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Got a call from Griffin today, they confirmed my diagnosis of the radiator not having an divider/baffle, and are building me a brand new one. Very excited!
Is it sporting the "off road" look?
Actually looks pretty good.
Makes me wonder what it would take to put 4 wheel drive under it to get a lightweight off-roader.
Yeah, its the Paco/FM kit. I actually got it from another guy who bought it for his car, then his motor went before he installed it so I saved about $50.
The only issue with Rally-Xing the car is that it is my driver, and tearing up my driver is not high on my list of things to do
While I was under the car I decided to go ahead and install my new one way check valve on the fuel tank vent. I bought a nice little piece on ebay, made by UPR, here is the link:
And here is the valve, nice little piece if you ask me:
I actually made them a counteroffer and got it for $12. Anyways, I had ran a 3/8" rubber vent line from the vent on the top of the tank when I still had it out. From there, I routed it to the location right in front of the passenger rear wheel. I then took the mounting bracket for the factory miata charcoal canister, modified and painted it, and mounted it at this location in front of the rear passenger wheel. You can see the check valve just in front of the canister inlet. This obviously won't use the PCM management system to regulate, it will just leave the gas tank open to the canister at all times, but that won't cause any trouble. I actually already had all that system turned off on my computer flash.
Been thinking myself about the best to retain as much fuel system and emissions related stuff as possible, especially if it's related to making the car safe. Found your post and I like the idea of a one way check valve off the tank vent for obvious reasons vs. leaving it open.
However, I don't think that black tank you mounted is the charcoal canister. That is the "catch tank" which mounts near the engine I believe and feeds the charcoal canister. I have a 99 as well, and the charcoal canister is the large black box that mounts under the gas tank. So while the check valve should cut down on fumes and prevent pressure build up, any fumes that do escape may not be getting cleaned up before going to atmosphere.
Hey thanks for the info. I have read multiple accounts of opinions either way on this particular part. You very well may be correct, but at the end of the day I have been enjoying this car for nearly a year now, and I have yet to have even the slightest hint of a fuel smell so for now, I'm going to call it good!
Understood, I did come across other small threads dedicated to the topic as well. As one of the more well respected build threads it seemed worth mentioning here.
Your long term experience with your setup is probably more of a testament than anything - but I also wanted to point out something about using a one-way check valve on the "breather" line. It will let the tank breath under positive pressure but it may not let the tank pull in air under vacuum. That is unless you have some other connection to the tank for that purpose.
As you run the engine and empty the tank, it will need air to replace the fuel. Opening the gas tank and hearing the sucking sound of air rushing in might be a way to recognize this. Just wanted to point that out.
From what I understand, the gas cap is a one-way-vent that prevents vacuum.
Yep, I had thought that same thing. Either way same as before, I haven't had any pressure issues, postive or negative, and I don't have a fuel smell. Just goes to show there are many ways to build these cars, and its very likely that most of them are correct.
-Finally, Make sure your fans are working. I hadn't been able to run my car long enough untuned to get it hot enough for the fans to kick on, and sadly they did not once it got to the tuner. Long story short, I rewired the miata relays to use the LS ECM signal like you would the fuel pump signal. Bad thing is I made it wrong by doing that. Both GM and Mazda cooling fan relays use a switched ground to activate....once I got that lined out they come on and work exactly as designed. Good deal.
Any help on how to wire it correctly would be appreciated.
The simpler the better for non-electrical types such as myself.
I suspect that I wired mine up incorrectly (as mentioned above) because my fans are not kicking on. Found that out after a 10 minute drive today. About the time I pulled in the driveway the overflow container started doing a nice imitation of a pressure cooker letting off steam and liquid.
Do you have a simple instruction or diagram of how you wired up the signal to the relay to work correctly with the LS1 ECU?
Jim, you're not hurting my feelings at all, these build threads are meant to help others in the future.
With regards to my wiring, I'll have to look back through my notes and see what I did as far as colors go, but the way I have it written there just means that the mazda relay for the OEM fans is controlled the same way the GM fans are, so all you need is a signal wire coming to the same location on the relay that you would in a stock car, only from the GM PCM. Hope this helps, if not let me know and I'll dig into the diagrams more.
While I'm already in the thread I am reminded I haven't posted here in a while. This past weekend I ran the car down a local 1/8th mile strip. Only ran it twice before the guy told me I needed a helmet(which I didn't have). Better of the two was 8.02 @ 93, which is no where near all it had. Here is a short video of it against a guy I knows RCSB truck. He has a 228r cam, LT's and a 100 shot.
Jim, you're not hurting my feelings at all, these build threads are meant to help others in the future.
With regards to my wiring, I'll have to look back through my notes and see what I did as far as colors go, but the way I have it written there just means that the mazda relay for the OEM fans is controlled the same way the GM fans are, so all you need is a signal wire coming to the same location on the relay that you would in a stock car, only from the GM PCM. Hope this helps, if not let me know and I'll dig into the diagrams more.
I'll chime in as well, this is essentially how I did it as well. As long as you identify the correct wires and splice into whatever fans you are running, or the signal/trigger wire from the GM PCM, it should all work. In my experience the rated output of the fans (Spal slimline from Flyin Miata) didn't require any heavier wiring or larger fuses than was already there from Mazda.
So in the same sense as last year, I have had my car on stands for a few weeks to deal with some "winter projects". Car now has around 6k on the build and has performed very well for the most part.
1. The first and only thing to bring the car down, the slave cylinder. My transplant had very very low miles on it when I got it so I did not replace the slave cylinder. Got a new one and got it in last weekend, the transmission is soooo much easier to drop from this car than a stock miata trans...hard to believe.
2. My homemade endlinks ended up not working as I had hoped. The jam nuts on one side came loose and the stud went somewhere? I bought a new set of R-theory enkdlinks to install, so they will be great. I didn't have any adjustment capability on my homemade units so this will be a nice change to get them dialed in.
3. Bought a set of exhaust cutouts for my family wagon project, but I am now considering installing them on this car....we will see
4. This is the big one.....While I was under the car working on the slave cylinder I spent some time inspecting my work from before. While I am confident in the car, it still never hurts to look to make sure everything is in good working order. What I ended up finding was a crack at the toe of the weld on the front passenger side of the differential mount. Wasn't extremely surprised that it happened in this location. I have seen other members have a similar issue, and given the thickness of the square tube I used, if it was going to fail then this is where it would happen. I cleaned it all up, drilled holes to stop the crack, welded it back together, and cut/welded gussets in the area to prevent it from happening again. I will continued to inspect that area as time goes on.
Car is still an absolute blast every time I fire it up. For those of you thinking about doing a project like this, read read read, plan plan plan, and work through the blood, sweat and tears, it WILL be worth the result.
Well, after around 6k miles and a couple years, I got stranded for the first time. After messing with it I have determined that my fuel pump failed....Short life for a pump, but it is what it is. I will look at other options and let everyone know what I find.
A lot has happened with my car this year, figured it would be time for an update. I have some plans for it in the hopefully near future as well so maybe this thread will be active again...somewhat. Last time I wrote anything here was when I had fuel pump issues, boy what a day that was. We were going once again to the that show in my area that's a big deal called street machine nationals. Ever since I had put the new slave cylinder in the car last winter I had been seeing just a single drop of trans fluid on the floor after driving it....no big deal, I'll fix it when I have the car in the air next. I just assumed it was a output seal or something, no big deal. Well fast forward to when the wife and I are headed to the show, I come to a stop light and note that there is a lot of smoke coming from under the car, so after getting through the light I hear a clunk sound and I told her I just lost either my trans fill or drain plug...sure enough I had lost the fill plug which explains the slow drip. Now it gets bad, as I was diagnosing on the side of the road I was upset and got back in the car, took off to limp to a shop close by and BOOM, I forgot to close my hood pins and the hood flew up and hit the windshield. Very luckily there was no damage to the windshield or frame, but my hood is now shot....Fast forward to now, I am updating the front end to an MSM front, got another hood on it, hopefully goes to pain in the next week or so. Luckily I had the old hood to chop up and use as a template for my hood pins. Also was able to use it as a great sled for the boy this past weekend!
Now, update on the fuel pump issue. I did all my troubleshooting and diagnosed it down to being a bad fuel pump. When I went to pull the pump out boy did I learn I was wrong again. What appears to have actually happened was the factory miata wiring that I spliced into the heavier gauge wiring that came with my Walbro 255 install kit was not heavy enough, got hot and basically disintegrated. I ended up taking some heavier gauge wire and replacing the factory miata wiring up to the plug where it has heavier wiring on the other side....Done.
Real quick, added some green LED lights to my cluster to be able to see it better at night, much better. Also, I was able to use my HP Tuners software to modify my Tach signal from the PCM, finally after multiple years my tach works exactly as it should!!
Had the EXACT same thing happen to me a couple weeks ago. No fuel, getting power to the tank connector so I assumed it was the pump. Ordered a new one, waited for it to arrive and was shocked when I went to change it. I found a universal fuel bulkhead connector at Racetronix | Racetronix
it has all parts needed to add another connector to the plate and it comes with 14 ga wiring.
Last edited by Dave Tibbitts; Jan 16, 2019 at 06:12 PM.
Reason: Added images
Wow that looks great. When it happened to me during the summer I took the pins out of a spare plug I had, opened them up and added the stronger wire, however your solution looks great! I am planning to go back in and work on mine again before the season this year so I am going to chase that down. Was that a kit? Do you have the part number?
Good stuff on heavy duty fuel pump wiring! I think an upgrade to the above Racetronix connectors is a must have for me. I’ve upgraded everything BUT the bulkhead connector and about 3” of Mazda wiring going to the bulkhead from the relay because I never knew how to find this exact piece you shared. Awesome. My car’s been 98.6% reliable. This will get it to 100% peace of mind for me.
