So If I understand correctly people just ignore that valve and tune with idle warm up and the IAC will compensate for the wax valve open/close.

Brain, no it's a USA model. Maybe I confused you because air valve is the name on the 1.6, I don't know the name of that valve for the 1.8. It's basically an air thermostat.

I wasn't under the impression any motor but the 1.6L had the air valve -- it's bolted on the IM, not the idle valve.

All other cold start control was done by opening the idle valve up a bit -- those coolant passages on the 96 TB idle valve itself (or any other model year) valve don't run through any wax valve.

mechanical wax valves are pointless when you have so much direct control to the idle valve itself. remove the coolant lines if you want. no need to plug anything. tune like normal.

Hum I definetely read the opposite on miata.net and on this post, I'm confused.
https://www.miataturbo.net/megasquir...control-56221/

cf post 31:
https://www.miataturbo.net/general-m...e-17036/page2/



So do 1.8 have that thermostatic valve or not? Why would Mazda need both type of valves on the 1.6 and not just used the electric IAC?

Seems to me that removing that wax valve (if its there) and tuning using just the IAC would be the easiest path.

Up!

So does this thermostatic valve actually exists on NA8? It seems like everyone just completely ignores it including when adding a MS but in theory it should mess up the idle.

the MS takes full control of the idle valve. if a wax valve opens you, the MS will adjust to hit your idle targets regardless.

Makes sense. right now I'm still on stock ECU, will it be able to adapt too? If that's the case I can just plug all those hoses!
I just can't figure out why Mazda would use that if they can just control the air valve.

just remove the hoses and don't think about it. you wont ever notice a difference.