Exactly how I ended my day yesterday. Nothing like creating more work for yourself.

 

She RUNS!!!!

Got things all wrapped up Sunday afternoon. Spun the engine with plugs pulled until I got oil pressure. Then tried to fire it. It was trying but wouldn't catch. Suspected bad gas (been on blocks for 1.5 years), so I drained the tank (thank you Mazda for putting a drain plug in the fuel tank!), blew out the lines and changed the filter. Still wouldn't fire.

Pulled the plugs and found #1, 2 and 4 black and sooty. #3 was still perfectly clean but wet with fuel. Aha. Inspected the COPs harness and, sure enough, a wire had pulled out of the #3 connector (I bought this harness from someone locally -- lesson learned). New connectors on order from Ballenger. Went to bed.

The OEM ignition stuff was sitting on a shelf, so I installed those yesterday to get going. Gave it a try, and, holy ****, engine absolutely sprang to life! Smooth as silk. Nice. Ran it with a Superfunnel until the T-stat opened and purged air. Shut down and inspected for leaks. Bone dry (thank you Mazda OEM gaskets!). Buttoned up, started and went out on the road to seat the rings. Ahhhhhh . . . top down motoring. I must say, Katskins upholstery is nice.

75 miles into the break-in at this point. Only issues at this time:
1. Serious 70mph shimmy that shifts from front to back with a particular tire. I'll get stuff re-balanced and go from there. These are "new" BFG Rivals that have been sitting around for almost 2 years while the car has been down.

2. Oil temp gauge intermittent. Wire continuity checks out. I suspect poor grounding of the sandwich spacer (it's anodized). I'll work on that at the first oil change.

So far, cooling seems pretty good. It was mid-90s yesterday and I was breaking in a new engine. Water temp stayed around 205. This is with an AC condenser, although AC wasn't running (it's not charged yet).

It's nice having 2 running NA Miatas again (knocks on wood).

 

<p>Oil temp: Not sure if this picture helps, but it made my oil temp related weirdness go away.</p><p></p><p>Spade connector on the end of a wire. Bent 90* and hose clamped to the sender. Other end is grounded to the head. I was able to wrangle it on even with all the stuff still around it.</p>

 

That's clever!

 

<p>Stole it from someone. Props to whoever it was.</p>

 

Rebalanced the tires. They were WAY out. Car is smooth again.

173 miles! Oil consumption stabilized. Really smooth runner. I thought I would be in for a fair amount of retuning with the new IC, but apparently not. I'd forgotten how much time I spent on this tune. It's really good. Instant starts, idles like butter and great AFRs. I've touched 4psi for some brief moments. Trying to keep out of boost for now.

Pictures this time:

 

Great to see you up and running. Mine is getting closer and closer to installation. I just added Toyota COPs yesterday and looking forward to seeing the difference.

I see you have the GReddy heat shield over the turbo. I have one too, but its beat to ****. Any idea where to source another one?

 

I bought it from FM several years ago. I don't see it on their web page anymore, but you might give them a call about it.

 

Interim report:

I'm at 1500 miles now. Getting ready for second oil change and first with Rotella T6.

Been driving the **** out of it. Love it! Hitting 10psi on an uber-conservative spark map. Smooth. Pulls nice.

Overall, cooling is decent. The only time I saw a thermal runaway was when I was auto-tuning high RPM (6500+ RPM) for an extended time period in 95* weather. I could see the oil temps climb from the RPMs with the coolant temps following. What was interesting is that the OEM temp gauge never budged until I got past 220*. But I could easily see what was going on with the aftermarket temp gauges. Glad I have those. Bringing the RPMs down brought down the temps in short order. In normal DD, I haven't had any issues.

I don't think the cooling is up to track use. Right now I'm running an OEM plastic-tanked automatic radiator. I bought one of the new Koyo 36mm Hypercores to put in. We'll see how that does. If the Ron Davis radiator in the red car is any indication, it should run nice and cool with the new Koyo.

 

I'm really looking forward to some track videos in this thing.

 

Doesn't look much different, but I basically swapped out most of the heat exchangers:

1. Radiator: Upgraded to one of the new Koyo Hyper-V core radiators. Fit perfectly. Has a 36mm core but, according to Emilio, cools as well or better than the old 55mm Koyos. Obviously, I haven't had any hot weather to test in, but definitely an upgrade over the OEM auto radiator I had before.









2. AC Condenser. Old one was clogged. Went ahead and sprung for a new one (pretty cheap on Rock Auto) along with a filter/dryer. I plan to have good AC this Summer. No pics . . . .

3. Heater Core: Removed the spongy, leaky, 25 year old model. Did the full dash-removal to get to it. Took the opportunity to go Jeffbucc on the interior. Now, the inside of the car smells like new and I have heat!



I'm going to take this thing to the track tomorrow. It's broken in, filled with Rotella T-6, has fresh heat exchangers, etc. Should be fun . . . it pulls!

 

we want videos!!

 

Fun was had. Took the car out for a couple of sessions. First thing I discovered was that the upholstery shop undid my foamectomy when they put on the Katskins (actually don't mind this from the standpoint of attention to detail, longevity, etc.). I'm easily sitting 2 or 3 inches higher -- a broomstick test is a distant memory -- not that I ever really passed in this car anyway.

The other thing, beautiful Italian leather doesn't grip your hiney at all.

So, I ended up cruising around the track with the top down, hanging on to the steering wheel and mashing the dead pedal trying to stay in position. Make that the "power" steering wheel, LOL. No race seat, no HANS, no harness, 205 tires, street brake pads and jet sounds. Haha:


Meanwhile, over in the red terror (I was alternating sessions):


This really made me appreciate Emilio's concept of a "balanced" car. That 949 95R formula is sweet, so easy to flog. In comparison, this car was just, plain hard to drive and my consistency was zilch.

I need to get a far better seat/restraint situation before taking this car back to the track. I want to keep the car just the way it is for DD -- it's perfect for that -- so I need to find a combination that I can easily swap in.

I also need to get a catch can mounted. I little oil out of the breather goes a long way in making a mess.

 

I see you went the wiper cowl intake route--how are you liking that?

 

If you look at post #1 of this thread, you'll see I've had the cowl inlet on this car for nearly a decade now. Since the hole was there, I reused it when I went FI. But if doing it from scratch, I "think" a headlight area cold air spot is better. You can also hear how much noise it makes in the video -- I like it but others might not.

I'm planning to do a some dyno pulls to compare this intake to a straight pipe of the same length in the front of the car (no bends but with cold air) and to an air filter directly on the turbo intake with the hood closed (hot air). Just need to schedule the dyno time. Should be an interesting A/B/C test.

 

Hey Rick, where did you end up installing your air temp sensor? I was planning on putting mine in the inter cooler end tank but it's looking like it won't fit with the bung and wire connector.
I figured that I would just copy the flyin miata location but I can't seem to find their description in their documentation.

 

I put mine in the cold-side end tank. I thought I had a picture, but I can't find one -- sorry. I didn't use a bung, I just drilled and tapped the end tank itself. The metal there was more than thick enough for the temp sensor pipe threads.

 

Hey hornetball! I'm new to the forum, but thought I would use my first post to give you props for this awesome build! Funny how small a world it is. I run out at MSR with Apex and SCCA about 15 times per year. I don't know if I have ever seen you out there, but now I know what cars to look for. Perhaps we will cross paths one day.

[The fetching Mrs. Dallas and I are looking at property in Granbury this weekend for a future homesite. She's finally going to let me have a 4 car garage.]

 

Last post over a year ago but I don't care. Just read all 13 pages back to back and just had to post to say thanks for a great story. What's the latest with it or will I find that out in some other topics somewhere?

 

Just street driving the heck out of it. I'm about 1K away from my 250K celebration. I did end up removing the oil cooler (not needed for street driving) and restoring the OEM AC fan. Other than that, just oil changes.