MISCELLANEOUS TURBO BUILD-UP PICS
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Audio
install pics. Front has Adire Koda components and rear has Adire Extremis.
The rear speakers were specifically chosen to clear the Mazdaspeed strut
tower bar. Speakers are powered by a Phoenix Gold Xenon 200.4 amplifier
and covered with custom made speaker grills. Deck is an Alpine CDA-9827,
which was the highest-end Alpine without a flip down face to insert
CD's(I hate those!). I machined a face plate to house the deck, a Defi
multi-gauge display, and an Innovate LM-1 wideband display. |
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Since I will be using the head of a 2000 Miata, which has more angled intake ports for better flow, I had to modify the flange of the GTR intake manifold to work. Basically, all the bolt holes had to be offset down about 9mm. For the top holes, the original ones were welded shut and re-drilled. For the bottom holes, the 'ears' were cut off and a new bar welded in place and drilled. Too much spare time! I had a custom vinyl mask made and painted this on using engine enamel. It is 100% paint. Started with a black rectangle. Put on the negative mask and painted in the letters and lines. And finally, I clear coated the entire logo. |
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Custom
adapter plate CNC'ed to accept GM coils for a coil-on-plug (COP) setup.
Will most likely use a M&W Pro-14 CDI unit. |
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Hard
to tell in this picture, but the 2000 Miata head only has one of the
two bolt holes required to securely attach the Protege distributor.
I took the 'ear' off a junk head and welded it where it is supposed
to go. But, since I will most likely be using the CAS from the Miata,
which only uses one bolt hole, this was for nothing. |
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Picture
of the bore plate that was used while boring the block for the Wiseco
9:1 pistons. |
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Custom
rear TTL bushings made from cut-down ES 9-9108 universal 4-bar bushings
and extra sleeves. Also shown is a 1" Quickor rear sway bar on
custom mounts. |
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Beginning construction on a custom downpipe with an external wastegate (by removing the flapper of the internal wastegate and using separate piping). Hopefully, the wastegate is not too far away (I think it should be OK). I made is as tight as possible to stay as far away from the ground and radiator as possible. Should be ~1" above Darryl's (MazdaRacer) tie bar. Don't mind the dirty water pipe and head. I am only using them for mock-up. Update: Last four pics show completed downpipe and how I ported the internal wastegate and part of the housing to fit the 1.875" pipe that goes through the flange. |
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Hard
to see, but I tapped the oil filter base on the block for oil pressure
and oil temperature senders. I earlier bought a Greddy sandwich plate,
but didn't like using it (it's for sale...). In this location, I'll
read the maximum oil temp, right before it goes to the oil cooler. |
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Enkei RP-F1 in 15x7 with 41mm offset. 9.6lbs of super lightness! Update: Sold these because they wouldn't work with my diy big brake kit (insides too small). Replaced with 949Racing 6UL 15x7.5 with 34mm offset (12.1lbs). Shod with Hankook RS-2 Z212 225/45 tires. |
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60-2
trigger wheel mounted on rear of ATI Super Damper. Second picture shows
the mounting bracket holding the magnetic sensor for reading the trigger
wheel. |
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In
order to fit a nice downpipe, you need to remove the a/c compressor.
Since I wanted to keep a/c, I came up with the idea of swapping the
locations of the a/c compressor and p/s pump. The p/s pump is much smaller
than the a/c compressor and leaves plenty of room for a nice downpipe.
Pic #1 shows the two custom mild steel brackets before I gave them a
protective coat of paint. The other pics shows them installed. Long
story, but I ended up using an aftermarket compressor (Sanden SD-505). |
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The
first pic shows the stock front stabilizer bar bracket. It uses a design
with only one bolt. Since I am installing the beefier 1" bar from
a ZX2, I decided to use the brackets from the ZX2 as well. Not only
does it use two bolts per side, but I could use off-the-shelf ES bushings
made for it. You can see where I welded on an extra nut in the first
pic. The remaining pics shows the bar and bracket mounted. |
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To
make room for a decent-sized compressor inlet tube, I modified the front
motor mount. A 2.5" tube will come in at 45 degrees from the top
right, following the shape of the modifed bracket. I reinforced the
area I cut off since only 3 out of the 4 bolts are now being used. |
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I
decided to install a Laminova water/oil cooler. So, I replaced the stock
oil cooler with a sandwhich plate that has -10AN fittings. |
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It's
getting there... |
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It's
really getting close now... |
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Did
some road tuning today. It still stumbles at idle sometimes, but so
far I think it's running pretty good. Don't mind the wiring mess, I'll
clean it up later. I also installed a Familia grill and replaced my
old beat up front license plate. |
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The
Walbro 255lph fuel pump was sporadically overpowering the stock fpr
at idle causing it to be erratic, so I replaced it with an Aeromotive
unit. Also, some Miata guys were saying that the stock fpr didn't stay
1:1 beyond 15psi. |
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Heatshield
for air filter. |
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Just
some random exterior shots of the car. |
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Finally
a good dyno session. On the left is the last dyno pull that day making
343whp/318wtq. Boost was ariund 22-23psi. On the right is a ~7mb video
of two pulls. I could have had it build up the boost a little sooner,
but had it ramp up instead so that it's not such a big shock. Main purpose
was to not shock the clutch with a sudden rush of power and cause it
to slip. Using the cam gears I could probably shift the curve either
left or right, if I ever need to do that... Overall, I am pretty happy. |
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FEBRUARY 2008 The G-series transmission is not exactly known to be very strong, so I am doing everything I can (within reason) to strengthen it. One of the complaints I have read about is that there is so much force between the primary and secondary shafts that they get forced apart, resulting in sheared gears, broken cases, etc. The fix is known as the "plate mod" where part of the end of the transmission case, the lip that holds the bearing race in place, is milled off and replaced with a steel plate. I went a step further and not only made a plate, but an entire insert. I have also read that the outer bearing races tend to want to spin. This creates heat and overtime the fit of the bearing shells becomes loose causing the shafts to also loose alignment. Pic
#1: Original. |
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MAY 2008 DIY Front Big Brake Kit. Consists of Wilwood 4-piston calipers and 11.0" rotors. Pics and their filenames should pretty much explain what I did. Rotors and calipers cost ~$780. I had custom brake lines made for ~$60 (not pictured). I used a 1/8"NPT to -3AN straight fitting off the caliper and then a 90° -3AN fitting on one end of the hose and a M10x1.00 Inverted fitting on the other end. The frame end clips in like stock, but there is no fitting in the middle of the hose to clip onto the strut, so you have to be creative with that. I haven't driven it enough yet to determine whether I need to install an adjustable proportioning valve. Right now, I have Carbotech XP12's in front and XP10's in the rear on Miata 10.9" Sport/big brakes (see below). They seem to have great stopping power, even when cold, but do dust a lot. Worked great driving the 120 miles to Little Talladega and on the 5 laps there before my transmission blew. |
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MAY 2008 10.9" Miata rear brakes from a 2001-02 with sport brakes or any 2003-05. I used the entire Miata caliper/bracket combo, but all you really need is the Miata bracket to use with the Protege caliper. The Miata's piston is larger at ~34.5mm versus the Protege's ~30mm so it should help even out the bias when having upgraded front brakes. You need to use a spacer (washer) of 3-4mm between the bracket and hub. That's all. |
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MAY 2008 Transmission blew 5 laps into my second track day at Little Talladega... Had to be towed home 120miles (thank goodness for AAA). Pics should tell the story. |
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Comparison
pics of various Mazda and Kia transmission parts. The area around the
secondary bearing has much more reinforcement in the Kia bellhousing.
The ring gear is also wider by about 2.5mm (~25mm vs ~22.5mm). It's
the same ring gear as comes on the MSP lsd. The Kia also has a wider
final drive gear on the secondary shaft (making the shaft actually longer).
To make this longer shaft fit, the secondary bearing 'cup' is moved
closer towards the clutch. The center cases are the same and I am actually
planning on using my plate modded Mazda center case with the Kia bellhousing. |
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AUGUST 2008 Here are just some random pictures of the 'new' transmission. Welded in a plate on the bellhousing side to hopefully reinforce that weak area around the secondary shaft bearing and also used a different bearing in that spot that has a flanged outer cup for more support. The shifter gate pic shows that small amount that needs to be ground off to clear the arp bolts on the Quaife lsd. The pics of the primary shaft shows how it needs to be modified in order to fit needle bearings for the PAR gears (3rd/4th). The PAR gears also come with double syncros. Also, I had all the stock gears shot-peened. Then I installed a transmission cooler which required that the stock power steering cooler 'loop' be replaced with something that doesn't take up all that space right behind the bumper. For the feed, I enlarged the drain to 1/2"NPT. It's a little closer to the lower tie bar than I expected and I'll keep an eye on it to make sure that it doesn't touch when the engine moves, etc. It is higher off the ground than the lower tie bar though, which is good. I also made a mini skid plate to protect it from any crap that might hit it. The pump I am using a Tilton differential pump (40-525) and it's noisy since it's a piston type pump and it's quite large. I ended up mounting it in an impossible to access place, inside the fender well. So,
here is the list of mods for this 2nd transmission: Yeah, let's see how long this box lasts... |
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DECEMBER 2008 For some reason, my ES lca bushings were binding really bad (i.e. I could barely move the control arm). They were not like this when I installed them and greasing them didn't help. So, I decided to convert from bushings to spherical bearings. This also negated the need for a traction bar - not that I've ever been to the drag strip, but I plan to in the future. I went with high-quality Aurora PWB-12T teflon-lined bearings and incorporated o-rings to seal them from debris. The shells are made of steel and the spacers of stainless. I made the shells of steel so that I could weld them to the lca, but the fit from my machinist was perfect (tight) that I didn't really need to, but I did anyways with some little tacks. I designed them so that all the parts were 'captured', i.e. the lca can't move back/forth or cause the bearings to push out. I also offset the rear hole so that I could adjust the caster - much like the SuperPro bushings. |
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JULY 2009 Not having done any mods to the car for about half a year, I couldn't help but figure out what to make next. So, after talking to some guys and discussing how small the plenum of the GTR intake manifold is, I decided to make my own. Here is everything from start to finish. Dyno comparisons to come soon. To see all the pictures at once enlarged on one page, click here. |
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DECEMBER 2009 Big changes ahead! I sold my 'built' transmission and am swapping to a Toyota E153 from a 2001 Solara V6. Requires an adapter plate, all four new mounts, new crossmember, 'massaging' the driver side frame rail, and a bunch of other stuff. That's a picture of the protoype adapter plate cut out of thick cardboard. Here is the list of parts I have so far: |
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May 2010 Haven't had any time to work on the car in the last few months so not much has been done. Had the mounts/crossmember powder coated black and the adapter plate zinc-plated. Finally spent the last few days mating the engine and transmission and putting it into the engine bay. Everything fits as planned. This was the first time that I actually had the axles installed. Happy to say that all the measuring I did paid off! I am re-using my old ACT heavy-duty pressure plate with an ACT sprung 6-puck disc. |
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August 2010 Local gas station started carrying E85 and I am thinking about converting to use it. Reading through different car forums, it seemed about 50/50 on whether Walbro fuel pumps would have an early death with it. Since E85 requires much larger injectors, I went with 1000cc injectors from Injector Dynamics. They like to run at higher pressures so I went with a Bosch 044 fuel pump ('proven' online to be OK with E85 unless you get a fake). The Bosch is designed to run inline, but they do make aftermarket filter adapters to run them in-tank. The problem is that they are much larger than the Walbro units. So, off to the lathe to make a mounting bracket. E85 apparently attacks bare aluminum so I anodized it black. E85 is also supposed to eat rubber, so I switched over to Teflon lines at the fuel rail. The only rubber lines left are at the tank - they seemed to be a pita to replace and I figured any rubber bits would be caught by the fuel filter. And, yes, the rear seat cushion fits right over the raised cover - no problem. |
