ok so putting the air temp sensor back to the stock spot is better. which is weird.
they say, moving the sensor to the elbow also has temps reading about 10c lower, which hasn't been true for mine, although its not linear.
cruising around temps are higher, maybe 5c, but if i get into boost temps are lower. in the elbow i was seeing ~34c and now its 30c.
its really weird, temps will be kind of high, but open the throttle and let it boost, and temps drop fast.

its weird, but idle mixture seems to be more consistent too, so before it was leaner when it was colder and richer when it was hot
i think i'm going to need to tweak the air temp map a bit, but its much closer now

its funny to find a new way to screw something up, but i think i did, lol.

in other news i need more fuel pump. i re-read Hugh McInnes's book, and built a spreadsheet, and its been quite bacon saving
initially i wanted to see what part to upgrade next, but its also showing me that well see pic... needs more fuel pump... the FC-Tweak threw a warning too, it doesn't want to drive the injectors more than 85%
Xavier says 85% keeps the injector driver from getting too hot, which works for me



TBD on weather the FD injectors can do 13psi at 7000rpm, spreadsheet says no, so hopefully boost drops off, or next project might be to add a wastegate....

 

my fuel pump showed up, so i spent Saturday putting it in. kind of a weird fit, as the inlet and outlets are in different spots and diameter changed
i got a deatschwerks pump, i think if you sliced it and a walbro in half it could be the same pump.

the other thing i wanted to get rid of was the O ring seal thing, it had failed last time, so i wanted to eliminate it as a potential issue



anyways, AFR at 5600rpm went from 13.3 to 9, so pretty happy about that. duty cycle can come further down than i thought, i was hoping to be at 85%, but it looks like its going to be lower than that.
also now that it has fuel, boost peaks at like 0.87, just under 13psi, which is ok. it was a relief to see it has a peak, lol

 

Nice! Your old pump must have been fighting for its life lol.

 

so here is the boost curve, or lack thereof. blue is RPM, Red is AFR, its in the 9's, lol. green is boost


first arrow is i think where the wastegate opens, ~3500rpm, and then peak boost, arrow 2, is 5500rpm, about 0.88kg ~12.7psi

so i think next port of call is to plumb in the boost solenoid

 

That looks fun!

That is the boost curve Im trying to get on my next build. I put a 9psi wg spring in and going to cap creep at 12psi or so.

Feels good to pull hard to redline!

 

just block the wastegate off completely! lol
it kind of feels like a big NA engine until you get to 5500 or so and then its pretty serious.
it was still the most fun when it would go from 7psi at 2500rpm to 13psi at 3200rpm, it was hilarious fun, and i do most of my driving right there, too so it was like all the time

 

For me blocking the WG off completely has caused boost spike early in midrange and the plummet in the high rpm. Blue trace.


But then, if the turbo exhaust side was "large enough" this wouldnt be an issue, but turbo response and lag would be an issue

Im not shooting for 500ftlbs torque and 300hp on this build- more like 300ftlbs torque and 500hp, but with RESPONSE (and then gear the differential for the wheel torque.)

 

Moron this later, but i put in some competition mounts for the engine and trans. i noticed a difference when i drove it back to back, but i didn't touch it for a week, and coming back, i don't notice a difference, which is good i think.
shifting got better, which is kind of weird, but also good.

on the tuning front i actually did some myself, it was so far off i could help the autotuner. its actually getting close to the target, although i'm not sure i care if its target 10.9:1 or like 10.2:1. its sitting at 88% tuned
boost peaks right around 13psi which is fine, id like it to peak a little earlier and drop off a bit, but i could hook the boost control solenoid vacuum hose up

oh i also changed the idle zone targets, it has a choice of two, i wanted the leaner one ~13:1 but i tried the other one 12.8 and its much better.

soo all of this, and the car runs really great. it kind of just feels like a stock FC that starts pulling hard over 5k rpm.

 

i bought a set of motor mount brackets to swap an REW in a car that already had an REW.
my car has Paul Ko's old subframe in it, which had a strap added at the rear so that the stock REW mounts would just work.



in concept this is totally fine, however when Paul and ReTed did the subframe (in 1996!) one of the things they did was straighten the engine in the car.
Mazda puts the engine in the car at an angle, pointed to the left, which gives the RHD cars room for an exhaust AND a steering column.
so since we are all LHD people we don't need this, and actually if you were building a race car or something, it would help get some weight off of the left front
which is usually the heavy corner, its driver, battery, brake master and steering.

this did some stuff. since the engine wasn't in the right place, suddenly nothing bolts on quite right, i tried to use the stock TID at first, but its just miles off. exhaust is crooked, etc
the other thing that happened was that the pivot point for this straightening was the trans mount, so the engine was straight, but offset to the right side. this gives less room for turbos, and that right front corner was really tight
i had slotted the subframe, but i was just out of room to move it anymore (on the left, on the right i had plenty of room

so i bought a set of Motive Fab mounts, and some competition motor mounts. the engine runs amazingly well, so much so that i considered some aluminum blocks, i could have drilled an offset into them and it would have worked
this lets me swap an REW into a car that already has an REW in it, which is pretty dumb.

here is the measuring process, i thought my car was ok, but it occurred to me i had another car i could check, so i built a little contraption that let me compare
it was sort of tricky to find a thing i could easily compare, and i settled on the alternator bolt

this is how far off mine is

 

it took a while but the Motive Fab mounts showed up, and the mounts (i got trans mounts too, i guess they didn't make it to the pics)



i thought i could put the mounts on the brackets and just sneak them in, but you can't, and it fought every step, i spent a miserable Saturday fighting the car (i'm not used to this!)
i also think these mounts look more like a factory part, and i like that they bolt to the intended place on the subframe. obviously the way i had it was fine. (if one wanted a fun read ReTed has a big argument about these two mounts)

so its a crappy pic, i was mad and tired, but engine moved. the only downside is that the Ifini strut bar doesn't fit anymore, sad about that


and here is a comparison of how much it moved, its a long enough thing that ~5mm at the engine mount, is like a lot more than that at like the, well, strut bar
notice the pipe by the air pump, it actually was rubbing on the radiator hose



i do have an idea how to put the strut tower bar back on, but
its dumb

 

after like 3 hours of drilling, i was able to go from this clamped on mess

to this


its weird to say the 3rd biggest exhaust you can buy for an FC is discreet, but it kind of is

i'm not sure what the tip is made from, but wow after trying every drill bit i had, the die grinder bit worked the best
the noise it made was really awful, lol

i'm still kind of amazed that the 3rd biggest exhaust for an FC can be also totally silent.
the silencer has two discs, and some slots and those bolts let me open it up some more, which i'll have to try at some point

 

So... was the juice worth the squeeze on that new engine mounting arrangement? Are you going to keep it?

 

yep, engine is where its supposed to be, and more room for turbos; which might come in handy later

 

oh and i should be able to put the new shift boot on, it wouldn't fit. its one thing to have the old one all pulled out of shape, but the new one didn't fit

 

the car spent the whole summer in the garage, which is kind of odd. usually i save up some big job. i thought about rebuilding the differential, but i didn't lol
i did wash it, and take some pictures of the outside. i mean who knew it had an outside?

i like the Brave Blue, but its tough to get a good picture of it

 

Brave blue is definitely a rare color. Reminds me of infini green, whereas they both look black until the light hits it perfectly.

 

the little boxes are the wideband and the DL-340XB box to talk to the power FC
mini m&m's fit in the JDM flare holder

 

Wow, I've never seen seats like that before. Very nice.

 

so i scored an HKS Sport turbo kit. i admit its a weird way to make the diff quieter, but you have to start somewhere?

mine is used, but it looks pretty nice, and its complete enough.
this kit sort of solves a bunch of problems i've made for myself, which is nice.
its a divided manifold, it bolts to a stock exhaust. its actually smog legal here, which is nice

here is mine, its not very photogenic. pics are from the ad, which is exactly what showed up



the turbo is pretty clever, it uses generic Garrett parts to make something HKS specific.
the turbine is from an Isuzu box truck, but with a water cooled bearing housing.
compressor is a T04E, it turns out to be a 46 Trim (52/75mm) with an O trim turbine (74/58)

my current turbo has a slightly bigger compressor, but smaller turbine, and crappy manifold
HKS claims 350hp at 13psi, but even at the flywheel that seems optimistic, i guess we will see

 

Looks good!

There is no heat shielding in the HKS pic, but I assumed those threaded bosses were for heat shielding.

Does it fit stock S4 turbo heat shielding? S5 heat shielding looks like it fits too close to the manifold for that rear boss to fit.

T04E, it turns out to be a 46 Trim (52/75mm) with an O trim turbine (74/58)

Nice spec on compressor to exhaust wheels sizes.
Is that divided pulse exhaust housing or open volute?

 

NVM

I see it is divided exhaust housing since it has the external WG passage for the front runner just like S5 turbo.

Nice exhaust housing!

Thats a real OEM+ style set-up. Compressor to exhaust wheel ratios, manifold and turbo exhaust housing castings.

 

we're twins again!

i kind of think the OE heat shield will fit. the bolt holes look to be in the right places
kind of academic though, i don't have one and its NLA they pop up used but $$$

Quote:

T04E, it turns out to be a 46 Trim (52/75mm) with an O trim turbine (74/58)

i'm curious to see what it does

 

since its Spooky Season;

i think my exhaust looks like some kind of serpent, like an Osaka Bay Monster, hopefully they breed in captivity!



and then the Boost Creeps live in here,

 

Speaking of twinning.
I have some old "half stainless" JDM 90mm exhaust I'm cleaning up at the moment.

I guess the JDM nomenclature "half stainless" just means the main muffler is stainless and everything else is mild steel.

I soaked and scrubbed mine in oven cleaner and now trying to decide if it gets something fancier than BBQ paint after the Ospho treatment.

 

yeah the ad copy for mine says Half Stainless sports exhaust, although its really just the main muffler (which is HUGE) and tip.
its also really hard stainless, it took hours to make a hole for the silencer.

good tip on cleaning it, as you can see i just polished the muffler and tossed it in the car