JCH13 - Turbo Miata Rehab Thread

[Vdubchaos]

Aren't you the guy that was telling me how great these NA Engines handle Turbo upgrades?

 

[JCH13]

Aren't you the guy that was telling me how great these NA Engines handle Turbo upgrades?

If you knew the amount of flagrant misuse and abuse that engine had seen, you would be stunned at how long that engine survived before it finally let go.

Cliffs from other threads:

-PO got this Miata as a 'resuce' and then turbo'd it and raced it in GRM for 3-4 years, I got it with ~160k on the clock
-Overheated at least four times since I had it
-Drag raced and autox raced with timing fixed at +10deg (PO left a diagnostic setting burned into the standalone when he sold it to me, this is what was largely responsible for the overheating, a loose bolt aside)
-Revved to 7,900rpm+ under 14psi of boost on multiple occasions (stock redline is ~7,200rpm) as it over-shot the rev-limit
-Inadvertently boosted with old/bad gas in the tank

That little thing owes me nothing.

The 1.6L Miata engine responds quite well to boost. It has an iron block, closed deck, forged crank, hyper-eutectic aluminum pistons, and oil squirters to cool the pistons, it is derived directly from the B6T (turbo 323 GTX) engine. However, you can only make so many mistakes before even the best engine lets go.

Now, kindly GTFO with your trolling.

 

[JCH13]

Did nothing but strip bolts last night. Great.

Found that Autozone has the front lower ball joints with nut and pin for $20, with a 20% off + free shipping code (for orders over $100). So, replacing those ball joints at least. Also got rear caliper rebuild kits and bleeder screws (front calipers were new last summer), brake line clips, cotter pin assortment, and a set of bump stops for another Miata that may be in my future.

 

[JCH13]

Finished pulling all of the front suspension apart.

Had a hell of time getting ther driver's side lower ball joint out, the cross-bolt holding it in the a-arm took every single trick I knew to get it out. Mind you the nut was off, this was getting the bolt out of the ball joint housing. What finally worked: I torched it until everything was really hot, cooled the bolt head and threads with ATF/acetone mix (that also sucked some of the oil up the threads and down the shank), hammered a 16mm socket onto what is supposed to be a 17mm bolt (stripped w/impact), cracked it loose and worked it back-and-forth with a 2ft breaker bar+2ft cheater bar, then hammered it out with my 3lb BFH and a punch.

Any hope of saving the lower ball joint was history once I cracked out the torch, so I ordered two new lower ball joints. Found a better deal on them through Amazon instead of the usual places like RockAuto, Finish Line Performance, etc.

Painted my new rear subframe. No orange paint was easily available, and Black2NA suggested green, so...

Took the exhaust and drive shaft out without any drama as I have removed both before. Hooray anti-seize.

Taking the power plant frame out was a heinous bitch thanks to one stepped bolt through the differential housing. The power plant frame is an aluminum frame that connects the transmission to the differential to improve throttle response. Anyway, it un-threaded from the knurled in nut on the PPF a little rough, but then it just wouldn't drop out. I'd never seen anything like it before, ever. It spun and slid up and down nicely in place, but wouldn't drop more than 1in out its hole. After forcing it out with a combination of an impact gun, 48in pry bar, and another set of hands (JLee's idea!) I figured out why:

It had been tightened and/or hammered in so hard as to mushroom the shoulder. Holy hell. My roommate took care of the should on a belt sander quite nicely.

With the PPF out, I cleaned it with a pressure washer, acetone, sandpaper, and a little elbow grease and painted it yellow. Clearly I am continuing the crazy coloration under the car.

The rear subframe that's in the car now is totally loose. I completely unbolted two of the bolts holding it in and got all four studs loose. When I figure out a good way to support it and lower everything down safely I'll drop it out completely. I'm really glad I'm replacing the subframe. It's rusted so badly I poked a few holes through it with my finger.

I also unbolted and examined both rear calipers. I'm glad I've got rebuild kits on the way, they are about ready to seize up! Should be able to save them I think.

 

[thedarkwolf]

I dropped the PPF on my face when I pulled it out. Busted loose suddenly on me and gave me a nice black eye.

 

[JCH13]

I dropped the PPF on my face when I pulled it out. Busted loose suddenly on me and gave me a nice black eye.

Heh, I had read about that sort of thing happening, I stayed to the side of the PPF and knocked it off away from myself.

Considering a the utility vs cost of a transmission jack... :\ would be most useful for dropping the rear subframe and transmission... but I might not use it for much else, ever. Thoughts?

 

[JCH13]

Made some more good progress last night with the help of a couple friends.

Using my fancy new Horrible Fright shop press we pressed out all of the rubber bushings out of the front suspension arms. We ran into some trouble when the steel insert in one bushing ripped out of the rubber, leaving the press bar in it's place. Was a huge PITA, but with some ATF/acetone mix and some elbow grease we got it free.

Then we started stripping rust/gunk off of the a-arms. A combination of needle descaler and Loctite naval jelly got pretty good results. The picture isn't great, but the lighter gray areas are basically totally stripped metal. Another go-over should clean it up entirely.

I painted the drive shaft like a barber pole/candy cane.

To end the night we dropped the whole subframe!

 

[Vdubchaos]

If you knew the amount of flagrant misuse and abuse that engine had seen, you would be stunned at how long that engine survived before it finally let go.


The 1.6L Miata engine responds quite well to boost. It has an iron block, closed deck, forged crank, hyper-eutectic aluminum pistons, and oil squirters to cool the pistons, it is derived directly from the B6T (turbo 323 GTX) engine. However, you can only make so many mistakes before even the best engine lets go.

Now, kindly GTFO with your trolling.

My pesky 1.8T has been thru plenty flagrant misuse and abuse as well.

Pushing almost double the horsepower for the following amount of time...

Passat #1, K04ed at 70k, totalled at 150k (lady hit me from the back). Sold the engine, still going strong at 400WHP on stock internals WITH that milage

Passat #2 K04ed at 80k, currently have 150k, going strong

Calling me a troll doesn't make your point more valid.

Regardless, you've done some nice things to your Miata (I like it). Good work.

 

[JCH13]

My pesky 1.8T has been thru plenty flagrant misuse and abuse as well.

Pushing almost double the horsepower for the following amount of time...

Passat #1, K04ed at 70k, totalled at 150k (lady hit me from the back). Sold the engine, still going strong at 400WHP on stock internals WITH that milage

Passat #2 K04ed at 80k, currently have 150k, going strong

Calling me a troll doesn't make your point more valid.

Regardless, you've done some nice things to your Miata (I like it). Good work.

Was that abuse anything near what my engine had seen? Driving an engine hard isn't abuse. Getting the entire turbo housing, manifold, and half the down-pipe orange is abuse. Bouncing off of the rev limiter at full boost on an auto-x track is abuse. Blowing 1qt of oil out of the crank case into the catch bottle at the drag strip is abuse. :awe:

Do you have a dyno chart of your 1.8T Passat @ 400whp with a K04 turbo? The few searches I did showed something like 230-270whp being more the normal. A K04 compressor map shows about 400-430ft^3/min max flow rate (converted from m^3/s), which roughly equates to 290hp. A completely re-worked K04 (35% more flow than stock) will do about 350whp on a 2.3L MS3 engine.

There are references to ONE (and only one) guy, Billy, who ran 400whp on his 1.8T with stock internals... until it exploded a short time later.

Unless what you really meant to say was that you had a VR6 Passat and used TWO K04 turbos. The VR6 was originally designed to be a diesel engine and has an insane bottom end. It's an exception, not the rule of engine power capability.

I'm having a really hard time believing your claims with no details and no proof. I'm not trying to be an ass, just going through my thought process on the matter. It's hard to convey a "I'm trying to be reasonable, work with me here" tone through a post.

Anyway, thanks. It's been a fun learning/experimenting/collaboration project and has turned into more than a modified car.

 

[Vdubchaos]

Was that abuse anything near what my engine had seen? Driving an engine hard isn't abuse. Getting the entire turbo housing, manifold, and half the down-pipe orange is abuse. Bouncing off of the rev limiter at full boost on an auto-x track is abuse. Blowing 1qt of oil out of the crank case into the catch bottle at the drag strip is abuse. :awe:

So you would rather blame your stupidity over the obvious/common knowledge of the car world?

ok

Do you have a dyno chart of your 1.8T Passat @ 400whp with a K04 turbo? The few searches I did showed something like 230-270whp being more the normal. A K04 compressor map shows about 400-430ft^3/min max flow rate (converted from m^3/s), which roughly equates to 290hp. A completely re-worked K04 (35% more flow than stock) will do about 350whp on a 2.3L MS3 engine.

I never said anything about K04 or 400whp. I said I sold the engine and it has been modified and used and it's at around 400whp right now (with current owner) and NO it's obviously not just a K04 (it has a big turbo set up).

There are references to ONE (and only one) guy, Billy, who ran 400whp on his 1.8T with stock internals... until it exploded a short time later.

Small world hehe, I know billy

There has been few after that though...and they have been quite successful too.

Unless what you really meant to say was that you had a VR6 Passat and used TWO K04 turbos. The VR6 was originally designed to be a diesel engine and has an insane bottom end. It's an exception, not the rule of engine power capability.

I'm having a really hard time believing your claims with no details and no proof. I'm not trying to be an ass, just going through my thought process on the matter. It's hard to convey a "I'm trying to be reasonable, work with me here" tone through a post.

Anyway, thanks. It's been a fun learning/experimenting/collaboration project and has turned into more than a modified car.

You don't have hard time believing my claims, you have a hard time understanding them.

Big difference

But I will admit, I'm not the best when it comes to communication hehe.

Anyways, it surely looks like this car has giving you a lot of experience and fun all in one. I've done everything on my passats past 15 years and have gained so much knowledge. It really is priceless. Without even getting into how much money I saved on labor etc.

So what you are doing is great and if it makes you happy than it's even better.

Sorry if I'm a bit too rough around the edges...I don't mean it that way.

You have to understand that when I usually give advice/opinion, I try to measure "experience" of the OP. In Turbo Cavalier case, I felt that the guy was new to the modification/tinkering world. I think in that case it's better to give the person "generalizations" vs "hard core" tinkerer kind of advice.

You have to kind of adjust yourself and bring it down to their level (in a way). I realize that there is ALWAYS an exception to the rule, especially from an "experienced/knowledgeable" person perspective, I just didn't think it should apply in that particular situation. And you do have to admit that you were pretty rough on me as well.

 

[JCH13]

It is common knowledge in the car world that Miata engines are very boost-friendly for the reasons I've presented many times. If you cannot see why they're good for boost at this point... well... then you don't know what features make an engine good for boost and high power ouput.

To repeat myself (for the third or fourth time now) about the engine's unfortunate life: the previous owner had left a diagnostic setting flipped in the MegaSquirt's programming that fixed timing at +10deg. This was at the root of all of the problems.

To summarize this unfortunate life all in one paragraph: timing was fixed at +10deg and I had no idea. This caused insane EGTs and thus overheating (and orange turbo/manifold/downpipe). Overheating lead to knock and thus knock damage. Knock damage leads more knocking from hot-spots even after I fixed the timing setting issue. This knocking led to ring-land failure. Ringland failure lead to excessive blow-by, thus blowing oil out of the crank case. Extra-bad knocking from said hot-spots/knock damage in conjunction with older gas is probably what finally killed it by entirely blowing out a chunk of ringland. All of this resultant from a small setting screwed up in the ECU that should not have been set in the first place.

Since fixing that setting and replacing the engine (eliminating the knock damage) it's been running like a top. No hint of any of the aforementioned issues. I have since re-tuned the spark and fuel maps for the new turbo I put on it, fixed the cold-start tuning and hot-start tuning, setup a closed-loop fueling control map and parameters with an LC-1 wide-band sensor, tuned a knock sensor to the engine and integrated it with spark control to retard timing when knock is detected. I guess I'm just a stupid n00b that blows up engines by being stupid though

Also, yeah, no kidding, you REALLY need to work on conveying your intent more clearly. Saying "still going strong at 400whp" implies that you were running it at 400whp. That is REALLY different from saying: "I sold it to a guy who used it as part of a 400whp big turbo build".

 

[FuzzyDunlop]

Keep more updates. I have no comments other than "interesting'. Because that is what this car is becoming... interesting.

 

[JCH13]

Keep more updates. I have no comments other than "interesting'. Because that is what this car is becoming... interesting.

Heh, to say the least!

Didn't do much tonight, just pulled the rusty, crappy, dust shields off of the front uprights. Dropped about 1/2lb of unsprung weight from each corner, because racecar.

 

[manimal]

Heh, to say the least!

Didn't do much tonight, just pulled the rusty, crappy, dust shields off of the front uprights. Dropped about 1/2lb of unsprung weight from each corner, because racecar.

I think its moving from interesting to sweeeeeeeeet!

 

[Black2na]

i love how this is comming out! how often do you really get to go ape nuts on a car on something that 0 fucks given if people dont like it so what! and i started this crazy in motion! i win!

 

[FuzzyDunlop]

Lol
definitely reach the Ape Nuts side of the crazy spectrum.

 

[JCH13]

Thanks guys, I will keep the crazy coming.

To that end, I'm torn between painting the differential housing orange and putting a jack-o-lantern face on it, or painting it blue and putting an :awe: face on it. Hrmm... decisions...

Black2NA wants me to paint it pink. But that might be a little too... fabulous...

 

[alkalinetaupehat]

and has an insane bottom end.

Giggity.

...what were we talking about?

 

[JCH13]

UPS was ultra-fail, none of the parts scheduled for delivery were actually delivered... they were put on the wrong truck that was doing deliveries in a different town entirely. Thanks UPS.

I guess it didn't matter too much though. My friend fried a front wheel bearing in his (and his wife's) one and only car. So him and I, and my roommate, stayed up past midnight replacing both front hubs. Hooray!

 

[herm0016]

painting it blue and putting an :awe: face on it. Hrmm... decisions...

this. great to see it coming togther.

 

[PseudoSport]

It might have gotten locked at a fixed +10deg timing but there is no way it left my hands like that.

 

[JCH13]

It might have gotten locked at fixed at +10deg timing but there is no way it left my hands like that.

*shrug* Then I do not know how it happened. I hadn't taken a computer to it before many of those issues, and the first time I adjusted that setting was to correct it. I assumed it had accidentally been set before I got the car.

The only thing I can think of (now) is that downloading the ECU project file and importing it into TunerStudio instead of MegaTune missed that setting or changed it.

No matter how it happened it was ultimately my responsibility. The car is happy again, and I learned a good lesson that didn't cost me too much $$. I'm really not too worried about it

 

[PseudoSport]

The only thing I can think of (now) is that downloading the ECU project file and importing it into TunerStudio instead of MegaTune missed that setting or changed it.

Good chance that did it right there. I've had this issues early on going back and forth between Megatune and TunerStudios. It will also sometimes mess up your AFR ratio table. No idea why it happens.


Sorry to be so defensive, I really liked the car and had a few years of my life invested into it. Glad to see you got it sorted out in the long run.

 

[JCH13]

Good chance that did it right there. I've had this issues early on going back and forth between Megatune and TunerStudios. It will also sometimes mess up your AFR ratio table. No idea why it happens.


Sorry to be so defensive, I really liked the car and had a few years of my life invested into it. Glad to see you got it sorted out in the long run.

I did notice that the AFR table had every cell set to 14.7, I just assumed it had never been setup. I never would have guessed that switching tuning environments would do that. This explains a lot.

Also, no worries! Now I have a few years of my life invested into it and I really like it too :awe:

 

[FuzzyDunlop]

Good chance that did it right there. I've had this issues early on going back and forth between Megatune and TunerStudios. It will also sometimes mess up your AFR ratio table. No idea why it happens.


Sorry to be so defensive, I really liked the car and had a few years of my life invested into it. Glad to see you got it sorted out in the long run.

soooooo... whats your opinion on the color scheme...