Brain, we shall chat in PM.

Concealer, do you mean the ARTech gear? If I'm looking at the same thing it is the uncut silicone portion of the water lines. The two big SS ones run to the little L bracket and the last few inches are that black hose.

Edit: MicaCeli's got it^^

 

Ah ok, so it won't always be looped. That makes more sense. Very cool!

 

Haha yep. I considered keeping it looped for OPTIMUM COOLING but I will probably just be all boring and hook it up to the water connections.

 

The install over the weekend went fairly smoothly, excepting the very end. So I got the turbo mounted, mashing the heater hard line out of the way, lines routed and fitted, final turbo IC piping completed, exhaust hung up, etc. All good except for the very last piece of the puzzle.

The very end is sad because the DP isn't mounting to the turbo without hitting the engine/transmission junctions. See the fail pics far down below the success install pics. Throw me all your ideas to remedy this so I don't have to send it to artech :( and send moral support on the things I did right lol.
























Time for the FAIL downpipe issue pictures. It needs to rotate counterclockwise and move up to be flush with the turbo, but it is prevented from doing so by the motor's protrusion right at a tranny bolt. The pics don't show that part perfectly tho. Help me resolve this if it is possible!

 

I normally remove the brace from the front subframe. Loosen the engine mounts from the subframe. Jack up the engine. Downpipe should go in. That's how I installed my Artech downpipe. Hope that helps.

 

Is your PPF adjusted properly? Not sure if it will make enough of a difference but mine actually lifted the rear of my trans after I adjusted it correctly... No idea if it will create room where needed but u never know lol

 

Yeah I think you need to lift the motor up a bit. From your pictures I seem to have much more room in that section then you do. I also installed my DP on the motor before putting anything in.

You could also undo the turbo put the dp on and then put the turbo back in.

 

Thanks for the suggestions guys, I will try them out and see what happens. I had to lift the motor to get the DP to insert up from below the car as well.

I'm afraid the DP just runs too close to the engine at the diameter expansion section next to the motor-trans junction. We shall see what these adjustments bring us.

Any further ideas are more than welcome. Haven't heard from abe yet about his ideas but I hope you all are right. Literally all I have to do for the car to run is bolt the DP to the turbo and the DP to the rest of the exhaust

 

So my fears appear to be true. It goes up and in, routed in a proper way and with good clearance but wont match to the turbo in that configuration. Despite adjusting in all sorts of ways such as those suggested above, it doesn't want to fit. The motor is blocking it from twisting when I try to line up the turbine-DP bolts, but that doesn't matter anyway because the path of it in that imaginary configuration isn't good not to mention resting against the engine.

Pics here are from above and below the car with DP in the same static location. Any further propositions before I send it back for modification? I don't think there is another option. I spoke with Abe and that's probably what we'll be doing. This is in no way badmouthing ARTech. As usual he is being professional, helpful, and wants to fix it right so no negativity towards him please.


If only I could twist SS with my hands!





Looks great!







Oh, wait...

 

So I finally got my parts back and everything fits into place! DP still kisses the trans housing where it interfered before. Not sure of the discrepancy between abe's setup and mine but hell it works. Gotta run it like this for now but it's not vibrating or giving me any problems.

I started off with an exhaust leak right behind the turbo at the top of the flange. I thought I was going to disassemble all that **** again and plane the surfaces, but I had an old gasket laying around that I slipped in there and voila, no leak. Time to drive!

Initial autotune went nice and slow with mx5autoxer in my passenger seat. Slowly tuned boost step by step and it looks like I'm capped out at 6 psi with this wastegate. Have not seen MAP above 141 kPa. All in all, still real fun compared to stock but I see an MBC in my future soon (thinking ebay NXS). I can feel the potential boost and quicker spool waiting to be had. Been logging and driving like mad and cells aren't really changing much anymore.

Here's what I ended up with. Not touching spark, that one is just the basemap from diyautotune.












The exhaust note is real nice, just a bit louder than stock. Seems to be getting quieter with break in. I have had good success with the BOV given that it opens well at low boost pressures and seals at idle. It might be opening a tad with high vacuum load. It's certainly audible, but It sounds clean.

To finalize it all, I only need to trim my plastic undertray and install to keep the cooling system operating optimally. Then I'll crank the boost with MBC!

 

Ah, the sweet taste of victory. Lets go to Lowe's and fab up a MBC so we can crank dat boost.

 

Yay Matty Chuck! I read your text when I got off work and went, "woohoo" in front of my coworkers. They're just jealous.

Also, you want EBC, not MBC.

 

I'm sticking with MBC for now due to simplicity and low wallet impact. I'm excited to run it as is plus a few more psi!

Either going to build one or get the NXS ebay one I've heard good things about. The graigner valve ones I've seen talked about before look good, but have to order from McMaster. If the ebay one functions just as well or the hardware store verison I'll do one of those.

This: NXS Manual Boost Controller 300zx GSX GST STI RX7 MBC | eBay

Or this: boostcontrol

Or parts from the hardware store and try to find the right spring as well as ball bearing. Using https://www.miataturbo.net/useful-sa...ing-mbc-10990/

 

skip mbc and just setup EBC
it takes longer but works grrrreat.

 

I know, I know, I'll get there in due time. For now a quick and easy $15 fix is the ticket.

Just ordered the parts for two grainger valve versions (2nd link above) that mx5autoxer and I will try out.

 

I just finished up trimming the undertray for closure of my build. Before I did that, I wanted access to my oil drain to check and make sure all is well. I think I might have too much oil pressure into the turbo? What do you all think?















A beautiful sight to finally see:











Muffler hangs a little crooked









No boost increase as of yet. Still waiting on those parts. While I wait, I wanted to take a few vids at 6 psi for comparison.













These two are pretty terrible, but you can

 

Anyone care to comment on the oil flow from that vid above? I'm burning a bit of oil I think but not much more than before the install. Sometimes I get a little spurt of smoke out the tailpipe and a nice smell, though I've never driven a catless car before so IDK exactly what is normal. Even without a cat, this exhaust sounds way nice and continues to quiet down with use.

The MBC I put together is working nicely and holding well at about 165 kPa. I didn't want to boost it up too high as I've been driving long distances moving my *** out of state to Raleigh, NC. I've put about 1000 miles on the car already. During all this driving, my AFRs have been more stable as well as the MAP signal, and I'm getting 300 milles to the tank. This is even better than before with the MS so that makes me happy, not to mention being able to accelerate at highway speeds.

During part of the move, I left my car at the parents' place to borrow their suburban. They decided to joyride around a bit which was OK until I realized they went over 100 miles after topping off my 1/4 full tank with regular gas. I don't think they drove it hard, but I still freaked me out at the idea of all my efforts getting detonated (literally). I drained the gas and refilled with 93 and all has been well so far.

Hot starts down in the south have been pretty shitty, stalling out at times and giving me a nice lifter tick the first few minutes of operation. Also I notice a pretty big power difference when its hot/cool outside, much moreso than I was expecting.

I'll jump on the EBC train after I complete my move and begin work. It's still plenty fun right now!

 

Glad to hear the MBC is working. Let me know when you're gonna be in Blacksburg. I had to order a new phone, but it should be in tomorrow. I'll give you a text when I get it.

 

Your oil flow looks similar to mine below. That's 30psi engine pressure, 900rpm idle, -3an line and no restrictor on a Garrett journal bearing t3/t4. I ran it that way for 3k frequently boosting miles and never had issues.

 

Thanks m2cupcar, the comparison is good to see. I'm not sure what the deal is, but I'm going to try a pop rivet restriction fix. I've put a good number of miles on the car and haven't had significant losses, so we will see if smoke lessens.

So who has driven one of these before?!?



I had the enormously lucky opportunity to wield this beast when visiting my family. Their close friend has one of them and we bonded over my miata accomplishments. I guess I gave off a good degree of competency because after we talked and he drove me around, he stopped and asked me if I wanted to drive.

It's really a crazy machine. 1st gear tops at 66 mph and you accelerate to that in no time. We weren't on roads where I could comfortably test the handling and brakes. Lets just say the threshold is way way high. The sound is amazing. The biggest downfall is also a strength. It handles all these extreme conditions like speed, cornering, and braking so well that it seems like you aren't going fast or driving hard. The miata sometimes makes me feel like I'm in more extreme circumstances. But yeah, it was awesome.



I also got a chance to put in an aluminum ebay radiator. It's helped quite a bit with the heat of the south since my move. Lifter tick is way down on hot restarts and I can see oil pressure sit a little higher (from being cooler?) instead of dropping on long cruises.

Did a gauge face trade with the Brain and now my interior chi is grand.