Everything is installed at this point, and it only runs on 2 cylinders for a few seconds at a time. I've swapped in 3 coilpacks and 2 ignitors; performed every test on the power supplies I can think of (and that's been suggested to me) at least twice; checked continuity everywhere, again; etc....

At this point I don't have spark at one of the coils, and no signal at the #4 injector, so I'm sending the ECU out to be bench tested. It's pretty much the last thing to investigate. I'm actually hoping that it's bad lol, because the last week has been pretty frustrating at times and I'm not sure where else to look.

 

It runs! Again!

Got the ECU back from being both bench tested, and installed in another car for testing, and it worked flawlessly for the tests. In the meantime I revisited the harness connectors for the ECU and discovered that I had bent many of the pins out of shape while continuity testing int he early stages of the swap. I reshaped the pins, plugged the ECU back in and it runs! This time on all 4 cylinders haha. I pulled it out of the garage and let it idle for about 10 minutes.

I've still got a ways to go before it's buttoned up and ready to beat on, but now that it's at least running I'm reinvigorated and itching to knock out the remaining installations (wideband, boost gauge, proper intake, speed density sensors, exhaust, ...).

I now have a Miata running on a DSM ECU. Pretty freaking cool in my book. I'd like to take the space to again thank Tom T. (underdog) again for being a bottomless well of information during this install. He broke the ground on this swap and I'd still be scratching my head about a lot of stuff if it wasn't for his help.

 

clean car bro, and the rims fit nicely good buy

 

Thought I'd update this again as I had a chance to work on it after moving my residence over the last month or so. What a hassle.

Anyway, now lacking a garage, I've only had a day or two of good weather to get back on the car but this past weekend was lovely so I was able to knock some things out. I finally got the dash and gauges sorted for the most part. I pulled three gauges a PO installed in the vents and moved them to a three gauge mount I built a couple of months ago, and installed them under the head unit. The wiring was so bad on these gauges that it took me a couple hours to straighten it out...think spade connectors on the gauges with wires wrapped around them and taped in place, leads doubled and tripled up this way. Yikes. That's all redone now, relocated, and I got my boost and wideband gauges installed in the center two vents above the stack. Glad to finally have the interior look mostly finished, and now I'm down to reinstalling the HVAC stuff and glovebox, and giving it a thorough cleaning inside. If anyone has an a/c delete duct I'll trade you straight for the non ps pulley I pulled off the motor. Otherwise I'll just gut the piece I've got.

Up front, I worked on the nose/bumper cover and got the undertray modified and installed, as well as the small insert just inside the mouth of the bumper, and got a quick/temporary heatshield made for the turbo. I installed the DSM coils into the Miata bracket, swapped out a couple worm clamps for tbolts on the intake piping, resealed the FIAV to the throttle body as it was leaking coolant into the intake, and tried to tidy up under the hood as much as possible given that I have a huge 1g DSM mas in there right now. The mas/filter combo is bigger than the effing turbo/manifold combo, it's jammed up against the cooling fan, and the harness (which I had to extend with random wires I had laying around) is snaking across the valve cover...ghetto as ****. But it runs, and this week I'll be working on getting the idle/cruise fuel trims in line. I can then ditch the mas and all that nasty wiring and go speed density.

Still lots to do wrt aesthetics under the hood, cleaning it up, heat shielding, gotta build an exhaust, etc., but it's nice to finally have it looking like a car and not so much a project lol.

Coupla crappy phone pics:

 

First couple of WOT pulls tonight! This thing is gonna be fun! Even on 5-6psi it's a totally different car than before. Oh yeah!

Edit: I finally had a chance to work on my base tune for the car yesterday, and a friend helped me WOT tune it at 6psi. It's really conservative right now, mid 10's on the afrs on pumpgas, but will work until I turn up the boost and ultimately move to speed density. I still have a healthy list of things to do, but it runs well and is a ton of fun, even on such low boost. Never imagined 6psi could be so entertaining! Making an mbc is at the top of the to-do list tomorrow I'm going to turn it up til the clutch starts to slip or I run out of pump!

 

Picked up an mbc today from a friend instead of making one. Up to 11psi now, uber conservative timing map, no knock. ******* feels good! And also feels like there's a lot left on the table ...first couple of pulls had 30* of timing up top (only at 6psi though) with no knock. Need to see what you guys are running before I get on the timing side of things.

 

Did some more work on it yesterday. My coolant temps have been 206-213* since I started driving it and while that's OK for putting around I want them 10-15* cooler for beating on it. So I completely boxed in the IC core and radiator starting at the mouth of the bumper. This is made from the same 1mm aluminum I made the other sheet metal bits from. The IC core sits as low as the bumper bottom, so I made the lower tray so that it drops down about 1.5" and allows air to pass around the core to get to the rad. Also made it modular so that it comes out relatively easily.

 

Six weeks later and I'm still making slow but steady progress.

After making and installing the ducting I did get a drop in coolant temps of about 5* on average, but that still was not enough for me so I tossed in a 180* thermostat and now at cruising it is dead on 180*. When I beat on it I don’t see anything higher than about 205* on the gauge and it drops off pretty quickly again. But if I idle for longer than about 30sec it jumps up that high again, so I think the radiator is just not up to the new load. Ebay radiator is on my list now.

The biggest improvement, and one that was long overdue, got crossed off the list just last night when my friend built an exhaust for the car. I was the “cut this and clean these” guy while he tigged it up. It is now 2.5” all the way from turbo to tip, with only a straight through Magnaflow muffler to quiet it a little. It’s pretty quiet until you mash the fun pedal and then it sounds pretty sweet! I’ll post some vid soon. Huge, ridiculous difference in driving it now too. With the 2.5” dp bolted up to the old stock Miata catback (yes, that's right) I was making 8-9psi. Didn’t touch the mbc and it shot up to 15+ (and misfired like a biotch) with the new exhaust. Probably just blowing spark out since I’m at oem gap. So I dropped it back to 10psi and it’s perfect again. Will play with that this weekend, and try to add some timing as well since that’s still pretty conservative.

I’m still running the stock 1g DSM mas. Speed density conversion is still waiting for some love, but it runs great as-is so I’m tempted not to do anything with it for a while. I ditched the rattling/annoying heatshields under the hood and went with some reflective fabric and a diy turbo blanket kit. Just got that on tonight so we’ll see how well it holds up.

Also installed some speakers in the headrests. I got some cheap 3.5” two-ways from Parts Express and wired everything in up to the dash. Sounds bueno even with shitty speakers.

Money shot

 

Went out tonight for some fun since it was feeling pretty good on 14psi. A friend of mine has an Evo8 with 272 cams, otherwise stock, not even an mbc or boost gauge. We ran from a 2nd gear/25 roll and I had him by a car in the middle of 4th gear. Also discovered the limit of my current clutch as it slipped just a hair, so I backed it down to about 11psi and it's holding fine. Ran my friend again on the lower boost and lost by a couple lengths.

 

Finally converted to speed density this week. So far it's running pretty well, have the fuel trims basically dialed in, and have done some 2nd gear WOT pulls and adjusted the timing to get rid of some knock. Later today I'm going to have a friend who knows SD way better than I do take a look, do some 2-3-4 pulls and make sure it's not going to blow up. Also built a cold air box yesterday after getting the new filter arrangement figured out. Nice to have Silicon Intakes a 10 minute drive from the house for **** like this.

 

Air box and new cleaner look under the hood. Also did some wire rerouting left by a PO that was on my nerves. Still not perfect but livable for now.

Went out and did some pulls tonight to make sure my SD tune was OK. Clutch slips at 10psi in 3rd gear...two weeks ago it was 14psi :( Looks like that's on the short list now.

 

Looking good man!

I really need to take care of my intake location at some point, as well as some IC ducting.

 

Thanks vash. Dedicate a Saturday or Sunday to some metal fab and you'll be i good shape. I've probably only got 6hrs in all the ducting/metal fab on the car, all with hand tools. If you have access to a shear and brake it'll go a lot more quickly.

I installed QA1's on the rear Racelands at lunch today, but it's raining too much to see how they'll feel at speed. The short drive back to work was definitely smoother after the swap though, and the install was a snap except for a stubborn sway bar bolt. And I reconnected both sides of the sway after having it disconnected with the original springs on them. Hopefully flatter and more compliant cornering awaits.

 

This is really interesting. I'm gonna keep an eye on this thread. Keep up the good work!

 

Me>Craigslist today. I had to drive almost 300 miles round trip to make it work, but I ended up with an RX-7 clutch LSD for $25, and a mint Momo Competition + 2 hubs for $100.

 

Pics of new crap

Momo installed with a spacer.



Finished my headlight intake duct. Color is not a perfect match but livable.









Picked up a valve cover here a couple weeks ago. Ran it through the parts washer, hit it with some VHT wrinkle paint, and some leftover paint from the headlight duct. Really impressed with the wrinkle paint...didn't have high hopes but I think it turned out great. Very consistent finish.

 

I am freakin Jell-0us, super mint condition.

Congrats on such a nice find.

 

Sexy sexy color, tho tbh I'd have left those black+yellow rims on, they give the car a nice touch.

 

Installed 1.8 brakes and Carbotech XP10 front and XP8 rear over the last few weeks when I had some spare time. Love them so far...unbelievable stopping power as compared to what had been on the car (supposedly EBC Greens but I have my doubts).

Also, installed the valve cover today along with a 323GTX pcv valve.

 

Great build. Makes me happy I'm going with the DSM turbo.

Question, Did you just cut the j pipe that bolts to the turbo or make something yourself?