The Miata experience: his and hers.

Great progress, your work is always so clean and with good attention to detail.  I hope you have a plan for an oil cooler.  My K24 suffers with oil temp on track even with a decent sized cooler.  I'm hoping the additional ducting I just did will help.  

Thanks! 

I was just discussing this on another forum.  I HATE wrenching at the track, so I try to spend the extra time in the shop to get it right the first time so I don't have to wrench at the track.  Keeping things clean and organized helps to make things easier when you do have to wrench on it at the track.

I had not originally planned an oil cooler, but it's looking more like it's going to be a necessity with the K24.  I have a good idea of how I'm going to do it, and have plenty of room behind the airdam in front of the passenger front tire.

Oh, I just realized we're now on page 50 of this thread!

Agree with that philosophy and try to do that myself.  It's much nicer/easier/more pleasant to work at home than at the track. 
 

In my new chassis (eg Civic) in the one outing I have had I had to stop when my oil temp hit 300.  That's with the oil cooler and a giant radiator.  The same power train and cooling stack in my prior chassis (EF civic) was able to keep under 270, but it had a splitter.  Oil temps are a real concern with these.  

Had company in town, so not much going on over the last couple of days.

I did get the wheels off the Interceptor and got the new shoes mounted up.  Single side swingarms are so nice for wheel removal on bikes!

Got the wheels back on the Interceptor and the new exhaust on.  I left the baffles in, and it's not too loud, but definitely more rumble than stock.  

Also got back to work on the NA today...

Subframe/engine/trans is all bolted up and torqued, with the PPF alignment properly set.  I also installed the dust cover for the front of the bellhousing adapter provided by KPower.

Propshaft in place

Header is in, and I bolted on the crosspipe and midpipe to check things out.

Clearances are tight, especially from the midpipe to the trans tunnel.

IMHO if they had shortened the crossover pipe by about 1/2", or continued the bend so the pipe was pointed back towards the trans at the V band, it would have left more clearance, and there was plenty of room to do so.  I also think a bracket from the crossover to the engine/trans would add a lot of support.  I may have to fab something up for that.  These swaps do have a reputation for cracking headers...

Makes me kind of wish I hadn't already had the exhaust coated... but now I don't really want to go cutting it up.  I did order a bunch of exhaust parts today to build out the rest of the exhaust and I may just eliminate the KPower midpipe and replace it with something that fits a little better.

I would agree that a tight radius 90 bend cut in half to make an "S" bend would work better coming off the down pipe to give you a better line going to the back of the car.

Seems like an easy update.

Swap is coming together quite nicely, axiously following!

I'm still waiting on some parts to get the tie rods/ends installed, so today I put the steering column back in the car.

When I made the decision to do the KSwap, I also decided to add power steering back in, using the ePowerSteering kit.  The nice thing is it's a bolt-in kit for the Miata, so all the fab work has already been done.

Column in

The kit is set up to mount the power steering 'brain' under the column, but since this is a track car, I have other options and I wanted to maximize legroom.  The mount I built for the RaceCapture box turned out to be a perfect fit.

I put the AiM dash and wheel on for a test fit.

I also put the shifter back in.

Next up was the throttle body.  

During a test fit, I noted that the throttle cable didn't have enough 'free' length from the bellcrank to the mounting tab on the intake manifold.  After a bit of investigation, I think the bellcrank was mounted 180* off on the throttle plate pivot.  The arrow is where the throttle cable locks in, and the 'spot' is where it should be.

I sent off an email to KPower to confirm my suspicions, but haven't heard back yet.  In the meantime, I rotated the bellcrank on the throttle body and everything lines up properly now.

Rodan said:

I HATE wrenching at the track, so I try to spend the extra time in the shop to get it right the first time so I don't have to wrench at the track. 

Amen to that. 

More dash test fitting today...  I think I'm going to move the CAN switchpad to the top of the center stack so it's easier to access.

Got a bunch of exhaust stuff in.  Still waiting on the muffler and a few other pieces.  I went a little overboard when ordering, but I will be able to use any leftovers down the road for our NB, and combined shipping is cheaper...

Quick Interceptor update, no pics...  bike no longer rides like the tires are filled with concrete, and it sounds AMAZING.  

More exhaust work today.

First up was creating a replacement for the iffy KPower midpipe/flex joint.  I started with sectioning a tight 90* elbow to get it lined up with the space available.

Next was adding the flex joint and tubing for the new midpipe.

The result is a much better fit than the KPower pipe.  KPower on the right, mine on the left.  Piping is now centered and not hitting the side of the trans tunnel.

Mocked up with the resonator.

Working on the back half tomorrow...

Yesterday I finished up the midpipe...

And started on mounting the muffler.  I chose a Spintec 3" in/out 180* muffler for a couple of reasons.  A same side in/out muffler was a necessity to keep my center exhaust outlet with a big enough muffler to keep the noise down.  Spintech is a solid performance muffler, and this basic design is able to keep sprint cars under 95dB.  Also, Miatas are typically light in the right rear when corner balancing, so having the muffler weight there should be of slight benefit.  Finally, a Youtube sampling showed Spintechs on vtec Hondas not to be terribly raspy.

I'm using high temperature vibration isolating mounts for this go-'round.  I've had miserable luck in the past with normal and urethane exhaust mounts.  My last setup I used direct mounting with typical rubber exhaust hanger material for the vibration isolation and it worked, but wasn't pretty.  I'm hoping these will do the trick.

Today I'll be working on the under-axle connector and tailpipe.

Finished the exhaust today.

First up was the tailpipe.  I set it up with a V Band so I can swap the normal exit for a "Laguna Pipe" if necessary for sound limits.  

Laguna Pipe... can be installed to point whatever direction is necessary.

Next up was the connector between the mid pipe and the muffler that runs under the axle.  This took the most time, figuring out angles and adjusting everything to fit together.

The full system... I wish I was at the point where I could fire it up and see what it sounds like!

My fuel tank vent evap canister was originally on the passenger side, but that mounting location fell victim to the muffler, so I moved it to the driver's side.

Good progress today, got the brake hydraulics updated and reinstalled.

Back when I installed the Wilwoods and added a prop valve, I had built a quick and dirty bracket.  I was never all that happy with it, but it worked fine for the last 7 years, so I've never updated it.  Until now...

Old setup:

It was time to clean things up, and I wanted to move at least one of the connections outboard of the M/C to create more elbow room.  Old bracket with new bracket:

I'm also adding a brake pressure sensor, so I needed to add an additional "T" fitting to the front circuit.

The "T"s mount outboard of the M/C and the prop valve inboard.

To model the brake lines, I'm using aluminum armature wire...  this really helped to figure out how the lines needed to be bent before starting any bends on the actual lines, which are Ni-Cop line.

Flaring was done with an Eastwood flaring tool.  This thing was a great investment!

M/C back in the car and lines installed.  I was able to re-use the factory line for the rear circuit, but had to make new lines for all the connections at the M/C and for the front brakes.

Excellent as always. Why the brake pressure sensors?

In reply to NermalSnert (Forum Supporter) :

So I can datalog brake pressure to see what I'm doing with the brakes.

In reply to Rodan :

I like that bracket, very slick!

I've eye'd that eastwood flare tool for a long time, historically I've converted everything to AN and just used the rigid flare tool, but good to hear it works well, might have to be on a wish list.

In reply to fouckhest :

It's pretty nice.  I bought it back when I installed the Wilwood brakes and M/C, and it makes getting good flares easy.  The one drawback is not being able to use it on a line installed in the car, but there are other tools for that particular use case.

Without going way back, what gray is that in the engine bay?

In reply to Dusterbd13-michael :

Rustoleum 'Professional' Dark Machine Gray

Thanks!!