Forged NB Roadster

And for my next trick..........



Balls.

I took off the water pump again just to make sure I replaced an o-ring that I thought I may have forgotten and this happened. At first I was completely bewildered how I managed to do this. I just assumed the water pump was cracked already but I soon realised I in fact just made a stupid mistake, I put the belt tensioner on backwards which in turn allowed the bolt to travel further and hit the block which resulted in the broken pump when the bolt expanded.

So I had to source another water pump and thought I may as well get a new one from euros, one less thing to worry about in the future I guess.



And with the tensioners back on, correctly...*sigh*, I bolted on the freshened up (painted ha) power steering pump and water return. Luckily enough the new water pump came with the return gasket which funnily enough my full engine gasket kit didn't have...



The inlet came out nice too



I only really wanted the rocker cover to be lairy so I'm keeping everything else either black or under the appearance that it's new hence the silver.

Next day on it wasn't that productive. Just changing a couple o-rings on the VVT cap and changing the o-ring on the factory oil cooler and getting that on and torqued down. I had to set up the cams and crank for the timing belt but turning them individually just seemed horrifying in case I smash the pistons into the valves or something along those lines. Obviously I was just being a drama queen.

Not sure if this is the proper way of doing it but I put a long extension into cylinder 1 and turned the crank to get it central in the bore just so I knew exactly where all 4 pistons sat, then adjusted the cams to line up with the markings on the back plate and then moved the crank to line up with its own marking.



I tried to get the belt on but just couldn't seem to hack it on my own so waited until somebody could give me a hand tonight which all went smoothly.

And then it happened... the first bodge that I can think of. One of the rubber tabs snapped off on the lower timing belt cover and I just can't justify spending over £50 for a new one. After a bit of reading it seems this seems to happen all the time on these engines so chances of getting a decent 2nd hand one is unlikely so a big washer will suffice


I tried to give the cover a wiggle without this bolt in place and it didn't wobble at all so it doesn't REALLY serve a purpose. Looking at it now I'm probably just going to remove it as I can see it just vibrating out of the threads.


But now all the covers are on and the water pump pulley



I unfortunately snapped a rear upper arm a couple days ago due to a couple nasty pot holes (I live surrounded by country lanes) and the arm hitting the strut tower...



I knew this would eventually happen as I noticed a bend in both of them not too long ago but I've honestly just pushed it aside until now, well I obviously couldn't ignore the issue anymore haha, I've now got the standard non adjustable arm on one side which isn't too bad to get me to work and back. Luckily Destroy or Die have got a spare pair of extended oem ones which I'll take which is super handy as I've got Rockingham in a week.

 

Yo,

Plan of getting the engine finished by the end of March failed if you hadn't guessed already.

Had problems after problems with the car itself along with long work hours the motivation to stay late and work on the engine has been slim. Plus the constant financial struggle we all know too well.

So first off I took a trip up to Destroy or Die and picked up the turbo, manifold, extended rear upper arms and adjustable front lower arms on the 24th and ordered the bushes from powerflex the next day.

So... time to fit the arms.




And they look awesome! And in such anticipation I assumed all would go well and they would be fitted in no time... wrong. Powerflex sent me the wrong bushes and in the process of trying to fit the bushes I completely ruined said bushes, awesome when you can see money going down the drain. So they are on hold for the time being until I can muster up the funds to get more bushes.

In the process of removing the old arm (again silly me for assuming all would go to plan) I busted up the old ball joint which couldn't be fitted, so an oem one had to go on rather than the (extended) flyin miata one. Next day I did the same on the other side so my alignment was the same either side.

Also fitted the extended rear upper arms with powerflex purple bushes, drives great and fitment is better than ever. Awesome.

So the car is driving well even with about 2 degress less camber up front so no complaints there. I also decided as I have some new front wings coming soon I can afford to lower the front a bit and give my current wings the send off they've always wanted... into the atmosphere.

The car drove great at the Rockingham outer paddock, the ad08s up front surprise me every time.



I really should get a better diff though, one day maybe a cusco 2 way or something of the sought, the standard torsion works well but I can definitely tell it wants a little more.

The brake pedal decided it wanted to hit the decks every now and then at Rockingham which was weird, no leaks, nothing. Would go back to normal after 20 seconds after a run so who knows ?! Maybe master cylinder playing up when it got hot? I literally have no idea but seems fine atm.

Back to the engine progress I drilled the sump last night for the return. I know a lot of people tap it and thread the fitting in but welding the fitting to the sump just seems safer to me.

Once welded this is how it'll sit.


Picture time:

Daniel Bridle also got some amazing shots from Rockingham too!





Also someone shot this roller on the way back

Pretty bad quality but cool to see it rolling

With the warmer days I also remebered the roof comes off haha. I forgot how cool it looks with the roof off



Anyway I'm hoping for the engine to be out and new one in within the next week. End of April is now the target for everything to be plumbed in ready for mapping.

 

I'm a terrible person, it started off with just not having the time to update this and then there was so much to catch up on I just couldn't be bothered but I've got an hour to kill so lets update this and get back on track.

So I left this in April and hadn't even got the sump return welded on, a fair bit has happened since then ha!

So with everything sweet with the sump that got thrown on and I also got my awesome cam cover from Adam Magicjetski @ Retroshine.
So good!



With the skimmed flywheel and new clutch on and two weeks of trying to find somewhere appropriate to actually do the engine swap I ended up at work outside some sandblasters being fed up and just wanting it done. Never again.

Now for never actually doing an engine in/out before I honestly had no idea what I was doing but logic told me to keep undoing and unplugging things and hope for the best...seemed to go ok haha



Now going for a 3" downpipe really didn't make things easy but we managed to sort something out but still alarmingly close to the heater matrix hoses. With some new silicone hoses chopped down and bit, some heat resistant sleeve and small heat shield I made it seems to be ok!

But it all seemed to be coming together. I was originally going to be using rx8 420 yellow injectors but was later told they wouldn't be enough so purchased some rx7 turbo 550 injectors which after flow testing a couple were too far past recovering or just not working at all. Found another two... dead, found another 4 and collectively they managed to make a decent set out of them but by that time it was too late and I ended up opting for some rx8 530 injectors.

I also had to make a new wastegate actuator bracket due to the turbo being clocked which was fun, turned out pretty decent. Doesn't flex and is pretty strong by the looks of it. I still can't weld pretty so smoothed off the welds a bit to make it look nicer haha



Anyway with the intercooler all mounted and everything connected it was at this point is pretty much all ready to go for the first start up


FYI I did move that breather filter haha
And that was a success, was all running smoothly.

So few days later and it was off for mapping, and it pulled 255WHP until the fuel pump started to struggle which wasn't the 300 I was hoping for but none the less was still pretty rapid for an mx5.

Will continue this in a bit

 

So 4 days after mapping was the Rockingham outer paddock day which I thought would be an ideal place for a shakedown.

Car was awesome, the amount of grip the car has really come through, it picks up speed so quick I found it difficult to keep up.


Ol Bridle with the fire.

Love how the car sounds too

The day ended up being cut short as the coolant temp sensor did a brexit and the fans no longer knew when to come on resulting in it just not wanting to cool down.

Anyway I noticed a small oil leak which I supected was front main seal but now I think it's more likely a cam seal. I'm yet to dive into this as it's not too much of a problem at the moment.

So skip forward a couple weeks and its time for the STL 2 matsuri at driftland. I decided hiring a self drive transporter would be best as I really didn't want to risk driving the car up there with a potential stupid teething issue still possible round the corner. Ended up being an 11 hour journey up to Scotland which sucked haha but overall the event was amazing, car drove great but still the amount of grip is pretty mental and I'm gunna need to get used to it.

I was driving pretty tame as I still have no idea when it comes to drifting with a turbo but I was slowly getting used to it. What I'm not used to is diagnosing turbo car issues. After a pretty ambitious entry including lots of limiter I was struck with what felt like the car not revving past 3/4k and my head automotically resorted to CATASTROPHIC ENGINE FAILURE!!! when in fact it was just a boost pipe had fallen off but until then I was puzzled and it wasn't that it wouldn't rev past 3k it was just so slow in comparison hahaha.

But that'll be the first thing I jump to in the future.

This oil leak started to become more of an issue though. Wherever it is coming from it's making its way to the crank pulley and throwing it everywhere which isn't ideal when the air when moving is pushing it back onto my downpipe. This caused a bit of a brown underwear moment when my footwell started filling up with smoke, luckily it wasn't actually on fire and I kept an eye on it/did many a cool down lap in between runs.

Overall though this whole build up with the engine was so I could drive at STL with the turbo set up and everything working as it should and it did so a success in my book.

Pretty chuffed really, first engine build, first turbo conversion and so far... not bad.

Here's some questionable driving from myself at Driftland/STL on day 1, lost all my footage from day 2

 

Thanks man, really happy with how the car sounds. Yeah to be honest I wasn't really fully with it Thursday night as it is haha.

Plan on doing Rockingham on the 24th. Turns out the oil getting on the downpipe was actually from the shitty dipstick o-ring, was one of the last things I did before the engine came went in so must not be seated properly.

 

So Rockingham on the 24th was possibly one of the best outer paddock days yet. Slowly getting more comfortable with more power, took me a while to shake the old NA habbits, not realising I could just keep it in third meant a lot of unnecessary gear changes haha. I'm thinking about going from the 3.6 ratio diff to a 4.1 to open up third a little more. I noticed at Driftland I was off the limiter in third the entire was round so a 4.1 probably would've let 4th be more of an option.

I kept undertaking people at Rockingham also lmao I think this was down to being in the habit of diving in on the tight line as I wouldn't of had the power to keep up before. Regardless it was entertaining.

Here's a few runs from the day

Also fitted a new wing! Think it looks pretty rad from most angles, some it looks like it could either be a wider or even a little lower. I don't know I might trim down the mounts some time but happy for now.

 

Cheers lads.

Another update on this. I was supposed to be participating in the Rockingham outer paddock on the 15th (October) however I found exhaust leak (mani to turbo) a few days before, meh not a problem. Swapped it over with relative ease so all good to go... incorrect. I'm not sure how or why but since changing that gasket the car seems to be running mega rich on WOT. It'll shoot straight to 10 on the WB and the car is noticeably slower on WOT.

Didn't fancy taking my chances with it not running right. Some people have said that's pretty normal however after speaking to a mapper it wasn't advised I take part at Rockingham... after all I've done to get here I'd rather play it safe for the sake of a drift day.

However whilst changing the gasket it gave me the opportunity to fit the bolt which holds the dipstick in place which was before almost impossible to do whilst everything was together. Sounds like a pretty small accomplishment but now that it's seated correctly, oil doesn't spray over my down pipe haha smiles all round and no more smoke.

Will be having somebody who knows what they are doing set up the autotune on the ECU to make the car run OK for the time being until I get it mapped again.

I've been having some pretty strange thoughts recently, I say recently, over the last couple months. I've decided to get my hands on a mk1, kinda miss being NA but I still want to keep the engine and turbo set up I have currently. I've already bought a kit for a mk1 and a full red interior (tis sick) so I suppose you could say things are getting pretty serious haha just need to buy the bloody car... but that will come when I can find some storage for it.

SO... plan is to get the mk2 running right and fix (diagnose) a couple oil leaks, do a few more days with it and see how I feel. Engine and turbo set up in the MK1 and ITBs + Cams in the MK2???? I have no idea but we'll just have to see how it goes. What is life.

 

Quick update whilst I have the chance.

I've been reading up on some of the restrictions within the the standard flat top inlet manifold found on the mk2.5s and decided to have a go at cutting them out this evening. Picked up a spare, marked out the gasket outline and started cutting.




Surprisingly came out pretty good. Bit tricky to get in the small spaces with a grinder but not bad. I highly doubt I'll notice any advantages from this but overall the capacity of the inlet manifold will be larger. Quick spray of paint and it's ready to go back on.



Peace