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the spyder posted:The Renesis barely will last 100k due to inherent design issues. Cost cutting and such by Mazda has made it a car I am not sure I will ever own. The handling is great, the styling meh, and the powerplant a joke. Care to elaborate? Its probably things I've already heard, but I happen to be looking at one this weekend that might become my new track car.
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Aug 6, 2013 02:22
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| # ¿ Apr 29, 2024 12:55 |
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Ponies ate my Bagel posted:How do you dyno a rotary? I feel like making a joke here about paying Mazda for a uniquely designed piece of equipment... Same as any other car. The dynos you are thinking of (chassis dynos) don't directly measure the engine. They measure the tires. As such, the dyno doesn't care what is powering the tires, so it could be a small army of hamsters for all it matters. As long as the tires are capable of moving in the direction and rotation of a normal vehicle (if they can't then you either have something wrong, or a car that doesn't move as expected) then you can dyno it. Hub dynos are the same, instead of measuring the tires, its measuring the hubs. Same principals as above. An engine dyno (ie dynoing the actual engine on a bench, not inside the car), is still the same thing for a rotary as it is a piston engine, since the dyno attaches to the output shaft of the engine. Again, its the same principal as with the chassis dynos above, the dyno just measures the output shaft, it doesn't care how the engine actually turns the shaft. The only difference between an engine dyno and a chassis dyno is that you don't have the entire drive train between the engine and the dyno causing power losses that you have to fudge to "calculate" what the actual power of the engine is. The only unique diagnostic tool I've seen for rotaries to date is a compression tester. Since rotaries have three combustion chambers, to have a truly accurate compression reading you need a tool that recognizes its seeing three independent compression pulses and treating them accordingly. Using a standard piston compression tester from the parts store can give you a rough idea, but its like plumbing it into three piston spark plug holes at once. You can get a max reading of the three pistons, but if one is dead, the other two will mask it's condition.
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Aug 23, 2013 17:36
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leica posted:So just to get an idea of what you're doing to this car......Is this single turbo setup more reliable and powerful than a twin turbo setup? I'm assuming even an upgraded twin setup would be close to the stock setup, correct? What are the issues with twin setups that everyone wants to get away from? You make it more reliable by throwing modern technology at it  In my opinion, the twin setup attempts to address issues with older turbo technology that don't exist as much anymore. At the time of the FD's design, you basically had either a turbo that was responsive and provided low end power, but "choked" at the high end, or a turbo that didn't do squat at the low end, and provided good high end power. A twin setup uses one of each to create a system that theoretically ideal for every situation, thus overcoming the limitations of either single turbo. Unfortunately to accomplish this, you need a complex control system (complexity means more things to fail) and even then, you don't quite eliminate the limitations, but just mask them. These days, you can throw a "mid-sized" turbo at the car that will be as responsive as the small one, but still provide high end power like the large one, without any of the complexity or screwy torque dips from duct taping two turbos together.
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Aug 23, 2013 18:53
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Squeeze posted:So are you saying that these days it's not suicidal to dream of a reliable FD? :O I'd say it depends on your level of commitment and the size of your wallet. You'll never escape reputation that you should just throw a LS in it though
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Aug 23, 2013 19:12
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leica posted:So if you acquired a completely stock FD, what would you do to it right off the bat to "update" it? Or for instance, if a customer wanted one for a daily driver, nothing over the top, just decent power with more focus on reliability? Step one would be going through the car, and getting it to "like new" condition. Things like doing the 60k service, replacing all the rubber, getting the injectors cleaned, replacing all the vacuum lines, refreshing the suspension etc. Basically everything should be in good working condition, similar to when it rolled off the factory line. Keeping up with that is probably 95% of having a reliable car. Its a bit more extensive on the FD because the engine bay heat tends to cook components, and it seems like Mazda likes inventing unique parts for every model which inflates prices. Assuming that's done, I'd start doing a bit of modding. What I would do is maybe not what someone else would do. When you start modding, I think its important to think about what you want the end result to be, and work towards that. Someone who wants a 700 HP drag car is probably going to mod differently than me. Things I'd do in no particular order for easing reliability: I'd strip out the pre-cat. It doesn't do anything once the car warms up, and tends to easily clog. Its whole purpose is to cleanup cold start emissions on the EPA test. No state emissions program I know of cares about it. Look at heat management. I might upgrade the radiator, depends on the end goal of the car. Probably a new engine wiring harness (even if the stock one seems good) with some higher temp wiring then usually used for automotive applications, and maybe some heat insulation like gold foil. Might seem like overkill and off of some ricer's car, but I care more about cooking the harness then how it looks. I'd also look at keeping the heat in the exhaust, where it belongs, through ceramic coating or other measures. I'd also evaluate airflow through the radiator as there are some places you could add ducting to make it better. Turbo upgrades. Last time I looked at turbos for FDs, I found a few choices that would be slightly better than stock output, would choke just a hair at the top end, have all the responsiveness of the twin system, with a better torque curve. You'd eliminate a turbo, and all of the complexity of the sequential control system like the exhaust manifold, the water lines Spyder pointed out, and a bunch of vacuum lines. A VMIC setup, even without a vented hood, like what Spyder posted would be my ideal. TMIC tends to be just plain stupid, and I'm not sure it would fit. The stock SMIC system seems to contribute to airflow issues, and there doesn't seem to be room to expand it. FMIC on a rotary is very bad in my opinion as you reduce the efficiency of the radiator, which tends to be a critical component. What you do here will likely have a large impact on the heat management section above. Remove the OMP system and pre-mix. Pre-mixing is a PITA, but it allows you to run synthetic oil without much concern (synthetic brands usually don't burn well, but there are a few exceptions), and based on a number of engine tear-downs it seems to lubricate way better. Drive it. Redline pulls off of every stoplight.
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Aug 26, 2013 22:34
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the spyder posted:<car porn> Well I know what I'm looking at for the next hour
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Aug 26, 2013 22:37
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the spyder posted:Looks like I get to postpone the inspection a few days- I emailed some photos to my concrete contractor and he immediatly wanted to come over... Turns out we did an amazing job, but with one problem. The rebar must be 3" away from the forms, not 2" like I set it (and ended up with 1" in some places.) As soon as that is fixed, we are good to go. Live and learn The forms being the 2x4s surrounding the perimeter? Whats the reasoning for having the 3" spacing?
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Nov 6, 2013 02:37
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the spyder posted:Today= Godfuckingdamnit. Eh. My experience says that every project must have a small handful of things go wrong. Sounds like your wrong things are happening now, rather than later.
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Nov 9, 2013 04:17
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I don't think I got a true sense of scale until the last few posts. Once finished that place should be awesome. I'll be envious when I'm in my cramped 1 car garage.
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Jan 6, 2014 21:20
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leica posted:I have a hard time imagining this, that's just crazy talk. They did it on the FCs as well. Made for an interesting oil pan job.
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Jan 27, 2014 02:24
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Galler posted:They have support in that direction too: You mean the bars across the top? Those are rarely for any kind of support. 99% of the time those are just for easy routing of hydraulic lines and power cables.
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Feb 18, 2014 02:18
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If that's what you think, then this product must give you nightmares https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dz5Y34fUjlA
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Feb 18, 2014 04:16
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mafoose posted:Any idea why it chipped a seal? "Highway pull" sounds like he was trying to road tune it, which means the ecu map might not have been fully polished, and therefore it detonated. I've seen it a bunch of times around here with friends who have FDs. I could be wrong though. The compression tester is a smaller (and significantly cheaper like $300 vs $1700) version of the Mazda tool. It uses a pressure transducer to translate the combustion chamber pressure into a digital signal, kinda like an oil pressure sensor from an oil pressure gauge. The tool has a microcontroller which reads the signal and records the peak value. The microcontroller is programmed to know that there are 3 rotor faces, so it records 3 separate values. It can calculate the RPM based on the time between pulses. Since Mazda specifies the compression in terms of cranking RPM, you need that value as well, since low RPM will reduce the readings and high RPM will increase the readings. Mazda provides a conversion graph in the FSM for normalizing the readings, but there is an online calculator that does all the work for you.
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Apr 18, 2014 01:55
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I'm pretty curious, what specifically did the inspector look for?
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May 16, 2014 19:12
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parid posted:Does he autox? Mazdacomp has piles of miata body panels for all the spec racers. Autocrossers are not allowed to order body panels from Mazdaspeed
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Nov 25, 2014 19:02
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parid posted:Huh, you learn something every day. A local friend of mine did, but I suppose he hillclimbs too (and it was a hillclimb misadventure that caused the need for said body panels). In the "Requirements & Restrictions" section of the agreement, there are these two points: -Mazda interior trim parts may not be ordered unless the item is required by class rules. Otherwise, prior written approval must be obtained from Mazdaspeed Motorsports Development manager. -Exterior body panels and interior trim components may not be ordered by Solo/Autocross competitors. It used to be they didn't keep an eye on it, but if they noticed you were an autocrosser and ordered the wrong things, they'd do something about it depending on the level of abuse (a warning if you were lucky, suspension and a bill if you were not). Now their system is fairly well automated and will flag suspicious orders.
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Nov 25, 2014 20:20
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Elmnt80 posted:Wait, so you can't purchase body panels from the in house company that builds performance items for your car if you use it in a certain type of race? In what world do they live in? The Mazdaspeed racers program allows you to purchase Mazda OEM and performance parts at cost. I have a wholesale account with a local dealership, and my wholesale discount can't touch my Mazdaspeed discount. However, in order to purchase at that discount, you must abide by the rules and regulations of the agreement that you sign when creating the account, and at every yearly renewal. If you don't like it, you are free to buy your parts at retail prices elsewhere. Mazda is actually pretty generous. As far as I'm aware, only Honda still has their racer program active, and their discounts sucks compared to Mazda.
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Nov 25, 2014 23:58
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Looks like someone bought the mold from Keisel
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Dec 17, 2015 03:48
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BloodBag posted:A whole host of engineers had to implement and sign off on that and at no point did enough of them stop and said 'Maybe we should do this differently' While its horrendous today, it was rather groundbreaking at the time. Remember, this was designed in the late 80s. Also ^^^
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Jan 12, 2016 01:13
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some texas redneck posted:A lot of rotaries require different plugs depending on where the plug is installed. They run a leading and trailing plug, so each rotor has 2 plugs. Nice visual guide of different FB/FC plug options: http://mazdatrix.com/ign-2.htm The S4 turbos had a number of weaknesses including the wastegate design. S5 was technically better, but still an early 80s turbo design. I'm not surprised its blown, particularly considering the condition of everything else.
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Jan 29, 2016 16:55
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the spyder posted:Can't.stop.sneezing! Finally fell asleep at 8:30am... slept till 1:30 and started cleaning the shop. It was 61? today, which was amazing. Decided to try and work myself to death in hopes I can fall asleep tonight at a reasonable hour. No cleaning pictures. Pulled about a truck loads worth of parts out to be sold/given away/tossed. A VMIC turboed 20b? What are your plans to fit the 355 width tires in the back?
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Feb 8, 2016 20:49
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I'm sorry to see you go on hiatus, and I hope you'll come back. I quite enjoyed the updates to this thread. However I understand, you don't owe us anything, and I just hope whatever situation you've found yourself in is not serious, and poo poo gets sorted out in a good way, quickly. Best of luck.
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Jul 8, 2016 05:07
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| # ¿ Apr 29, 2024 12:55 |
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Welp, at-least you are skilled in dealing with electrical and cooling issues
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Jul 24, 2016 21:22
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