Pics as requested.

The RB kit is just the sway bar and bushings It does not come with complete end links.

Car is 85 gsl-se, Mostly stock, Currently has 2+2 setup.

It will get a few touches such as the RB header I recently snagged on ebay. I am going to do a complete setup without any cats. I am planning on keeping the stock exhaust just as I have kept all of the other OEM parts.

 

Hey Smokey I appreciate it man.

What I did today: Ran my last pitcher of water through both rotors before it's 140mile trip to a friend's house. Sounding good.

 

How'd you like the sway bars? Did you feel a difference?

 

I havent been on a good test run yet. I've only cruised it around town since the install. But I do notice it does feel a bit tighter in the front. I'm hoping it takes away from the FB's natural understeer.

 

I know exactly what you mean by that. I've been driving my FB around for a few days now and I know what you mean.

 

The other day I took her to work and back. Clunking sound in the rear still there. I'm reasonably sure I narrowed it to 2 things: loose transmission mount bolts and loose (maybe 10-15lbs of tq) long watts link bolt. I tightened everything down and tested with the car up on jackstands and the car in gear. Blipped the throttle and listened for the noise. Still some noise and I'm almost certain it's the watts link. I'm pretty sure it's just doing what it should be doing since it's got spherical bearings. Since it's was a one-man test, I can't be sure until I get completely under the car and get someone inside to blip the throttle. I don't want to try this with the car on stands...a lift would make me feel a lot better.

Also took my cassette deck out and snipped it off to ioTus to mod it for RCA jacks. Auto-x is this Sunday, so I need to give her a bath and mount a GoPro on her.

fm

 

Hey, DD, They're not made of unobtanium!

This from Classic Mazda in Denton TX: The part you are looking for, 8761-13-770, runs $44.54 each along with $15 UPS shipping each. The part would arrive at our dealership on Tuesday 9/10 and be shipped out to you on that day.

Kale Engelhardt
Mazda Parts
940-498-9878

 

this describes the part placement exactly, I'm running with it.

 

Fired up the beast and drove to work tonight.
when I took a corner hard I smelled gas...

I pulled over and found my gas tank door open and no gas cap....
There was also a bit of gas was gone from my tank..
It has been drained a little by a crack head neighbor.

 

I made it some promises.

 

Gave it a wash. Painted the bottom perimeter of the car with white Flex Seal with good results. This stuff is like a rubberized undercoating / truck bed liner, but comes in white to match my Aurora White 80.

I replaced the fuel lines, and repaired my PCV valve. It had a broken barb.

 

Used it to jump my suburban which hadn't been driven all week. My 4 yr old likes to turn on the dome lights.

 

One case where I'm happy I was wrong. Glad you found one!

-I wiped the girl down with detailing spray; I got behind a taco truck on the way back from the last meet, and the whole car was covered with little greasy spots from their drainage runoff. Ick.

Think I'll go for a breif drive tonight once the temp gets down a bit. Charge the battery,etc.

 

Washed, polished, and waxed my light beige se. I'd like to sell it but it's too much fun to drive. addiction

 

Best movie ever. Should watch it again tonight.

Also:

 

Sanded down some rust on my door

 

Washed her and mounted a GoPro in her yesterday in prep for auto-x today.

Took her around the cones at the Marina auto-x today. Very pleased with the way she ran. Got a best time of 54.687, which was right in the middle of the Miata pack. Didn't hit the rev limiter once. Not sure if it's the track didn't have long enough straightaways or if it's the Miata tranny gearing. Either way, I had a lot of fun and hopefully will have some in-car vids of it by tomorrow.

Also met some nice folks from Battle Garage who loved the car and put a pic of it up on their Facebook page.

fm

 

LOTS of progress today.

Hooked the RPM switches back up to the CO2 system, both the 6-ports and VDI are now functional. I'm noticing that the OEM solenoids are not wanting to relieve the pressure. Perhaps I've got it turned up a bit too much and its jamming them. I'll play around with lower PSI tomorrow. Right now its at 10psi which i know is a bit much, the OEM system was around 3-7.



Now that those are functioning properly, I decided to give another pass at tuning in the fuel maps. Bueno! As it was just me flying solo today, I could only really do zero-load condition mapping, but i got it mapped up to about 5k rpm. I'm still waiting on the throttle position sensor, the S4 TPS (i'm using an S4 throttle body) only measures the bottom 15-20% of the throttle, before the secondary throttle plates open.

However, i got it running, idling, revving OK, and the gas tank was almost empty. I turned the car off, fired it right back up (hot start is a different map), and decided to tempt fate: I drove around the block! She ran SMOOTh but no power, under load she's leaning way out. BUT, she ran well enough that I decided to roll down to the gas station and fill her up.

She ALMOST didnt start afterwards, but some bumping the throttle convinced her. Rolled back home, and was so pleased that I decided to give her a much-needed wash.

I was on such a roll that I decided it was finally time to finish the headlight upgrade, so I dusted off the relay harness from Black Dragon, put the easy-out onto the drill, and backed out the stripped headlight cover bolts. Got the new harness installed and routed - step 1 in the wire tuck! I was hoping i could figure something shui out, and so far I'm pleased.

Used the quarter-panel bolt for the headlight harness grounds:



The driver's side is where the relay harness connects to the OEM harness, so I will need to do some pondering as to where I'm going to route this, but I have a feeling it will just drop down into the nose cone where I intend on routing the factory harness.



I KNOW for a fact that I purchased replacement hardware for those STUPID phillips-head lid bolts that freeze into the headlight cages, but I couldn't for the life of me find them. So, this was my stopping point for today.

 

Continued with semi major surgery on the front suspension. I just hope I can get it back together.

 

Worked on cleaning out the extra wires from the wiring harness under the hood that are not needed for the EV conversion. I had put this off long enough. I will post pictures when it is complete. I have come to hate 29 year old electrical tape glue.

The only thing I left that I am not sure if I can remove is the oscillator. What remains is very basic. Side markers, turn signals, headlights and their mechanisms.

 

Very much looking forward to these pictures. having a standalone, i'm certain there's several things under my hood that are no longer required.

And other things that are - for instance speed sensing power steering, which draws info out of the ECU.

 

I thought the steering controller got its speed info from the speedometer head.

edit - got wiring diagram info in front of me, power steering control box just gets power, ground, and the speed info from the speedometer, same wire that feeds the cruise control.

The ECUs on these cars are very very basic, they basically do nothing that doesn't involve fuel injectors or emissions solenoids.

 

Very interesting. I recall reading somewhere (haynes maybe?) that it gets the speed reading from the ECU. Perhaps it was referring to "ECU" in the more cosmic, metaphorical sense.

Or maybe those crazy pills are working after all.

Thanks for the clarification peejay!

 

I put the Rewinds on today. I also did the shifter bushings too. But man those wheels are close to the front springs with the 205's on...is that normal? for the guys who have them on..

 

Very nice look!