You're never going to unsee the pinion being off center, now 
You're never going to unsee the pinion being off center, now
In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :
oh yeah, clear as day here lol. I guess I never noticed before
Where'd you get the aluminum driveshaft? I got one of the Mazdatrix ones years ago. Thought I had balance issues and bought what I think is a S4 N/A driveshaft to test - it has that weird cup/damper thing on the front. Turns out the OEM piece was ~1 lb ligher and about ~1 in. less in diameter than the aluminum one. I'll take less weight and rotational inertia any day so I sold the aluminum one and never looked back.
In reply to infernosg :
Larger diameter will have a higher resonant speed, though. Not sure where that is on an FC but on an SA/FB it was frighteningly low. About 80mph or so, which is about 60-65 after you swap out the 3.91 gears for 4.78.
Mazda's road race bible described how to convert to a 2 piece driveshaft, to eliminate that issue. Large diameter aluminum driveshafts did not exist, I guess
In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :
Before the stupid loud exhaust I always noticed a drivetrain vibration that started around 50 mph, peaked somewhere between 60-70 mph and decreased beyond that. It was really only noticeable in 5th gear. It was still there in 3rd and 4th but nowhere near as bad. I rebuilt the transmission, had the driveshaft re-balanced, swapped driveshafts and it never completely went away. I'm sure it's still there but between the stupid loud exhaust and various other vibrations and noises it just gets drowned out in the noise. I always thought it was some kind of resonance...
In reply to infernosg :
shaftmasters
they are local to me in the Detroit area, their website is super old which is why they do great work. Kinda like great mechanics can't spell at all.
its a 3" aluminum tube, look under their miata selection they basically charged me a miata driveshaft price but in general their custom shafts are 425-450 to start. Its only a few lbs lighter than the stock one I modified to work with the rx8 swap which is only 3/4" shorter. This actually may be a miata driveshaft as the later years share the s1 transmission so the yokes and splines should be the same for that era. The flanges we already established are common across the board.
I don't know if I had a bad driveshaft or the old s2 transmission really had a bearing issue and went go bad because I no longer have that growling box of rocks cruising little throttle steady speed.
event recap to come but here is the best stage on the circuit IMHO.
lots of high speed blind and tight twisty fun, I stuff it briefly playing with the wipers switch and get distracted. Car felt great the conditions were prime but my balls needed to sack up a touch - everyone has stepped up their game it seems. 4th gear corners and higher speed corners need better notes and commitment but were a work in progress.
the ring and pinion made 3rd gear extra perfect and was very drivable, the changes to the cooling system were very noticeable and now the car stays extra cool, even the hood scoop shows that I am grabbing some cool air, would be curious to see once it gets stuffed under the hood how high that will get instead...
we took 5th in class due to penalties related to blowing 2 tires but had we not had that there was a definite battle for 3rd on our hands but thats rally!
lost fastest 2wd by 2 seconds on this stage, maybe if I didn't grab 4th I would made it to #1 but a hell of a run:
fidelity101 said:The thought behind all of this is the added force of the electric power steering and the shortened knuckle pickup points are causing more force/stresses in this area. The dodge ones are greasable too which is nice and has ALOT of depth to have the outer tie rod end eat up:
I've wondered how hard the electric steering pulls on the tie rods. I would love to know just HOW hard it does pull. You raise an important issue. Tie rod failures are scary and can definitely kill you so I think you can't be too safe. I only install greaseable ones unless there is no other option.
Working on some small updates to get ready for the 2024 "season" (lets call it, more of an exhibition year I think honestly) which means how to get more power out of this hunk of metal.
One theory is the intake manifold and with some rule changes and annoyances I will be putting it back under the hood and adding possibly a very tiny scoop just to poke fun at the rules.
but what does that mean exactly?
so here we are, unfortunately the cool long runner printed/fabricated manifold will go on the shelf as nice eye candy but progress is being made, however not all hope is lost. I will still use some metal 3d printing to enable idle control like the OEM manifold uses and can be controlled by the haltech:
and utilize some fancy polymer printing to make this heater hose re-route (thank you nonack for the design help/task) so now it will clear the airbox and move coolant hoses from rubbing against the intake manifold.
this also eliminated an extra connector/reducer so I could just 1 size hose to go to two different fittings.
and while we wait for UPS for the throttle cable I can get working on the plumbing:
I can't shove the FPR on the rail like I had it before due to packaging space so in efforts to re-plumb it; does this make sense? it still return from out of the regulator but the regulator is now much further from the fuel rails however with pascals law, it shouldn't matter since its a closed system? right now it is mimic-ing the factory setup. Fuel goes into the primary rail then to the secondary and out the FPR back to the return line to the tank. everything is inline, so to speak...
As far as this season goes I am planning on skipping LSPR - I will likely just do McReary rally and Central UP rally, I will be at sno*drift and LSPR though but likely in a heavy sweep capacity only.
oh man I'm an egg head I think I stumbled upon a problem that I have been living with for 2 years. The Vacuum lines from the intake manifold to the vacuum manifold were too thin walled, I think they were collapsing under heavy throttle. I have noticed some irregular pedal feel with the brake booster on stage the past few years so this could be part of it, also the fuel table looked really wonky (per the tuner) so this could have been affecting my issue all along.
ironically all this idle valve effort is useless as the cable is pulling on itself making the valve kind of useless at the moment. Lots of monkeying with throttle cables/springs/linkages on this - next time I will just DBW - I give up lol.
either way the shorty manifold is on and installed and I am doing some finishing touches and will be at the dyno Monday again for a freshenup session with a few other rotards, maybe now we can see above 169whp for all that money and effort into this motor. If not I'm going back to my cheapo deluxe rebuild specials...
with my full height (rx8 OEM) injectors on the ITB setup it made for an interesting airbox situation in conjunction with the tall air horns and because the manifold was significantly smaller I had to re-plumb the fuel system, move the coolant neck around and a few other things so it could all fit. I still should have good water protection for those low water bridge events (100AW) but time will tell.
Next up will be to remove the roof scoop on the hood and put a legal (F YOU) scoop as I call it because I still have access to the fancy 3d printers.
more to come!
yeah even from driving it around I have far more consistent pedal feel, would be curious to slap on the old manifold and dyno it for A-B purposes... however the car does go back on the Dyno tomorrow so we will see how much it puts down with the heavily shortened intake runners. Aiming for 201whp @ 9000 RPM if possible.
with that completed I will work on fixing the hood and a more robust throttle return spring bracket and make a few of the fuel lines hardline for better fitment/packaging.
JoeYuqui said:fidelity101 said:The thought behind all of this is the added force of the electric power steering and the shortened knuckle pickup points are causing more force/stresses in this area. The dodge ones are greasable too which is nice and has ALOT of depth to have the outer tie rod end eat up:
I've wondered how hard the electric steering pulls on the tie rods. I would love to know just HOW hard it does pull. You raise an important issue. Tie rod failures are scary and can definitely kill you so I think you can't be too safe. I only install greaseable ones unless there is no other option.
Should be no significant difference, really. It's no different than regular power steering, or manual steering for that matter. The power assist is for our wimpy little meat-arms after we put a quickener on it.
I have had many bad experiences with greasable and avoid them if at all possible. They tend to be higher friction, which wears faster, and the grease fitting is a vector for transferring grit into the joint. We all got opinions though.
finally in the 200whp club!
it now spins up to 10,000 which is pretty wild for a streetport, a little playing with the air horns and I could probably get another 500 rpm out of it and a few HP but its diminishing returns at this point. If I wanted to add holes in the rotor housings for a semi PP setup the manifold can support that with a quick port job and retune then find even more power and RPM but that will have to come later if needed, right now its time to enjoy and get some of the other prep out of the way on the car.
Now that some of the other small items are taken care of, it is time to get right hand turn visibility back!
I opted for 3d printing again but also to help teach you folks about the technology - its not about just doing stuff (which is the bulk of the additive manufacturing industry) for example, they would collect all the oceans plastic trash and refine it down to powder and filament only to print more plastic bottles...
in this lesson you learn how to utilize the benefits of the technology, much like a tool. you can use a hammer as a screwdriver pretty terribly - manufacturing processes are no different.
use the tool appropriately and you get good results. so we will use the magic of 3d printing to create a shell by segmenting the roof scoop into smaller pieces that can be joined together (like a jigsaw puzzle) later to form the desired shape:
I COULD have printed the whole thing in one piece but that makes for installation difficult (would have changed the design for that then) and is more costly since you are trying to print a 3mm sheet of plastic, and in this size it would likely come out pringled.
but first I had to fix my hole from the prior scoop (roof scoop acting as hood scoop) :
now I have a spot to mount the new cowl/scoop
I used the same plastic trim I use for mudflaps and aeroparts for ducting, this is extremely cheap and available so it was easier for me to shear out a shape and slide it into the frame thus I was able to mix conventionally manufactured parts with 3d printed parts to get the desired result, and with a touch of spraypaint it all comes together!
so now you know!
did some testing during the (tarmac) rallycross and turned it into a drift course, as usual. I think I really need to hit a few amateur drift days this summer, just a lot of fun but I need to bump up the tire pressures more probably for better drifting but either way just used the opportunity to test out the scoop and visibility is drastically improved which is nice and car ran great all weekend except where I had the throttle return spring jam in the throttle mechanism but a quick spring swap and back in business. I knew it was going to give me some issues and already planned a fix for that.
played with the cameras a bit too so looking for an ideal viewing spot, I'll probably make a fun mixup these coming days with the footage I got and data recorded.
we always love action shots, right?
I need to check that bucket list item for this car by attending a drift event this summer
I'm a bit late to updating this so here is some updates:
Next event up was McReary Gravel rally, we DNF'd last year so it was our turn to overcome that failure and end on a high note. The roads are great and I had a lot fun and the event landed on my birthday so it was hard not to come! Everything seemed prepared for that event, I was working with the hanging throttle issue and added a lot of ducting to make sure ALL of the air goes through the radiator and oil cooler instead of around it, this was going to be ambient temps of low 70s to low 80s so a good test of the updates and changes to the car. I even made some organizing updates and fixes to the trailer.
HOWEVER
all hell broke loose when we got there:
I managed to do a parade lap at the exhibition stage prior to parc expose where I was monkeying with zip ties to at least fix the 5000rpm idle and once that was over it meant no rest for us as after recce it was immediately time to remedy everything the night before the race and luckily I fixed the cooling fan issue quickly with a spare relay.
We added a helper throttle return spring and that seemed to work, this also uncovered that the tune was faulty at low TPS% because it was tuned to a sticking throttle that caused some tip in fuel lean spots but was definitely driveable so that permanent fix would have to wait.
the alignment shop didn't hold the tie rod boot as they adjusted the front toe so that caused the boot to bind and tear then jam in the worm gear and from the driving at milan rallyX and sliding I could tell something was up but everything seemed fine (milan was pre alignment) post inspection, so I didn't catch this until too late when I went to fill up for gas and found myself with a worse turning radius than my truck...
There is nothing more terrifying to find out you have no more steering, even at parking lot speeds. botched together some tie rod boots out of spares and zip ties and kept it together for the event but the steering itself needed a lot of power assist, felt a lot of resistance or grindy type feel, which is odd because its an electric column that drives a quickener that drives a steering rack but it was felt all the way up into the wheel ( more on that later ).
so with done what we could it was time for rest and then tackle the entirety of the event in the morning, we thought the worst was over, oh how silly to jump to conclusions so soon...
The event itself is 3 sections, like I mentioned in last years McReary Gravel Rally, its a goldilocks rally.
Section A is too fast
Section B is too rough
Section C is juuuuust right!
after section A and B was a service.
the first stage was fun and was starting to feel comfortable, temps were good - starting to get used to a different co-driver and find a ryhtmn, did 2 stages then we had a bit of a wait so I took the time to work on car as I felt the throttle feel could still be better as it was a bit sticky still once the engine bay temps creeped up. It was at that time someone walked by the car and said, you're leaking fuel. Upon inspection it was the recently updated primary rail to secondary rail fuel lines. I didn't like the routing I had before as it was a chance to touch the B+ post on the alternator which is a bad idea. However the angles and binding of the AN braided hoses weren't friendly to this setup and then immediately scrambled to make it safe, and after an array of tries and fitting swaps Fedina said simply "just put a hose on it"
as silly as that sounds they were just AN braided HOSE fittings so we removed the line and tossed on a std rubber fuel line to connect the two and we carried on with the rally leak free just to pick up some penalties for lateness but we were still in the rally!
we did enjoy the last run of the section and got a more competitive time and got ourselves ready for the rough section:
see for yourself!
made it back to service and promptly inspected the car but no damage and we were out for the rough section which took its toll. It is a technical fun and flowly stage ran twice but with a river crossing:
unfortunately the gopro audio failed or was slightly unplugged but here are the issues:
managed to limp it back to service and promptly replace this:
and here is a closer shot of the crack:
that big bolt can affect toe where it attaches to the knuckle as factory these have DTSS dynamic toe steer... system or something japanesy. IDK but for racing you want this a solid piece so you don't have variable toe while racing.
we managed to get out and do the last section with only additional minor penalties and took the last section with care and fun this is where I was watching my temps as last year they were climbing quickly here in the heat and heavy load/low speed - to my surprise: everything worked! the toe was still a little off so we just took it down a notch and enjoyed ourselves. The other competitors in my class had issues and dropped out one by one that put us on the podium due to attrition!
No more 230F water temps, nothing every really saw over 192f and oils temps never got passed 250F. I FINALLY have fixed my cooling issue over this decade of trial and error.
it was time to get home as this rally was brutal on the team and equipment however the ride home (berkeley ohio) meant it wasn't over yet. Trailer lost a wheel bearing and nearly caught fire which would have been a disaster, this ordeal itself was a mess and is a story for another day over some adult pops but is separate from the car build all together.
here is a pic of the culvert afterwards.
pretty gnarley but this car is a tank and it would prove to be one in the near future (foreshadowing)
but before we get to the next event we got some post race cleanup to do and be prepared which is exactly where I found this out:
these are the caravan tie rod upgrades on the depowered steering rack, It took a good hit and bent pretty good but lasted the remainder of the rally. This was promptly replaced and steering system inspection and overhaul was to be performed before the next event.
did I say water crossing? I meant RIVER crossing - the intake no longer sticking out the hood meant that I was about to find out my anti water intrusion techniques didn't work, it promptly stalled and stalled at every other minor puddle after that.
yes the air filter and post sock were soaked but what also had happened was the orientation of my idle control valve was poor so the filter on that was near the exhaust so it melted and allowed a straight shot of water to get into the engine bay with any tiny ammount of water splash. it stalled 3 more times on that stage, each puddle or stream significantly smaller than the big one here.
but there are some great action shots from this event:
Post race prep for the August rally in the UP that was my next planned event so I had to re-do everything that I tried to fix before this last rally for the next one. Since I needed an update to the engine calibration it was time to remove the temporary fuel line fix and put in a more robust AND permanent fix:
it was time to go to a "dead head" rail setup, the fuel tank on these cars is a return type but because I was using an aftermarket regulator the fuel was returning to the tank from the FPR so honestly all the rails needed was a fuel feed source. This way I can eliminate the pesky hose that connected these two rails (top is secondary, bottom is primary fuel rail) and simply replaced the fitting and hose assembly with plugs. Far less opportunities for leaks which is a great feature. minor adjustments were needed for fueling but the bulk of it was because of the throttle hanging.
enter: SendCutSend!
no more hoopty fix for the helper throttle return spring, apparently all of these EFI hardware throttle bodies are like there, there are tons of complaints of poor throttle return force on the ITB assembly. After dealing with ALL of this nonsense next time I do this I am going to go DBW. I have spent too much time/money/effort on cables/linkages and springs for no reason.
the new piece is also for a splashguard that I can use to help keep the water from soaking the filter for future river crossings/puddles but this part will never come to fruition, yet. This bracket with bent flanges gets welded to the airbox and then I can wrap around a piece of aluminum to act as the splash guard that keeps the air coming into the intake from the scoop area alone - or that was the intent.
the other aspect of it was to hold the throttle bracket and have some options for adjustment as the throw isn't quite linear:
this worked out great, got the tune fixed and then was off to work on some cosmetic items:
new wood handle for the e-brake:
and a fresh new spoiler with updated mudflaps, because why not I guess...
found these online via a friend and were some NOS from the mid 50s-70s, as these are the old mazda logos/fonts.
came out pretty snazzy with a fresh coat of blue, now all the blue's on the car are the same blue.
after all that came time to address the steering which meant pull and dissassemble and thuroughly re-clean and re-prep which became its own rabit hole.
the steering rack had not been serviced since it was de-powered which was many years and rallies ago, since then plenty of mud and water and debris have entered the system and it was time for an overhaul:
there are two really great resources for the steering rack overhauls that I followed:
there are extra information bits in both since its meant for a powered system but you can figure out what you need in a manual setting pretty easily and the bulk of the seals in the rebuild kit aren't used because of this too.
after lots of cleaning the parts started to show their wear:
the needle bearing in the pinion of the steering rack had failed and was causing the binding and galling on the steering shaft due to the rollers falling out. There is limited service information on these but after reading through wondorousbread's thread it got me looking at the bearings themselves and quickly decoded the mystery:
they are all serviceable but the needle roller bearing in the middle is a bit difficult to get out but a little bit of heat and some table hits and it came right out, the bottom pinion one is a similar story and the top one you need to press it back on so I left it as is since it was in fine working condition but you can opt for this if you like. Do not try and order the part numbers from mazda thinking you're clever as they dont exist anymore and are not even NLA, they just disappeared. Mazda motorsports didn't have an explanation either however from any bearing supply website and some amazon searches by bearing number you can procure these individually for reasonable money and lead time. I think I spent 25 dollars on bearings in total.
I was unsure about how this would go so I grabbed a spare rack and cleaned it up just in case but everything went smoothly and the rack felt great after setting the pre-load in:
I already did the poly bushings last year so now with this overhauled and the new caravan tie rods the whole steering system was up to snuff, 1.5 way quickener and equinox EPAS unit all working in harmony once more which means - a final alignment. I'm most happy with this arrangement
rear camber is a waste as the offset arm always drives the one more than the other for adjustment because you pivot the subframe to change the camber.
and a quick snapshot of the filter assembly, pre splashguard:
now it was time for some last little details and get ready for the Iron Mule Central UP Rally scheduled in late August:
The event itself was awesome, very fun roads and former WRC roads in the 1970s when they used to do WRC here in North America. it was 2 days of racing about a 100 miles of racing with minimal transit. Very fast stages and temps were in the 80s - this was the perfect test I wanted because I had been trying to get the car to do 20 miles flat out without any issues.
everything was working as it should have been so we started the rally into the night: (pics from Gunnar Bortz)
managed to have some top 5 overall (20 entrants total) so everything seemed to point the right direction
always with a cigarette glow from my exhaust/catalyst. every now and again a fireball would flash in my rear-view mirror too. Took a cautious first approach and decided to have fun for day 2.
with day 2 and confidence back the car was working flawlessly and it meant I really got to see what we were capable of and the times reflected it, we kept increasing speed and pace with each corner and stage until ultimately I would get carried away making up for lost time and lose it all...
stage 3 had some small errors but a very competitive pace, placing 4th overall. We are at a power disadvantage at this location since the roads are much wider/faster than some of the other tighter rallies we have done in the past. It was a good higher pace workout/exersize.
so we picked up the pace and by stage 5 we had 2nd overall out on that stage.:
this one is a riot of a stage, sorry I forgot my filter so I had to mess with the video but this is the best I got otherwise you can't really see outside at all...
SS6 was next then service then a re-run of the stages and ultimately the final stage is SS3 and SS5 together (almost 19 miles) which was going to be a riot however right at the end of SS6 I made a huge mistake by grabbing 4th gear instead of pegging 3rd to cross the finish line, had a the car upset and go wide on the marbles and wasn't able to shed enough speed - it seemed to be fine as I was just going to ditch hook and drive out but as soon as I tapped the gas to do so I ended up on my side and a rush of sand came into my face and at that time I realized I was a passenger...
I counted 2.5 rolls, we both walked away with no major issues both sore and sad for such a rough way to finish a great start. In rally its not if you roll in competition, its when and after 17 rallies and no major offs, this one was a doosey.
my side doesn't look too bad for having done a 30' 50/50 boardslide before rolling along the A pillars and hitting giant rocks
real glad we ended up on the rocks, not hit them head on - that would have been much worse. The what if game is awful
after the race was over we were able to go and help sweep ourselves which we thought was going to break more things when in fact, we moved a few rocks out of the way and I drove it back to service!
it had a bad strut rod in the back that made the alignment funky but no fluid leaks and overall suspension was unharmed, there was a small chunk out of the rear wheel missing but held air and still holds air fine.
We got checked out by the med team and were deemed fine, I had a rough week the following week of being a tin man without oil and my codrivers x-rays show that he got a small compression fracture on one vertebrae which will heal on its own but will take some time and needs to take it easy for the next 6 months effectively.
The cage and safety equipment did its job, I am not sure I would be here today had I had my old seats and no modified cab area to accomodate for the extra degree of safety. there was a rock hit right above my head:
this is the only bar that is damaged, all other parts of the cage are fine but the bar above my head got crushed and the roof is split open right above this. I saw this bar move closer to me mid accident which was spooky but as the rolled slowed down, instead of speeding up, it seemed we dodged a bullet...
the list of damage is largely chassis and cosmetic and I will address that soon enough, luckily my truck has a winch and I may be able to pull the bulk of it out then try it on the alignment rack and see where it stands.
the co-driver front is a bit wrinkled and smooshed but should pull out okay then I will need to stitch weld the areas of concern and think about how I want to tackle fixing and reinforcing this. I had seam welded the engine bay compartment in a lot of areas so that looked like it took the brunt but some of the welds have cracked and a few sheet metal pieces are a bit mishapen. The cage worked great and basically the body collapsed around it.
Likely I will re-skin the body side outer and roof with a donor car we have at my co-drivers house but for now its take a break and rest. I still have some unpacking and cleaning to do.
Saw the pictures on your instagram so knew this post was coming, but so glad that you're safe and all equipment did its job! Can't wait to see the car back on stage
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