4-Rotor FC Build
06-26-13, 04:18 AM
#1376
Not very good, I haven't been able to work on it much lately.
You remember that FD I bought a while ago? The one that already drove and ran, but just needed a bit of attention here and there?
Well....
The car wouldn't drive right, and I couldn't figure out the problem, it would just die above anything past 1/4 throttle. Wierd thing is all sensors checked out fine, so in the end I pulled the engine wiring loom and stripped it. Found a lot of melted wires in there, it seems like the ground connection has been hooked up to the battery + at some point. Since that's like an 11 gauge wire there was a BIG shortcut heating and melting a lot of important engine wires. I'm surprised the car even ran at all!
So, the stock ecu and engine loom won't be going back into the car, it's getting replaced with a standalone ecu, new engine loom, with all new sensors, including wideband lambda and dual EGT sensors. The rats nest has been removed, the turbo's are now non-sequential with a ported wastegate. Emission stuff is still there though, although simplified. Also rewired the fuel pump all the way from the pump itself, and some other reliability mods here and there.
I think it will be a pretty nice FD when done, apart from the wiring everything seems to be in great shape. It just sucks that this takes time away from working on the 4-rotor, it probably would've been running by now if it wasn't for this mess
You remember that FD I bought a while ago? The one that already drove and ran, but just needed a bit of attention here and there?
Well....
The car wouldn't drive right, and I couldn't figure out the problem, it would just die above anything past 1/4 throttle. Wierd thing is all sensors checked out fine, so in the end I pulled the engine wiring loom and stripped it. Found a lot of melted wires in there, it seems like the ground connection has been hooked up to the battery + at some point. Since that's like an 11 gauge wire there was a BIG shortcut heating and melting a lot of important engine wires. I'm surprised the car even ran at all!
So, the stock ecu and engine loom won't be going back into the car, it's getting replaced with a standalone ecu, new engine loom, with all new sensors, including wideband lambda and dual EGT sensors. The rats nest has been removed, the turbo's are now non-sequential with a ported wastegate. Emission stuff is still there though, although simplified. Also rewired the fuel pump all the way from the pump itself, and some other reliability mods here and there.
I think it will be a pretty nice FD when done, apart from the wiring everything seems to be in great shape. It just sucks that this takes time away from working on the 4-rotor, it probably would've been running by now if it wasn't for this mess
06-26-13, 04:30 PM
#1381
No need for envy, working on the FD kindoff sucks! It's not a fun car to work on at all. But the new wiring loom is in, and I should be putting things back onto the car tomorrow so hopefully the car is back to being awesome again in no-time!
06-27-13, 06:17 AM
#1382
Rotary for LIFE!
Join Date: Jan 2008
Location: Adelaide, South Australia
Posts: 71
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Other FD owners are probably going to hate me now, but it's an SMD produced version of the MS2 V3.0, it has some improvements though like a dedicated VR conditioner and an onboard lambda controller and such. I'm pretty confident it will work just fine, but the amount of I/O is a little low for an FD, I can't really use everything I would like. If I had to choose again I probably would've gone with an MS3 Pro. Oh and no OMP support, so premix it is.
07-01-13, 10:11 AM
#1383
Junior Member
Join Date: Jun 2013
Location: South Germany
Posts: 1
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Awesome build you got there. Eager to see it running on the track
But how did you put those rims on your car? On the pictures you can see that the rims are bolted next to the original mounting positions. Did you just drill new holes with 5x114.3?
The BBS RZ 394 (BMW; 16x8.5 ET13??) should have 5x120?
Keep going on like that. Always happy to see new posts
Greez from Bavaria
Chris
But how did you put those rims on your car? On the pictures you can see that the rims are bolted next to the original mounting positions. Did you just drill new holes with 5x114.3?
The BBS RZ 394 (BMW; 16x8.5 ET13??) should have 5x120?
Keep going on like that. Always happy to see new posts
Greez from Bavaria
Chris
07-01-13, 05:08 PM
#1385
Awesome build you got there. Eager to see it running on the track
But how did you put those rims on your car? On the pictures you can see that the rims are bolted next to the original mounting positions. Did you just drill new holes with 5x114.3?
The BBS RZ 394 (BMW; 16x8.5 ET13??) should have 5x120?
Keep going on like that. Always happy to see new posts
Greez from Bavaria
Chris
But how did you put those rims on your car? On the pictures you can see that the rims are bolted next to the original mounting positions. Did you just drill new holes with 5x114.3?
The BBS RZ 394 (BMW; 16x8.5 ET13??) should have 5x120?
Keep going on like that. Always happy to see new posts
Greez from Bavaria
Chris
The ecu and wiring loom is in the car at the moment by the way. Just wiring in the last few sensors, I should be able to do an ecu input/output test tomorrow, so fingers crossed!
07-01-13, 07:28 PM
#1386
Senior Member
John I am thinking of using the same wheels on my vert! Im guessing that the only way to fit without widening the fenders is to modify the hub like you have? The adapter's I've found add another inch and I'm sure that won't work....
07-14-13, 05:30 PM
#1393
Today was a fun day. It started with this:
Which led to this:
Finally, after a few weeks of working on it, dyno time! I've never tuned one of these cars before, so I took my time, and tried to make a safe tune. Proof that it runs:
It runs ok now, I started with the ignition map that comes with the PFC, I pulled some timing in the high rpm vaccuum area because I heard some detonation from the knock sensor but apart from that it seems fine. I started with the fuel map from aaron cakes website, because it was the only rotary basemap I could find, but it wasn't even close, so I ended up re-tuning every part of the fuel map. It's about 1:14-1:15 AFR during cruise and 1:10.5 at maximum boost at the moment, I still need to spend some time tuning other stuff like acceleration enrichment and temperature corrections but at least it drives now :-). I'm thinking about taking the car to the track in a few days, to see what it can do.
Which led to this:
Finally, after a few weeks of working on it, dyno time! I've never tuned one of these cars before, so I took my time, and tried to make a safe tune. Proof that it runs:
It runs ok now, I started with the ignition map that comes with the PFC, I pulled some timing in the high rpm vaccuum area because I heard some detonation from the knock sensor but apart from that it seems fine. I started with the fuel map from aaron cakes website, because it was the only rotary basemap I could find, but it wasn't even close, so I ended up re-tuning every part of the fuel map. It's about 1:14-1:15 AFR during cruise and 1:10.5 at maximum boost at the moment, I still need to spend some time tuning other stuff like acceleration enrichment and temperature corrections but at least it drives now :-). I'm thinking about taking the car to the track in a few days, to see what it can do.
Last edited by John Huijben; 07-14-13 at 05:47 PM.
07-18-13, 09:38 AM
#1395
Yeah, your right. The next update will be about the FC, promise!
The FD is getting close to being ready, the car passed tech inspection and is now imported here in the netherlands. I was pretty curious about the inspection because the car needs to pass an emissions test, it didn't pass before, but it passed just fine with the megasquirt ecu
.
After the tech inspection and paperwork was done I still had most of my free day left, and I had a nicely running FD, so I put some sticky tires on it and took it to the racetrack.
The car ran ok, but there were some problems. I had some 18x8,5J et35 wheels, and found some 250/640/18 dunlop slicks, so I got the tires mounted on the wheels and everything looked like it would work, but when I got on the track I found that they rubbed a lot during cornering. So I took it easy, and refitted my smaller street wheels after the first session. The second session went better in terms of cornering, but after going all out for a few laps I noticed the temperature started to rise. Not willing to risk frying the engine I backed off for the rest of the session. The datalog showed 116C max, and 90C intake temps. I was kindoff amazed because I'm running a thick koyo radiator, dual oil coolers, and only about 7psi boost. Ambient temp was about 30C. Wierd that a car with less than the stock power output needs that much cooling mods to work on the track, Anyway I'm not going to mess with it too much. Better start finishing the FC so I can use that car for trackdays!
The FD is getting close to being ready, the car passed tech inspection and is now imported here in the netherlands. I was pretty curious about the inspection because the car needs to pass an emissions test, it didn't pass before, but it passed just fine with the megasquirt ecu
.After the tech inspection and paperwork was done I still had most of my free day left, and I had a nicely running FD, so I put some sticky tires on it and took it to the racetrack.
The car ran ok, but there were some problems. I had some 18x8,5J et35 wheels, and found some 250/640/18 dunlop slicks, so I got the tires mounted on the wheels and everything looked like it would work, but when I got on the track I found that they rubbed a lot during cornering. So I took it easy, and refitted my smaller street wheels after the first session. The second session went better in terms of cornering, but after going all out for a few laps I noticed the temperature started to rise. Not willing to risk frying the engine I backed off for the rest of the session. The datalog showed 116C max, and 90C intake temps. I was kindoff amazed because I'm running a thick koyo radiator, dual oil coolers, and only about 7psi boost. Ambient temp was about 30C. Wierd that a car with less than the stock power output needs that much cooling mods to work on the track
, Anyway I'm not going to mess with it too much. Better start finishing the FC so I can use that car for trackdays!
07-18-13, 03:48 PM
#1396
Maybe the air can't escape from the radiator because of the stock intake/battery/IC.
Switching to a TurboJeff battery tray and M2 intake opened a lot of airspace in my FD. It definitely runs cooler, even with the stock radiator.
Mostly, it's difficult to track a stock-turbo FD. Even track-purpose, twin-turbo cars have struggles with cooling.
Switching to a TurboJeff battery tray and M2 intake opened a lot of airspace in my FD. It definitely runs cooler, even with the stock radiator.
Mostly, it's difficult to track a stock-turbo FD. Even track-purpose, twin-turbo cars have struggles with cooling.
07-19-13, 02:59 AM
#1397
Remove the fogs for the track and push the mouth of the bumper open more?
Do you have the FC temp switch or is the ECU running the fans on more than low speed? With your ECU, not sure what you're doing for fan speed control exactly since it's not the standard PFC with fan speed options.
Do you have the FC temp switch or is the ECU running the fans on more than low speed? With your ECU, not sure what you're doing for fan speed control exactly since it's not the standard PFC with fan speed options.
07-19-13, 01:34 PM
#1398
Moderator
iTrader: (3)
Join Date: Mar 2001
Location: https://www2.mazda.com/en/100th/
Posts: 30,829
Received 2,597 Likes
on
1,845 Posts
a track FD is one of the few cars that would make a 4 rotor FC look like a smart practical alternative!
07-24-13, 05:22 PM
#1400
Remove the fogs for the track and push the mouth of the bumper open more?
Do you have the FC temp switch or is the ECU running the fans on more than low speed? With your ECU, not sure what you're doing for fan speed control exactly since it's not the standard PFC with fan speed options.
Do you have the FC temp switch or is the ECU running the fans on more than low speed? With your ECU, not sure what you're doing for fan speed control exactly since it's not the standard PFC with fan speed options.
So, Good news! The FD is now registered and ready to use, so I've picked up working on the FC again
The last time I worked on it I was getting the transmission and mounts together so they can be joined with the engine. Today I picked up where I left off and looked over the transmission. I have an S4 TII and an S5 TII transmission, but I picked the S4 one because of the shorter 5th gear ratio. The transmission looked very messy as it had a few leaks. I fixed the leaks, and cleaned everything up a bit. Also got some new shifter bushings because the old ones were gone.The transmission mount also needed some attention, because it looked like this:
The middle rubber bushing was pretty worn
, I remember hearing about people having problems with the stock transmission mounts causing the shifter to move under power and such, and looking at the stock bushings it makes sense so I started looking about the shop for something to keep the transmission in place a bit better while still allowing for some movement, and found a few of those rod eyes used for air cylinders. A bit of measuring, machining and welding later and I had this:
Basically the rod eye was machined so it looks like a spherical bearing, and this is inserted in place of the stock rubber. This keeps the shifter in a fixed position while still allowing everything to rock around a bit.
