Roadrunners SE

[Nevyn72]

Am I able to edit this part of my post to update this info? The edit button is no longer available?

Frustrating isn't it...... Just PM Okibi to change the original post.

[Roadrunner]

Great write-up on the boost gauge install mate, do you have a picture of it fitted during daylight hours?

No I don't. Thought I did but cant find them anywhere. I'll take photos tonight and upload them. Even though the numbers are red during the day its not very noticeable/obvious.

Great write up!
And you are correct, you can never have too many SE garage threads.
Great photography btw. The "before" suspension shot is sensational!

Thanks mate

Any plan on the ECU yet and tuning yet?
Your car will fly and boost comes in earlier when the tuning is done, along with your exhaust and intake.

It is something I plan on doing in the future. The only thing im worried about is it passing the wife test.
She loves to drive the car and the power is about spot on for her liking (as a driver and passanger ). If after a ECU update its not as smooth around town or idles funny/has issues etc I would not be having a good time

[Roadrunner]

So within the week of having the exhaust on, driving the car everywhere with the biggest grin on my face, my smile turned to concern.
The car started kicking and bucking when moving off from the lights.
It idled fine but between 1500rpm and 3000rpm it was like a bucking bronco, having to over rev just to get the car going.
Iv felt this before in one of my previous cars. Bad spark plugs and/or leads.

Did a runner down to Autobarn and purchased the suggested Iridium plugs. Pulled out my old plug tool only to find the MX5 engines spark plugs are in a tiny hole halfway down the engine block
Back to Autobarn to get a thinner longer tool only to find that the plugs felt like they were welded on!!
I thought I was going to snap it off, so into the mechanics it went.
I got a great deal on Red Magnacore leads too so while they replaced the plugs they put the leads on too (which nicely match the car now )
Driving home it was all fixed. Nice and sweet.

[Roadrunner]

The next day took it for a drive and it seemed to be hesitating and bogging down. Not bucking like the spark plug issue, but like I was dragging a weight behind the car.
Boost was coming on as normal and reaching full boost so not a leak. Did other standard fault finding and process of elimination but coming up empty.
Sometimes it was fine, other times it was very meh.

Did a bit of googling and came across the two typical SE hesitation issues.
One was the 4500rpm fueling issue hesitation, and one was related to whats known as the Bog Solenoid.

Theres a write up on the mazdaspeed forum regarding this and the fix is to clean the little air filter on the solenoid.
My understanding of it is that theres a vacuum line running from the manifold to a solenoid, that then connects to the Sensor Boost/MAP sensor.


The Solenoid switches between feeding the sensor engine pressure and atmospheric pressure through the filter. The filter clogs up with junk over the years and gives the sensor a dodgy reading as a base which then throws out everything when it switches back to the engine pressure.

So I took to the solenoid, it just slides off its mounting point and the filter pulls off easily enough.
Using a can of compressed air I blew out the filter which looked pretty clean already.
The recommendation on the mazdaspeed forum was to spray contact cleaner down the two barb connections while applying 5v battery to the terminals to open and close the solenoid repeatedly.

I put the solenoid back in and went for a drive and it worked.........for 5 minutes.
I had a closer look at it with the engine running. I had noticed another time when under the hood that there was a single electrical click sound when the throttle was revved but didnt pay any attention.
It seems the solenoid clicks over from the filter to the engine as soon as throttle is applied (I'm simply assuming here, don't take it as gospel)
I pushed the throttle and it clicked. Did it a few times more and it didnt. Over the next few days before leaving home I popped the hood and listened for the click. It was there so went for a drive till it started bogging down. Pulled over and twisted the throttle and low and behold theres no click sound from the solenoid.

I came to the conclusion that the solenoid was dying so pulled it back out and applied a 5v battery to it again and over multiple connects and disconnects it would randomly not open the solenoid.

Hunted around for a new solenoid only to be floored my Mazda's price when I found the solenoid works in the exact same was a boost solenoid works so ordered one of those.
Old next to the new.


Obviously wont mount in the factory location but when both hoses are plugged in it was held in place nicely in that spot.
Crimped two spades to the end of the wires and they pushed straight into the factory plug.
I don't have photos of it installed, but after now more than 6 months I have never had the bogging down hesitation feeling again!

I noticed recently too Begi now have on their website a "Bog Solenoid Fix" which replaced the solenoid completely. Looks like I was on the right track

Begi's description of the issue. You can get the Solenoid I have from forum sponsors too ;)
http://www.bellengineering.net/article_ ... ojpk5evnt6

[Roadrunner]

Hey Nevyn72, here's the dash with the lights turned off.
You'll have to excuse the poor iphone quality.
As you can see the red numbers on the boost gauge don't stand out much at all during the day

[Nevyn72]

Thanks for that mate, still not convinced though, looks like I might end up going for a blue lighting theme with mine.....

[Roadrunner]

Blue does look good. The silver NB has blue LEDs in it, I can try to get a photo of it if you like

[Roadrunner]

So something that Nevyn72 touched on earlier in regards to the metal throttle elbow requiring the hose for the boost controller to be plumbed elsewhere.
I had tapped it into the return line from the BOV to the manifold. (I kinda didn't have any choice at the time)



As I have since learn't, this is not the best way to do this.

The first thing I noticed after the exhaust had gone on is that I could actually hear the BOV, but not at full throttle gear changes, only mid rev range changes. I thought maybe it was just the engine noise at high revs, but it defiantly was much much louder if I was cruising at half throttle and then changed gear. Also the turbo whine was considerably louder at part throttle!

The other thing I noticed was the boost was a bit erratic. It would build boost as normal but then when it hit 8psi in the higher rev range at full throttle, it would drop to 6, rise to 7 drop to 6psi etc before I then changed gear.
It definitely was not like this before the elbow upgrade.

So this is what was happening:
At half throttle cruising up a hill I was hitting full boost as you would expect. But for the boost controller to see full boost behind a half closed throttle body the turbo has had to spin up significantly higher pressure. I don't know how high, would have loved to measure it with a gauge at the turbo, but lets say the turbo is making 15psi before the controller sees the factory 7.5psi.
Imagine a steeper hill and only using 1/4 throttle to putt away at a constant speed up it. The turbo would be pushing 30odd psi for the controller to see 7.5psi behind the almost closed throttle body.
Close the throttle and WHOOOOSHHHHHH goes the BOV!!!

The negative of this is excessive heat from the turbo spinning way out of its efficiency range , the wastegate would be seeing vacuum which apparently is very bad, and im guessing possibility to pop a hose off at extreme pressures.

So the solution:
I got onto NitroDann (who is about 15 minutes drive from my house! Awesome ) and he welded on a barb outlet on the metal elbow where it was located on the factory rubber elbow.
First of all I have to say, I'm genuinely impressed with the quality of work by Dann.
It was only a small little job but look at the welds! Now look at the temp sensor weld that was already on the elbow for comparison! Eww.





So after I re-installed the elbow, I didn't realise that the factory hose coming from the boost controller is 5mm internal and the new barb was the standard/normal 2mm I.D
I had some 2mm vacuum hose left over but no step up joiners, and none of the local auto shops seem to sell such a thing
So this is a bit getto, but I managed to fit about an inch of the 2mm I.D hose inside the 5mm I.D which fit very tightly onto the barb
Its held down with a screw clamp and doesn't show any signs of leaking and survived the pull test, so will do for now till I can get a step up joiner.

The result: Instantly noticed that at full throttle the boost climbed to 8psi and stayed there right till redline.
Cruising up the hill near my place at half throttle the turbo doesn't whine anywhere near as much.
Also the BOV is almost inaudible in the same situation (boo didnt want that I liked the sound)

So yeah, If your upgrading your rubber elbow to the metal one, get an outlet welded on before you install to avoid dramas down the track ;)

[Roadrunner]

Next on the cards is an audio upgrade.
The standard system wasnt too back but had no facility for an iPod connection.
Being a fan of Pioneer headunits over the years I picked up a double din unit to fill the space.
The other reason for going with this unit is it has Pioneers "AppRadio Mode" which allows compatible apps to be displayed and controller from the headunit itself.

Install was as usual for headunits. No photos but pulled the standard HU out, wire up the new plug to the factory loom (wiring diagrams can be found on line) mount the cage in and slide the HU in. Theres not much room behind so you need to remove the glovebox and from behind flex the wires around so to allow the HU all the way back in.

I ran the iPhone cable under the centre console and cut a hole next to the boot release so the phone can sit in there.

This is the unit:


Sound quality was quite an improvement so I was happy.

I also purchased at the same time a PLX Kiwi2 Wifi OBD2 reader.
With this plugged into the OBD port next to the fuse box and running Dashcommand on my iphone, I get a full display and control on the HU.
Theres hundreds of different "Dash's" and you can even make your own.
You can run diagnostics and clear codes on the run (came in handy recently) as well as give you a rough power output and 1/4mile times etc. As for how accurate the power is I don't know, but if its consistent then it could be used to roughly judge power increases with mods etc

The HU is very low in the field of view so fast moving gauges are dangerous to look at, but works well for temps and volts etc I use it only for gauges that aren't in the cluster already.





The OBD port is located above your right leg in with the fuses, unfortunately the plug sticks out enough that you can't put the fuse cover back on, so I slid the OBD port out of its holder, its only held in by two clips either side



I had to cut the handle bit on the cover slightly so I could slide the Kiwi connector through the handle piece as I wanted to mount it just below the fog light switch. I just used double sided tape to hold it in place.

The Kiwi2 has a sleep mode so after you turn the car off it doesnt drain your battery. To wake it up you press the button on the side, so it had to be within reach.



This is with the fusebox cover back on. It sits in front of the small pocket, but i'v never used it for anything so no loss. Would have been ideal to mount it into the pocket but the unit is just too tall.
The cable is completely out of sight and all slack is behind the cover so the fuses are still easy to get too if needed.



The Kiwi2 also allows you to connect an IMFD adaptor to it to plug in extra PLX sensor modules (AFR/Oil Temps and pressures/EGT etc etc which then also display through dashcommand. This is something I hope to take advantage of in the future so I don't need gauges all over the dash.

[sailaholic]

Aren't you going a different ecu? I would check obd is still going to exist after the ecu swap before you invest too much in the system.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Roadrunner]

It will be quite some time yet before I go down the ECU route. The HU I was updating anyway, the Kiwi Wifi was pretty cheap for what it could let me do so I don't see it as too much of an outlay yet if its defunct in the future.
Hopefully when Lokiel gets his new ECU plugged in and running he can plug his DM100 into the OBD to see if theres even power.
If theres power but nothing else then I can consider using it to relay the extra PLX sensors to the phone.
If its dead completely then I'll just sell it when I get the ECU and run a DM-6/DM-100 like Lokiel to display the stuff.

With the Adaptronic PLX board showing ECU info on the DM-6, i'd be in heaven if I can instead of a DM-6 use the iMFD Kiwi adaptor through dashcommand on the HU

[Roadrunner]

Picked up a really cheap pair of black front mud flaps on the net.
Not the biggest fan of red and black (black rims just make me think of brake dust ) but these don't look too bad at all and I guess match up with the black canards on the rear wheel arch's.

[Roadrunner]

Having been asked recently about the bog solenoid I realised I didnt post up any photos of the new unit installed.





Outlet 1 goes to the manifold
Outlet 2 goes to the Boost sensor (or sensor boost)
Outlet 3 is vent to air filter

The wires from the new MAC valve are long enough to reach the loom plug. I just used crimped spades to connect.
The plastic barb on the Sensor Boost sensor felt weak so be careful connecting the hose to it. I connected the MAC valve first and then the sensor so I didn't accidentally pull it sideways and snap it off.

[Roadrunner]

Recently went for a driving tour of Tasmania.
Amazing roads and scenery!
Anyone thinking of going, just do it. The boat across was fine with lowered cars, and it's worth taking your MX5 across. Did I mention how good the roads are?!! (Watch the road kill though you won't make it over those wombats or paddy melons

Some photos:






At the top of Mt Wellington


Oh and we did see some scenery

[Okibi]

I loved cradle mountain. Thanks for your PM about the Mac valve, I picked up another on Friday.

Tried a heap of places around Perth with no luck only to discover Mac has a warehouse here, they were awesome to deal with.