Andrew's '93 NA6 - KL V6 swap

Beelzeboss · Postby **Beelzeboss** » Wed May 16, 2012 7:26 pm

It sure is going to sound epic. With unequal length headers it has a real rumble to it when idling.

I guess a bead roller would be necessary if you were selling the parts, but for DIY on your own the car the clamped ones are fine, it's not like you can see them when the car's together.

I finished the aluminium pipework on the car. The top pipe is a sort of pressure equalizer between the two valve covers. I also made a couple of brackets to hold the pipes in alignment. The pipes are only held in place by the rubber couplers so I hope that will isolate them from any vibration which could cause them to eventually crack.
I'm not very happy with how they turned out, they look pretty dodgy IMO. They'll be fine for rego but I don't really like the look of them.

I also did some more on the exhaust. All that's left to do is to weld an O2 bung just in front of the catalytic convertor.
This piece joins the stainless front exhaust to the stock mild steel MX-6 exhaust (modified to fit) at the back.

Beelzeboss · Postby **Beelzeboss** » Tue May 22, 2012 6:53 pm

A case of 'if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all'? :lol:

Are they really that bad?

Here's the finished exhaust, only 3 cuts and welds were needed to adapt the MX-6 exhaust to the MX-5

O2 sensor bung welded in

I made a new cam for the throttle body

I realise this will be very sensitive at low engine speeds, but who honestly drives below 3,000 rpm anyway? :lol:

I just need to make a bracket to hold the throttle cable and then I can assemble everything.

Postby **NitroDann** » Tue May 22, 2012 7:34 pm

Do you have the tools to make a cam shaped one?

Dann

Beelzeboss · Postby **Beelzeboss** » Tue May 22, 2012 7:40 pm

NitroDann wrote:Do you have the tools to make a cam shaped one?

Dann

Not really, no. I could make another like the one on it and drill the hole offset from the centre which would make it a bit less sensitive at idle. I'll see how it goes first, hopefully it will be OK.

Postby **NitroDann** » Tue May 22, 2012 7:43 pm

Thats what I would do.

Offset hole.

Dann

Bizi · Postby **Bizi** » Tue May 22, 2012 11:28 pm

Thanks again for the updates, Andrew. I'm sure you've had a ton of views.

It's all progress toward getting it on the road.

What do you have in mind from here? Spraying those pipes might make them less obvious!

Beelzeboss · Postby **Beelzeboss** » Wed May 23, 2012 2:17 pm

Bizi wrote:Thanks again for the updates, Andrew. I'm sure you've had a ton of views.

It's all progress toward getting it on the road.

What do you have in mind from here? Spraying those pipes might make them less obvious!

I might spray the pipes though they'll still be an eyesore. Basically from here it's just the throttle cable bracket, a bit of tidying up the wiring, brackets for the coil pack and the EGR solenoids, change the clutch hardlines a bit and make the intake piping. I've worked out how everything goes together and it all looks pretty simple, I hope to have it all done by the end of this weekend.

Tomorrow I'm going to get the clutch lines flared and pick up the aluminium for the intake. Hopefully I'll also have time to make the throttle cable bracket. Friday should be making the intake piping and possibly finishing off the coil bracket. Saturday I'll do the EGR bracket and then it's just a matter of assembling it all and tuning. I'm really looking forward to tuning, it looks like great fun. I'm going to make a set of det cans and I already have the wideband wired in.

gobsmax · Postby **gobsmax** » Thu May 24, 2012 2:06 am

Beelzeboss wrote:

What happened at the end of this vid?

Beelzeboss · Postby **Beelzeboss** » Thu May 24, 2012 10:38 am

gobsmax wrote:
Beelzeboss wrote:

What happened at the end of this vid?

The intake manifold wasn't clamped on at all, just held by vacuum and the friction in the couplers. Also in the ECU the MAP Prediction table was just full of 0's so as soon as I moved the throttle it thought it was at 0 kPa and shut off. I guess when it was nearly stopped the throttle was back to 0% so it tried to fire but it backfired through the intake.
If you play it in slow motion you can see the flame shoot out of cylinder 1 as it pops off.

bruce · Postby **bruce** » Thu May 24, 2012 4:51 pm

Then engine has braces!
Can some of the pipes be routed around the back of the motor and/or downwards, out of sight?

Beelzeboss · Postby **Beelzeboss** » Thu May 24, 2012 7:48 pm

bruce wrote:Then engine has braces!
Can some of the pipes be routed around the back of the motor and/or downwards, out of sight?

It does look a bit like that, doesn't it :lol:

I would route them round the back if there was room but there's a huge wiring loom, the throttle body, intake piping and the clutch line. It's really crowded back there.

Today I made the bracket which holds the throttle cable

I also shortened the throttle cable and put a new end on it.

After looking some more at where the throttle cable is there isn't enough room to easily put a cam on it. The end of the throttle outer cable has to be held so close to the cam that it wouldn't be able to handle the changing angle of a progressive cam.

Tomorrow I'm going to have the new clutch lines flared and buy the tubing for the intake. My local supplier only has 60mm tube and I'd prefer 2.5" (63.5mm) to match the silicone coupler I have. With any luck I'll also finish making the intake pipe as it's fairly simple. Once that's done I can assemble it and see if it drives

Beelzeboss · Postby **Beelzeboss** » Thu Jun 14, 2012 3:26 pm

Sorry for the lack of updates, I'm right in the middle of exams but I thought I'd snap a few pics and let everyone know what's going on (good way to procrastinate

)

The car is finished apart from a bit of wiring in the footwell and making a new intake manifold :shock:

. The old intake manifold flexed so much it was scary, I half expected it to implode every time it returned to idle so that wouldn't do. I've decided to go with a (heavily) modified stock manifold and I'm using 3mm sheet ally instead of the 2mm of the other one I made.

Unfortunately I think I got some bad welding gas from the supplier because no matter what I do there are heaps of issues welding, where it was working perfectly before I exchanged for a new bottle. I've checked for leaks in the gas hose and at all fittings and it's tight as a drum. As soon as I get a new bottle I'll be able to weld this up and then off to get it engineered during the holidays.

Here's how the engine bay looks at the moment. I put the stock covers back on because they're required for engineering.

I bought this manifold from pick n payless for about $30. I hacked up my original destroyed one first to work out what it was like internally before I touched the good one.

My idea for joining the 1-3-5 runners to the plenum. This will at least make all runners equal length as well as allowing access to the spark plugs.

^ You can see how the welds look with the bad gas, not quite right.

I also fitted a new clutch slave cylinder and had some new hardlines made up. Total cost was $30 for the flares and I bent it myself. I reused the original flare nuts. It's now much easier to bleed the clutch and it leaves a lot more room for the intake.

My last exam is on the 23rd so after that it shouldn't take long (fingers crossed) before I'm driving to get a pink slip and a UVP to go do all those tests that it needs before rego (just emissions and weighing AFAIK)

zossy1 · Postby **zossy1** » Thu Jun 14, 2012 8:53 pm

Chin up Andrew! Get yourself through exams and then get back to work!

Make sure you book your IM240 early, there is a 5 week wait at the moment.

Beelzeboss · Postby **Beelzeboss** » Thu Jun 14, 2012 9:18 pm

Thanks Chris, I'll book the IM240 as soon as I can, I had no idea there was a long waiting list.

My dad offered to swap the gas bottle over this afternoon since he was going near the gas place anyway, apparently the owner went away for a few weeks and the guy he got to stand in for him mixed up the gases or didn't purge them properly. Mine was the second contaminated bottle he's had back. I'm so glad it was the gas and not something I was doing, nothing would work! I'm a little bit peeved off that I made a mess of part of the manifold but he hinted that he'd give me a free refill when this bottle is finished so it's not so bad. Luckily I'd only welded sheet metal parts and hadn't started on the cast part of the manifold. I can remake the U shaped pieces easily enough.