Swank's Miata #5: Track Beater Edition

Ebay placeholder 55mm radiator. $108 shipped. Definitely not the weak point at the moment. The car actually seems to be overcooling, i need to check the brand new thermostat and make sure it's not faulty. If i replace the radiator it'll be in favor of a CSF 42mm or the Koyo Hyper V because i really don't need the weight or capacity of a huge radiator like this.

Using 600lb front, 400lb rear at the moment. Just retrieved my 700lb front springs. The MSM shocks are doing well enough with the 600lb springs up front that i feel like pushing my luck and swapping the 700s in when i make my new bump stops next week. (Shocks will be revalved and/or i'll move to Bilstein ASN series shocks over winter)

What temp stat are you running?

Cool build; wish I spoke MX-5 because this is so not F2T/GD.

Yeah this is about as opposite from F2T/GD as it gets.

I'm running a 180 degree tstat (Stant Superstat), which in retrospect wasn't a smart idea. I was just stuck in turbo world. Pretty sure this car is just sticking right at 180F at all times.

For a street driven car, why not 195 with a turbo? I guess you have the cartridge to heat & stir the oil up to get the moisture out which is one of the big reasons I was taught to run a stat hotter than 180. Never mind combustion efficiency.

Because they all ran in the 200 degree area with a 180 tstat anyways. And because that's what FM put in my MSM.

Wow. Such stants.

20150811_205524 by concealer404, on Flickr

Got a ricer trunk.
20150814_181512 by concealer404, on Flickr

Put the car up on a lift to do a bolt check and look at a few things. Getting some accelerated wear on the inside of the rear tires, but it's not super crazy i don't think. Too much rear camber in rear, but the toe was square so not sure what's going on there. Exhaust is hitting the diff, not entirely sure what to do here. The whole thing needs to be shifted over about an inch, rear section is definitely maligned, which is also why it's melting my bumper. Bumper i don't care about. Exhaust hitting diff is annoying and embarrassing. Need to try poly mounts and maybe find a way to bend the stock hangers?
20150815_125513 by concealer404, on Flickr

Installed delrin window guides.
20150815_165652 by concealer404, on Flickr

And MiataRoadster vented sail windows. People complain about this being a hard job... we knocked out the window guides and both vent windows in about 40 minutes. Not sure what the fuss is about.
20150815_181926 by concealer404, on Flickr

Installed ricer trunk. Fitment is terribad, and the stock trunk only weighed 15lbs. Ricer trunk weighs 11lbs. Think i'm going to gut the ricer trunk, remove the arms/hinges, and just pin the thing to the car. 20150815_200126 by concealer404, on Flickr

20150815_200133 by concealer404, on Flickr

Figured out the gauge issue.

NB1, or at least 2000s do NOT have an additional ground back there. The temp sender is actually 2 sensors in one.

Black/Red wire is ground, red/blue is signal to ECU, violet/white is signal to gauge. Black/Red wire is for ECU circuit ONLY, and turns out that that was working, or at least i had no indication that it wasn't. Ground wire showed good continuity, and there was no visible damage to red/blue. Didn't both testing it at the ECU, that's annoying.

Turns out that gauge end grounds through the body of the sensor itself (at least one or two of you told me this, i just couldn't brain why that was an issue until i worked on it). Which... let's think about this for a minute. The sensor is in the spacer.

So we have...

1) Head 2) Gasket 3) Spacer 4) Gasket 5) Tstat housing/waterneck

So the ONLY way this spacer will be grounded properly is if the bolts are contacting the spacer. Apparently mine shifted due to the pressure on it from the waterneck not being spaced far enough off that nipple on the back of the head, and the spacer lost contact with the bolts, rendering the sender ungrounded.

I lightly loosened the bolts, smacked the spacer down with a wooden dowel, and retightened the bolts. Voila. Working gauge.

Not super impressed. Thinking i'm going to move to the M-Tuned re-route over winter. Less things stacked there apparently has more advantages than just "less things stacked there."

Working temp gauge!

2015-08-24_09-36-33 by concealer404, on Flickr

Oh, and i swapped the new license plate on. Required use of an air hammer with a chisel attachment.

2015-08-24_09-36-19 by concealer404, on Flickr

Small updates.

Got a t00ning slave and spent an evening removing bloatware and eating pretzel chips on my deck. 2015-09-14_02-36-59 by concealer404, on Flickr

Got a donut gasket for the Racing Beat header to try to stem off exhaust leaks, and some poly exhaust hangers from 949Racing. They weren't fun to install. Exhaust no hit block... as much... anymore. 2015-09-14_02-38-18 by concealer404, on Flickr

Have a cute picture of our new kitten, Kaia. 2015-09-14_02-39-00 by concealer404, on Flickr

Things are happening. 2015-09-14_02-39-20 by concealer404, on Flickr

YOINK. 2015-09-14_02-39-36 by concealer404, on Flickr

Surprisingly clean in there. No rear main seal leak, and the clutch actually... seems to be ok. 2015-09-14_02-40-12 by concealer404, on Flickr

Anyways, installed a 1.6 flavor ACT HDR4 (4 puck unsprung) and Ebay 1.6 lightweight flywheel. Total combo about 18lbs. Is awesome. Except for the "something isn't working right" part. Clutch pedal is really inconsistent, fluid was already pitch black and had particulates in it after only 2000 miles of driving. Slave cylinder was bad, so i replaced it then bled the hell out of the system. Still no love. Pretty sure master cylinder is also dead after only 2000 miles of driving.

Have Exedy slave and master delivered today, will try to install tonite. Then more feedback on the setup. Then trying to drive it some more.

Then maybe heading to drag strip on Wednesday before the "break-in" period is up because screw it let's see what happens.

I also believe a BP5A intake cam is on my doorstep waiting for me to come home.

As far as your rear tire wear issue, what does the toe curve look like when the car is that low? Even with it square sitting still you may have enough toe change under compression to wear things. My wife's Audi TT was like that. No alignment would cure the rear tire wear.

It's not wearing enough to be an issue, but does the toe actually change on these cars during the swing?

Swank Force One wrote: It's not wearing enough to be an issue, but does the toe actually change on these cars during the swing?

If they do, it would have to be real minimal, considering the rear suspension setup

NickD wrote:

Swank Force One wrote: It's not wearing enough to be an issue, but does the toe actually change on these cars during the swing?

If they do, it would have to be real minimal, considering the rear suspension setup

That's what i was thinking. It changes on the back of my MX6, but i don't think it does on a Miata.

Swank Force One wrote:

NickD wrote:

Swank Force One wrote: It's not wearing enough to be an issue, but does the toe actually change on these cars during the swing?

If they do, it would have to be real minimal, considering the rear suspension setup

That's what i was thinking. It changes on the back of my MX6, but i don't think it does on a Miata.

Yeah, if the lower A-Arm had a single pivot point instead and then a radius rod (like a 240SX front suspension) then it would change.

BTW, I think I saw your car at Miatas At The Gap.

NickD wrote:

Swank Force One wrote:

NickD wrote:

Swank Force One wrote: It's not wearing enough to be an issue, but does the toe actually change on these cars during the swing?

If they do, it would have to be real minimal, considering the rear suspension setup

That's what i was thinking. It changes on the back of my MX6, but i don't think it does on a Miata.

Yeah, if the lower A-Arm had a single pivot point instead and then a radius rod (like a 240SX front suspension) then it would change. BTW, I think I saw your car at Miatas At The Gap.

Very likely. If you heard it, we can confirm.

I don't think I heard it. But I did see a purple Miata on bronze Jongbloeds. I remember that because up until that point I thought I was the only one on Jongbloeds. I was driving the blue 1990 Miata with NY plates and black Jongbloeds. Usually seen with another blue 1990 Miata with TN plates, a rollbar and white Plastidipped daisy wheels.

Yep that would be me!

I think i may have seen your car as well, but i won't be held to it.

There was also a doppelganger of my car, except with a paint matched hardtop and bronze 6ULs rolling around. Even had damage in the same quarter panel.

Yeah, this would be our two cars. Mine's the one on the left. It's also significantly louder, much more modified and much rattier than the other.

Clutch disc turned out to be defective.

Replacement out for delivery right now. When it arrives i'll dump it in, wire up my amp interface in hopes of being able to hear something other than BWWWWAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!!! for 8 hours down to Boone, NC tomorrow morning.

Then Thursday morning the "baseline" dyno happens at 42 Autosports in Boone. Come if you want to be deafened by the loudest 90whp on the planet.

Will try to actually edit my pictures from Miatas in Boone next week, as well as catch up on the pics from MATG.

Next week is roll bar and hood vents, maybe remove fog lights now that i've shattered one, install 700lb front springs, dial in alignment, install BP5A intake cam, and call it done for the season.

Then time to start planning how i want to approach this over winter. I'm going to add some power, but the car runs so well, i don't want to open up the motor just yet.

Clutch update:

ACT sent me a defective disc. Spec is .312-.314" for the pads. Mine were .319, .317, .317, and .329. So that wasn't cool. What also wasn't cool was spending all the time and money to find out that i did nothing wrong and replaced a bunch of stuff that didn't need to be replaced.

ACT sent me another disc, got here Tuesday afternoon. Measured it before deciding to put it in anyways since i had to leave the next morning. .317, .319, .317, 3.18. Not cool. Of course, it did the same thing it did before, wouldn't disengage. Briefly considered sending it all back to them and telling them i'm no longer interested in running their clutches and making an emergency call up to South Bend, but i really didn't have it in me to do the job AGAIN.

So i just beat the hell out of the clutch and now it seems i've worn it down enough that it works. Still not really happy at all with the quality control or ACT's lack of caring about the huge amount of time and money of mine that they wasted, but at least i have a functioning clutch now, and i know what company to not buy clutches from in the future.

The other saving grace is that the setup is AWESOME. Super easy to drive, revs like CRAZY. Added some more NVH, has some really entertaining/bad sounding resonance decelerating in higher gears between about 5000rpms and 3000rpms, but now that i've already got 1500 miles on it, i'm pretty sure it'll be ok.

I installed a Scosche amp interface in order to clean up the signal between speaker level outputs from headunit and the factory Blose amps. Made a HUGE improvement in volume and quality, i was very excited that i might have a usable stereo on this car. And then i got on the highway and still couldn't hear it. Bummer. Looks like stereo is in fact coming out this week. Lost cause.

One of my foglights also shattered when i hit my bumper on some train tracks. They look cool, and actually worked, but light output was poor and i don't feel like spending money to replace it, so the foglights are getting removed this week as well, will eventually throw brake ducts in the holes.

Also: Dyno'd the car on Thursday at 42 Autosport in NC. This is a really conservative Mustang dyno, car seems to be VERY strong. Made a good 10whp+ more than everyone was expecting. Power is carried higher than "normal" for a BP.

127.1whp, 108.5wtq. RPMs shown on graph are slightly inaccurate, we spun it to 7500. (Correction brings to 133whp)

2015-09-28_09-31-34 by concealer404, on Flickr

2015-09-28_09-31-02 by concealer404, on Flickr

And of course, we like video, right?

https://www.youtube.com/embed/uU8YWHcMq2M

Due to power it made and the fact that i still haven't REALLY driven it and thought "MAN THIS THING IS SLOW," i had a rare moment of clarity and have decided that i'm not going to open the motor for another year. Instead, i'll focus on dialing in the suspension, brakes, swapping the seats because i've had enough of these Cobras, and working on aero. The parts i already have for the motor will be installed (BP5A intake cam, Honda intake manifold in the works), and i'll probably get a Haltech on it.

Looking at eventually running TTD with it.

Good lord, that thing is loud. Me gusta.

YAAASSSSS. We should plan a weekend before the white hell hits and bomb around in southern Ohio. I wanna see how the Dirtbag Accord stacks up against a slapped together SF1 Miata.

Couple pictures i finally got around to processing from trips in the Miata this year.

Be nice, these are quite literally the first pictures i've ever taken on a "real" camera and also the first i've ever processed.

MATG 2015 on Cherohala by concealer404, on Flickr

MATG 2015 Hillclimb Run by concealer404, on Flickr

Major Hater Awaiting Dyno by concealer404, on Flickr

Tuning Done Right NC by concealer404, on Flickr

Miatas in Boone 2015 by concealer404, on Flickr

Any updates on this? Particularly with the Honda manifold?

Hadn't seen Ben in a while...