Dave's SE - REBORN

Magpie · Postby **Magpie** » Sun Feb 15, 2015 9:13 am

What are your plans now?

speed · Postby **speed** » Sun Feb 15, 2015 9:33 am

beavis wrote:+1 for Dann to Melbourne.

I'd have a turbo by now.

davekmoore wrote:Yeah but NitroDann and/or Deckspeed should move to Melbourne. Or I should move to Sydney.

Wouldn't it be better to move to NSW or Queensland?
At least then you can get a NA turbo engineered.

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davekmoore · Postby **davekmoore** » Sun Feb 15, 2015 11:54 am

Magpie wrote:What are your plans now?

Tear hair out. Wail. Gnash teeth. Get oil leaks fixed next month while we're on holiday in NSW.

Magpie · Postby **Magpie** » Sun Feb 15, 2015 12:11 pm

Sounds like a plan

Where are the holidays taking you? I'm heading into NSW in April for a small holiday and a NSW MX5 car club track day. Towing the MX5 not driving it

speed · Postby **speed** » Sun Feb 15, 2015 12:30 pm

davekmoore wrote:Only did one sighter session in the wet at Sandown yesterday before being banned due to three separate oil leaks, all of them attributable to the engine rebuild.

Hey Dave, when you say banned, do you mean suspended until the leaks are fixed?

Good luck with the plan. You seem to have had a bit of bad luck lately. May 2015 be your year

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davekmoore · Postby **davekmoore** » Sun Feb 15, 2015 2:25 pm

Suspended for the day only. Would have been allowed back out if there'd been a way for me to sort the leaks while at the track. With hindsight there wasn't much oil dropping so I should have asked to be allowed to complete one timed lap for the championship.

Juicy HiC · Postby **Juicy HiC** » Sun Feb 15, 2015 2:40 pm

Was it only the guy out in the western suburbs that worked on the engine rebuild? Or did you have someone else after him work on it Dave?

davekmoore · Postby **davekmoore** » Sun Feb 15, 2015 3:57 pm

Only the one guy. Lots of rectification work done by others since then. More still to be done.

davekmoore · Postby **davekmoore** » Sun Feb 15, 2015 9:36 pm

As previously mentioned, although I was going to sell the car when I blew it up, it ended up having the motor rebuilt by the person who was going to buy the car. Three suppliers were used for 95% of the rebuild, tuning, supply of peripherals etc. When things went wrong A would blame B unless it was proved B was not wrong, in which case C would be blamed, sometimes by B, sometimes by A, etc, etc.

Also as previously mentioned, only one person is clearly to blame, and that's me, for not giving the whole job to one contractor.

davekmoore · Postby **davekmoore** » Sat Mar 21, 2015 9:34 pm

Bit of an update after some repairs and improvements .......

Some non-OEM rear main bearing seals will leak oil within a few thousand kilometres. This can only be solved by removal of the gearbox to replace the seal with the correct one.
Some non-OEM cam seals will leak oil within a few thousand kilometres.
Some non OEM cam cover seals will weep oil.
Sumps need the correct methods of sealing. This is a combination of the correct OEM gaskets and sealants. Other combinations will leak oil.
Unless correctly sealed, plastic tube used in the installation of an oil pressure gauge will be prone to leaking oil.
Turbo drain tubes on SEs installed with stress in them will crack and piss oil out.
At least one MX5 expert who has modified and/or rebuilt and/or repaired scores of these car uses only a sealant on the oil pump. Gaskets (guess what?) weep some oil.
Valve noise which is still there after 5,000kms will not disappear after 13,000kms if 8 of the valve shims are still out by up to 8 thou.

Diagnosing and sorting all the above is not cheap.

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An AFR of 19:1 at idle and no idle speed correction in the ECU (for air con and other electrical loads) is not good for driveability. Once this was sorted, the car is transformed, and Mrs.BARMY is now happy to drive it (she especially likes it when her driving causes it to make what she calls those "horsey" noises).

This was relatively cheap.

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If several light gauge cables to/from the ECU are accidentally clamped between two pieces of metal they will cross-communicate, even if none of the insulation is damaged. This causes several random faults including:
1. Premature EFI relay failure, stopping (at least) the fuel pump running.
2. Dodgy idling, due to EFI relay not functioning properly (see number 1 above).
3. Failure of signal from ECU to injectors causing no running of motor despite everything else including fuel pump working.
4. Random running or not running of one or both of the fans.
More random electrical/electronic faults which previously existed may also now have been solved by unclamping these cables.

The diagnosis of this was free, until I forced $20 on the guy at a non-specialist garage in rural NSW.

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VIC roads are crap compared with NSW roads.

Postby **beavis** » Sat Mar 21, 2015 10:48 pm

Awesome. Love the stories that come from your car updates.

I feel like this should be in the garage section and you can regularly fill us in on your adventures.

sailaholic · Postby **sailaholic** » Sat Mar 21, 2015 11:48 pm

Agreed. Glad you finally got some stuff sorted.

19:1 AFR and no idle compensation. No wonder it was a pig!

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The American · Postby **The American** » Sun Mar 22, 2015 7:35 am

Hi Dave,
Where were the wires clamped? Was this between the body and the ECU cover plate?
Cheers,
Hanson

davekmoore · Postby **davekmoore** » Sun Mar 22, 2015 9:27 am

Yup, that would be it. 11 points out of 10 for your diagnosis with so little info. This one was my fault when I re-installed the cover plate. The Haltech installer had failed to re-install it himself, leaving all the wiring and the ECU and the connectors and the ECU itself vulnerable to being trodden on by the passenger. The road trip we went on last week was the first time the car had had a passenger for more than 30 minutes at a time so it follows that the consequences of my mis-install would show up.

The plate now being in place also makes it near impossible for the passenger to kick off the air con condenser pipe. You probably don't need to ask me how I know this.