SO close!

 

I have a degree in Mechanical engineering, and self studied electrical engineering as it relates embedded systems and pcb design, and a bit of automation/c coding. I work for an oil and gas company as an applications engineer/ systems engineer. We build rotary steerable drilling tools. I work with various engineers, consultants, vendors, technicians to improve performance, reliability, cost, time to market, and operational ease of use. I was hired to bring their prototype system to comercial readiness and now help bring new tools to market as well as support existing tools.

Or, I fix stuff and help other people to be able to fix their stuff.

 

The race car runs!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Hell yeah dude! That's awesome!

 

God damn, that first start must've felt so good haha.

Congrats!

 

She sounds ANGRY!!!!

I'm jealous. LOL....

 

Very cool. Directional drilling still boggles my mind. I kind of understand it but I also think its witchcraft. I'm a civil engineer but I work in civil infrastructure construction. We do a little micro tunneling here and there but its not nearly as impressive...

Start up sounds absolutely ridiculous. I love how after two years of meticulous work you're still surprised that everything worked! Haha. Looking forward to seeing this thing boogie now!

 

I realise that you like green-backlighted instruments, but this seems WRONG on a 10AE:


- they need to be blue LEDs and have chrome needle caps and the small gauges need chrome gauge rims:


Once you've seen the chrome rims+needle caps in real life, every other NA/NB instrument cluster will look like a "Povo-pack" cluster.
PS: DON"T buy the plastic chrome needle caps, they look ***** - get the machined aluminium ones for that retro look on the "flat" face when light hits the machined concentric circles.

 

Thanks!


Thank you!
I was expecting hours/days of troubleshooting before it would start. When it cranked like that I couldn't believe it.
Indeed! Granted I think the lack of VVT and running rich is likely contributing to the crazy sound. But still. Even when rev'd it sounds totally different now.

I think the cams are going to make a big difference. This has had a flat top, a 4:1 header, a big (for a miata) turbo, ported head, bigger valves, deshrouded. But always stock cams, which I think were the restriction.

I can't wait to see two figures.

Boost required to run a 6.93 in the 1/8th. (used to take 30 psi)
ET and MPH at 30 PSI boost.
It's a tough field. The environment these electro-mechanical systems have to operate in is insane. Only a few inches in diameter to work with, 50G vibration, spinning a few hundred RPMs, 20k psi of mud trying to leak in, cooking at 350*F, and twisting it with 10's of thousands of ft*lbs of torque. And yeah, while enduring that, it needs to have wireless communications while miles underground, and steer itself as commanded through extremely hard rock while spinning/bending/getting shoved with 10's of thousands of lbs of force. And carry a suit of sensors to take measurements with demial place accuracy somehow while doing all of this. And failure is not tolerated, so it has to be reliable.

Folks in the industry say its on par with building space flight vehicles due to the combinations of extreme environmental/operational requirements.

Yeah I can't get over the sound. It actually makes me want to do a bit more to my next engine to further optimize the compression/cams for that setup!
Got some other/better pics of your setup? The blue looks purple on my screen. I'll consider it but I do like the green. The metal bits I may could go for.

 

Congrats on the first startup, sound is so aggressive, wow.
I can only imagine how you have felt, but all the swearing speaks volumes, haha.

 

Great stuff man. I watched your mini restoration video on your 10AE. I'm on the same path as mine, but went with some modifications like a racing beat midpipe and exhaust to match the racing beat intake it already had. Mine also needs a new top, I already decided I'm sticking with blue for the replacement and I love that you chose the same. Looks great. And funny enough those 6ul's look very OEM + for the 10ae, with a similar finish even to the stock 10ae wheels. Great work on that, I love my 10ae.

Congrats on the racecar first start! I agree with the others, it sounds really mean. I'm looking forward to more videos now that the car is running!

 

Thanks! It's crazy how it sounds. That said, after tuning it does sound a lot more normal. Apparently if you want it to sound insane, just add fuel!

Appreciate it! I'm getting a lot of the boring stuff finished up now. I actually drove it around the parking lot yesterday for the first time in 2 years. The car is so light, it chirped the tires going into reverse on a cold idle! That made me laugh, never barked the tires without touching the throttle before!

The spool up is still terrible, so hoping I can improve it some with tuning. But I've already contacted the converter guy to see how much to get it restalled. It's way too tight. I need it A LOT looser so this thing can rev up and build boost. Since it's drag car only, I don't care about low RPM area anymore. I actually ordered this converter to flash to 4500 but it flashes to 2500-3000 so it's not even close to spec. I'm down for doing anything to improve power/torque/spool but the converter is the easy button and I'm not going to deal with it being way off.

Plan is to get it mostly ready to race on E85, get the tune kinda OK but limit boost on E85 (no intercooler) and go from there. I don't think I can do full boost full power meth tuning anywhere but the track or dyno, so that may have to wait.

 

 

Holy crap, man!

 

Appologies for no vids of it driving yet. I gotta figure out what to buy so I can setup a camera in the car. No way to hold the phone while driving this thing!

Check this one out! Intro has the car idling and rev, then I go over some work and a datalog showing the motors efficiency at wastegate pressure of 16 psi.

From my math, this appears to loose about 5-6% of torque from 6K to 8K while keeping boost constant based on Lambda analysis from my datalog.. For a mazda BP, I think that's incredible.

Got to get things finsihed and over to a dyno. I found a local place, it's 200/hr for 1st hour, 150/hr after that. I figure I'll need 3-6 hours depending how much I want to do.

Ideally I'd like to tune VVT, AFR, timing, and all of this over a range of boost values. So you could spend forever, I'll need to make a plan on what's important and what order to do things.

 

Insta360 is killing GoPro now, since they don’t over heat and all the functions actually work. The 360 cam with a selfie stick makes pretty slick driving videos, and if you don’t care about low light performance the older x2 can be found real cheap.

 

This is super cool and interesting data. Maybe you could try a virtual dyno pull to get some preliminary data too? Looking forward to seeing some dyno data of this beast.

 

I don't think vd will be accurate due to having a loose torque converter.

But I do think I'm gonna go to a dyno.

 

Really, really cool. Love the data in the video, it's looking very promising, stoked to see this thing on the dyno!

 

Got some small updates.

Seat back brace I designed was manufactured and came in. It worked great!

Also the harnesses are all installed now, so those are done too.

Catch can is also final installed. Good stuff, needed that.

Doors are back on! Took a while to get them adjusted, and then the fenders adjusted too. Then the Hard Top on. Looks like a car with all the body panels on!

Today I added ballast to the driver seat and checked the pinch weld measurements. It's not right, so I gotta adjust some things. But I ended up reading about how to setup a drag car and didn't actually adjust it yet.... I was surprised how much the car leans with the ballast.

But overall, it's getting really close!

Big things I need to solve to get it to the track.

• Find a trailer! Used and close to Houston, 14-16 feet, possible to get a kinda-low miata on, bumper pull. But so far no luck.
• Final install Hardtop. Have all the brackets, just bolt it in.
• Buy lexan, make windshield and side windows. Install them into car. Prob buy stuff to install them and cut the lexan.
• The following is roughly in order, I think, to do the suspension.
  • Adjust ride height on all 4 corners, to get rake and ride height right.
  • Adjust front camber
  • Adjust front caster
  • Check camber
  • Adjust front toe
  • Adjust rear camber
  • Adjust rear Toe
• Buy methanol.
• Switch car to methanol, adjust tune.
• Something with rear tires....
  • One is leaking a lot at the bead after driving on it. No idea why. Tires are new but old from sitting. May need to replace?

One thought on the wheels is gluing or screwing the tires to the wheels. Also, if I change tires, maybe go to a bias ply instead of radial.