"The Mazda" zoomzoom's NA Track toy

[zoomzoom]

Hi there,

This isn't really a build thread since the car is already built (it will never be finished however!) but I thought there may be a couple of people interested in some info about my track toy. It has offered me a great learning experience and virtually everything which is done on this car I have done myself, usually just working things out and learning how to do things along the way. I'll start off with a little about the history of the car since it hasn't got to where it is overnight.

It has been referred to at times as "The Fridge" or "The Kelvinator" but mostly it is just "The Mazda". She started out life as a stock standard NA6 complete with daisy wheels and over time has been "improved" to be what it is now.

I acquired The Mazda around mid 2006 and used it as my daily driver until January 2011 gradually changing along the way until it was decided to retire it from daily use and dedicate it to the track. First things to change were the daisy wheels for some cheap 15s I got off ebay and the stock shocks and ridiculously low pedders springs that were in the rear only!These were replaced by a set of KYB AGX with King springs.

Here is a couple images of the car from around '07


I moved down to Brisbane in January of '07 to go to uni and the mazda became my hobby along with being my primary mode of transport for work on the weekends. Throughout '07 and '08 I gradually carried out changes mostly aimed at improving performance where I could however it has always been budget focused, being a poor uni student. Some of the things which were done in the early days was to fit the usual extractors and air filter. A little while later came a set of 265deg crow cams which made the car idle like a 13BPP :-). Thanks to Richard from MX5 Plus at the time, I also managed to get my hands on a 6 speed and a 4.3 T2 diff which were more suitable for the trackdays I was doing. As things started to change I decided to go to an aftermarket ecu to allow for some tuneability and eventually open the door to some more serious mods.

And here are some images of the engine bay right after fitting a MSPNP not long after they were first released, and getting the car running allowing for the intake with the afm to be removed. Then after that the budget bunnings intake and resonating chamber which seemed to help out a lot with the mid range.


In early 2008 I was looking at the engine bay and noticing what looked like a lot of free space around the exhaust side of the engine bay and got to thinking what I could do about that, I took this picture when offering up something which might be able to take advantage of this void.


To be continued...

Cheers,

Tim

[corners]

Subscribed

[M1474]

+1

The suspense is killing me.

[zoomzoom]

Ok so to continue a little.

It's going back a while now and I didn't take that many photos since I didn't even own a camera back then so I am mostly just going off memory and also breezing over it a little. Must have been somewhere later in '08 I decided to bite the bullet, we dragged the car into the back of my mates shed and I resorted to riding my bike (ZX6R that is, far too lazy for the kind with pedals!) for a couple weeks and I got stuck into the car. At my mates place I had access to an old mig welder and an angle grinder, I bought a bit of steam pipe and some exhaust tubing and got stuck in. I knocked up a simple manifold to mount up a turbo I had acquired from a R32 GTR skyline and used some 2" exhaust tubing to make some cooler piping flowing through a 550 x 180 intercooler. I persisted with this setup for a while and with the megasaquirt I think it was making around 180hp atw.

I can't remember exactly when it happened, it must have been '09 by this point, but since the small turbo caused it to really die in the top end I later replaced the turbo with a SR20 unit. Around that time I also replaced the MSPNP which was based on a MS1 and causing many issues. I chose to got the PNP route once again but this time went with a VIPEC as I had seen a couple go through my tuner's workshop with pretty good results. Since the ecu was only available for a NA8 I spent a little time messing around moving a few wires to where they would be on and NA8 ECU and I managed to get the unit working. I imported my previous tune from the MS to excel, interpolated the values get a base map which would already be close since I was running the bigger cams and tuning on map, and I managed to get the thing running, at the time I didn't realize that it was already about 1am, apologies to my housmates and neighbours .

Anyway, since I don't have any photos from the build that I can find, here is a couple photos of the setup when I was removing it sometime later. Note the reuse of and OEM heatshield to help make things look a little more legit.




Early in '10 I picked up an alternate mode of transport since I had sold the ZX6 in '09 so the mazda project continued with a little less reliance on it for daily duties...


To go along with the setup I moved away from the RX7 injectors I was previously running and decided to go with some slightly bigger 650cc Bosch EV14 style injectors from begi. To go along with these I got hold of some alloy and a tig and made up a duel fee rail with centre exit and a bracket to remotely run the OE reg.

I turned the wick up a little and this setup was making from memory 160rwkw/215whp on about 15psi on a near stock 1.6, just a set of cams, the biggest difference was the broader powerband and a lot more top end in particular.


That should take us through to Jan '11...

Cheers,

Tim

[meanmx]

I really need to learn how to weld. Great job.

[zero00]

Well done so far Tim! I know you have come across quite a few of those little 'problems' but with your skills and knowledge you have always managed to over come them and get out on the track and BLITZ!! Only last track day at QR you found a diff problem right before the start, but with a smile you organised what parts were required and had the damn thing pulled apart and back together to still manage 4-5 runs!!

We all loved Charlie's NA, but for those that know your car and your driving skills, you are a pleasure to watch and this will give us all another topic on CAR TALK to follow with interest!!

KEEP UP THE GREAT WORK!!

[orx626]

We all loved Charlie's NA, but for those that know your car and your driving skills, you are a pleasure to watch and this will give us all another topic on CAR TALK to follow with interest!!

Exactly Roger!

No road registered related compromises here!!!!

Cheers,
Danny

[zoomzoom]

Thanks guys. I have found that life is much easier just if you bite the bullet and consider it a track only car. I have been running this thing on and off at club trackdays and other sprint events for 7 years now and over that time I have learnt a lot but there is still plenty to learn, the day you stop learning is the day you die!

Anyway back to Jan '11. This was a busy month, early in the month I got my hands on this beautiful machine and had a new daily!


Also that month, it was a crazy time to live in Brisbane, this was the view from the top of Mt Cootha, a heavily swollen river and water as far as the eye could see.


Since I now had a daily driver I made the decision that the mazda would become the track toy which allowed many improvements to occur, most importantly though was the improvements to safety. Thankfully my previous bosses and owners of the business where also car enthusiasts and were gracious enough to allow me the use of a very well equipped workshop after hours and over the next 6 or so months I got stuck in, stripped the interior and put together a rollcage.






More to come...

Cheers,

Tim

[zoomzoom]

So to continue a little. After finishing the cage around the middle of '11 I rolled the car out the back of my work and got started on the paint. I bought some 2 pack, some half decent guns and a respirator and spent the next few weekends prepping and painting the car. The paint work was not spectacular but did not come out too bad, definitely much better than before!

I started by prepping the body and priming inside and out, then I went ahead and painted the complete interior of the car from firewall back including cage white. After the inside was done I masked up to avoid overspray and did all the exterior panels.

Got the car back together and took it out for a run in September. I couldn't find any photos of the car as a whole but here is some images of the interior. I was going for the minimalistic approach..




After the trackday in september I decided that it was necessary to do something about updating the unknown Km 1.6 engine that was now beginning to lose oil from the front crank seal and had definitely seen some better days, long before I got hold of the poor thing and put a T25 on the side of it! I started writing the list and getting some parts together for the next step in the build...

Cheers,

Tim

[Okibi]

Great choice of people mover, if you don't launch them hard or up the boost in hot weather they can be pretty reliable (might chew through some AFMs).

[zoomzoom]

So after the cage was done I decided to lash out and got some 15 x 9 6ULs and 225 Nittos for the track.


I also ordered a little something from the states


I got hold of the parts to put together a 1.8 engine and to make a start on the project I got this drawn up in solidworks.


A couple of Saturdays in the workshop and I knocked this up, GT2871R 56 trim, T04E front housing with antisurge, Tial V band rear housing with a Tial MVR wastegate.


Cheers,

Tim

[16bit]

looks like it would make no power and have terrible flow

[timk]

Are you sure thats your old place Tim? The grass looks too short and too green.

[zoomzoom]

The tape was only a temporary feature, it affected flow too dramatically.

Tim, they decided to include lawn maintenance in the rent by that time :-).

So just a quick one, the engine that came out was still running fine but was a little lower in compression on 2 cylinders, I found out later that 2 of the rods looked like this

Cheers,

Tim

[zoomzoom]

So the next step was to start on the new engine. Unfortunately I cannot seem to find any photos of this stage but it went roughly as follows.

I got hold of the BP engine and started on the block. A couple of deliveries from the states and I had a nice little pile of bits to get me started so I sent the block in to the machine shop along with the pistons and rods so they could machine the bottom end. I had the block bored for the 84mm pistons and decked, the crank journals polished, crank oil galleries flushed and grub screwed and the rotating assembly balanced.

Whilst the block was in being machined I took a trip to bunnings to get a dremel and got stuck into the cylinder head, port matched the ports to the manifolds and gave the runners a bit of a tidy up to remove the casting marks etc and cleaned up the inside radius behind where the valve seats are cut into the runners.

Also in the cylinder head I got hold of a second exhaust cam and redrilled it to be run on the intake side, commonly known as the exintake mod this helps by increasing the inlet duration slightly and costs virtually nothing to do. I had the head faced and got to putting things together. I lapped in all the valves by hand and then put it together with the stock springs and retainers, I installed a set of mazdaspeed shim under bucket solid lifters, which meant it was a massive pain to get the clearances set right!

After the head the I put the block together, I went for the fairly large ring gaps recommended by the piston manufacturer, got the rods and pistons in and the crank installed after plasti-gauging to check all the clearances. I just went with a stock NA8/NB8A oil pump with the internal relief shimmed up to disable it. I welded some -10 AN fittings on the sump for the turbo drain and to run a Peterson external oil pressure reg.

So if anyone is interested the bits that went in, if I haven't forgotten any. I tried to keep the costs down by keeping the list to (relatively) necessary bits for what I hope is a fairly reliable track engine at an output of around 300rwhp.

Bottom end:
JE 84mm 9:1 pistons
K1 technologies rods
ACL race series bearings
ARP Rod Studs
ARP Main Studs
ARP Head Studs
OEM Mazda Gasket kit

Cylinder Head:
OEM Valves
OEM Springs
OEM Retainers
Mazdaspeed solid lifters
OEM Exhaust cam
OEM Exhaust cam installed on intake
Toda Cam Gears

External:
Mtuned Fuel rail
FIC 775cc injectors
Aeromotive fuel pressure reg
Toyota COPS
Peterson oil pressure relief
Oil cooler
PWR intercooler
ASI Alloy Radiator
Garrett GT2871R Turbo
Tial MVR 44mm wastegate
3" turbo back exhaust with the largest straight through muffler I could find so I could run at Lakeside within the noise restrictions.

After getting the engine in and everything plumbed up I scaled the fuel map for the new injectors and kicked it over, to my great delight (surprise) it fired first go so then it went down to GT Autogarage to be run in initially on the dyno and have a safe tune put on it for a couple of track days to prepare it for a little more boost.

Cheers,

Tim