This is definately a great thread. If my motor goes again, i definately plan to do the rebuild myself. I already have the videos, to show me how. Good luck with the rest of your rebuild, and i hope your car lasts a good long time this time.

Have you thought about water injection. That would definately help with some of your temps, and it will clean most of that carbon up. And compared to some of the other things you are having done, it seems like a very minimal cost for some extra "incase **** happens" factor.

Adam

 

Great thread, Mahjik. I'll be interested to see how the engine reacts with the Swaintech-coated rotors.

 

The Aluminum Race Radiator from Radiator World:
http://www.radiatorworld.com/radiato...px?carno=15107

The thickness is about the same size (maybe slightly thicker by 1mm) than the Koyo.

 

Nope, I haven't really thought about water injection. I'm a little hesitant to get dependent on another added component which could fail in high stress applications. With my new setup, I should have about the same power at 10 PSI than what I had previously at higher boosts. I'll be keeping the intake temps down by running lower boost (like I should have been doing from the beginning).

My main concern right now (for cooling) will be the oil cooling. While the Mocal will be much better than the stock unit, I'll need to see if I need to run dual coolers or not.

 

Thanks Kento. I'll be sure to post up any information about it that I can. I believe Maxcooper also has his rotors coated and is up and running. Hopefully he'll be able to provide some data on it as well.

 

I'm getting there myself.



LIM, 13BRE UIM, Elbow and Water pump Housing are getting polished as I type this. How much you think the toltal cost of Chrome and polishing will run you?

This is my bill so far

2 Housings $100
front cover $ 80
Alternator $ 40

LIM/UIM/elbow/WP housing $250

**** is getting a bit expensive, but should be well worth it.





http://www.zoops.com/zoopseal.asp

 

luiml73,

That is sweet! I choose to go with ceramic coatings on the lower parts of the engine and polish on the upper parts. Since I'm sticking with the stock twins, I wanted something to help resist the heat that those things generate. I didn't do anything special with my housings, they were just painted.

Probably for all the parts I did (still doing), the total cost for the polishing/coatings will be about $1200 (minus shipping costs).

That doesn't include the turbo manifold as I bought that one already coated (I think that was around $250 or so... I need to look back at what I paid for that).

 

If you dont tune for the water injection, it could just be an added bonus of protection. Anything can break under high stress applications that cause your motor to go. Good luck anyways.

Adam

 

re: water injection,
A local autocrosser lost an engine in his Evo8 due to a failure in his water injection setup. It pumped too much water (broken pump, I believe) and hydrolocked his motor, from what I hear. His exact words were "the pump broke and killed the motor."

Most water-injection setups I've seen (home-built or sold as a kit) rely on turning the pump on and off to change the amount of water that is injected. This is a really crappy way to do it; the fuel system in production cars is a better example: pump always on, cycling the injectors on/off to control volume injected, and using a return line back to the tank.



re: ECUs,
I'm not suggesting that the Pettit system was the direct cause of your failure. I'm just saying that since you're blowing a lot of money on other stuff, I would look into using something better than an 8-bit ECU, assuming you can have it tuned properly. "It works" is not always good enough. The stock motor setup also "works" but we modify it anyway, because it's far from perfect. Same goes for the stock ECU, which is what the Pettit ECU is based on, according to my research.

-s-

 

i dont know if this helps anyone but i got over 48000 miles out of a stock port engine w/ intake, downpipe, catback, pullies w/ pettit unlimited @ 12 psi and finally popped a seal on the rear rotor driving foolishly on a super cold night w/ stock intercooler.. i saw the opened motor and did not have hardly any carbon build up.. wonder why??

 

Just so there's no confusion Kyle, I actually have a "healthy" Street Port. Cam talked me out of the Race Port as I wanted to get 50K miles out of the motor. Said motor now has 57,422 miles!:P
Art

 

Mahjik,
Looks great. Can't wait for you to get it back on the road!

 

When picking mods, people need to pick what's "best for them", not what's "best on the market". In my case, upgrading the ECU is not what's in my best interest at this time. Doesn't mean it won't be a consideraton later down the road.

Having an ECU tuned to exactly what is in your car is always the "best" thing to do. However, while it seems like "I'm blowing a lot of money on other stuff", IMO, most of that other stuff is needed. The ceramic coatings, while they look nice, are completely functional by helping the engine to resist the surrounding heat, thus helping to keep temps in check.

It does seem like I'm spending a lot of money, but I am on a budget for this project and I see better uses for my money than changing the ECU (when it wasn't a problem to begin with). That $1000 on a new ECU (not counting being able to sell my current one) can go further with other parts of the engine.

As for 16-bit verse 8-bit, these computers really aren't lacking in processing power. 16-bit CPU's were just too darn expensive in the late 80's (when the FD was being designed). I don't know if you ever had a Commodore 64, but that was an 8-bit computer which did some very impressive things; quite a bit more than the little 8-bit computers our cars run on. While a 16-bit ECU is/can be faster than an 8-bit ECU (and 32-bit, 64-bit and so on), I seriously doubt that it's a bottleneck in car's performance. Hell, 8-bit processors (actually probably less back then) put people on the moon. I think it can handle a car.

Well, that's quite an assumption, but that's not the bucket I fall into. My car is not modified because "Mazda didn't do it right the first time". My car go modified because stuff broke (starting with the stock catback) and it was cheaper to go aftermarket than to get parts from Mazda. Over the years, modifying it just became a way to keep the car from becoming "old" and "boring". I never modified my car thinking I was going to out-do Mazda's engineers. If that were the case, I would have done it right the first time around.

I do realize from being a Software Engineer that it's easy to pick and poke at something that already been done (and find better ways to do a few of the things which were created). However, coming with things from scratch when nothing exist is where Engineers separate themselves from the "tinkerers". While so many people complain about the sequential setup, I seriously doubt many of them could design a system within the same costs and materials as the Mazda engineers had at their disposal.

Well, I still imagine my porting is still not as large as yours. I wasn't after an insane port job, just something larger to gain a little more power but still keep the car quick.

You know me, I'd rather have a quick car.

 

This might seem like a dumb question, but I was wondering if your still running stock twins, and if yes, how come?





P.S. sorry but I didn't read the whole thread, so don't flame me.

 

Yes, using stock twins. How come? The question is why not?

My goal is to have a "quick" car. I'm not looking to build some 500hp monster that never gets traction and breaks axles every other weekend. The stock twins do exactly what I need. My only complaint is the amount of heat they generate. That would be the only reason I would switch from using the stock twins.

If I did switch, I would run something like the Apexi. Lower power, quick spooling. However, that is not in the scoop of this project.

 

 

that is a sweet looking motor.

 

I do realize from being a Software Engineer that it's easy to pick and poke at something that already been done (and find better ways to do a few of the things which were created). However, coming with things from scratch when nothing exist is where Engineers separate themselves from the "tinkerers". While so many people complain about the sequential setup, I seriously doubt many of them could design a system within the same costs and materials as the Mazda engineers had at their disposal.

Words of wisdom I must say!
Good luck with your project !

 

Wow. I thought I was the only person who thought this way. Figured it was just because I'm old(er).
Mahjik, I may have missed it, but are you upgrading your turbos in any way?

 

Well, I'm not a young spring chicken either.

I'm not upgrading current set. I did purchased a used set to play with though. I'm researching to see if there is anything cost effective that can be done with them. It really seems as if there isn't a whole lot that can be done (to produce decent results) without going to the extreme like Brian at BNR does (or M2 did with their turbos).

Actually, I'd like to try and make them spool even quicker even if it cost me some high -end.

 

You know you could just run the car N/A and then you wouldnt have to worry about any lag. I do hear the apexi rx6 turbo spools very similar to stock and is capable of more power. I can see this as an upgrade for you when your twins start smoking, hehe.

Adam

 

I don't have anything bad to report. The rotors haven't hit the housings, and the coating doesn't seem to be flaking off (no evidence of particles in the exhaust path).

I did a little mileage test and got 22MPG, which is pretty darn good for my car. I have a dyno tuning session on April 29. However, I think it would be hard to positively attribute any results to the rotor coating alone. I changed a lot of stuff in my setup, so I don't really have any "before" numbers.

My oil temps are very low (140F during highway cruise, water temps low 170s), but I don't have before numbers and I haven't really stressed the car much yet.

-Max

 

I'd be interested to see if a coated rotor face and side would make a difference. High HP Top Fuel cars run a molybendum coating on piston skirts to reduce friction and heat, wonder if that would be an option for the irons/sides of the rotors?! Just a thought.(Discuss
Art

 

Mahjik,

you mentioned you were going to install the oil pan baffle. Where you having the oil pickup problem with venting from the PCV.

 

Yes, I had the "oil shooting out of the BOV" problem on the track. I'm hoping that the oil pan baffle with the addition to a catch can will help reduce the problem. From reading Crispy's site.