Titus's V6 Swap build thread

[Titus]

MiataRoadster has a "straight shot" braided clutch line that goes from master to slave in one piece. Even comes in multiple colors for all of your bling-bling needs.

Yeah... there are 3 sections to the clutch line... the hard line that connects to the master and runs across the firewall, the curly Q hard line that connects to the slave, and the rubber line that connects the 2 hard lines. Mine replaces the second 2. I considered the MR one that replaces all of it, but it is $58-75 shipped depending on color and the one I got was only $30 shipped. Plus, that 3rd line across the firewall is pretty clean looking and I would have to deal with attaching the MR one and making the install look professional. MR says to use zip ties.

[Titus]

Time for some suspension work. The front subframe and suspension came off the car all together, so first I disassembled it and figured out what would be reused.


The shock assemblies looked pretty nasty.





A little cleaning made a big difference.





The control arms looked pretty dirty and had the original bushing and ball joints in them.





I cheated a little here, as I had a set of control arms off of a 96 parts cart that I had already cleaned and removed the bushings. I pushed new OEM bushings in, replaced the lower ball joints with new OEM ones, cleaned/repacked the upper ball joints and gave them new boots, and then reassembled everything on the new subframe with new alignment bolts.





Everything is now installed on the new sub-frame and ready for bolting in to the car. The lower control arm attaches to the new subframe just like the stock one, but the upper control arms are a little different. Note the zink plated washers on the upper control arms. The kit comes with 12 of them and 6 are used on each side. You can have them spread equally front to back for stock geometry, or you can split them unequally which I believe results in change in castor. Maybe someday I will play around with that, but for now I split them equally.

[Titus]

Time for a little update... Rogue​ was out Sunday evening to take car of the paint issues in the engine bay. He got it all prepped but then realized that a crucial can didn't make it into his box of supplies. This is how it sits now, patiently waiting for his return.

[Titus]

I ordered a new Heater core for the car, but unfortunately it arrived damaged. I am hoping the exchange process is not too painful.



I also got a set of new heater hose grommets. I didn't realize how bad the old ones really were until I pulled them out and put them next to the new ones.

[VFR750]

FedEx?............William can help you out.

[Titus]

Sorry for the lack of updates lately. Progress has been made slowly, but not as much as I would have liked. I was sick for over a week, and I don't like hanging out in a Metal building when it's storming.


Rogue made it back out with the needed painting supplies. Here it is after the primer and first coat of color was down.





And here it is after the second coat of color and the clear went down.

[Titus]

After the paint had cured for a few days, I decided to try to install the front subframe. As I had mentioned before, I had pre-assembled the suspension on the subframe a few weeks earlier. I don't recommend this, as it adds a lot of weight and makes it much more difficult to maneuver. When I first tried the install it, I was sick, and didn't have any help. With much cursing, I managed to get it in place and get 6 of the 8 bolts on, but I couldn't get the far back 2 bolts in and it appeared to me that the sub-frame was out of spec. I contacted Minitec, and they checked the jig and a few of the other recently completed subframes and said they couldn't see any cause for the issue. Frustrated and sick, I let it sit for about a week. Once I was feeling better, I removed all of the suspension from it to make it easier to maneuver and tried again. It bolted right up. I then re-installed the suspension and got to put it back on it's wheels for the first time in a while.

[Titus]

Next I wanted to test fit the engine in the car. With the help of a friend, we got the engine bolted in. It will come out again later for some other work, but it felt good to see it in the car.







The next thing I wanted to do was bolt the transmission in and hook up the PPF, so I could see the final positioning of the engine to test clearances. The kit calls for the re-use of the Mazda transmission alignment dowels. Mine have spent the last 23+ years stuck in the 1.6l Miata engine and seemed to be happy where they were. I tried my best to get them out without damaging them, but they are now completely mangled and still in the old engine. I have a new pair on order.

[Sharpie]

Awesome. Sounds like you're making good progress. Glad you're feeling better. I have to wait til I get home to see the pictures. Work blocks them.

[OZMDD]

Loving this. I know another guy who is contemplating doing one now that hes seen your progress.

[patf]

Great work! that seems to fit in there really well

[sammm]

Titus..what's the latest on your project? You gone stealth on us?

[Titus]

I work on my car because I enjoy it, but working in a hot metal building is not enjoyable to me. I decided to take a few months off from the project for the most part, and will resume in the fall. I am doing a little hear and there though.... Last week I got the valve covers pack from the powder coater, so I installed them along with new gaskets, a new oil cap, and new spark plugs last Saturday morning before it got hot.

[sammm]

Thanks for the update.

[OZMDD]

Anything new? VC pics?

[Titus]

Anything new? VC pics?

I ended up buying an AEM Series 2 ECU, and I have been slowly working on tracing the wiring harness and planning out a patch harness to connect the Engine harness to the Miata harness. There are multiple people that I could pay to do it for me, but I decided I wanted to figure it out myself so I understand it all in case I ever find myself needed to troubleshoot a wiring issue.

Here is a pic of the valve covers on.

[Treibenschnell]

Call Bean to help you with that!

Wha... huh? I was sleeping...

[Titus]

OK... Sorry guys. As you may have guessed, I took much of the summer off from the project. Between business trips, vacation, doing stuff with the kid and wife, and the fact that a metal shop in Texas spends most of the summer north of 120*, I had very little interest in the car. Now that school has started back up and cooler weather is on the horizon, I have started to get back in to the swing of things. I have several new pictures and progress reports to post so i will try to make several updates over the next few days. I have also taken every 3rd Friday off through the end of the year, so hopefully we can expect to see regular progress.


To start things off, I will post about the one time I actually spent a little time in the shop: It took a few months, but I finally got my valve covers back from the powder coater. They are done is 15% gloss black, which is the same as what the Harddog rollbar comes in and what I did my door handles in. I got them installed with new gaskets, and while I was there I installed new OEM spec NGK PZFR6E11 spark plugs (expensive buggers) and reinstalled the coils.





More posts to come. (Yes, I know this post is redundant here, but it is new information for the other sites that i have the blog on.)

[Titus]

ECU and Wiring.


I believe I explained early on that I was going to run a stock ECU with the immobilizer removed and I was going to pay a company to modify the harness and add circuitry to trick the ECU in to thinking the AT was there (to keep it out of limp mode). I have been watching a few other builds take this route over the last 4 months. While they have been successful, there are issues I am less than pleased with. Some are having to add an APEXI piggyback unit to get fuel and VTEC engagement adjusted, and they are not able to reach the 7k rev limit that is stock to my engine. The formula is evolving and improving, but will take more time before it is to my liking. While watching and waiting, I noticed a vendor put the PnP AEM Series II on sale, so I jumped out of the stock ECU boat.


Here is the brand spanking new AEM Series II 30-6051 I purchased, along with the AEM 30-4110 wideband I picked up to go along with it.





While the AEM plugs right in to the harness for my engine, there is still a lot of unused wires and plugs in it, and there are outside connections to the Chassis that need to be made. I could still pay one of a few companies to modify the harness to deal with this stuff, but I choose not to for 3 reasons:
1) There is no trick circuitry needed... If you can trace wires, read a wiring diagram, and solder a little, it can be done on your own.
2) Doing the work myself forces me to learn how it all works and allows me to build out a spreadsheet that identifies everything there, what it is for, and where it goes to. This will be important if I ever need to troubleshoot an issue in the future.
3) The purchase of the AEM was a big chunk of money that wasn't planned in my initial build, so modifying the harness myself saves money in another area of the budget to get my net increase down under $600.


The first thing I did was to start a spreadsheet with a tab for each ECU plug. I listed out all of the pins for the given plug, and then I utilized the AEM manual and a factory Acura manual to identified the wire color, the use of the pin in stock form, if the AEM uses it, and if so then how it uses it. From there, I traced every wire that the AEM uses from ECU pin to plug and labeled the plug. Next, I traced any wires to labeled plugs that had not come from the ECU (mostly grounds and power from chassis). This information was noted for future use in connecting the harness to the chassis.


Once I was confident in my understanding of the wiring and what was and wasn't needed, I started removing everything that was not used. This is what was removed:





Next up was working on the connections to the chassis. I considered using the Honda chassis plugs, but had issues sourcing new matching halves. In the end, I decided to purchase several sets of new waterproof 8 pin connectors. I took the 8 remaining wires off of the old Honda chassis pugs and got them setup on a new plug.


Soldering is fun!



All wired up.



The next item on the list is the A plug into the ECU. This plug is not from engine harness... it comes from the Honda dash harness. Given I didn't have that, I sourced a new one along with some new pins.





Next up will be soldering wires to the new pins, plugging them into the A connector where needed, and then running them out to a second new 8 pin connector for chassis connections.


Also on the list is adding the wires to the harness for the Miata temperature and oil pressure sensors that I am adapting to the engine for use of the Miata gauges. After that, I need to continue pouring over the Miata wiring diagrams to make final decisions on where all of the chassis connection wires need to go so I can wire in the chassis side plugs that will connect to the engine harness. Does your head hurt? Mine does.

[Sharpie]

Dang and when I say dang, I mean dang. Way to go Todd.