The fit of the BMW DCT or 8HP70 in an NB miata was where I got off the exit lane. I think an NC miata has a bigger trans tunnel and can fit the trans better. Most of the issues i saw was how low they both hung. My car is pretty damn low to begin with and I was super concerned with dragging the trans pan on the ground as I believe it was lower than the frame stiffening rails.

 

Don't the 8HP45/8HP50 have a much smaller oil pan compared to the 70/80/etc? I'm getting lots of 8HPxxx swap videos on my various social media places, and one video shows the jaguar 8HP45 (or 50?) with a narrow bellhousing compared to the Charger V6 8HP45.

 

Any of you guys see this?

 

yep - the guy has several track vids of that car. My pitiful contribution to the 8hp-45/50 swaps, re oil pan width. I've done nothing to my car lately. This is one of my -45's. About 11.6 inches at midpoint.
She said...

The pan is about same width all the way fwd., but the bell housing area obv gets bigger.

 

You can see the trans oil pan hanging down in the above Youtube video thumbnail. I strongly considered the 8HP with my LSx swap but a combination of oil pan height and exhaust clearance kills it for me regardless of how nice of a trans it is.

The oil pan clearance isn't an issue in NC as the centerline of the crank on an NC is higher off the ground than an NA/NB. The tunnel is also larger so exhaust is more straightforward.

 

Some general 8HP control news: Maxxecu released the first beta of Binary 5 today which is used for full clutch control. That is full 0-100% manual clutch control via an analog input, not just clutch kicks. I noticed that today when looking into renting the flashing tool.

Anyways, I’ve got the adapter plate. It came in a few weeks ago but I’ve been busy with work and vacation so I’ve not been able to mess with anything.

I got the 75A bushings for my innovative motor mounts installed yesterday. I opted for the highest engine mounting slot when doing so. Hopefully thatll help with the transmission oil pan clearance, but I’m afraid it’ll just cause problems on the top side instead. I guess we will see.

I think I’ve also got a parasitic battery draw situation occurring with the wiring harness I made, but it could just be that the old *** battery is finally kicking the bucket. It’s around 6-7 years old if I recall correctly. More testing on that to come.

Once my bacon gets out of the oven I’m gonna go down there and see if I can wiggle the transmission into it tonight.

 

Address this ASAP, there’s nothing as infuriating and pointless as trying to do electrical diagnosis with a bad battery. I would recommend just keeping a charger on it at all times when doing non-running tests. If you’re going to be running the starter and such, get a new battery, or one of those really big, noisy, fan-cooled starter boxes that plug into the wall and roll around on a dolly. The current draw of a starter on a weak battery is enormous, and the resulting low-voltage situations can really mess you up. Keep a voltage reading handy in your tuning software and check it often.

At the last event, I killed my micro-battery by leaving the fan on and had some folks push start me (downhill thankfully). It started immediately, but my oil pressure sensor was reading zero psi. I reluctantly killed the motor, only to realize that the sensor needs 12v and probably just wasn’t working right.

Other stuff needs at least 8v, so you may shithouse yourself if your battery dips below 8v while cranking.

ETA - put it on a charger and then check for parasitic draw at the fuse box, my bet is bad battery.

 

This reads like someone who has dealt with this issue in detail and does not play about it. haha

 

Working in a shop that deals with a lot of aftermarket ****, race cars, and super cars, it's hilarious how many times they're hooked up to battery charges. The big cart ones. Any sort of diag, flashing, coding, tuning, etc that doesn't involve having the engine running NEEDS to be on a charger. Most OE repair instructions list it as step 1.

Any car that's not driven 15+ miles/day or at least a few times a week should live on a trickle charger.

 

Watterson - any progress? I sure hope you've made more than me (zero!) other than sorta checking up on stuff. Stuff that is great? I just found out that the Maxx Mini is only $750 and can now control clutches including the TC clutch lockup. I'm trying to verify, but it seems that will allow the trans to be run without the TC, as was my plan from the git-go, at 1/3 the cost of the Turbo Lamik, and with what seems to be better functionality and easier programming. LIke multiple gear auto kickdown if I want to be a real weenie and run it in full auto mode.

Wombat

 

I've been MIA, but we're locking tf in now. I've got to beat Z_WAAAAAZ to get my 8HP swap done before him. Just kidding, my real goal is to make it to the drag races on May 16th.

Currently, the transmission is in the car, bolted to the engine, but I still don't have a transmission mount. I'm waiting on my backordered n55 mount from HPR/Seems Legit Garage before ordering the raw materials for fabrication from Grainger.

I had some frustrations with the DomiWorks adapter kit. They supposedly sent me an old version which has resulted in two different problems. 1) The bellhousing bolt holes were 12mm when they should've been larger to accommodate 12mm fasteners. This was a quick fix with the drill press – no biggie. 2) The more annoying issue was that all three starter bolt holes were threaded and I didn't realize this until tonight. Hopefully I don't need to remove the adapter plate and can figure out a work around. Right now the starter is being held in by only a single bolt, which isn't enough. Adamat recently released a new N20/N55 8HP45 kit for about half of what I paid for the DomiWorks kit before the $400 tariffs, so I've got some buyers remorse to say the least.

Differential is reinforced and fully rebuilt with the 3.63 gears and new bearings/seals/etc. Mounted in place using prothane bushings and unfortunately a KMiata PPF Delete Bracket. No surprises here, but K-Miata Sent me fasteners of the wrong length and the fitment is questionable to say the least. Surprisingly, I was able to get everything fitted up using some "spacers" (about 10 washers lol). Rebuilding the differential was pretty simple, but very frustrating simultaneously. I ended up biting the bullet and buying the 12-ton press from harbor freight. It should come in handy when I go to do my suspension bushings, though. Don't plan on being able to do the diff rebuild with only bearing separators, the $180 or so press is worth the reduced headache.

Parts that I still need to order are:
- Exhaust Tubing to Modify the Kraken Exhaust.
- Transmission Cooler and AN-8 Lines (I've already got an HPR adapter for the transmission outlet)
- Driveshaft and relevant adapters

Information that might be useful to others:
- With my Innovative engine mounts on the highest notch I was able to move the transmission to 3° to -0.5° while the differential sat at 1.7°. I do not know what the angle of the car was, but the point is that with these engine mounts on the highest setting, there is plenty of room to get the driveshaft/u-joint angles where I need them. This is with the casting notches on the top of the transmission cut off. With an 8HP70 or larger transmission, this likely won't be possible.
- I found an Aluminum Transmission pan for like $85 on rock auto. I believe the brand was "Uro". It also has a replaceable filter unlike the plastic pans. ZF trans fluid was also pretty cheap on rock auto too. I think it was like $8-12 a quart.
- If using the stock sandwich plate between the transmission and the block, be sure to clearance it so that there is room to install the torque converter bolts. I had to modify mine after the transmission was already installed (because I'm lazy), and it was annoying but doable with a dremel.
- Rather than buying the $350 K-Miata diff mount, I'd recommend making something yourself. You're already going to have to make the transmission mount, so just go ahead and make your own diff mount too. That way, if there is a problem, nobody is to blame except yourself. I just went with the K-Miata mount because it incorporated a polyurethane bushing and got rid of the stock spacer piece that I broke. Otherwise, I might've considered the V8 roadsters mount as an alternative.

I've got a pretty thorough schedule that should get the car done 2 weeks before the race should I stick to it and not run into any part delays. I'll try to post some pictures tomorrow, and once everything is said and done or I've got spare time otherwise, I'll do a more thorough write up. I do keep email notifications on, so if anyone has questions now or in the future, just comment/message me and I'm happy to help by answering questions and such. For more frequent updates, I plan on posting almost daily updates on my Instagram (under the same handle) until I'm done.

Edit:
Oh, also, I've still not addressed the battery drain issue. I'm pretty sure it is my 12V alternator pullup, though. The battery wasn't actually as old as I thought. Could still be the issue though.

I've currently got my adapter harness removed from the car, but when I go to reinstall it, I plan on seeing if this is indeed the issue. The harness should be going back in within the next week.

 

Timely update. I almost bumped this thread yesterday to see where you were at with the swap. The Adamat kit looks interesting, good find

 

Following closely. Saw your IG post yesterday and was like "Holy crap, he's getting close!" I'll be having some questions for you as well once it's good to go.

SLG isn't the only one with those trans mount brackets, right? There's so many companies out there supporting these swaps now that I gotta imagine alternatives exist. I'm planning on grabbing one of these LOJ brackets for mine.

https://lojkits.com/products/zf-8hp-...crQa-xSD5ezoTv

 

That bracket is for Mopar 8HPs. I don't think it would fit my application. Can't speak on your situation though. It can be frustrating with how many variations of these transmissions exist at times.

I specifically need one for a BMW N55 8HP45. I also wanted one with bushings that were vertical for simplicity when making the crossmember, hence the HPR mount.

 

I got the 8HP Flashing tool in from Rally Road. They were the cheapest vendor that had it in stock and ready to go ($120 + $400 refundable deposit IIRC). The cable for iphone was a little wonky/damaged but it worked. I did have a few small hiccups along the way, namely:
1) the switch on the side of the side of the flashing tool was in one position and when I took it out of the box, I fucked with it. I had to flip it back to the other position before the tool would work.
2) I also didn't give the ACDP tool permission to see other devices on the network since I was using the Iphone to USB C cable that was provided. Turns out that this has to be enable for the tool to work.
3) The tool wasn't showing up as already registered and when I registered it, it said illegal code and threatened to lock me out after 3 more attempts. Once I went back a screen, the required modules showed up so I was able to proceed. I think that was just a bug.

Overall, it was rather straight forward after those few hiccups. I just sent the files required by Maxxecu to their support email and I'm waiting on hearing back from them. Hopefully, I can start the engine and shift through the gears this weekend. The transmission cooler and some exhaust tubing is coming in the mail tomorrow.

 

I found doing the flashing process from a computer to be much easier and less glitchy then a phone.
Make sure Maxx sends you the Binary 5 software. Flash it, then open up the 8HP tabs in Mtune and make sure it's both communicating with the 8HP, and reads "Binary 5". When I emailed Maxx they sent me Binary 4 the first time, which doesn't allow for full clutch control. You need the flash tool to step up to Binary 5 from 4, so I'm really glad I checked that before sending the tool back.

 

Cool, thanks for the heads up. I sent them a follow-up email requesting Binary 5 specifically.

 

I gotta look up the flashing procedure again, wasn't even aware you could do it via phone haha. Really hope you get the file and all the goodies needed to fire it up this weekend. Mainly for your sake, but also so I can follow along with your trans-tuning journey (might save Wingman from getting another sixteen messages from me as well).

I can't remember at this point, but what did you do for your DBW TB and pedal solutions? And what about that misfire? Just realized there was never any solution given on that.