The Kimball Project

Chat to do with your MX5/Miata/Eunos Garage Ride(s).

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Ice88
Fast Driver
Posts: 149
Joined: Mon Jan 05, 2015 10:31 am
Vehicle: ND - 2 GT

Re: The Kimball Project

Postby Ice88 » Thu Aug 04, 2016 12:20 am

Rather long post to catch everyone up on what's happened since my last post.

Took the car up to harvey bay to get tuned, this wasn't without complications (not tuners fault). Essentially trying to use early 90s stock wiring adapted for a early 2000's wiring doesn't work very easily. As such I wasn't able to get the car running on the stock wiring before it went up to try and fix any potential issues like fuel leaks, oil leaks etc etc.

The first issue was the crank sensor not picking up a clean signal, here is a pic of what it looked like under the scope:
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In the end I ordered a new crank wheel (read: this wheel was new for this build but arrived damaged) and had it express posted from the US, which still took two weeks. Also that the sensor was wired incorrectly, both of these problems resolved it now has a nice clean signal:
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The next issue was the COPs, I had got these COPs off a Hilux (where spares purchased off a mechanic whom had bought them for a job only to not need them) so was quite floored when they turned out to be causing the ECU to reset itself every now and then, usually when load was applied. Once when trying to start the engine injector got stuck open and proceeded to fill the chamber with fuel. New COPs were purchased and the tuner then had to modify them as I had done to get them to fit the SP20 valve cover. After that it was the lack of cam signal, I had hoped (as technically you don't need cam reset) that I could get away with the small variance in in injector timing and not run a cam signal. Much much cleaner etc. Turns out no, which means all the work I'd done on the valve cover was for nought sadly, this meant replicating all the work that I had done as well as more work for things like this:
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The valve cover i had used came off a earlier model car which had the coil packs off to the side, newer models had the coils mounted on top of the valve cover and hidden by a turtle cover. Removing the mounting points solved that issue:
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Unfortunately despite being incredibly tight fit the engine ended up shaking the coils loose causing a misfire so something had to be fabbed to hold it down. This was my solution to the problem:
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Pictures of the valve cover work:
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Channels drilled out to allow better crank case venting:
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The intake manifold came back to bite me again, turns out when running the velocity stack hits the hood. This caused the stack to put a hole in my filter where it had pinched and to damage one of the stacks. Not happy. With the purchase of hood raisers (again expressed posted to him):
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It now works as it should, albeit with bonnet risers.

The long loom I'd purchased with the sensor from adaptronic wasn't wired correctly:
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Note the insulation. All said and done I made 168hp at 6800 rpm and 146ft-lb of torque at the wheels.
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Those socks have a lot to answer for.

Since I got the car back I've had a few issues, the fuel pump I got is a deatschwerks which is great. Except the method it uses for sealing is absolutely farking horrible. Shortly after I got the car back the fuel pressure dropped a tonne and started leaning out everywhere, get home and theres the annoying whistle that I'd previously had and fixed. The washers had all been forced out below the bell mouth causing fuel to squeal past the rubber o-rings. Horrible sound. Ended up lopping the bell mouth off and using a piece of hose to go from the pump to the brass hardline along with two clamps. Problem solved, fuel pressure jumped 60kpa higher then what the tuner logged on the dyno. Unfortunately the tuner had been tuning against a shifting target so parts of the map where fine and others lean.

Basically money spent on the tuning portion wasted somewhat really, still drives great just alot richer then it should be ideally. Fuel economy on the way back from Harvey Bay was fantastic given the engine and all. At present I'm getting around 140km to half a tank on ethanol.

Also got a hole in my filter the other day causing the engine to run lean, luckily I have spare filters. The difference in AFRs this made was massive, typically runs around 1 lambda when cruising, jumped around .1 lambda (~2 afr units).
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While I hadn't planned on redoing the entire intake setup to accomodate a plenum for a while, its now more of a need then want. This time I'll do it myself. On the upside the hole just proves how much air I'm missing out on.

3gress
Racing Driver
Posts: 512
Joined: Tue Apr 14, 2015 6:49 pm
Vehicle: NA6
Location: northern rivers n.s.w.

Re: The Kimball Project

Postby 3gress » Thu Aug 04, 2016 1:34 am

Decent figure but there'd definately be more in it as you work through all those annoying issues! I feel very lucky that the astinas' engine just fired up first go....well second go once i remembered to remove the red moss caps from the stacks :lol: one actually popped out quite violently when i turned it over.
Were the injectors supplied with deadtime/battery voltage correction information? You reckon you can mms me a pic of the adaptronic deadtime setup page?
What was the issue with the injector sticking open? Some weird electrical gemlin or grit in the line maybe? Should've just gone with a noisy big walbro pump so you have a constant reminder about all the juice it will chew through :twisted:
Props on getting it running mate. Time for a spin down south eh'.

Magpie
Speed Racer
Posts: 7468
Joined: Fri Feb 11, 2011 12:49 pm
Vehicle: NA6
Location: Purga, QLD

Re: The Kimball Project

Postby Magpie » Thu Aug 04, 2016 3:26 pm

That damage to the filter was similar to mine, hopefully the engine did not ingest too many small dirt particles. Hence why I finally went the air box instead of the sausage filter.

Consider replacing the OEM cam angle sensor or epoxy in the wiring so that vibration does not cause a noisy signal.

Hopefully see you on the track soon :)

Ice88
Fast Driver
Posts: 149
Joined: Mon Jan 05, 2015 10:31 am
Vehicle: ND - 2 GT

Re: The Kimball Project

Postby Ice88 » Thu Aug 04, 2016 6:48 pm

3gress wrote:Decent figure but there'd definately be more in it as you work through all those annoying issues! I feel very lucky that the astinas' engine just fired up first go....well second go once i remembered to remove the red moss caps from the stacks :lol: one actually popped out quite violently when i turned it over.
Were the injectors supplied with deadtime/battery voltage correction information? You reckon you can mms me a pic of the adaptronic deadtime setup page?
What was the issue with the injector sticking open? Some weird electrical gemlin or grit in the line maybe? Should've just gone with a noisy big walbro pump so you have a constant reminder about all the juice it will chew through :twisted:
Props on getting it running mate. Time for a spin down south eh'.


Yeah wouldn't have been an issue except that the wiring is vastly different. The way the grounds are done are a little different even, plug shapes etc etc all made it a little harder then i wanted it too be.

The ecu actually has the injectors already profiled tbh man. Ill take a photo of the settings for you though and send them through via mms :)

Regarding the injector sticking open that was as a result of the ECU freezing due to the coil packs. Lol at pump, if the car was stock I imagine you could probably hear the pump its pretty beasty :) Just not loud enough to be heard over the NA fury :P

Regarding drive down south, funny you should mention that. Not sure if I'll get down your way before September but sometime around there hope to do a grand loop in the mx5. Leaving Friday evening/sat morning and then getting back to Brisbane Sunday evening.

Magpie wrote:That damage to the filter was similar to mine, hopefully the engine did not ingest too many small dirt particles. Hence why I finally went the air box instead of the sausage filter.

Consider replacing the OEM cam angle sensor or epoxy in the wiring so that vibration does not cause a noisy signal.

Hopefully see you on the track soon :)


Thanks man, me too :)

Cam sensor issue was never a issue on FS engines like it is for BP. You really only need to get the cam sensor once from my understanding (i.e. engine start) and after that it remains in sync. So even if it does lose sync providing it gets signal again on startup your good to go.

FS seperate the signals, one crank and one cam. Much much better and much higher resolution to which is nice.

3gress above is using a similar method to me :)


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