Where not to skimp?
#63
Regrets:
- Spending money on NEW suspension that is not Xida. I bought Koni Sport and sold them for 1/2 price QQQ
- Spending money on MS2 instead of going to MS3X right away
- Not rewiring my car while it was apart
- Not using crimp tools earlier (they are a godsend for wiring!)
- Not doing LeMons earlier
- Spending money on NEW suspension that is not Xida. I bought Koni Sport and sold them for 1/2 price QQQ
- Spending money on MS2 instead of going to MS3X right away
- Not rewiring my car while it was apart
- Not using crimp tools earlier (they are a godsend for wiring!)
- Not doing LeMons earlier
#64
regrets:
- 1.6L motor.
- 90-93 body so I had to upgrade: clutch, brakes, diff and still have a floppy dick chasis.
- blowing my first motor after about 15mins into my first test drive with boost (I had my timing advanced and still had 87 octane in the tank)
- buying another 90-93 after I totalled mine and didnt want to have to get a new manifold and DP for the turbo setup.
- buying a turbo from MJM Turbos
- ever bothering with FMU, Fuel Pump, Bipes instead of going straight to EMS
- swaping my 12x12x3 IC for a 18x12x3 IC
- swapping my 18x12x3 IC for a 18x6x2.5 IC
- buying an ebay IC at all
- building an IM and then selling it because I blew my motor
- buying frame rails and then selling them beause I blew my motor
- Buying seats and harnesses and selling them because I never track the car
- not tracking the car
- Doing a coolant reroute and reusing a gasket so I have a coolant leak now
- Upgrading to 11" Corado Front rotors
- not buying the 50 trim Chinacharger sooner
- Koni Shocks w/stock springs
- Koni Shocks w/FM springs
- Koni Shocks w/sleeves and 550/300 springs
- Koni Shocks w/sleeves and 400/250 springs
- Not selling my Koni Shocks fast enough
- Burning up two MS3 CPUs from asshatery
- Buying used injectors from this site, twice, and both times getting things not as described. First was low ohm injectors listed as high, the second had broken pintle caps and I paid to have them cleaned to find out.
#65
Boost Czar
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the lack of movitation is mainly cause the car works well and im lazy and cheap.
basically: buy good parts and make sure you have a 1.8L
I should add the rx7 clutch diff and clutchnet clutch.
basically: buy good parts and make sure you have a 1.8L
I should add the rx7 clutch diff and clutchnet clutch.
#73
Senior Member
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Join Date: Oct 2011
Location: Horse and Buggy, PA
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So your favorite ebay intercooler was 12x12x3? What sort of power were you making at the time? I have been looking for something roughly the same as the FM intercooler in size but am kind of intrigued by the idea of something a little smaller to increase airflow to the radiator.
#74
Things I wish I did:
- Should have got LS2 truck coils right away instead of dicking with COPs
- Should have got MS3X from the start instead of MS2
- Should have overpaid for the chassis and got an *immaculate* one, instead of one that's just alright
- Should have bought SuperMiata damper when I had the cash
Everything else, no regrets
- Should have got LS2 truck coils right away instead of dicking with COPs
- Should have got MS3X from the start instead of MS2
- Should have overpaid for the chassis and got an *immaculate* one, instead of one that's just alright
- Should have bought SuperMiata damper when I had the cash
Everything else, no regrets
You had damper issues? I don't want to hear that. Still trying to talk myself into not needing one.
What coil issues did you have?
Have you been rewiring? I'm about to tackle that, not looking forward to it.
What crimp tool do you like?
+1 on lemons. Super fun. Wish there was a good crew down here to do it with. I've gotten a lot of trophies but could have had more fun.
Now they make everything in mild because they are tired of fixing, fixing and refixing the stainless stuff which keeps coming back broken.
I might do an Ebay radiator and IC to replace the FM ones I paid way way too much for.
I really, REALLY don't want to disparage FM, but honestly I can say 2/3 of my regrets come from FM products.
*The Twincooler sounds awesome, gets lots of looks and interest from people checking out the car, but I don't think it cools nearly as well as a big rad and putting in an oil cooker.
*The oil cooler lines require you to pull the intake manifold brace, and that made my secondary injectors fall off. 4 or 5 times. Lots of rewelding, strengthening, etc. Total joke.
*The oil return line fell off over and over with the FM set up. Added some brass pipe, problem went away, but it's much lighter now with solid lines.
*The water lines fell off over and over. I bought their upgraded lines. It did the same. Bought more upgraded lines, they did the same. I had wrapped things in foil, heat blankets, everything I could think of, kept losing lines. I added some hand-re-shaped DSM OEM hard lines, similar to FM's new set up and they just barely worked. Finally I made custom lines for everything, it rocks 100%. Tools and materials cost just what FM's lines cost, and I could make 3 more now.
*The FM wastegate set up could never handle my boost. I redid this several times. Eventually, porting wastegate, adding springs, making a new bracket got it under control.
*The FM manifold gave me issues, but I think it was overheated by a PO.
*The "upgraded" FM intercooler is no bigger than the previous. I even asked for the biggest one they had. TOTALLY should have gone ebay. The silicon lines are nice though, thermal efficiency aside. Props. :-)
MS2! OMG what a ******* horridly annoying piece of ****. Of course, there was no MS3 then, so I can't regret it too much, because it's worlds better than:
FM Link Piggyback. And ALL piggybacks. I've spent more time dicking with people trying to run MS1 or 2 in piggy mode, it's **** **** ****. Never do it. NEVER. You spend weeks chasing your tail trying to trick things into thinking other stuff isn't there. FM O2 clamp, rear O2 sensor trickery.... All a huge joke. I can't stress enough the retardedness of piggybacks. Definitely lost a motor from one computer not knowing what the other was doing.
Things I like:
My super old style FM BOV. Used to stick and be crappy and I'd clean/lube it all the time. Then I turned it upside down and it's not stuck once. Awesome, two stage... Just zero complaints about it, one of the most trouble free parts of the car.
I love my COP setup. I don't know why everyone hates. <$100.
550cc low ohm evo injectors. Newer stuff is better, but they were like $80.
I regret taking off my super cheap anti-sway bar. The OEM one is nice, but very heavy. The first one felt much stiffer than none, but no stiffer than this.
Toyo T1R/T1S - both very cheap, light, great in rain. Can't find them anymore, and R1R is spendy.
Kosie rims - 12 lbs, tires are SO cheap in 15x7.
Probably my Koni Race shocks. No one riding in the car could ever tell I had 700 lb springs in it, felt wonderful, could take mom/girlfriends/etc in car with no complaints even on rough roads.
New deck and amp. And putting speakers into luggage tray. None of those thigns cost me over $100, makes radio usable at 100 mph.
Bought car 1 year old (in '01) for 7k with 10,000 miles on it, as a well done salvage title car. GREAT place to save money, everything looked sweet, car's been a dream to own, no inherited problems. Worth taking the time to pick out the right car.
Not cheap, but 6 speed and 3.6 gears has made the car so much more refined. :-)
HID H4's to replace halogens. I could never go back, well under $100. Just adjust them right.
As people said, take your time, make stuff look nice. Underhood is up to you - but in the cab and the outside of the car people will see and judge you by. Cops as well as real people. black out intercooler, keep tailpipe tame, etc.
My SPEC stage 2/3 clutch. I haven't had any issues with the FM one, but the spec one really felt great, and held power. So far I'm not yet trusting the FM one, doesn't seem too hard to get too hot, and the pucks/no-pucks spec always treated me right, went through a couple of them.
Short shift kit - real, displaced fulcrum kind. Doesn't do a damn lick of good for performance, but I like how it felt.
Air horns!
Exhaust - I probably have $150 in parts in it, 3 inch all the way back (friend welded, now I could myself).... Which brings up best point:
Don't be afraid to spend the money to buy tools to do it yourself. In the end you'll have a shop and skills. Manifolds I would probably buy, but everything else.... Look carefully at doing it better.
#75
#76
Senior Member
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Over at roadsterdrift these were talked about OTC Ratcheting Terminal Crimpers 4497 - SummitRacing.com . They said they were real great. although summit's site doesn't appear to be selling them at the moment I am sure other places do.
Klein Tools Product Catalog - Crimping/Cutting Tool ? Non-Insulated/Insulated Connectors
Has worked well for me so far when doing crimps with non-insulated connectors. I don't use insulated connectors so I don't have any experience with that yet.
#77
Boost Czar
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Join Date: May 2005
Location: Chantilly, VA
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So your favorite ebay intercooler was 12x12x3? What sort of power were you making at the time? I have been looking for something roughly the same as the FM intercooler in size but am kind of intrigued by the idea of something a little smaller to increase airflow to the radiator.
here's a before and after of the 12x12x3 vs the 18x12x3:
Because it was so large it has a bigger pressure drop and the spool suffered slightly. Since I drive a shitty no-torque 1.6L, it was noticeable. (the dip in torque was due to wonky boost control at the time)
Abliet the AITs were never more than 10°F over ambient.
now I have some tube and fin IC that I doesn't seem to be as efficient as the 12x12x3 where I see my AITs get higher than I'd like in boost. The turbolator count when you looked through it left little to be desired. The core is also getting beat to hell by rocks.
compare this to a BELL IC core:
OEM MSM core:
I wish I had a BEGi IC or something with a rock solid well constructed core with miata specific mounts.
#78
Thats a fine crimper, but when you're re-wiring a whole car your arm will fall off if you dont use a ratcheting crimper. And that seems to only be for the junky stuff they sell at hardware stores, not legitimate crimp connectors. I bought the blue handled crimper from eastern beaver. Its worked well with sumitomo connectors so far, but even doing the COP harness my hand was getting tired. I picked that one since it should be able to crimp most pins I'll run into in a miata.
#79
Boost Czar
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that crimper posted looks like ***.
you want this with the correct dies for your contacts:
Ratcheting crimper for Weather Pack connectors DIYAutoTune.com
worth it.
although I still use my wire strippers that does an okay job at best...but i still solder them to the wire for extra insurance.
you want this with the correct dies for your contacts:
Ratcheting crimper for Weather Pack connectors DIYAutoTune.com
worth it.
although I still use my wire strippers that does an okay job at best...but i still solder them to the wire for extra insurance.