Selene - Nev's NB SE

[Nevyn72]

i would LOVE to see an mx5 owners face when you pull up at the lights.

Errrr....... that would be me, in the Astina, wishing I was driving my '5'.......

[corners]

Just read this front to back

Great mods and steps and reviews on each one.

Looking forward to more updates

[Nevyn72]

Time to tick another little mod off the list.....

So with the upcoming gauges install I needed somewhere to get a signal source for the oil pressure, and down the track, oil temperature. The simplest solution is to fit a sandwich plate with sender ports between the engine block and oil filter. This makes changing an already difficult to reach oil filter almost impossible so I thought I'd make servicing a little easier and wiring the senders a whole lot easier but going for an oil filter relocation kit.

I ended up cheaping out and getting a generic eBay kit for $112 delivered and was quite surprised at the quality, albeit still a cheap knock-off.....
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/ALUMINUM-ENG ... 768&_uhb=1

Now one of the biggest problems as always with the SE engine bay is finding somewhere to put stuff, I tried a number of different orientations and locations, had a look at what others had done but finally settled on this location and positioning as being what I was most happy with.....



There were a number of holes in the frame rail in that area, one even with a captive nut, that I could use to secure the whole setup so the next step was to make up a bracket to support the filter housing. The first step was to make a template out of cardboard to get the shape and location of mounting holes sorted. Here's what I came up with in the car...



And here it is on the workbench ready to be duplicated in something more robust.



After poking around my supplies of miscellaneous stuff for a while I settled on some 75x75x3mm steel angle as being the best candidate for the bracket material, a lot heavier than required but at least I know it'll be strong!

I basically traced the template onto the angle and with the use of a combination of heavy cut-off saw, angle grinder and bench grinder I progressively shaped the angle, with repeated test-fits until I had a shape I was happy with. Here it is test-fitted in position....



The next step was to drill the holes for the mounting bolts and mount the filter base using it's bracket to the upright part of my bracket.
I decided to keep the two portions detachable as both can be re-used later on in a different orientation should I decide I want to add an oil cooler.
Here's how it all came together....



Continued next post....

[Nevyn72]

Next up was to test fit the whole assembly to make sure there were no clearance issues....



That worked out well so I pulled it all out, disassembled it and finished off the bracket. This involved cutting off the excess parts of the bolts securing the two brackets together, painting the whole lot in black engine paint and putting a thin layer of rubber (more old tyre tube) on the bottom for a little padding.

I then fitted a riv-nut to one of the exisitng holes in the frame rail (the other one being used had the captive nut) and fitted the bracket in place.



Next up was lift the car onto stands and remove the undertray to gain access to the filter to mount the base plate of the relocation kit. This is so much easier now to do that I have 'Gigantor the trolley jack' another ebay purchase I picked up recently.
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/3-Ton-Liftin ... 1c8&_uhb=1

Even with the undertray removed I wasn't able to get reasonable access to the filter location because of a whopping great cast bracket that supports the intake manifold. Fortunately this is easily removed by taking out only three bolts.

Once the base was fitted to the engine the next job was to cut the very long hoses to length for the final install. I simply fitted one end to the engine and ran the hose through to the receiver fitting and marked it off with tape. I then removed the hose and cut where I had marked it before fitting the dodgy replica Aeroflow fitting. These were very hard to remove and replace but are solid, that being said, if was to do this again I definitely go genuine!

Here's a picture of the hose being marked out for cutting.



Once the hoses were both cut, had the fittings attached, and were secured to both ends of the relocation kit I remounted the intake manifold support, which mercifully still fit, and lowered the car down off the stands. All of the threaded fittings had a small amount of high temp RTV added for a little more security of the seal too.

I decided to re-use the exisitng oil filter as it appeared nice and clean inside on a visual inspection and was less than 1000km old anyway.

After a quick visual inspection everything seemed ok so I fired the car up until the oil pressure stabilised and checked the oil level. It had barely even fallen at all so I restarted the car and let it run for a bit to see if there were any obvious leaks...... None! Yeah, I'll call that a tentative win, pending further observations.....

Here's how it finished up when I called it quits for the day;





Next up is the radiator (when it shows up) and all the hoses plus a maruha sandwich plate adaptor for the thermostat housing for a water temp gauge sender.....

[ManiacLachy]

I had to read this a couple of times, and on a PC (rather than phone) to appreciate exactly what was done here. Great work, Nevyn! I like your write ups and explinations, so thank you for them.

Also, that is one monster of a trolley jack!

[Lokiel]

Reading your oil filter relocation posts is like deja vu "all over again" for me, I went through exactly the same thoughts/processes and mounted mine in that exact same spot (using the existing threaded hole and only requiring the drilling of one hole for a nutsert to mount the relocation bracket).

Great attention to detail (see the cutout in the bracket base to match the shelf's divot) - spending the time to make a bracket and finish it does take time but is definitely worth it, looks "schmick" and you get better each time (makes you you want to re-visit earlier projects).

Most of us generally leave that manifold brace off, especially if re-fitting it is a pain or impossible - if it's good enough left off for dedicated track cars then it's good enough me. You managed to refit it so that's a bonus. Some guys even take it off just to make access to the oil filter easier when it's in the OEM location.

Regarding the eBay relocation kit:
I bought one initially and was very impressed with the CNC'ed block but the fittings were rubbish compared with Aeroflow/SpeedFlow/... etc, they were extremely light and crudely finished so you should consider ordering a set of replacements when you do your next oil change for peace of mind.

[Nevyn72]

Thanks for the feedback guys, it's these little projects that I'm having the most fun with, it allows me to be little creative on the problem solving front.

Most of us generally leave that manifold brace off, especially if re-fitting it is a pain or impossible - if it's good enough left off for dedicated track cars then it's good enough me. You managed to refit it so that's a bonus. Some guys even take it off just to make access to the oil filter easier when it's in the OEM location.

Mercifully the final orientation of the engine side component of the relocation kit was such that the hoses allowed clearance for the bracket to be refitted. While others have left it off I believe the Mazda engineers wouldn't have put something so substantial there without reason....
Given I'll be driving primarily on rougher city and country roads rather than smooth tracks I suspect over time having the weight of the whole intake manifold hanging unsupported of the side of the head as the car repeatedly hits bumps and potholes could cause the studs in the head to fail.

Anyway, there's no need to get down there again regularly and it's quickly and easily removed, just 3 bolts, so I'd prefer to keep it there for added security.

Regarding the eBay relocation kit:
I bought one initially and was very impressed with the CNC'ed block but the fittings were rubbish compared with Aeroflow/SpeedFlow/... etc, they were extremely light and crudely finished so you should consider ordering a set of replacements when you do your next oil change for peace of mind.

Interestingly, in the case of the kit I got, the fittings themselves were about on par the genuine units (I have used some recently) in terms of weight and security. Just nowhere near as refined so a bit harder to remove and re-fit.

[Nevyn72]

I had to read this a couple of times, and on a PC (rather than phone) to appreciate exactly what was done here. Great work, Nevyn! I like your write ups and explinations, so thank you for them.

Also, that is one monster of a trolley jack!

You'll find it all a whole lot easier when you can stand beside your own car can compare the images with reality mate, pictures are an inadequate substitute.....

As for the trolley jack, there's a reason I call him Gigantor!
Had a mate over last night and he was so impressed he ordered one for himself.

[ManiacLachy]

You'll find it all a whole lot easier when you can stand beside your own car can compare the images with reality mate, pictures are an inadequate substitute.....

I'm working on it! Find me someone to buy my A3 and I'll have an SE next week!

[Nevyn72]

Next update!

So the next project I've completed is the cooling system refurbish. This involved replacing the radiator which had started showing signs of failing with an all alloy Koyo 37mm item, replacing all the main coolant hoses with new silicone ones, installing a maruha sandwich plate at the thermostat housing for a temperature sender probe and fitting a Garagestar cooling deflector plate.

First step was to pull all the old stuff out and while everything was out of the way I decided it would be a good time to tidy up the vacuum lines for the electronic boost controller.

I think you'll agree this is much neater!



It was also a good time to freshen up a couple of fittings with a new coat of paint as they were looking a little tired.
At the same time I also painted the thermostat housing black, I was originally going to polish it nice and shiny but this was going to be too difficult and decided the black would work better with the black Maruha fitting.....



The next job was to fit up the new radiator, I was amazed at just how dense the fins are on the OEM radiator, you can really see why it performs so well, testing has even shown it can perform better than some aftermarket alloy ones twice as thick!

Here's a picture of the the new radiator compared to the OEM one.



In all honesty a replacement OEM rad would perform just as well, if not better (despite being 10mm thinner), than the one I chose, it just wouldn't have been as pretty!

So after giving the fan assembly a bit of a bath to remove 10 years worth of accumulated dirt and grime I fitted it up to the new radiator.
I also added foam edging (19x25mm) to the sides and base of the radiator in the same place similar foam was fitted to the OEM unit. This foam seals around the edge of the radiator when fitted in order to force all the incoming air through the radiator rather than leaking around the sides. The OEM unit also had a band of foam at the top edge but I fitted this piece of foam to the top of the radiator enclosure in the engine bay instead as it had a better base to bond to and would sit neater.

Here's how it looked just before installation.....



Now before installing the new radiator I pre-fitted all bar one of the new coolant hoses, the thermostat housing and sandwich plate.

When fitting the bottom radiator hose you will need to remove the airbox and dismount and put aside the power steering pump. There's very little room there so don't make the mistake I did and not dismount the power steering pump as it took me over 3 hours just to fit the engine side hose and clamp!

The hose kit I bought was from Mania and while the quality is great it's not perfect, for a start there's sealed in branding all over the stuff so you'll have the phrase 'MX5Mania Motorsport' plastered all over your engine bay. The top radiator hose is also about 50mm too long so be prepared to trim this one.....

The kit comes as a set of 8 hoses, top & bottom, two heater hoses (I had to cut the old ones off so as not to damage the fittings going through the firewall) and 4 smaller anciliary hoses. Unfortunately the 4 smaller hoses were cast incorrectly having an internal diameter of 5mm when they should have been 10mm. This didn't bother me too much as the old hoses are still in good condition and I just re-purposed the the faulty hoses as new vacuum lines as they had the perfect combination of bends!

So finally came installing the new radiator which slotted straight in without any issues. I was a bit concerned about this aspect of the job as there were numerous reports from the US that you had to bend some pipework and fittings to make the radiator sit neatly. As it turns out the problem in the US is to do with their air conditioning system which is mounted on the other side of the car. In RHD vehicles the problem fittings are located elsewhere......

Once installed and all hoses tightened up, I filled the coolant system while the front of the car was still elevated and ran the engine for a while with the heater on until it was up to temperature. This was done to fully purge all the air as it often doesn't all escape if the car is sitting flat. When I was satisfied all the air was out of the system and there were no leaks I refitted the undertray and lowered the car to the ground. I then installed the Garagestar cooling deflector plate (jeez that cleans things up, very nice) and took the car for a shakedown run around the local streets to make sure everything was ok.

So here's what you've been waiting for, this is the final result!



I still need to replace the coolant overflow bottle as the old one is looking pretty ordinary, I'll just go for a new OEM unit as they're relatively cheap and sit quite neatly where they are.

Otherwise, apart from a couple of finishing details on the catch-can, that's all I'm doing in the engine bay for the moment.
The next project in there, down the track, will be the intake...... whenever I can make up my mind what I'm going to do!

So what's next?........ Well I might do something a little different and actually take it for a drive for a change.....

Seriously though, I've got a relatively small mountain of parts to go into the interior so dressing up the cabin a bit is next on the agenda.

[Okibi]

Great write up, the top hose would have also seemed a little long because the temp sensor adaptor plate would have brought the outlet towards the radiator about 20mm'ish and from that photo it looks like the hose could have pushed down that pipe a bit more (it's hard to tell with black on black but there seems like a silver band of the unpainted pipe exposed).

[SS11]

Thanks for your time to write these projects up! greatly helpful and informative!

[Nevyn72]

Great write up, the top hose would have also seemed a little long because the temp sensor adaptor plate would have brought the outlet towards the radiator about 20mm'ish and from that photo it looks like the hose could have pushed down that pipe a bit more (it's hard to tell with black on black but there seems like a silver band of the unpainted pipe exposed).

While adding the sandwich plate shortened the required length a bit, this wasn't the case. I initially just did a direct comparison with the factory pipe already fitted and the straight section that attaches to the radiator was about 50mm longer. I actually had to trim a bit over 60mm off mine to allow for the sandwich plate but didn't mention this as I didn't want to confuse the issue.....
The other possibility is that the SE has a different top hose to other NBs, the hose kit is a generic NB8a/b/c set after all.

The silver bit you see at the thermostat housing is a small section of exposed barb (unpainted) as I couldn't get the hose to move any further down, even with some silicone lubricant and being detached at the radiator end. There's a good 40mm on there with the hose clamp so I'm not worried. The exposed silver sort of matches the silver of the hose clamp too, but now I'm just rationalising!

From what I can tell, the silicone hose kit Mania sell is the ASI set with Mania branding. It's actually better value as it is slightly cheaper and comes with a complete set of hose clamps which aren't included in the ASI kit. You also get a free sticker and as we all know, you can never have enough Stickerwatts!

[Nevyn72]

Thanks for your time to write these projects up! greatly helpful and informative!

No worries mate, I've benefited greatly from reading up on other people's experiences when planning projects.
It's only fair that I share my experiences too so others can avoid making the same silly, time wasting, goofs that I have!

[Lokiel]

IMO, the thermostat housing looks much better black - in OEM form or when polished, it just sticks out too much but when black it disappears nicely. Polishing is a lot of hassle too, it takes forever and needs to be cleaned constantly.

Staying tuned for more updates...