Adventures of the Honey Badger Miata

[04TitaniumGrayPhilly]

So picked it up from the tuner. Feels good except the spark issues. Basically part of it is the COP system itself not being designed for high boost, but another is that we are running it in wasted spark mode. If we wired it sequential we could get a few more PSi but I don't like being at the limit of anything. I want to hopefully create a GM based setup over the winter. Basically it breaks up the spark. Others have reported this issue so the FAB9 setup will be for sale. It would be great for someone with a stock turbo but at this point its not cutting it for me. You can hear it in the speedo video below. Besides that the car pulls hard and feels fantastic! I'll take it back once I get the new coil setup and it should have no issues.

https://youtu.be/46MeP98gEMk

http://youtu.be/QTileixY38Y

[04TitaniumGrayPhilly]

Got a few new things ordered up, maintenance, and new ignition, as well as some suspension stuff, will update as it comes in

Also as I was scrolling photobucket, saw these old shots. Car has been through a lot of stages

Stock photos from the dealer I got it:


With Joe's Intake:


Currently:

[04TitaniumGrayPhilly]

I've been getting busy getting myself ready for next year. I am 100% certain I will be hitting the track, and hopefully more than once. My goal is to get out to at least 5 track days next year (road course, not autocross) to get my feet wet. I've started getting some parts in.

XIDA 700/400 coilovers w/helpers (installing 11/12) removing the Tein FLEX with 392/336 spring rates
Rear hubs and bearings (installing 11/12)
ARP Wheel studs (installing 11/12)

Also ordered 15x10 Tungsten 6ULs +25 and the Singular Motorsports louvres in anodized black. With the announcement of the 245/40/15 Maxxis VR-1 200tw, has pretty much sealed the deal for me to go to the 10" wheel. I plan on keeping the RC-1, but with the VR-1 being a good alternative if I decide to go to a treaded tire, it's a done deal. My only concern is if I will be able to get the ride height I want with the 245/40-15x10 combo (in order to get the alignment I want), but I basically need a 245 for the grip and they do better on a 10" tire, I'll be able to run lower pressures, get more grip, and as some said, better wear. I'll have to figure out the fitment when I get the wheels, I have rolled and pulled fenders which should help, and with stiffer springs, I should be able to go lower and not rub like I would now.

FM Big Spark kit being installed Saturday, and hope to get my launch control working that day as well. To cut the cost, I bought the spark kit hardware from FM for 300 shipped, and paid $115 shipped for a set of 8 used LS3 coilpacks. That saved me almost 300 vs getting the kit, and if I have a bad pack, I've got 4 spares to use.

[Maduh]

You're going to have a hell of a lot of car to get used too since you're just starting out. I suggest your first track day you really listen to your instructor and take it slow and easy. Don't develop an ego about your car or slower cars passing you. Work on technique and braking zones and keeping a smooth line. You don't drop any time from driving harder or faster, more so you drop time in braking zones. Your car is pretty overbuilt and I imagine a track day will flush out a few issues not rearing their head on a purely street driven car. My guess is your biggest problem will be heat. 1-2 hot laps, then take a cooldown lap to save the car from stress.

[04TitaniumGrayPhilly]

You're going to have a hell of a lot of car to get used too since you're just starting out. I suggest your first track day you really listen to your instructor and take it slow and easy. Don't develop an ego about your car or slower cars passing you. Work on technique and braking zones and keeping a smooth line. You don't drop any time from driving harder or faster, more so you drop time in braking zones. Your car is pretty overbuilt and I imagine a track day will flush out a few issues not rearing their head on a purely street driven car. My guess is your biggest problem will be heat. 1-2 hot laps, then take a cooldown lap to save the car from stress.

Thanks for the tips! Definitely know I will get my ass handed to me on my first day. The goal is to drive the car home and not crash so yes, I'll have to curb the ego lol. Here is the track

http://www.njmp.com/info-services/

I imagine I'll have some cooling issues but when I see my tuner Saturday we'll make sure all the alerts are set up in the MS. I believe there's a feature that will flash the CEL above a set water temp so that will be useful. I'll have enough to play with in the way of damping and alignment and tire pressures to keep myself entertained for a while. Any other advice is appreciated. I thought about a wing and diffuser for the front but after talking to some people I decided against it for the time being.

I also think a lower boost setting will help on the track. I can always use my MBC to dial down to 10-15psi to start and then work my way up/around cooling issues. I think my map is good till 22psi

[Maduh]

BTW there's going to be a huge event called Gridlife at Road Atlanta this year. It's like a giant edm/trackday/drift/carshow thing that a few of my friends produce. It goes all weekend long. It's huge here in MI/IL/WI/IN area and they are expanding. I full well plan on driving the 10 hours to road atlanta next summer to make it. You should totally do the same!

http://www.grid.life/

[Maduh]

You're going to have a hell of a lot of car to get used too since you're just starting out. I suggest your first track day you really listen to your instructor and take it slow and easy. Don't develop an ego about your car or slower cars passing you. Work on technique and braking zones and keeping a smooth line. You don't drop any time from driving harder or faster, more so you drop time in braking zones. Your car is pretty overbuilt and I imagine a track day will flush out a few issues not rearing their head on a purely street driven car. My guess is your biggest problem will be heat. 1-2 hot laps, then take a cooldown lap to save the car from stress.

Thanks for the tips! Definitely know I will get my ass handed to me on my first day. The goal is to drive the car home and not crash so yes, I'll have to curb the ego lol. Here is the track

http://www.njmp.com/info-services/

I imagine I'll have some cooling issues but when I see my tuner Saturday we'll make sure all the alerts are set up in the MS. I believe there's a feature that will flash the CEL above a set water temp so that will be useful. I'll have enough to play with in the way of damping and alignment and tire pressures to keep myself entertained for a while. Any other advice is appreciated. I thought about a wing and diffuser for the front but after talking to some people I decided against it for the time being.

I also think a lower boost setting will help on the track. I can always use my MBC to dial down to 10-15psi to start and then work my way up/around cooling issues. I think my map is good till 22psi

Unless your tuner set it up to do so, manually lowering boost is gonna make you pig rich since the MS should, but not always will compensate. Just keep that in mind. You might wanna have your tuner set up up with a track day tune that's lower boost. Oil temps you might wanna keep an eye on along with coolant. Maybe run a higher viscosity oil for the event to help with heat.

[04TitaniumGrayPhilly]

You're going to have a hell of a lot of car to get used too since you're just starting out. I suggest your first track day you really listen to your instructor and take it slow and easy. Don't develop an ego about your car or slower cars passing you. Work on technique and braking zones and keeping a smooth line. You don't drop any time from driving harder or faster, more so you drop time in braking zones. Your car is pretty overbuilt and I imagine a track day will flush out a few issues not rearing their head on a purely street driven car. My guess is your biggest problem will be heat. 1-2 hot laps, then take a cooldown lap to save the car from stress.

Thanks for the tips! Definitely know I will get my ass handed to me on my first day. The goal is to drive the car home and not crash so yes, I'll have to curb the ego lol. Here is the track

http://www.njmp.com/info-services/

I imagine I'll have some cooling issues but when I see my tuner Saturday we'll make sure all the alerts are set up in the MS. I believe there's a feature that will flash the CEL above a set water temp so that will be useful. I'll have enough to play with in the way of damping and alignment and tire pressures to keep myself entertained for a while. Any other advice is appreciated. I thought about a wing and diffuser for the front but after talking to some people I decided against it for the time being.

I also think a lower boost setting will help on the track. I can always use my MBC to dial down to 10-15psi to start and then work my way up/around cooling issues. I think my map is good till 22psi

Unless your tuner set it up to do so, manually lowering boost is gonna make you pig rich since the MS should, but not always will compensate. Just keep that in mind. You might wanna have your tuner set up up with a track day tune that's lower boost. Oil temps you might wanna keep an eye on along with coolant. Maybe run a higher viscosity oil for the event to help with heat.

I'll chat with him about that. I just figured it compensates based on how much boost it actually sees. I already run the Rotella T6 5w-40.

As far as Road Atlanta goes, probably not doable. I am allowed 5000 miles a year before i fail inspection. 1500 miles there and back, and if something goes wrong its a very long tow home. I would probably want to trailer it if I took it that far, and I don't have a trailer or a tow vehicle yet. My fiancee has a Jeep Liberty I don't much care for, but I may encourage her to keep it if it's capable of towing the MSM on a small trailer a few years down the road. That's if I get into this.

[rotorglow]

Unless your tuner set it up to do so, manually lowering boost is gonna make you pig rich since the MS should, but not always will compensate. Just keep that in mind.

I don't mean to threadcrap, but here I go!

What does this mean?  Why wouldn't the MS just run the appropriate AFR for the load cell it actually hits?  Seems weird.

[04TitaniumGrayPhilly]

Unless your tuner set it up to do so, manually lowering boost is gonna make you pig rich since the MS should, but not always will compensate. Just keep that in mind.

I don't mean to threadcrap, but here I go!

What does this mean?  Why wouldn't the MS just run the appropriate AFR for the load cell it actually hits?  Seems weird.

I don't mind, I'm sure someone else reading that at some point might have the same question.

I do remember the tuner saying that he tuned the car up to 21 or 22psi, but had to dial back the boost to 19.5-20psi because of spark issues with my current COP setup (which were replacing Saturday), and the car doesn't seem to run any different. Maybe because it's not a far off swing, whereas going from 22 to 15 is a big one. I'm going to ask him about this on Saturday.

[Maduh]

Unless your tuner set it up to do so, manually lowering boost is gonna make you pig rich since the MS should, but not always will compensate. Just keep that in mind.

I don't mean to threadcrap, but here I go!

What does this mean?  Why wouldn't the MS just run the appropriate AFR for the load cell it actually hits?  Seems weird.

You have to configure it to do so. I know Alex has a tuner so just wanted to inform him in case his tuner hasn't done so. A lesson I learned being my own tuner, on the street the car tune-wise was perfectly fine. But I hadn't configured a few tables to really change things and compensate when the car becomes heatsoaked like it does on track. Basically, I only tuned a small window of the cars operation and it wasn't ready to see the temps it was seeing from a few laps on track.

So my solid 11-12 afr under normal operation was now 10 and lower pig rich cause the car was seeing above normal temps from the iat sensor and I had never gotten to tuning that far into the table.

[rotorglow]

You have to configure it to do so. I know Alex has a tuner so just wanted to inform him in case his tuner hasn't done so. A lesson I learned being my own tuner, on the street the car tune-wise was perfectly fine. But I hadn't configured a few tables to really change things and compensate when the car becomes heatsoaked like it does on track. Basically, I only tuned a small window of the cars operation and it wasn't ready to see the temps it was seeing from a few laps on track.

So my solid 11-12 afr under normal operation was now 10 and lower pig rich cause the car was seeing above normal temps from the iat sensor and I had never gotten to tuning that far into the table.

So that sounds more like it's an "IAT trim" thing, rather than a "lower boost" thing.....?

[Maduh]

You have to configure it to do so. I know Alex has a tuner so just wanted to inform him in case his tuner hasn't done so. A lesson I learned being my own tuner, on the street the car tune-wise was perfectly fine. But I hadn't configured a few tables to really change things and compensate when the car becomes heatsoaked like it does on track. Basically, I only tuned a small window of the cars operation and it wasn't ready to see the temps it was seeing from a few laps on track.

So my solid 11-12 afr under normal operation was now 10 and lower pig rich cause the car was seeing above normal temps from the iat sensor and I had never gotten to tuning that far into the table.

So that sounds more like it's an "IAT trim" thing, rather than a "lower boost" thing.....?

It's different but yes. There's an iat trim table but there's also a boost compensation table etc. I'm basically saying he needs to look at all of it. The ms might just not be set up to know that if it's seeing this boost at this rpm give it this fuel. If boost is less, give it this fuel. It might just be giving fuel purely based off iat so when he lowers boost, its still giving the same fuel. Making it rich. Does that make sense? Lol I'm struggling to describe it since I'm typing on my phone in class ha-ha.

[rotorglow]

So that sounds more like it's an "IAT trim" thing, rather than a "lower boost" thing.....?

It's different but yes. There's an iat trim table but there's also a boost compensation table etc. I'm basically saying he needs to look at all of it. The ms might just not be set up to know that if it's seeing this boost at this rpm give it this fuel. If boost is less, give it this fuel. It might just be giving fuel purely based off iat so when he lowers boost, its still giving the same fuel. Making it rich. Does that make sense? Lol I'm struggling to describe it since I'm typing on my phone in class ha-ha.

Thanks for the detail.  I think I see how that could happen, but ignoring a load vs rpm vs pulse width table is, conceptually, such a whacky way to set up the box (which limits its effectiveness) that I can't imagine it's a very common situation.  Don't know enough about the MS to go further than that.

Carry on.

[Maduh]

So that sounds more like it's an "IAT trim" thing, rather than a "lower boost" thing.....?

It's different but yes. There's an iat trim table but there's also a boost compensation table etc. I'm basically saying he needs to look at all of it. The ms might just not be set up to know that if it's seeing this boost at this rpm give it this fuel. If boost is less, give it this fuel. It might just be giving fuel purely based off iat so when he lowers boost, its still giving the same fuel. Making it rich. Does that make sense? Lol I'm struggling to describe it since I'm typing on my phone in class ha-ha.

Thanks for the detail.  I think I see how that could happen, but ignoring a load vs rpm vs pulse width table is, conceptually, such a whacky way to set up the box (which limits its effectiveness) that I can't imagine it's a very common situation.  Don't know enough about the MS to go further than that.

Carry on.

There in lies the downfall of ms sometimes. Depending on where your getting it from, you might have a base tune that left all of that as a blank slate. Mine that came from mslabs was pretty pnp but those tables weren't set up as nicely as I eventually got them based on research on forums etc. But that's really with anything when moving to a standalone. It needs professional tuning or like me tuning yourself and learning as you go.