Build thread

[speedjunkie]

Joe cleared up the map a bit the other night so it's idling really well now, and finally at 13.5 AFR instead of 12 or richer like it used to.

It's almost all back together. All the body pieces are back on and it's ready to put on the ground, I just need to finish the interior. I'm trying to fix some dash light issues and I'm waiting for another dimmer switch. I thought I was going to be able to use the dimmer switch as the boost controller instead, but I need one on the stock wiring still so the dash lights for buttons, HVAC controls and all that still work. I bought one off eBay and it was about $90 shipped. Ridiculous price, but they're NLA.

[speedjunkie]

I got the interior all put back together aside from the passenger seat and putting the stereo in. I took the car out Saturday morning and Joe was tuning, but I had an air pocket in the coolant system so we didn't get much tuning done before I had to bring the car back home and bleed it yet again.

The stock dimmer switch isn't working for controlling boost, so I bought a few different options of trim potentiometers. I went to Guitar Center and bought a couple, but have decided against using them because they won't fit in the dimmer switch opening. I bought a few cheap ones from Amazon and I bought an 8 position knob that's specifically for this (https://reformmotorsports.com/product/8 ... pDO5qm2laA). And I bought some more Deutsch connectors to make the little harness for it. I need to make a plastic plug to use to mount it, or Jonathan will be 3D printing one for me.

I discovered my gauge needles weren't lighting up, and I found that problem and fixed it pretty quickly. I figured while I was in there I wanted to solve the lighting issue on the dash. Basically the cruise control button backlights weren't on, and I determined those bulbs were burnt out, which is weird because they were working last time I saw. Those are neo wedge bulbs and they're no longer available from Mazda. I ordered some LED bulbs from SuperBrightLEDS.com but I didn't want to wait to get the dash back together so I found some at Advance for a Honda (PN 639-003 from a Dorman kit) and I modified them a little to work. But then I punched through one of them trying to get it in lol, so I bought the very last one they had.

I have to use a timing light to check base timing before we start tuning for boost, so after that and getting the boost control knob in, we'll tune for boost and verify water injection is working. Then I guess we'll see if AC works, fingers crossed, and I'll put the interior completely back together.

[speedjunkie]

We checked base timing tonight and then did some tuning, setting the speed sensor and gear ratios, and we did some boost tuning up to about 10psi. My gauge reads about 12-15psi when the ECU says 10psi, and the gauge was reading 7psi when the ECU said 4psi. I didn't think I put that weak of a spring in the wastegate, but I must have.

It looks like I still have an air pocket in the coolant system, my temps reached over 200F on the gauge and the ECU said closer to 218F, so apparently the calibration for that gauge is out too. My temps dropped pretty hard just after that and were more reasonable for the rest of the drive, but still climbed once or twice more. So I'll either be topping off again tomorrow or bleeding it again. It doesn't look like any is leaking, I just can't figure out where it could be going, if it's going anywhere. When bleeding with the Lisle funnel, it doesn't even bubble.

I might have to bleed my brakes again too. The pedal goes halfway to the floor, but it does have good modulation. It just makes me nervous dropping that much at first.

I forgot to disconnect the battery tender and I ran over the plug as I was backing out, so I'll have to order another one. And when I pulled back into the garage I ran over my knee pad that has a hard plastic bottom with handles, so I broke that too lol. Dammit.

[speedjunkie]

I rewired the boost control wires and have the 8 position switch in the center console, but I'm waiting on a 3D printed blank so I can mount it.

I got the new battery tender and installed that also.

And it looks like water injection is working, or I have a serious leak haha. I'll definitely need to decrease the amount of water being injected though, because the level is dropping very quickly.

I drove the car a bit yesterday and it looks like the coolant system might finally be bled.

I think the only thing to test after this is AC, and get it charged. And I need to finish boost tuning, especially now that I have the switch installed. And that should pretty much wrap it up.

[speedjunkie]

Kevin helped me set the brake bias yesterday, making it much faster than me getting into and out of the car each time. We went to a fairly empty street and I kept stomping on the brakes from about 40-50mph, and I think they're pretty close to dialed in. I might even be able to add a bit more rear brake, but it's pretty good as it is. I'd still like to try from 70-80, or even faster, to see what happens. One thing I did learn was that stopping on a heavily dirty street doesn't help to find the right bias lol. It would be fine braking one direction, then would always lock up the rears on the dirty portion, and I finally realized what was going on.

I'm not sure the water injection is working now. I topped off the tank and noticed water dripping out right away, but it did seem to stop much higher than where the level was before filling, so maybe it is working. I'm going to change settings in the map to turn on water injection at idle and see if the pump and solenoid kick on.

And I still have cooling system issues. It just runs so much hotter now. I don't know if I'm going to have to drain and refill the coolant or what.

[speedjunkie]

Last week I was looking into the water injection issue and realized I didn't have a fuse in the wire going from the battery to water pump relay, so it most definitely was not injecting lol. I put a 20a relay in there according to the SIRHC wiring diagram, disconnected the water hose from the pump to the solenoid and put it into the tank, and I adjusted the settings in the ECU to kick on the pump immediately. Water sprayed out for about 5 seconds, then it stopped. The 20a fuse was blown. I did not ever feel the solenoid clicking, so that's another issue, but one at a time. SIRHC told me to disconnect the power wire to the solenoid and put a multimeter on it to check resistance, so I'll do that when I get back from vacation.

And I'll probably drain the coolant completely and refill and bleed to see if that works.

[speedjunkie]

I finished the boost control knob with the console blank when I got home. I had to cut a chunk out of the bottom of the blank, and make an extension for the shaft. It turned out alright, looks good from the outside, but it's harder to turn now for some reason. I also need to get a new bracket for the console because the tabs are all cracked or broken completely.
20230702_152044 by Eric Jausel, on Flickr
20230702_173349 by Eric Jausel, on Flickr
20230702_174518 by Eric Jausel, on Flickr
20230702_174523 by Eric Jausel, on Flickr

I bled the coolant again, this time with the front of the car in the air, and then test drove the car again on the same route I had been and it ran pretty cool aside from the same spot it always spikes. It spiked again, but the gauge only read as high as 195ish. After talking with different people, I realized I could use an IR thermometer on the thermostat housing and figure out which temp reading was the closest, and it's the gauge. I thought maybe I could check it with the car off, but the gauge and ECU read the same at ambient temp/66F. Turns out it separates more as temps rise. I tried the calibrations from the Syvecs map but it didn't work, it just stayed at the highest temp. Then I tried adjusting the cals little by little nearest the temps that matter and that didn't work either, separating even more, but maybe I put in the numbers backwards. I spoke to Haltech tech support and they said I can adjust the cals to change the temps reading, so I guess I'll keep tinkering with that.

The water injection deal is a bit more complicated. I tested resistance on the solenoid wiring from the driver and I got continuity to ground, so that's bad. I disconnected the two connectors off the driver and relay and the problem went away. However, the driver wiring isn't the cause. So that would indicate the problem is in my wiring, but that isn't the issue either. I tested continuity between different wires in the large and small connectors and there was continuity to ground on the pump power wire. I disconnected the connector just off the pump and the problem with the solenoid wiring went away. So it must be the pump wiring causing the issues? Nope! That harness is fine too. According to Chris at SIRHC (where I bought the driver and relay), the pumps have such low resistance (typically 1 ohm) that they'll read continuity to ground. So I have this issue (supposedly) but no indications of anything actually wrong. WTF lol. Below is the wiring diagram for the water injection system. The connectors are indicated with the black marks. I changed the settings in the cal for the pump to kick on at idle and it stayed on much longer this time, but that was with the solenoid wiring disconnected. I'm happy the pump works at least. We'll see if the whole system works this weekend. Rodney from Prometh said that SIRHC uses Prometh pumps for a lot of their setups, so that makes me feel good at least.
2023-07-07_08-21-53 by Eric Jausel, on Flickr

[speedjunkie]

I went to 7s day yesterday and did a fun drive through the mountains with Brett, Brian, and Simon. I hit 220F coolant temp on that drive, and coming back home on I25 through Denver I hit 221F, and then I remembered I could turn on my fans with the AC switch and my temps started dropping immediately. I'm running quite a bit leaner, idling at 13.5 and light cruising around 14, and dropping into the 12s under boost. It's perfect, with a couple extra benefits. It didn't have the heavy exhaust smell anymore, and I think I got about 21 miles per gallon. I'm not sure I even used half a tank from Woodland Park all the way to Westminster, over to Brighton, and all the way back home to the Springs. WOOHOO!! Although I'm wondering if the leaner condition is causing the hotter water temps. They're still much cooler by the spark plugs and only much hotter by the thermostat, where the hotter temps would affect it more. But I don't want to lose my fuel mileage and no smell lol. I ordered a new Mazmart REmedy water pump today, the current one is from 2009 so I'm not sure how many days it has left. I'm planning on getting a new thermostat also, trying to decide if I want to get one that's much cooler.

I mentioned not knowing the fuel level because I thought I adjusted it correctly but it's showing empty and has only used about half a tank, so I'll be adjusting that.

The tire pressure sensor gauge isn't working anymore, so I'm going to look into having the ECU handle that. Haltech does have the capability now, but it might take up some extra IO or something.

[speedjunkie]

Joe got water injection working last week. The frequency was incorrect, set at 100hz instead of 20-30hz as I've since learned from Rodney at ProMeth. Joe set it to 25hz, but it's only injecting between 60-100% duty cycle, really only starting to spray at 70% with water slowly dripping out at 60%. Chris at SIRHC said at 30hz they can start at 25%, so I'm going to play with the settings a bit to fine tune it. But at least it's working!

I bought a new Mazmart REmedy water pump and a 160F thermostat from NAPA (stock starts to open at 180F) and I finished installing those last night. The tstat was in a NAPA box but it's a Motorad and it's one of their 'safety stats' that locks open in an overheat condition. I also did a flush with distilled water, running it for about 10 minutes or so, until the thermostat opened at least. I was expecting a bunch of gunk, but the water was pretty clean. I refilled with Prestone, and filled it slowly like the FSM says and I've never known that lol. I'm trying everything possible to fix this.

I adjusted the fuel level last week also.

[speedjunkie]

I finally got around to bleeding the coolant system, and I realized just prior that to flush the reservior, so I did that too. I ran it for probably a couple hours, paused for dinner, and ran it another 30-45 minutes, because it wouldn't ever get rid of the bubbles completely. It was just small bubbles mostly, and only when the thermostat opened. So it made me wonder if compression was seeping past the seals. I guess I'll see once I drive it, whether the level drops and if there is white smoke, which I haven't noticed. But I'm going to drive it around tonight and see how it goes.

The thermostat is supposed to start opening at 160, but it seems to be opening around 155 (even though it started opening at 160 when I tested it on the stove). So once it hit 155, it was warming up very slowly. But it did keep climbing until the high 190s when the fans would kick on and then they'd turn off about 188. I asked Chris if he had the fans turning on earlier and explained the issues I'm having, and he had said he figured my fans weren't turning on early enough and I sent him my current map and an old Syvecs map but I haven't heard back from him yet. I'm kinda guessing that's what it is though.

[speedjunkie]

I changed some water injection settings today, testing different frequencies, and bled the coolant again. And I worked on it again tonight to check the full range of frequencies. It seems as though the frequency is somewhat closely related to the injector duty cycle; at 30hz, it starts injecting at 30%, etc.

[speedjunkie]

I guess my alarm issue is back, setting automatically when I close the doors whether they're locked or not.

I drove the car on Sunday and noticed the temps still getting kinda high. It was hot and I did drive slowly through Manitou Springs driving my temps up and then got on 24 pushing it up through the curves and my temps got up to about 204F. I turned the fan on temps down 10 degrees for each fan, and the coolant still got a little high for normal driving, so I dropped the fans to come on at the same time. I'm wondering if the 160F thermostat is too low and letting water cycle all the time instead of letting it cool in the radiator. Maybe I'll drain the coolant down some and put the 180F thermostat back in.

I'm looking into options for monitoring TPMS and OBDII on the stereo, and I'm coming up kinda empty. I can get the Haltech TPMS kit which is the same one as TrailBrake. It's cheaper from Haltech, at about $200, and they said the whole kit has to be replaced when the sensors die. That sucks, but it's still cheaper than buying OEM sensors for a car that came equipped with them. However, you can buy just the sensors from TrailBrake for $32 each. And I was also thinking of trying to use my current sensors, but I need a relearn tool and that's not even guaranteed to work. TrailBrake sells a relearn tool also, so I would get that if I was just replacing the sensors each time, and presumably it would work. Launch has a relearn tool that might work with my current sensors. We'll see, I'm having a hard time pulling the trigger on all this though.

Anyway, I can get OBDII readings on my phone, but I'd kinda rather have it show on the stereo. So far I haven't found a way to get it to do that though, other than trying an android head unit again, and I'd really rather not change again.

[speedjunkie]

I pulled out some coolant last night and replaced the thermostat with the 180F, and I discovered the issue I was having.
2023-07-28_04-03-35 by Eric Jausel, on Flickr

I also changed the screws in the door sills because the holes keep getting larger and the screws no longer tighten enough, so I installed nutserts and machine screws.

[speedjunkie]

I did some testing with the EVAP system yesterday, changing the frequency and driving around. I had already changed the duty cycle to 40 all across and changed frequencies between 5hz, 100hz, and 200hz, and then removing the fuel cap. I had pressure come out on 5hz and 100hz after driving around, but forgot to check on 200hz so I'll have to go back.

I also tested the cooling system on 24 going up past Manitou to the turn to Pike's Peak, back and forth a couple times to test it under extended load. It still got up to about 200F even with the fans turning on how they were set up on the Syvecs. During normal driving they were fine though, never got past about 193-195 and that was after sitting in traffic. After the first run up, I set the second fan to come on with the first one at 190, and it got a little better, but still got up to 195-198 if I remember right. I guess it's not too bad, and it's technically still good even up to 220F and doesn't overheat until about 230-240ish, but I don't remember it getting as high as 200F even during heavy load. Or maybe it did and I just didn't realize it.

I have an idea for ducting, so that will be this winter's project. Although parts of it would be easier with the radiator removed, and I don't really feel like draining the coolant again so soon. Also, I plan to change the intercooler and piping, and possibly make an air box, so that stuff will need to happen before I complete the ducting.

I was also keeping an eye on boost and I'm actually only hitting about 7psi, but if I keep my foot in it, it eventually gets up to about 12psi, so it's either boost creep or I have another issue lol.

[speedjunkie]

I bought some pulleys on eBay that comprises the crank, alternator, stock size water pump, and power steering pulleys. I wanted it for the smaller water pump pulley, which I've been wanting for a while. I installed the alternator and crank pulleys as well, but I'm gonna sell the power steering pulley since I like mine better. Finding belts the right size is tough though.

I discovered my driver's door panel is broken, just a part in the middle. But a metal piece dropped out and deeply scratched the door sill when I closed the door. UGH! I just installed nutserts for those lol. I'm not sure how I'm going to fix the door panel though, because it's foam that I have to stick back together. I want to say super glue will melt it back together, but I don't remember for sure. And I want to reinforce the door handle bracket so it can actually be used.

A buddy has talked me into getting a new android radio. Mainly so I can run OBDII and TPMS through it directly. T'eyes and Xtrons are leading the pack right now as far as meeting my needs. T'eyes is a bit cheaper and has the TPMS system I want, plus it's shallower than the Xtrons. But the Xtrons has more RAM and ROM, and both have QLED screens.
https://xtrons.com/double-din-qualcomm- ... ut-tiq722p
https://teyes.com.au/collections/teyes- ... 6992989380