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Thanks! I plan on building a box. However, I need to get longer velocity tubes and shorter stacks. This will allow me to keep the same intake length but have the stack mounted properly in the intake box. I'm also dealing with limited space as the S4 has the gigantic oil filler neck right in the way. I'm hoping I can make something work around that. Another thought was to get a t2 hood and build a filter box in the hood scoop. At least that way, I'm forcing cooler filtered air into the engine bay. Plus, I lose some weight by getting rid of my heavy as hell steel hood.
No 5/6th port actuators. The Star Mazda manifold has no provisions for them. So essentially, they are just open all the time.
After doing some dyno testing on exhaust setups and finding the single collected made more power than my RB True Dual, I had a custom stainless 2.5 inch exhaust made. New exhaust is RB true dual header with a custom merge collector after the flange to a magnaflow resonator and back to a single exit magnaflow straight through muffler.
The exhaust isn't mandrel bent, but there are minimal deformations from the standard pipe bender.
Custom shin buster tip
Picked up some LRB dash vents and painted them in wrinkle coat black.
Also picked up a mint black dash and decided to finally swap it. I kept my my s4 dash harness/ support and swapped it to the s5 dash. Everything bolted right up. My black interior swap is complete minus A pillars, the idiot cluster bezel and seats. I'll have to get pictures soon.
Also picked up a manual steering rack to get rid of my de-powered (not properly) rack.
Hit it with a wire wheel:
Repainted it silver for a clean but OEM-ish look:
I still need to put the rack in. I think my next big focus is making the exterior nicer and hopefully some wheels I've had my eyes on.
Geez, I go along time without updating! In the last two months, not much has happened. I've been driving the car without taking the time to fiddle with things. Since I've been looking at buying a house, I've drastically limited my spending on the car.
I did paint my header with VHT high temp black in an attempt to reduce intake temps. At idle, I measured a 15 degree difference in ambient intake temps after the same amount of idle time had passed (this testing was done on the same day and the outside temperature remained the same). Other than that, I've been slowly tweaking my maps for the colder weather.
Oh! I'm also picking up a hybrid FC turbo off a friend for free. The compressor housing was broke in shipping, but I have a friend who has a few spares. I think it's time to start collecting parts for a turbo-itb set up!
Moderators: After viewing this thread on my laptop, I can see how poorly sized my pictures are throughout (using mobile app, and desktop). Is it possible to allow access so I can resize the pictures to a standard size? If not, no biggie. Just curious.
For a Christmas present, the lady friend bought some new rear speakers for me (my old ones have been blown for the past year). Unfortunately, I was an idiot and just assumed the rear mount was 6~6.5 inches and the new speakers didn't fit. $15.00 later, I cut out some mdf speaker adapters, painted them black and installed the speakers.
After over a year of running my ITB setup, I finally measured the inner bore diameter and found they are actually 45mm. Not the "custom" 48mm diameter I ordered. Since I plan on building a turbo ITB set-up, I've listed these for sale and ordered a different throttle body. If anyone is interested, the ITB's are up for sale in the Race Parts Only classifieds section.
Well, I sold my old RHD throttle body and picked up a new Jenvey DCOE throttle body! These are designed much better than the previous throttles and include air bleeds/vacuum ports, injector bungs, and fuel rail mounting tabs. The throttle plates are also machined to a much tighter tolerance.
Once installed, I was having an issue with the idle and with fouling plugs. After doing some tuning, the issue didn't go away. I tore the manifold back off to see if there was a sealing issue but to my unfortunate surprise, there was quite a bit of coolant in the intake runners.
So great, a blown coolant seal. After visiting Rob at Pineapple Racing, I decided to go ***** deep, arranged for a peripheral port to be built, and started tearing down the motor. I'll be pulling it this Sunday and dropping it off next week. Time for more POWAAAA!
Brought the motor to Rob and cracked it open. The coolant seal on the rear iron was deteriorated in a one inch section. I forgot to take a picture of the rotors and housings but they were in great shape. The rear main bearing had a some unusually high wear but there were no gouges or impressions worn in.
So much work!
After pulling the motor, I decided to attack the rust on the front rail. My friend Jesse brought over his welder and we went to it. We cut the bad section out, shaped a new piece, and welded it in.
Once that was done, I realized I had a welder at my disposal. This lead me down a terrible path . I decided to shave and tuck the engine bay. As I'm building a PP motor and I've already installed a haltech (minimal wiring needed for this set-up), I figured this was the time to make everything as clean as I could. We welded all the unnecessary holes in the engine bay and went back to hit with a flap disc, sanding the welds smooth.
There was a hiccup where we blew through a couple sections in the sheet metal by the brake booster. THIS SUCKED. So what did we do? Cut out a new panel out of thicker steel, bent it to fit the complex curve that area has, and welded it in (sorry for the upside down picture). After that was done, I laid down a coat of epoxy primer, let that cure, and then smoothed out the welds/surfaces with a metal glaze. Sanded the living hell out of that and finally laid the last coat of primer down.
While I was waiting for the primer to cure, I also converted my FPR and primary fuel rail to pushlock fittings (previously AN, which I hated).
Seeing as how my stock power harness was pretty janky, I also stripped that and separated the trans harness. This allowed me to clean everything up and run new wires. Since I'm running a standalone, I de-pinned all of the unnecessary wires (over the top switch, neutral switch, front harness connector, etc). I've also replaced nearly every bolt in the engine bay with new stainless hardware.
All in all, I've got roughly 90 hours of work into the engine bay and the paint is finally done. I'll post some updated bay pictures tomorrow.
As I haven't rolled this out of the garage yet, here are some finished night time engine bay pics (already started reinstalling parts).
To ready the car for the new engine, I picked up a new clutch master cylinder, and repainted the brake booster. I also sourced a lightweight RB flywheel and had a custom 6 puck sprung clutch kit made for me (I'll get pictures later as it's sitting at Pineapple Racing right now).
The engine is still in the process of being built so in the meantime I've been working on small things. I decided to redo my ECU wiring and cleaned up the ECU mounting plate. I also re-routed the entire engine harness through the driver's side firewall hole and under the dash for a custom wire tuck. Aside from the spark plug wires, the only wires now present in the engine bay will be for the injectors, cas, and various sensors.
I also picked up a set of used FTP lenses and cleaned them up by wet sanding with 1500 grit sandpaper. They looked terrible and now they look like new!
Seeing as the motor is out, I finally decided to swap the my improperly de-powered steering rack for the manual rack I picked up quite a while ago. After removing the stock rack I found the tie-rod ends were shot, so I pulled those and ordered new ones. Since I'm not planning on drifting, I figured I don't need the extra angle that most aftermarket tie rod ends provide and decided on oem replacements. I will need to replace my sway bar end links, but that can wait for now.
Seeing as the motor is getting closer and closer, I picked up a 48mm DCOE billet flange for use with my DCOE throttle body and tapped the holes so I can actually bolt the throttle body to it. I've also grabbed some 48mm ID mandrel bent tubing, and a MFR peripheral port intake flange. After talking with Rob at Pineapple, we did the math and calculated that for my power goals, the total intake track length from the intake flange to the throttle plates should be 6 inches. As the DCOE flange is 1/2" and the distance to the butterflies is 1 1/2", the piping will be angle cut at 4" and the throttle body flange welded on. If I need to lengthen the intake length later, I can just add a spacer (The picture provided is just a mock up to measure distances). My friend is TIG welding the intake up at his shop and then I'll polish this bad boy up. The picture provided is just a mock up to measure distances.
Well hello again! I figure it's been roughly a year since my last post, so it's time for an update.
The motor is still in the works. There's been some setbacks with machinists which has resulted in unexpected delays. I'm hoping the motor is completed by the end of this month. Regarding that,, there's been a few changes and I'm now running carbon apex seals, a modified NEW RX-8 e shaft, new housings, and new RX-8 hardened stationary gears. During the downtime I picked up a Racing Beat Underdrive Pulley and a few other goodies.
New RX-8 E-shaft and stationary gears
I also picked up a set of mint Corbeau GTS II's with rails and sliders from a friend for a flat out STEAL. For being 5' 10", these actually fit pretty well. That said, I'll probably remove the sliders on the driver side to gain some extra helmet clearance.
Shine Auto RE sidekirts
I picked up my old privacy cover from a friend. Unfortunately, the composite material was in really bad shape so I tore off the carpet and made a new wood template. After some test fitting/cuts, I finally got it to sit where I want. Next step is to cut the final version and wrap in carpet.
As this last Tuesday rolled around, Rob from Pineapple shot me a message and told me to swing by the shop. After shooting the breeze for a bit, we added some intake ports to my new manifold, installed my modified water pump, and home I went! The minute I arrived at home, I pulled out the hoist and threw the motor in.
*My fiancé felt the need to capture the elation on my face as I put the motor in.
Getting the motor in it's final resting spot.
Installed the throttle body ,.
Started making my oil cooler lines.
Finished the oil cooler lines. I absolutely hate connecting AN fittings so I'm glad this job is done.*
Installed the thermostat housing and my new thermostat.
Since the oil cooler lines were finished, I was able to cover quite a bit of ground. Installed the radiator, fan, header, and fan wiring.
The list is getting shorter! I'm hoping to have the car started by the end of the next week.
It lives! I had a few minor setbacks with fouled plugs, not receiving a strong enough spark signal off the leading coil, and with my base map not having the fueling close enough. Luckily enough, Rob swung by to help and I swapped in some new plugs, swapped my leading coil for a spare I had, and upped the fuel. Once that was done, the car started right up and held idle at 2k quite well.
After about 10 minutes, I noticed my fan wasn't turning on despite exceeding the temperature limit that was set. I quickly shut off the car and after some troubleshooting, it turns out my switched 12v wire wasn't pinned correctly. Fixed that, and 3300 CFM's came on full force!
Once the fan was working, we continued to stabilize the idle and then locked the timing at zero degrees within the Haltech (I have an RB underdrive main pulley), got the timing set and then let her run for about 30 min.
Rob also helped me dial in the start-up and priming maps and the car, despite being a peripheral port, starts better than it ever has even in factory form. It's been so long since this car started reliably that I've nearly forgot what a luxury it can be.
Aside from the above, I have a little more tuning to do so I can drive the car up to 3k for break in. I also need to bleed the coolant again, buy a new battery, sleeve my wiring and register the car on collector plates (emissions exempt). All is well in the world!
Currently running MAP. However, I need to filter out the signal so I can get a cleaner reading. If that doesn't work, I may have to attempt alpha-n.
Side-note: Coolant is bled, picked up a new battery (equivalent of Odyssey PC680), and 12 spark plugs as I'm fouling them out so quick I barely have time to tune.
Mission for tonight is to put a filter on the map sensor, reinstall the brake booster vacuum source, and put the front bumper back on. My new Shine Auto Type 1 bumper arrived but I need to pick up some s5 turn signals and get it painted before I throw it on.
Mission for this weekend is to get the car running well enough to actually drive it.
Mission for this week is to get the car registered so I can actually drive it down the road for some light tuning and break in.
I'm very curious to know how your MAP filter works out. I'm hoping to design and build my ITB manifold this winter so getting a good MAP signal will be key. Make sure to take the GoPro when you get that beast on the streets! Those RB PP housings for sale in the racing section right now are awful tempting...
I'm very curious to know how your MAP filter works out. I'm hoping to design and build my ITB manifold this winter so getting a good MAP signal will be key. Make sure to take the GoPro when you get that beast on the streets! Those RB PP housings for sale in the racing section right now are awful tempting...
I ended up teeing both intake runners together, attaching them to a port on my old vacuum box, and then routing one of the other ports to the map sensor. As the vacuum box is basically a tiny plenum/volumetric chamber, this really helped smooth out the map signal. Now I can stay within 1-2 (fuel) cells at idle versus 8.
Side note: the car is now registered and legal to drive. I put my interior back together, cleaned the carpet, and installed new velcro for the hatch trim as the old stuff was failing. I also got the car running well enough that I was able to drive down the road (poorly). While it revs relatively clean, I think it's going super lean on throttle inputs.
So while I keep working on the tune, I'm going to try to cut off my angled muffler tips at some point this week. I'm getting sick of the look and pointing the exhaust up makes the car louder than it should be with two full mufflers and a presilencer.
A dual exhaust setup is always going to be louder than a single. I think I'm going to move to a 3 inch after the collector system and use the Racing Beat universal 3" presilencer and 3" universal muffler. I just don't like the way the car sounds with the true dual setup and also losing out on the scavenging of a collected setup. Take some video driving that beast!
I'm not sure I completely agree with that statement. My true dual was much quieter than the single exit I had custom made. That being said, I would like to go back to a single exit to regain some of the midrange torque and lose about 30-40 lbs of excess exhaust piping/mufflers. Once I get some extra cash floating around, I'll switch back to single. This will also make it easier for me to put in a silencer valve (for not pissing off the neighbors).
I'll definitely take some pictures and videos as soon as the car can reliable drive further than a block. I'm going to do some tuning tonight and tomorrow so I can start breaking in the motor.
Did some tuning last weekend and the car is running decently now. Still goes rich when cruising around 3k but I'll sort that out this week.
I did notice my brakes are super wonky after the engine rebuild and I'm wondering if the fluctuating vacuum is messing with the booster. I installed a new hose/check valve (lost my old one) with no luck. Sometimes the pedal is firm other times straight to the floor. For now, I've just capped it off as I'd rather have a hard pedal than an inconsistent one.
Now that I'm thinking about it, I wonder if the angled hose off the booster is collapsing under vacuum. It's not OEM and does seem rather thin walled.
05-16-16, 10:09 AM
. I decided to shave and tuck the engine bay. As I'm building a PP motor and I've already installed a haltech (minimal wiring needed for this set-up), I figured this was the time to make everything as clean as I could. We welded all the unnecessary holes in the engine bay and went back to hit with a flap disc, sanding the welds smooth. 
