Alex's white NA8 build.

[PaulF]

Looks like handy stuff, so long as it holds up over time. I've always been a bit worried about products like that trapping moisture, but I guess if it stays sealed up it would be fine.

[Alex 2550]

Looks like handy stuff, so long as it holds up over time. I've always been a bit worried about products like that trapping moisture, but I guess if it stays sealed up it would be fine.

100% Paul,
Was a concern of mine as well, I didn’t want water trapped between it and the body starting rust.
The sheet material should hold up fine as it’s like some OEM stuff. The adhesive on it is crazy!.
The tape is more of a concern but I will keep an eye on it.
Generally I don’t drive the car in rain but obviously have been caught a couple times.
I will try get some photos up tonight of the finished project.


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[Alex 2550]

So here is some photos of everything all taped up, I probably went overboard but hopefully it means less heat in the passenger side once the turbo goes on.








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[Alex 2550]

Another couple steps knocked over, needless to say a new rear main went in while here.






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[ManiacLachy]

You're making good progress, mate!

[Alex 2550]

You're making good progress, mate!

Thanks mate, it’s getting there slowly


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[Alex 2550]

So everything is back together and working.
The 3 bolt flange at the manifold was the worst part.
You know when you get that “ I’ll have this done in an hour” moment and that one nut or bolt screams “No you won’t!”.
The top nut on the 3 bolt manifold flange was tight coming off and took longer than it should of.

Going back on It decided to fight me again…… actually it decided to be a real prick.
I did it finger tight which was about 6 turns, I started tightening then felt it binding and heating up.
I left it to cool for a bit because I didn’t want to snap the stud but when I came back the nut was held fast it wouldn’t go on or come off…..great.

I thought maybe I can back the stud out with the nut bound on, well with enough force I did get the stud to move but it didn’t feel great.

The “you will be done in an hour” turned into 2 days of spraying the stud with WD-40 and the manifold heat shield bolts because If i snapped the stud the manifold was coming out.

Finally yesterday afternoon I got the courage to try remove the stud and the WD did it’s job and it backed out nicely.
The thread above and below the nut are perfect so I assume it’s just rust from threads built up and bound inside the nut.
Anyway I used a bolt I had to replace the stud and nut, it’s only going to be on the car till the new Kraken stuff arrives.

The other hard part was my fault and that was not having the car high enough for the job, I couldn’t roll over under the car and sliding the box out was a bit of twisting and mucking around which was annoying so next time I’ll lift the car more.

The car is still up but the throttle response just blipping the accelerator is incredible and the clutch has a nice pedal feel. I’ll let you know more after a drive.

Some of you may know or find it interesting that ORC say to use their throw out bearing instead of genuine, I wondered why until I put them side by side, as you can see below the ORC is much much longer.





While the car is still on stands I want to run some wiring for the wideband, thinking I’ll do the through the shifter hole method to have less wires in the engine bay.
Unfortunately the controller will need to be tied on top of the PPF with the standard exhaust because the wideband is about 20mm short, once the Kraken exhaust goes on it will easily reach inside and be under the console.

I hope to take the car for a test drive this afternoon to check everything is working as it should and I will report back on how it feels.

If all goes well I’ll start installing the MS3 this week (finally) and I’m really excited about that.


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[Alex 2550]

So a few updates.
I took the car for a drive with the new clutch and flywheel and it’s quite a noticeable difference in 1st and 2nd. It revs up much faster and feels more alive, rev matching gears is much nicer as is heel toe.
3rd still has a slight difference.
4th feels much the same.
5th cruising at 100kmh I think feels smoother.

The clutch is really nice to use and has a good weight and isn’t overly aggressive but the very light flywheel caused me to stall on a small hill because I didn’t think.
The clutch is very quiet for what it is and I would say the “silent” type isn’t silent but is quiet, you notice that below say 2500rpm there is a slight rattle from the plate weather it be slightly accelerating or decelerating.
I did have the centre console and tombstone out on this drive so possibly not noticeable once in.

I did have a small “oh sh*t” moment pulling into the driveway, all the WD40 I used on exhaust nuts was burning off and smoke was coming out from under the bonnet. I jumped out with extinguisher at the ready but nothing to be concerned about.
I took a couple photos please excuse how filthy the car is, it’s got that much dust on it that it could pass as a barn find.




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[Alex 2550]

And the car returns to its current natural position, on jack stands.

Why? It’s Megasquirt time!!
So I fitted up the MS3 from MSLABS, fairly straight forward, fitted intake air temp sensor, Spartan 2 wideband controller and wired in an AFR gauge to ensure the megasquirt and tunerstudio were seeing correct AFR’s.
To keep with the retro them the AFR gauge is mounted inside the glove box.
I got the just race parts gauge and it’s really nice quality with heaps of features colour choice ect.
I have it set to white but this is the gauge.

And this is some of the wiring going on.


Anyway all installed, checked everything over 3 times and base settings in tuner studio, changed injector settings because of my NB injectors, changed spark dwell because of Toyota COP’s and it was time to hit the key.
First start and……… it fires straight up even quicker than stock! WOO HOO………. Then dies.

Crap checked through settings thinking I have stuffed up something anyway after some head scratching I realised I still had maf sensor on instead of iat and map, swapped that and it ran and idled but not well.
I increased duty cycle on the idle valve and it improved but the car smelt rich so I backed out fuel in the idle VE table and warm up enrichment still not great also tunerstudio and the afr gauge were reading 14.9 and 15 before and after adjustment.
I did a custom wideband calibration in TS so they both read 14.9 and started adding fuel then taking fuel away still the gauge reads 14.9, hmmmm I now know I have a problem.
I pull the O2 sensor out of the exhaust in fresh air and power the ignition to on and AFR reads, you guessed it 14.9.

I then soaked a rag in brake cleaner and pick up the sensor to lay on the rag, ice cold and again 14.9 afr, the 02 isn’t heating.
I did some electrical testing and all seams fine so looks like the wideband I have had sitting around for years has a busted sensor.

I will do one more test tomorrow to ensure it’s not an amperage supply problem and a resistance test but I’m using the dedicated 02 power supply from the megasquirt and getting good voltage.
If tests fail tomorrow I will order another sensor.
I must admit I was starting to worry about how difficult this was going to be, I did get the car to idle nicely but with no idea of the AFR I won’t be driving it till this 02 problem is sorted.


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[Alex 2550]

So a little project inside tonight was designing the radio blanking plate to mount the clock, some switches, warning lights and finally remove the CD player.

First up was moving the clock down from the Zoom tombstone surround and moving the boost gauge up, first problem.
The fittings on the boost gauge are too deep to fit up top, this is annoying because I really wanted it up there. The only way around it would be to cut the dashboard behind the gauges and I’m not doing that so clock will remain up top and boost will go down.

So I needed to fit a gauge, 2 switches and 2 warning lights in a 120 x 190 space, easy.
This is prototype 1.

Plain and simple.
Since I always planned to do something like this I ordered the hoops and switches from Revlimiter when I ordered all my other parts so these would match the window switches, hazard and pop up switches perfectly and have been sitting in a box for about 4 years.
Warning lights are to tie into my vintage style dash lights and will show oil and water temp warning set up from the MS3.
The switches at this stage will be map switch from high and low boost and possibly launch control/flat foot shifting.
Don’t worry it won’t be made of cardboard, I have a nice panel material and a piece of black genuine leather to trim it in, just testing the theory and clearance with this.
Now I love my eunos speaker covers and the Alpine speakers are nice, I do occasionally listen to music in the 5 but my aerial unit is dead and I don’t listen to radio often so radio is being deleted and removed.
In its place I’m mounting a small Bluetooth receiver with a 100watt amp in glovebox, it’s palm size.
It has base, treble and volume control that way I can listen to music or pod casts directly from my phone if I want tunes.
When I drive the 5 I want to listen to the engine and just zone out a bit in my retro inspired interior.


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[Alex 2550]

Now if we could get a drum roll please for the star of the coming main attraction….

The GTX2860 Gen 2 from Pulsar turbos with the anti surge housing, billet compressor wheel and inconel turbine wheel capable of 475HP.
The inlet is 3 inch so for a baby T28 it looks mean.
The new compressor wheel is more efficient and should spool really nicely giving a nice linear power curve.
A guy on miataturbo got a pulsar GTX2867 Gen 1 to make 481whp at 22 psi.
He believes that this Gen 2 turbo will hit my 300-350whp end goal at around the 15psi mark, time will tell.
Initially it will be running outside of efficiency at 7psi till forged internals go in but safe to say the initial 200whp goal should come easily to this little snail.


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[93_Clubman]

Looking good Alex - great progress!

[Alex 2550]

Looking good Alex - great progress!

Thanks so much, it’s getting there slowly but I’m enjoying the journey on this one and have decided the MX is going to be a permanent part of the family.


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[greenMachine]

Looking good Alex, that looks the business!!

You could do better than 200rwhp on stock internals with careful tuning, but not a lot of point if the forged build is planned anyway. My limit is set by injector duty cycle, so the two big-ticket items remaining on my list are bigger injectors, and the turbo. New rods and an oil pump are on the wishlist, but that is probably a way off yet.

Keep up the good work!!

[bartmanftw]

Where did you ground the wideband? I normally don't use gauges with the Spartan 2s since I don't find AFR gauges useful and the reading it will give won't be accurate if it's grounded in the wrong spot.
The Spartan will perform a calibration output sequence on startup so that you can calibrate the ECUs voltage input correctly. Some info on that: https://www.14point7.com/blogs/news/165 ... megasquirt

Just check the measured values while it does the startup sequence and use the spreadsheet in the link above to work out the new O2 calibration.
Hopefully you work out what's wrong with the sensor. One point of failure I have seen on those widebands which might be worth checking is the connection to the PCB. Since the connector is mounted directly on the circuit board it can get damaged when connecting/disconnecting the sensor if you put too much force and lever it.