Greetings.

I'm Michael, Austalian guy living in Central NY. I have a 4th gen 4Runner like all the cool kids, and a few motorcycles - I have a Honduh RC51 I need to sell to buy **** for the homomobile and a few dirtbikes. I have an 02 KX250, a 1985 KX125, and have a couple pitbikes - KLX110 with a 143 kit and a Honduh XRfiddy. I used to ride a lot more and ended up with a house and a girlfriend and a dog and that has slowed down.

I decided my life was not complete without more hair care in my life and in February 2018 I drove down to VA to buy my nugget.

I wrote the following on company time and will try an catch up from then until now.


So, I drove down from CNY to Roanoke to buy this nugget. I’m an aussie and despite 10 years of living here I still haven’t worked out winter. For some reason I assumed it would be warm. I drive out thru a snow storm, some time round about Scranton the snow was gone. I get to Virginia by dark and holy ****, it’s 14F. **** me, it’s cold, and all I brought was a hoodie cos I assumed it was warm in the south. Dumb fucken move.


Love that NY salt.

Car starts, some ‘vapour’ from the exhaust. Cos it’s cold right? Sure, that’s it. Comp test looks great, 200 across the board. Bit of a clutch squeak, figure it will just be a bit of grease on the master. Fab. Little rough round the edges, but sure it’s ok. Has some frame rail damage but did some googlage and not structural. Pay the guy and I am the proud owner of a 95 pre OBD 1.8 base with

-M45 JR SC
-Bullshit powercard setup, that opens the injectors for 10:1 on any sign of boost
-MSPNP2, semi installed
-aem wideband
-JR headers with RB exhaust, magnaflow cat and a test pipe.
-SPEC 2+ clutch, lightweight flywheel combo
-Harddog M1 hardcore bar, with side bars.
-TDR Extreeeemmmeeee splitter
-GC sleeves/Eibach/Koni yellow suspension combo
-Racing beat sway bars
-konig helium 15x6.5
-pegleg diff
-and no real rust.






I pays the guy and and I need drag this ****** 500 miles home. Did I mention it’s 14F? So, I pulled a uhaul trailer down there behind my V8 4runner for a solid 12mpg. I roll it on the trailer and ****, the splitter hits the front of the trailer and its schlammedness won’t let me pull it forward.

So I roll the car off, then off I go to HDR and buy some 2x12s and a saw. Cut some planks and jam them on the trailer, drive the car on.




Getting late by this point. So, I wanted to be an hour or three back up the road by this point, I’m cold, and grumpy. So I drive the car back on. My dumb *** forgot to flip the fender down on the trailer, so I can’t open the door. No worries, I bought a fucken convertible and I can Tom Selleck this **** and climb out over the door. This is my first miata and it’s 14F.

Unlatch the catches, and tip the roof and crack – the rear window shatters. ****.



So tie the thing down then make my way north to the finest motel 6 on the I81 corridor and duct tape the window up.





Then hit my first ever waffle house.


parked outside the WH

Nutritious.


Back over the Mason Dixon


Filled up a few fuel cans to save 50c a gal in PA and NY.



Got home after dark. Turns out I also left the interior light on so I got home to a flat battery, and needed the GF to roll her car up so I could just it to get this POS off the trailer. Driveway has ice and **** all over and barely made it up. At this point I am wondering if I should have just burned a pile of cash. In fact, that feeling never went away.

 

So now, it’s feb, it’s cold, and I am not gonna drive this thing til the snow melts and the salt is washed off the road cos otherwise I may as well have bought an NY rust bucket right? Day 1, get this thing iin the barn.






About a month goes by and can't ignore that the vapor on start smells a bit oily. I figure might be a bit of blowby cos of the the SC. So I go all ebay catch can on it. Still smoky.

Now it is home though, a few pics of what I got.













Sexual Chocolate

Double check comp, but still smoky.

Install LED lights in barn, which flooded after heavy rain.


More under hood pics

check out my plumbing.

This last one shows a problem that never ends. Fabricobbled crossover pipe needs to be maybe an inch longer. The bend is right after the outlet and **** always rubs - the belt on the coupler.


Back to he smokies
I buy a leakdown tester now. I test 1, 2. couple% leakdown. Great. Get to 3, and can't get the ****** to stay on TDC and just can't get the thing to not leak. Can’t get below 30%. Engine keeps blowing over from tdc, it’s not easy etc. Anyways, I go pull out the potatocam borescope and see this


That thar is a ringland.

So yep, engine is mcfucked. Yay. I never said this story was full of great decisions.

Not long after this, time to get it registered. Get it on the road. Sorted that out.

Anyways, so about this time I start looking for an engine, find a 96-97 with about 120k on it in Chemung NY, so I go out and pick that up. Buy a chain block an engine stand and get that on the stand, and start degreasing. Engine seems ok, but I’m guessing that one of the POs was a little afraid of oil changes.







more to come after I get done with work tomorrow, we are only up to April 2018.

 

Also at this point finding **** the PO did that is less than awesome. Realise the PO, who made a big deal about working at audi was certainly not a mechanic. Looks like he crushed the rails when he put the car on the hoist to do the WBO2; when I looked at the car I thought it had been dropped on a speed hump due to some of the marks but on closer inspection, it was from the pucks on a hoist. Just yanked the wiring harness off the PPF when he did the WB as well. Good job brah.






IAT for the MS is glued on to the inlet elbow for the SC pre compressor. Uh, ok. He also couldn’t get the hose clamp back on for the IAT return hose so just threw it in the scuttle and I’m gonna guess there was a vacuum leak that lead to the leaning out that roached #3. Found a few job application forms in the back, from avis and a brochure for the university of phoenix or something. The person who put this thing together spent a lot of money (have the receipts from GW and TDR for a few things, thousands were spent) and this ******* then managed to engage the passion fingers and **** everything he touched.




JB welded up the hole. Did a little sanding after this.

On another topic, how sweet is the linoleum floor in my kitchen? Renovations ongoing, that **** comes out probably over christmas this year, depending on if I gets time off.

Then come the FM tools, TB/WP/oem seals etc. Had more than a couple orders to Priority mazda who seem to have good prices - I don't have local Mazda dealer to go through. Stuff like water pump and timing belt I used amazon credit for, and bought Gates stuff.

My sweet eGay racing catch can on the PCV side. Mounted it where the washer bottle was, I put a cappuccino bottle bottle in the scuttle, bought from the rakutan store posted here quite a few years ago.


and while I’m at it, I bought a mystery meat ally radiator to replace the chocolate/olive oem unit, a 949 reroute, some silicone hoses for the heater and to replace the rotten ones from the rear of engine to the mixing manifold – I wanted to delete the front thermostat housing, but since I’m in NY, wanted to keep the water flow to the TB, and will use this for turbo water feed in the future.

So this **** was accumulating slowly, and this is all happening in between home renovation projects. Buy a house built in 1860, you will never stop fixing **** and nothing will be straight, something something generic miata owner joke.

I have the engine on the stand and am pulling it down and cleaning stuff up.

You can really see the varnish inside, so I'm gonna guess it went an interval or 3 over on the oil change. No real sludging though


This thing must have run fantastically, the idler was seized and has popped off the peg at the bottom. Belt was rather loose, probably skipped a tooth or two. NFG, being a non interference engine, but looks a little maintenance deferred.

 

So since I removed the IAT and I wanted to get this running on the MSPNP2, I needed to get an IAT sensor sorted.

I did a bunch of reading thru the connector megathread and found there is a male plug you can buy thru ballenger.

https://www.miataturbo.net/megasquir...bc-95-a-96067/ details and part numbers in there.





Made a longboi too in case I need to plumb into an intercooler one day.

Because I am a ********, I bought myself some ****** plates for the nugget.



Stripdown continues


REplacing the dead stock hoses with silicone, Used those metal coil things to allow a nice bend with tight radii, and using liner hoseclamps



Installed the WP, and put some black silicone on the freeze plug and installed it - goodbye front neck.

Wrinkle black, cos of course



Did the cam and cranks seals. The little bit on the side of the seal is a teeny string of silicone, not an issue.
THe big concern is the oil that continued to show up below, so I took that as a sign I needed to spend more money at priority and buy some more seals and ****. Half moon ones this time.

 

So, we are at the end of July 18 now.

I went to watch some mates racing flattrack bikes not long before this, and driving home through the back roads I nearly cleaned up a deer or three later at night in places with no cell service. Those 35W sealed beams are shitful

I didn't want to go all full instagram bro build with amazon knockoff jeep LED truck lights. I went old school and grabbed a set of e-code Cibie/Valeo H4 lenses and some decent H4 bulbs. Picked up a cheap relay harness. I think I went Ali Express cos baller on a budget.

Went to the local rite-aid after closing and aligned those puppies.


High beams on, yo.

I used the info from the Daniel Stern website to aim my ****.

Anyways, my birthday jsut passed and the GF bought me a Robbins Panorama top to replace the oem style one I wrecked when I bought this thing.


Got it off.

old one out!

PO never actually painted the metal where it was cut for the bar install. Cool.

Nekkid frame.

New one going on the frame. No the window is not on the ground

Naturally, it rained during the install. ****, central NY it rains more than it doesn't. Seattle east, yo.

In Place.

working my way in with those shitty nuts.

it's on!

Swanky.

Foggy.

 

Ah, the adevntures of PO really shouldn't have been allowed to work on cars....

Also, it looks like the brake booster line is plumbed to the cwtch can?

 

Yep. The booster line has a tee, one tee was going to PCV and the other to the inlet elbow pre SC. Was some wacky **** going on there. I just plumbed the can in between the pcv and vacuum source. Setup is now long gone.

 

Was wondering the same...

 

So the PO teed the booster line to the inlet elbow as a source of vacuum, I'm assuming as the inlet manifold is under pressure under bewst.

So that pipe is actually under vacuum, which is why I connected the can to it.

Probably still wrong

 

So, got my new roof on.

Back to the engine

Inside of engine is a bit bleck. Cleaned it up a bit, resealed the pan with the new half moon seals and glued it all back up. Probably should have drilled and tapped while apart.







Ordered and received the finest Chinesium from AliExpress - got a W2A intercooler unit to **** off the ill fitting crossover pipe.




Time to do the seals and timing belt. Asked for and received advice here that everything was lined up properly.






Envy my brake rotor door stop.

Not much happened for a couple of months after this.

Car is running on p-p-p-p-p-powercard. going to 10:1 every time I put my boot in it, it burns a good quart of oil every 800 miles and I'm enjoying life with it while work o the little stuff.

And then winter arrived and I had to put the thing away.

 

I think judging by that interior shot I had upgraded the stereo to something with bluetooth and a USb input from teh alpine POS that was in it before that had a cd player in it. So 1990s.

Car's of the road now so time to play with stuff that doesn't affect my ability to use it as the fun car on a saturday an so I can still drive to work.

I had run the car at idle etc previously on the MS2 and had basically confirmed that the thing worked.

So time to do it for realsies. Also, I think I had broken the nipple off the powercard a while back and had glued something on and it had blown off. THe last couple of weeks before it was laid up I just drove it with te bypass valve on the SC wired open. Ah, bad times, I had forgotten all about that. I mean, the engine is roached anyways so don;t care. It's not the end of the world if I blow more ringlands off, I gots the AAA, work is 5 miles away and I have another engine

THis was also my philosophy for the MS2. GEt it in and learn to tune it on the hurt engine as if I roach it any further it is strongly in the who cares bucket and short of putting a rod thru the block I have a donor for a later built engine if I go down that road.

I somehow managed to mess soemthing up and crossed 2 plug wires over and it ran like ****, was able to determine this by swapping OEM ECU back in.


Can't see ****, captain

Took crossover off to fset timing to 10 deg in tunerstudio.

Can see how the crossover pipe is a little fucky. If they had made the outlet like 3/4" straight before grafting on the bend it would be great. but nope, the thing wants to grind on the snout and rub belts on the clamps and ****. So close.Think I have a boost leak from my IAT sensor in the thin wall pipe. Need a bung welded in


Anyways, got it all back together and it ran on the MS, at least in the barn to the point where I didn;t gas myself. Cold start, idled, got to warm and then kicked fans on.

Cool, Good til spring. Let's play chassis.


Black Friday sales came and went and I gave FM a bunch of money and bought a pair of frame rails, as mine are smooshed. Too fucken bad they have discontinued the butterfly that would have gone with these gen 1 frames, so **** me, right? No 2019 Black Friday butterfly for Michael.

So while the car's parked up, I put on my winter coat and worked on my dirt floored barn to try and fix the rails a bit and get these on.

Some undercar pics.

I bought the FM jack adapter. Can now easily get the car lifter without trying to get the jack under the TDR splitter or driving it onto wood blocks to get the jack under. Can lift a side easily. Worth it


So now to straighten the rails





The last on is jsut a gratuitous shot of my favourite tool

Love this guy. Had a chance to buy one like a foot or 18" long when I went back to oz and I didnt. Much regrets

Took a break from proceedings to drive down to NJ. Dec 30th

Met up with Russian off here, the RusEFI guy. Nice dude, sold me an NB1 6 speed box for 400 clams. Drove down to nearly NYC, Drove my *** home after finding in PAramus the IKEA is not open on Sundays. Hugely disappointing. Ikea, not the gearbag run.





.

Then back home to play with rails.



Some dumbass also left the top down whie it was raining a month or two prior. TUrns out you can leave the top down a couple days and it appears dry, but the water gets under the plastic backed carpet and in the underlay and never dries out and your **** keeps fogging up, Got a couple quarts out. Fun.

THis was also new year's eve. I also gave the driver's seat a foamectomy that night.

 

Early january 19, went out to CT to go to the awards night for the pitbike racing series I ride in. Hilariously good fun, by the way. Took a detour and picked up a 4.1 torsen.




It's a ittle new england crusty but should be ok. Needs some wire brush love.

Got home and took a peek under the car.


2 pc axles so should be easy enough to swap out

Note, at time of writing, I still don't have a torsen in the bloody thing.

Ok, jump forward to April
Mounted the MS. I really like nutserts. I R Fabricator




Playing around, attempting to tune ****






Anyways, SC WOT in 2nd had AFR of 10:1, 11:1 in 3rd

So, pulled up a gauge for duty cycle




I'm gonna call that 97% duty cycle at rev cut. Totes out of injector

Flowforce time.

 

So I sents Nigel a wad of cash and got the FF640s.



Also bought an LS coil wiring harness, will hit up the ole SADFab at some stage and order brackets and leads. I got 4x LS coils at the U-Pullit grabbing some 4Runner parts.


Most important part of any install, gots to have the stickers.

Out with the old

Mmmm, sexy anodized

So got that back together and it honestly took a little whle to get the thing to drive nicely

I changed the req setting for he injector size and the dead times, and then drove and autotuned, but the thing broke down badly under power. Turns out enrichment is scaled off the req fuel on an MS3 and after googling on the side of the road I found the settings I needed to change and using the calculator function on my phone, 265/640x the current values and boom the thing now drives decently

I long term will get a tune on this thing but once it is in an interation tha is largely 'done'. For now, my *** is learning MS slowly.

Oh, and I forgot, I was out of the US for 3-4 weeks in Feb and March, went back to Oz to renew the ole work visa and visit family. Ah family.Cant choose em, can't choke them

I did drive down to Canberra from Newcastle to visit a mate and on the way down took a detour to MX5 Mania

I've known who these guys were since 2000 when I went to my first supersprint and Nick and Matilda were running their car at Oran Park. Didn;t know them, but could pick out of a poilce line up. At the time I was playing BMW 2002 before moving into E30s. The were there at events but again, didn't know them.

So I stopped there and grabbed some stuff
Picked up a 1:18 die cast red NA, a fire extinguisher bracket and this sweet hat. Dude behind the counter also hooked me up with the matching sticker, and a nice lanyard and some some other flair. So big thanks to the nice guy that hooked me up at MX5 mania on my trip home.




For those not in the know, that's the logo for the aussie motorsport branch of Mazda, which was the mob that gave us the SP Mazdas, like the MX5 SP, and the RX7 SP that won the 12h production car race in 1995 at Eastern Creek. I think.

 

Listened to the tweed-wearers at m dot net and bought myself a pair of Esco Jack stands. These things are ******* solid and I wish I'd bought them long ago. Now I have the rails on the car, I can jack it up from them or I can drop the car on the stands on them.

Worth the money, buy em


Esco 10498




GAve the car a good wash before a nice run before **** got pulled apart.

A few more things on the engine on the stand.





Time for the engine swap. I picked the memorial day weekend. Stocked up on oils, coolant, consumables, whatever. Got the HF 2T engine crane and a leveler. Got my HF bendy tip long nose pliers. I’m all set to go. Not my first engine swap, although prior to this was on BMW 2002s and a VW and far less wiring and plumbing. 2 wires to the coil, one to idiot light and one fuel hose, vs this **** .

SO in the week leading up, I get the thing in the air and start pulling stuff off. Had some other stuff on the weekend so was doing ok, but busy. All came apart relatively easily. DEcided there was no way I'd want to rerun the EGR pipe so added some EGR block off stuff to the never ending orders and go. Gee while I’m there add a wilwood prop valve cos **** it, bling.

It got too dark outside so swapped in the real oil pressure gauge I got of the ebays

Installed the sender can on the stand engine.


It Begins!

Bought some 949 Hybrid engine mounts in the classifieds here - test mounted but not used.

This is like the THursday night I think. I went out in the rain and yanked the rad and started labeling stuff too



Friday night was a blowout. Got out from work early, and the ******* padlock on the barn is seized up

Saws, grinders, dremel, crowbars, etc. All inside the barn. Ended up finding a mate with an old 18v craftsman cordless grinder. Burned thru 2 batteries and just got in before it died.

So, Saturday it began in earnest, after a trip to the local car show.


Superdupercharger is off.

My safety stairs made a good parts rack, until it rained

scrap metal and garbage pile

Swapped the fans onto the ebay radiator

bypass pipe for SC removed.

Rubber buildup on tensioner from belt with damage to the edge from that hose clamp issue

Removed the blankie

More **** coming off

It's out!

Empty bay

So that's memorial day weekend, saturday night.

Sunday we do the swap over of ancillaries to the new engine, drop it in and by monday night we are all reinstalled and making boost. Right? Right? Ha.

 

Sunday morning.

Go to lowes so I drop it all onto a moving dolly and strip the bits off to move to the other engine, swap the inlet manifold over, drop the starter off, all that fun stuff, then split the gearbag from the block

Linus has decided he has no interest in being site manager

little surface rust, will clean up later

swapping manifold over to the other engine, taking injectors and rail and all that **** over.

Stuff going over. Got the pax side engine mount installed


Shiny or something. Alternator is on.

Aaaand thiss where it’s all mcfuckered. I was trying to do this as cheaply as possible, cos I’d rather not waste money. I figured the SPEC clutch had only a few thousand miles so i would reuse it. Ride it out for a while, when I go turbo i’ll overpower it, then swap out the 5 speed for a 6 and throw a clutch at it.
When i split it, the bellhousing is full of oily schmutz. And the clutch is wrecked. Rekt. The pilot bearing is seized, the TOB is worn on the surface of the race, the fingers are grooved and the disc is worn out on teh kevlar side but not the metallic puck side. I’m gonna go ahead and guess that the organic surface wears while the puck grabs, so it does twice the work. Also with a bit of a leak from the CAS seal, that’s not doing the organic material any favours. Add to that, some hotspots on the friction surface and I’m in new parts territory - the PP is munted so not jsut gonna throw a new disc at it either. I have a new FM HD throwout I was gonna throw in, and a new pilot.


That dark stuff is all greasy ****

my mount looks nice and clean tho.

Disc is all heatfucked. hot spots all over it. Pilot is seized in the flywheel.


organic side is damn near worn out, puck side has nearly no wear.

fingers are wrecked.

At least I got the manifold swapped over.

FF640s in

My high tech bolt storage system.

So that wiped out the weekend.

I gave supermiata some more cash and ordered an organic 1.8 clutch. That was the easy part.
The hard part was getting the friction surface. TDR sold the clutch initially but on the website did not carry the friction surface. So I googles spec and I find a website with spec’s name in the URL, they are allegedly their biggest reseller (looks like spec just drop ships their ****) So I pay my hundred bucks and I order it. SPM clutch arrives, then the friction surface. For a fidanza. this is where it got fucken fun.


Pack says Fidanza

Pec Flywheel and part number

Not the same, yo

I have the email chain to prove that LMperformance (who runs the spec clutch site I used) are not sending their best and brightest. I mentioned there was a difference in the number of mounting bolts, and that they did not line up and the guy at the other end spent all this time trying to convince me I had a fidanza flywheel (despite SPEC and the SPEC part number in big letters being engraved on teh back) Eventually he was confused enough he told me to jsut call SPEC on whatever number they had, to ‘work out which flywheel I actually have”. Spec dude is jsut a tiny bit more switched on and immediately realises I have a spec flywheel and was sent a fidanza friction. he sends a friction out.


well, the bolts line up


tool marks

"new"

this was installed and sat a while

minty fresh

wrong fucken screws

It shows up a week later, it is correct, however it is an open box item (surface rust, some scratches and ****, looks like it has been installed, sat for a while but hasn’t been run) and the mounting screws are ½” too short. Call back. Ships out another set of screws. Another week down the *******


bag o screws

??

???

A week later I can start to put this thing back together. At least during this time I had time to buy an NB 6 speed starter on ebay and grind the spacer plate to suit so i could drop teh 6 speed in.

 

949 clutch.

1.8 organic


OEM bullet connectors on the 5 speed

wires cut on the 6 speed

Bought a bunch of the oem style bullet connectors on eBay. Neutral switch on 6 Speed box has apparently failed so didnt bother to connect it.

As 6 speed is of unknown history, I ordered a couple of these from the local NAPA, to put through as a sacrificial 1st fill. GL4 and reasonably cheap. HAve a couple bottles of motorcraft on the shelf for fill #2.

I broke the mounting tabs on the gauge hood. New one showed up from priority mazda.


Mounted the flywheel, assembling clutch

PP on!

Now, during the several week hiatus of waiting for parts, I extended the wiring on my chinesium headlight harness. As an aside I discovered that the wiring on that thing is sketchy AF. Was supposed to be 12ga wiring, I cut it back and it is all insulation. Probably 18ga of copper if lucky. Anyways, while doing this I was disconnecting and reconnecting the battery so i could pop the headlights up and down.

getting back to the engine install, lowering it all in going in nicely, then CRACk! Sparks! Fireworks! right near fuel lines. Turns out I hadn;t pulled the battery, and the hot wire from the battery was touching a mounting bracket and attempting to weld itself to the bracket off teh coil mount
Ran round teh back and yanked it off, but very nearly burned the thing to the ground. So learned a lesson there.


Engine back in! Stuff getting bolted back on!

Filling up the 6 speed from inside.

More stuff going in

Looks a lot cleaner without the schplitter

looks like she's had a tap in the nose

bendy.

marking up the under bumper plastic

The SixShooter oil cooler rides again

Did I mention I love rivnuts?

Plumbing up the radiator

MAF delete, quick run to vatozone for a pipe

Yeah, the PS hose hit the fan blade.

We have oil pressure and it runs!!!

 

So the thing runs and with a little tuning goes ok.

Then ridethecliche who sold me sixshooter's oil cooler sends me a message, Bronson M of BroFab hub fame is liquidating his turbo stuff as seen here
https://www.miataturbo.net/diy-turbo...ngement-91285/

So, I'm now the proud owner of a BEGI cast exhaust manifold, a journal bearing T25 turbo, and a nicely made 3" downpipe. Turbo has the same part number as this guy.
https://www.miataturbo.net/diy-turbo...t-turbo-88205/ did some research to work out what the drain is, as I'd like to use the MKTurbo oil line kit. It came with a drain line screwed in so I'll use that. It appears to have some bizarre inverted flare thread in it.

I also picked up a Boundary oil pump.


Suddenly the scope of everything has changed. I was still thiking about setting up the water to air intercooler on the SC, had the lines and bought a pump but this gets me going turbo at a bargain basement price.

So now, the SC has to come off to finance the turbo ****.


Shopping list has changed. Need a bracket for the wastegate actuator, an intercooler and plumbing, BOV, oil lines and bost control solenoid. Will also need a water line that runs to the heater modified to get it out of the way of the turbo downpipe

For now, plan is to use the test pipe I got with the car, and cut it. Measured the inside diameter of the DP and the OD of the test pipe -

this will get me going til I can get a big boi exhaust

Also, somewhere in here, I don;t recall the actual timing - I picked up another torsen. I was heading out to Boston to go see Nick Mason do the vintage pink floyd tunes and before I left I checked the craigslist

Was advertised as a 4.1 but tooth count says 4.3. Don;t care, for 100 bucks it was worth the severe detour, and even if I just use the torsen unit out of it in an imported 3.636 fuji carrier, or something, it's worth it to just gather dust on the shelf, or trade for something. THing is clean, was out of a low mileage car. Much nicer than my ratty 4.1

 

Because I have the attention span of a squirrel, something else I looked into was brakes. I've always wanted a BBK on something, never installed one on my 2002 or my E30 so **** it I'll do it here

Now I'm rolling on Heliums which are not wide and not a snowball's chance of an off the shelf Wilwood or TSE or similar kit working with it. Enter the Mini brake kit. I was able to obtain the mounts for the 11" mini rotors. Now, long term I'd love a nice set of 15x8s, but even if I do get a set the heliums will probably hang around for a second set. So whatever I do, for the foreseeable future, they are in the picture.

So then I ordered a caliper to ensure the thing all fits.

Dynapro. Hawt

Only have the one for now. Promised the GF that the brake kit would cost me nothing out of pocket (besides the brackets) and am burning CC rewards points for the rest. Second caliper will be on track quite soon. THen just need pads and hoses. Leaning towards the 949 stuff. Or could jsut get the wilwood kit. Either/or

Pads, undecided at this stage. Car is unlikely to see a track in the near future. I am thinking either porterfield R4S or BP20 wilwood pads, and i;m sure I'll make an impulse decision in due course.

GOt a bit of time and dummied up the brakes to ensure fitment and see if I'd maybe have to run a spacer, and if so how bigly.


Looks fucken cool


They fit!

plenty of clearance

Daylight




So, I got my info, put it all back together with the stock stuff and started to get to stripping off the SC.


Under the car bushing looks side. Need to contemplate future options. HAve spent hours going all OCD and reading, debated the oem Sport bushes, the megan knockoffs or IL racing kit from FM, or maybe SADFab poly retrofit. Dunno. it's down the list. for ease of install if nothing else I'd be inclined to go poly retrofit. I should get myself on the list soon if that's the case.

had some weeping from teh oil cooler lines, replaced clamps with Breeze liner clamps and tightened up

Some dickehead left the top down then we got 1" of rain or two while I was stuck inside at work. Ooops.

Interior back together.

LAst pics while supercharged. Bittersweet. GOnna miss that whine.

Farewell

And what I did. Yeah, I read the 949 recipe for the intake but the U elbow I bought was too big of a radius and **** hit the light. So I bought a smaller one. THen it fouled on the reroute hose. So on the list of things to dois to chase the chevy tahoe hose and go to a metal conduit to the rear of the engine . I did take the opportunity to remove the relays and solenoids for the emissions stuff. So yeah, I was running out of daylight so I just sent the filter across to the driver's side.
YEah it's likely costing me HP, but I really don't give a **** right now as it will all be yanked out in the near future. For reference, I used the silicone intakes npt hose port Silicone Port System which I screwed in a 1/2"NPT to 90 deg 3/4 barb. THen I used a small amount of hose, which I ran to the IAC valve.


Picked up a GFB BOV from the classifieds here, remove from shopping list. Comes with a trumpet for sick noises or a 3/4" barb for plumb back. Which I will use


Since then, haven;t really bought anything, quietly saving shekels for parts. Then the winter hit and a couple weeks ago I parked the car up for the season

 

So, as of 1205AM black Friday, where am I at?

I have had the FM intercooler setup in my cart for months and have had finer hovered over the BUY button multiple times. Not quite pulled the trigger.

I have no welder - if I did I'd probaby burn my barn down with the shitty wiring. It runs off a 15A breaker that also runs 2 rooms of my house and porch. I nearly repaced my electric stove with gas, but the extra cost to do so paid for a dishwasher, so I lost a nice power feed for the barn

Probably here at this place for another maybe 3 years, maybe a little longer - so welding gear has to wait.

So that leaves me using Ebay elbows and silicone joiners, or buying a kit. I can probably save a couple hundred with a Fab9 core, save anothere hundred with an ebay intercooler. But then I have to install this, and my tie and sanity is worth something so that's where the FM kit makes sense, and just cobble some bends on the end to mate up with wherever my turbo points.

I am typing this waiting to see what the sales look like at FM.

Other consideration. ECU.

I know the MSPNP2 is limited. MS3 gives me better idle and boost control, resolution, knock, potential to upgrade LS coils to sequential ignition and more i/o. And VVT. I now have an oil pump and a core engine, If I do build an engine I'd be nuts not to choose the best head option.

So I have been thinking hard about this. I spent some time at work and made an excel sheet, plotting cost of building an MS3X, with/without stuff like real time clock, knock etc vs a rev unit thru BOFI, or a DIY MSPNP Pro. 1080 for black friday DIY seemed to be the best option. Another option was the MSPNP chip and buying a westfield-mx5 board, and doing the stock case thing. this was the same if not a little more than a black friday PNP from DIY.

Now, as an Aussie I have a soft spot for haltech. my dad had a BMW 2002 touring with a 2560 on it and an E6A. vintage 1997. Hot garbage compare to today, but sentimental

Anyways I figured the elites were out of reach, then I got an email from Haltech.

15% off for black friday. I can get a 1500 with PNP adapter for 1530 shipped. I blow jsut about all my miata fund I have right now if I buy it, but damn they are sexy.I may also need the CAN wideband setup, I should be able to run the AEM I have as an analog input but after playing with the ESP I cannot confirm or deny. need to do more home work. If I need the CAN WB setup it is another 253, and we are getting well beyond what I planned to spend on the ECU.

Plenty of other pros and cons - more data/support here for MS - I can google a common question and have pointers in seconds. but more likely to have a dyno tuner to play with haltech, Not sure about a few i/o things on the haltech. The MSPNP is well designed for adding stuff like a subharness for VVT etc, make a harness and plug into the spare ports and go. THe stock 2 plugs go in and there are another 3 Aux ports I can run wiring to. HAltech looks like it has one aux plug with limited wiring options and the rest of the i/o go to wires already in the oem loom so if I want those for something, do I need to depin the plug? I need to ask some Haltech master race people some questions. It looks like MS is the nicer plug and play option, but then no self learning trims and stuff like that either, can have the haltech dial back timing if it hears knock, etc etc, better flex fuel, 32x32 resolution and Haltech is probably a better option if I ever decide to swap engine, eg K swap or more cylinders. There is an awful lot to consider, and also whether "I" am capable of making the thing work.

Decisions.

I have til cyber monday to pull the trigger I guess.

If anyone has suggestions, I'm all ears And it looks like FM sales go live at 1201 MT and i'm not waiting 1.5h. Sleep!

 

For ECU's I always start with finding the tuner I want and then picking the ECU they recommend. I'd vote the best Megasquirt you can get, just because you will have the support you need anything you need it. Can be rough running something with limited experience. ...coming from a Hydra owner.