Penguin Mobile: "Jesus Built my Hotrod"

[Mauro_Penguin]

Hi everyone! Some of you have wondered who I am and why I don't have a thread about my mazdaspeed. The answer is simple, laziness. I'd rather be wrenching than typing, so wrenching always wins my time. However today I'm going to try... again...

In June 2012 I bought a brand new 2012 Non-Tech Black Micha Mazdaspeed3. I had a friend that owned one in 2007 and raved about it, so when it was time for me to get a new car it was at the top of my list becuz I <3 Hatchbacks.

I loved the car, however I did find that the cabin was noisy on the highway, the suspension was a bit soft specifically the rear (the ass would sag when I would load up the hatch), and the speakers fucking sucked but at least the head unit was decent. Overall to me the car was still a great purchase.

July 16, 2013 some dickface cracker rear ended me and tried to run. I chased him, and luckily he was caught. There is more to it, but to this day I have not let go of that anger so I will move on. The motherfucker got a slap on the wrist. $9k in damages later I got my car back, but the rear end never felt the same. I brought it back to Mazda (where the repairs were all done), but they "couldn't find anything wrong" and the alignment they set the rear at to MAKE it stable ate up my rear tires.

...sigh...

The car was worth more to me now than if I traded it, so I made the decision to go hardcore on the suspension and find the issue since the mechanics/service people at my Mazda dealer were fucking idiots. Thus began the dive into the rabbit hole...




Thanks to my Nator bro Roddiy (Nator fam from old forum), we went to work. In a nutshell... KW v3 coilovers, sway bars, camber and toe arms, blah blah.... Fun times with shirtless men, nothing gay about it. LOL

Now the car was more stable, still had a bit of torque steer at WOT but that's just the nature of this car right? More on my "torque steer" later...

It went through some small revisions on the suspension over time. I threw on an APv3, Autotechs, and a JBR 3.5" intake. Fiddled with ATR enough to drive it and realized that despite all the info to self tune, it would take me forever to get good at it.

...almost caught up on the timeline...

2018 I was finally in a good enough spot to buy some big power stuff. If you've ever met me, you know I was a fan of the EFR turbo kits for ever. However, I decided to keep it simple and keep the stock flange. Instead of getting a turbo that would need to have its shining low end neutered for the sake of stock block longevity, I went with a BNRs4 and decided to use my funds for thermal control stuff and to replace every nut and gasket that would need to be replaced. None of that reusing gaskets BS for me. Dec 2018 the car went under a big knife again. Much thanks to my Nator bro @neganox who came over and helped take everything apart and modify the wastegate bracket on the BNR for clocking. Complete list of power parts are as follows...

JBR Tru 3.5" intake
Cobb APv3
Cobb EBCS
BNRs4 v3 (hot side ceramic coated by Swaintech)
HTP under engine piping
TR10 core w/treadstone crashbar
Synapse Diverter Valve w/ 1/4" Hose barbs
Bosch 3bar MAP
Full Race Manifold (w/ceramic coat option)
Catless downpipe (bought used from Maisonvi, thanks again)
Cobb catback (picked up from Neganox, thanks again)

Car was tuned for 93 by Rob @ Hypnotic Tuning. Yes, Rob was great to work with. Yes sometimes I would go a week without hearing back from him, BUT sometimes it took ME a couple of weeks to send him back logs. I am not glued to my devices like some folks are; and I know tuning is not how he pays the mortgage, so I don't expect him to reply at a moments notice. Some people don't like him because of that, but he always answered my questions and gave me great advice when I needed it. Once I get the meth kit in, I'll be contacting him again for another tune. So yeah, Rob was awesome.

Lots of pictures from the install...

Delivery of BNRs4 V3

Gasket that came with BNR. I had to label the sides, because for those that may have never noticed, the gasket is slightly offset. You can see a very faint lip of overlap on the hotside casting. The manifold matched the gasket perfect

Hard to tell due to potato picture, but I cleaned up the casting slightly, bored out that lip and smoothed it down the neck on the hotside for a nice fluid transition from the manifold to the turbo

Here is the hotside back from Swaintech, the coating was much tougher and thicker than the coating that Full Race does on their manifolds. Had I known, I would have sent the manifold to swaintech also

Tip for big installs, make a list of things to do so you don't forget anything, then prioritize it. Could not tell you how many install days I've been too where spare parts have caused panic

I was told that the V3 was a wastegate revision, I made notes of the crack pressure just in case

I picked up some Mishimoto gold reflective tape from Summit. One of the big selling points about the BNR to me, was being able to reuse the OEM heatshields. At the time I lined the inside with the gold tape. It is much easier to contain heat at the source, than to protect anything being damaged from the radiating heat afterward. Also you can see how I had to slot the wastegate bracket in order to mount the wastegate with the housing facing downward.

This engine hoist tab had to be removed, I believe Enki had the same issue with his EFR kit

Here is a shot of the wastegate mounted with the clocked compressor

Had to trim the heatshield slightly to get clearance for the wastegate arm

Manifold and Turbo all mounted up, so clean and pretty

Prepping the downpipe. It was previously wrapped, and I did smoke test it to make sure it wasn't leaking anywhere. I just scuffed it with a scouring pad to get the surface smooth. I bought some DEI titanium wrap from Summit, and it was so easy to wrap and pull tight. Definitely worth the extra bucks over the old school shit that has to be soaked.

Wrap is all done. I overlapped it a bit around the O2 sensor bungs, and I used generic SS worm clamps from Home Depot to secure the wrap. For those unfamiliar with this stuff, it stinks and smokes for several days until the wrap gets seasoned. So be prepared to be that hated driver for a few days.

I used the lower turbo coolant line, and repositioned it at the top.

I had to clear the compressor neck and hot pipe of coolant lines as well, and so I was able to use one of the throttle body coolant lines that I removed forever ago. As you can see, it snakes around the compressor neck perfectly. So both coolant lines are OEM, this is worth mentioning because coolant lines that small are not common and can be difficult to source.

Here is where I mounted my EBCS. It was the best spot to keep it away from heat, keep the lines fairly short, and still easy to disconnect if needed

As you can see, the hot pipe and downpipe are very very close. It is quite difficult to tighten the t-bolt clamps on the compressor coupler

Fairly close to the subframe also. The blue paint is from a GTspec tie bar I had, that was removed because of how big the aluminum bar was. It wouldn't clear the hotpipe at all. I ended up buying one from TB Performance, but it rubbed and had to be ground down a bit.

Because of the tight fit, I made a bracket for the hotpipe that is tied to the timing cover. Figure things are going to move, so this will secure it.

Pic of the downpipe on, the bolt head with the X is where the AFR failsafe sensor will fit. This thing was hands down the worst part of the install. I tried any and every way to snake it in from the top and bottom for hours. Even with the engine partially unmounted and shifted, and with the alternator removed, I still couldn't get the damn bellmouth to clear. In the end, I dropped the front subframe and installed it from the bottom up.

Location of second catch can for a valve cover mod I did. Mounted it on the firewall, and the drain tube is snaked behind the alternator.

After test driving it for a few days, I found the hotpipe still rubbed the subframe. So I shortened the bracket and put a bigger lip on it, and retightened the t-bolt clamps.

Here were the nuts and bolts I used for the downpipe to catback. The idea that it may need to move more than what the flex section on the downpipe can provide, completely escaped me. So I went back and added the OEM springs to the bolt setup.


No dyno numbers as I wanted to wait until meth was in. I have an Aquamist HFS4 to wire in, its just been a busy summer with the old cat getting cancer, and doing shit on the mustang. I like to take my time and do shit right the first time, so all that wiring has dropped the meth kit down on my laundry list.

Anyway, during the tuning and logging process the car would get really squirrely. This was expected... however what I thought was "extreme torque steer" from the BNR was actually a combination of 2 issues which I will elaborate on soon. In the meantime I adjusted my coilovers to a firmer setting, changed the alignment in the front and rear a bit to give it more understeer, and swapped the whiteline front sway bar for the OEM. While this may seem counterintuitive to my adjustments for more understeer, it softened up the steering wheel to make the torque steer fight more manageable. Tuning got done, that was that.

Lets take a break from the wall of text. To be continued....

 

[Mauro_Penguin]

...Intermission over, we now return to Wall of Text...

So during the tuning process and the following months thereafter I ran into some wrinkles that needed to be ironed. The first one was heat!!! I had opted to get ceramic coating on the manifold and turbo for longevity, and titanium wrap on the downpipe because the downpipe was the cheapest part of the setup. If the wrap did cause any rot on the downpipe metal, it wouldn't be as detrimental as rot on the manifold. Turns out the heat from the manifold and turbo were still immense.

The second day I drove the car on the initial spring pressure map, I noticed a small crack on my windshield that was rising up from the center cowl. Neal pointed out that I could have accidentally knicked or scratched the bottom of the windshield during all the install process. I did try my hardest to not touch the windshield at all during the install, but I am human and it is possible that I could have. One thing is for sure, every time I drove the car enough to really warm it up, the crack grew longer. I tried going on long drives and parking it with the hood open a couple of times, and the crack would stay the same size. Google-Fu only pulled up some non-speed Gen2's that had the same random issue in the winter. 50* weather, a 6 1/2 year old windshield, and some new extreme heat maybe? Doesn't make sense, but it's possible. Anyway I decided to focus more on heat control. I took some measurements with a probe pyrometer. Measurements were as follows...

Engine Off (Ambient temp 66*F)
Valve Cover (Intake side)-67*F
Valve Cover (Exhaust side)-67*F
Manifold Runner 1-67*F
Manifold Runner 4-67*F
Turbo Hotside-67*F
Downpipe Bellmouth-67*F

Engine 30 seconds on (Ambient temp 66*F)
Valve Cover (Intake side)-66*F
Valve Cover (Exhaust side)-67*F
Manifold Runner 1-200*F
Manifold Runner 4-200*F
Turbo Hotside-180*F
Downpipe Bellmouth-150*F

Engine 60 seconds on (Ambient temp 66*F)
Valve Cover (Intake side)-102*F
Valve Cover (Exhaust side)-100*F
Manifold Runner 1-220*F
Manifold Runner 4-220*F
Turbo Hotside-230*F
Downpipe Bellmouth-160*F

Engine 120 seconds on (Ambient temp 66*F)
Valve Cover (Intake side)-102*F
Valve Cover (Exhaust side)-95*F
Manifold Runner 1-320*F
Manifold Runner 4-320*F
Turbo Hotside-300*F
Downpipe Bellmouth-196*F

Engine @ full operating temp (Ambient temp 66*F)
Valve Cover (Intake side)-155*F
Valve Cover (Exhaust side)-171*F
Manifold Runner 1-560*F
Manifold Runner 4-570*F
Turbo Hotside-490*F
Downpipe Bellmouth-267*F​

I decided to measure runner-1 and runner-4 because eventhough Full Race advertises this manifold as equal length, it is not. Runners 1-3 are all within an inch of each other, but runner 4 is actually 4-5" shorter. I was pretty surprised by how much heat I was still seeing despite the ceramic coat. I have no fucking idea how some guys race without any heat provisions. The warm up measurements were taken with the car parked and warming up. The operating temp one was done after a brief highway drive, and after allowing the car to cool down for a minute with the hood open just outside of my garage. You can only imagine what the surrounding components see when these cars are on a track or at WOT, especially with a much larger heat source that is the FR manifold as oppose to the smaller OEM one.

So I tried to make a heat shield to fit over the manifold. I picked up some SS sheeting from home depot. I used some cardboard to make a prototype, cut up the SS sheet, and lined the inside of the heat shield with some spare aluminum/fiberglass heat shielding I had (from the mustang battery shield) and then on top of that some more gold tape. I used an exhaust clamp to bolt the heatshield down to the manifold along with some large washers and wing nuts.

Here you can see the exhaust clamp on top of runner 3. This is what I used to mount the heat shield.

SS sheet metal marked up and ready for cutting. Fur baby assistant was of little help.

Here you can see where it sat too close to the manifold, got hot and came loose.


That shit didn't last long. The adhesive to the fiberglass sheeting started coming undone after a week and started draping on top of that manifold. I was lucky it didn't catch on fire. The SS sheet would get just as hot as the manifold. Stainless steel is more resistant to heating up than aluminum, but once it does get hot it does not dissipate nearly as fast as aluminum. Basically, think of basic chemistry class and the boiling points of oil VS water. While oil requires a shit ton more energy than water does to come to a boil. Once it does, oil stays hotter and retains that energy much longer than water does. Great.... So alpha prototype was a bust. I decided to make beta prototype out of aluminum. I adjusted my measurements a bit to make the box fit tighter. I also made a second outer layer out of perforated aluminum, in order to increase the surface area for faster cooling. So from inside to outside it went... Gold Heat tape-->Aluminum/Fiberglass sheet tape-->Solid Aluminum Sheet inner layer-->Perforated Aluminum Sheet outer layer.

(Trying to find pics of shield)

Same shit happened, it just took a little longer. So I gave up. The box was a bitch to get on and off despite the 2 piece design. It kept scratching the firewall and manifold runners no matter how careful I was at handling it, and because the second design was aluminum it was slightly floppier than the SS one. Fuck it. I ordered some more DEI Titanium wrap, and a DEI t25/28 turbo blanket.




Here is a shot of the finished manifold after the wrap. It definitely would have been easier to do it off of the car, but it is doable in the engine bay. You just have to be very careful to get it on evenly.

I thought I had a pic of the blanket off of the turbo, but it does have provisions for the IWG. Here it is from the bottom. I mocked up the turbo support bracket and marked on the blanket where I would need to cut a slit to insert the bolt.

Here is the cut slit.

And finished shot of the support bracket through the blanket.


This really did the trick. Long story short, all the runner temps dropped by about 100*F at full operating temp. I measured the outside of the turbo blanket, and it dropped it a little more than 100*F. This was good enough for now.

Next issue was the intercooler piping. Back in 2014 I was part of that stupid Treadstone group buy that The RPM Store organized. RPM took great care of everyone, since there were plenty of issues from Treadstone. I'll summarize it nicely, FUCK TREADSTONE! Fuck everything those guys sell. The crashbar fit like shit and needed to have the mounting holes opened up, the hotpipe fit like complete shit and couldn't even be used, all the piping was made of tin foil and would always crush and leak even if you didn't overtighten the clamps. The damn tr10 core was the only good thing about it, and even then I've had to JB weld 3 pin holes that have shown up through the welding on the end tanks over the years. I struggled to make that stupid kit work for 3 years until I gave up and contacted HTP for the BT install. At first I replaced just the hot pipe, but the cold pipe kept crushing too so eventually I replaced that as well. I cannot say enough good things about the quality of HTP's stuff and how easy Matt is to get in touch with and work with.

Shots of the Treadstone cold pipe. No I do not He-Man this shit, the piping is just super weak. I have already used exhaust expanders to straighten out the "crush" twice before on this piping.

You can see powdercoat overspray on the inside of the Treadstone BPV flange. When I first got the piping I tried to scrape a bit just in case it tried to dislodge into the throttle body or BPV.

Here is the grinding and then secondary welding for the Treadstone BPV flange. The filler looks really thin, but I never understood why they used a grinder, just to reweld, and then leave the rest.

This is the HTP piping, the powdercoat is super thick and incredibly tough.

No overspray on the HTP BPV flange, and you can see they even deck it to make sure the flange is flat and not warped.

HTP does a cleaner job or grinding the inside of the piping. When I asked Matt if they had a Meth bung on their piping, he said yes and went on to mention how they take pride in making sure the bung is grinded down properly to make sure meth doesn't collect on any welds. He said its a big issue on other platforms with lower quality competitors.


So the HTP piping was holding strong (no more worrying about boost leaks due to crushed piping), but despite my hotpipe bracket it still moved and rubbed on the TB performance tie bar. You would need to grind down the tie bar cup on the passenger side to make it work, and you would need to keep the piping tight so it wont vibrate back and rub again, for anyone that cares to try this just be careful to allow enough room to clear the oil pan as well.

Since the hotpipe was rubbing the tie bar, I removed all the piping and marked about 1.25" from the edge of each piping end. This gave me my minimum mark for clearing the coupler and t-bolt clamp. By doing this, I can maneuver the piping around for better clearance without worrying about bad coupler fitment.

I had to move my intercooler forward about 1" to fit the piping better. You can see the aluminum brackets I made to fit the tr10 on the crashbar, and the 2 sets of mounting holes.

This is the problem, I was overly ambitious and tried to get the tie bar and underengine piping to fit together. You can see how tight it fits on the oil pan, axle halfshaft bearing, and where it started to rub a dent in the piping.


And the dented piping... Luckily it wasn't deep enough to affect the interior tunnel, or rub through the metal.


I removed the tie bar for a while, until I decided if I wanted to throw it back on or not. In the meantime I moved on to open up the PCV system a bit, I have a tiny oil leak on the timing cover by where the head meets the block. Kind of a common place for small oil leaks, so I figured I would add more ventilation before it got worse. I removed the OEM baffle on the valve cover, and replaced it with perforated aluminum sheeting. I cleaned everything with carb cleaner, threw some blue Loctite on the screws, and replaced the valve cover gasket since the engine was now at 64k miles/7 years old. This will allow better breathing on the top half of the engine, and my catch can would pull any oil vapors that might get through. On the crankcase side I added a check valve right at the intake manifold, this would stop any leaking boost right at the source. At first I deleted the PCV valve and had only the check valve, but during engine braking and low RPM driving the engine got very jerky because the manifold and turbo were competing for vacuum on the PCV system. So I threw the OEM PCV valve back on in order to regulate manifold vacuum, and all was well again. The check valve seals tight under boost, and the valve cover could vent any excess pressure easily.

Here is the underside of the valve cover with the baffle removed. You'll see it sitting n the opposite side.

Here is a shot of the breather holes, which are larger on the Gen2 than the Gen1 and MS6.

This is the perforated sheet. I traced the baffle over the sheet to get the right shape and holes for the mounting screws.

This is everything assembled with the PCV hoses leading from the valve cover to the catch can I mounted on the firewall.


Now the car was driving well and I proceeded to take a couple of months to do work on the wife's mustang. (See my other thread for adventures in domestic foolishness) In July I made a trip down to South FL to visit an old friend of mine that flew in from San Francisco. I let him drive my car and he freaked out, he is used to his GTI and rarely gets to go WOT. He said he couldn't believe how raw the car felt. I agreed and told him that my next project was to smooth out the car. There was power, and it had the ability to corner and brake hard, but it needed to be smoother. Racecar is racecar, sure. But to me the smoother a car operates, the easier it is to drive and the faster the driver can respond. Even if it is "racecar."

That's enough for today, more to come later...

 

[Easter Bunny]

Make multiple posts instead of walls of text so I can give you more thumbs up

 

[Maisonvi]

@Mauro_Penguin: "I dont like typing"

also Mauro_Penguin: Here is a 4133 word novel about what Ive done.

 

[Mauro_Penguin]

4,132 actually

I dont like typing because I get carried away and ramble on. Hence wall of text.

I am about as caught up as I need to be. Future posts will be short and sweet like cherry flavored banana hammocks.

 

[Mauro_Penguin]

Monster Torque Steer: Part Uno

So I promised to talk about the stupid torque steer that I was getting, and here it is... half of it...

After the Damond motor mounts and the coilovers on a stock k04, I barely had any torque steer. The slightest bit of instability that I had, could be traced back to the stupid hydrobushings that some sad excuse for an engineer felt would benefit this platform, but really it was non-existent.

Enter the BNRs4, suddenly torque steer was a real struggle. I mentioned a few things I did in the 1st post, mainly alignment changes and removing my whiteline FSB and re-installing the OEM. This made the steering wheel a little softer, and the alignment changes (as aggressive as they were) gave me enough stability to datalog.

The torque steer was really an issue when I would go WOT. Part throttle and city driving was stable. As soon as I got into any boost over 10psi, the car would want to rip the steering wheel out from your hand and ram the car towards the right. As I tried to control the car and countersteer to the left, I would feel the nose wobble, and then rip to the right again.

FWD fail right?

I decided to do the brakes on my car since my EBC yellows were running slim on pad meat, and frankly I was tired of them. They had great grip when hot, really hot! However when cold the damn things didn't really stop all that great. Good track pad, miserable for the street. I decided to give EBC one more shot and got a set of Red's with centric rotors.

While swapping all the brake parts, I noticed that my rear passenger side had the rotor sitting funny. I had the rotor bolted down to the hub and spun it, you can clearly see the rotor wobbling. Warped rotor? I grabbed the old one and bolted it down, spun it and did the same thing. I put both rotors on top of each other, and if they were both warped, you would see obvious gaps. Not in this case. So I grabbed the old rotor from the driver side, third rotor for those keeping count, and same thing. For sure its the hub/bearing assembly. If you spun the hub by itself, you would not see it. The hub is not long enough to notice any bending, but if you put a rotor on it to extend the length, the warping becomes more obvious. Especially if you bolt the caliper bracket back on, because you can see the rotor wobble between the bracket ends.

Why was my hub bent? I rarely see pot holes, and always avoid them. For those that read my long ass 1st post, I mentioned an accident back in 2013 that Mazda never really fixed properly. I originally thought that the body shop and Mazda just bolted the rear suspension back together without loading the suspension. Well despite all the suspension parts they replaced, they never checked the rear hub.

But Penguin, if you had EBC Yellow's on your car, how come you never noticed the bent hub either?

With age I've learned to take my time and check "unnecessary" things every time I work on the car. With that said I have decided to check hub's for warping when doing brakes, I didn't do it last time but now its a routine and ultimately it paid off. Maybe the bend wasn't as bad when I installed the Yellow pads? I can only assume that when I torqued the wheel down, it must have leveled off the rotor enough. I never had uneven pad or tire wear. The only other thing that could have given it away, is that the rear toe was always slightly offset on that side. Anyway I looked up Mazda parts and local auto stores, and luckily one local auto store had a replacement hub in stock. A quick round trip, and the job was done.

After bedding in the pads, I went WOT once and the "torque steer" was almost gone. The car now hauls ass straight, and that heavy pulling to the right was gone. Despite all the times I went back to Mazda after the accident, they never checked the bearing/hub. All the suspension work I did just kind of hid the issue because it helped stabilize the car.

So Penguin, if the damaged hub from a 6 year old accident was the cause of your "torque steer," why do you call this Part 1? Stay tuned...

 

[Raider]

Go onnnn

 

[Mauro_Penguin]

Monster Torque Steer: Part Deux!

So after I replaced the damaged hub and got the car tracking straight again, I wanted to retune the suspension on the car. Mainly reviewing the damper settings on the KW's and finding optimal tire pressure. (For anyone wondering about this, its something you really only do when major changes are done to the car. This is not something you should have to do frequently.) Last time I did this was when I swapped all 4 KW springs to higher rate Hypercoils 2 years ago.

So I ventured out on some safe street runs and took 3 point tire temps (outside shoulders and center), but for whatever reason I could not get even tire temps. After confirming a second time over that all tire pressures and damper compression settings were all even, I still had no explanation for the wonky ass tire temps I was getting. I ended that day setting the front tires at 39psi and the rears at 32psi and the temps still weren't right. This was obviously concerning to me. The steering wheel was still light and whippy, but this is due to the torque steer from the BNR.... right?.....

So I started thinking logically and collectively over all the data I had and issues prevalent.
-Light Steering wheel
-Snappy tramlining like steering on the highway
-Significantly higher front tire pressures than the rear

Then while looking at the comically overinflated front tires, it hit me like a bag of bricks. Lift! I was getting Lift!

Penguin, what do you mean? Like weak arms "Do you even lift, bruh?" No, I have arms like fuckin Popeye.

I mean failed aerodynamics type of lift. As in, the opposite of downforce.

Lets review...In stock form we have air coming in through the radiator/AC condenser, and also from the TMIC/hood scoop. This air that flows through these specific heat sinks has to escape through the bottom of the car via the belly pan opening just before the front subframe. To promote the evacuation of this post-heatsink air, the belly pan has slots to help promote a type of linear flow and help vacuum out the air. This is not specific to our platform, every car has some form of evacuation of this air. Some high performance cars like the newer mustangs, chevy SS, C7, and the Evo 9/10 have some functional hood vents to help evacuate the air. However if not accounted for properly, this can pose a problem for daily street use in the event of heavy rain or snow. So the easiest route is to evacuate the air out of the bottom of the car.

So what happens when we do something like install a FMIC? Most folks on our platform will leave the hood scoop open, and most of the FMIC kits on the market involve some type of aftermarket crash bar. The open hood scoop is obviously letting a crap ton more air in, since you don't have the top mount there to resist some of the air flow. Also most of the aftermarket crash bars, are aluminum or steel bars that eliminate all of the factory baffling, and essentially make giant areas for the air to escape around the FMIC and into the engine bay. So what happens when all this extra air gets introduced into a system that was only meant to evacuate X amount of flow? All that additional air becomes pressurized as it tries to escape out of the same exit. This is called Lift. All this excess air is pressurizing the engine bay, and trying to escape from anywhere it can. This air pressure, this "Lift", will literally lift the front end of your car up as speed/air flow increases since no provisions are taken to promote evacuation of all this additional air. Lift is not something to be taken lightly, it can really fuck up the handling of your car and at high enough speeds can be deadly.

Another issue that many about when going FMIC, is you tend to run higher ECT's. This is not just because of the extra barrier that the intercooler core poses to the radiator, but also because 9 times out of 10 the intercooler is not sealed well and allows all the air flow to go around it. Again this pressurizes the engine bay, and ruins the flow of air through the radiator. A pressurized engine bay will not let air flow through your radiator, remember the basics of fluid dynamics and that air will always take the path of least resistance.

Ok Penguin, your overthinking this stuff and doing the wall of text again.

I'm glad you think this, in order to confirm my suspicion I picked up a couple of Magnehelic gauges on amazon. These things are fairly inexpensive, easy to use, and can be used for several purposes. In my case I ran some hard nylon line I had into the engine bay. I measured pressure inside the fender, and between the brake master cylinder/turbo. This is an area above the "evacuation zone" of the belly pan and should therefore register the least amount of pressure, if there is any at all. I went for a drive around my neighborhood and then the highway.

The gauges read in in/H20.


This is what I recorded...

Ambient Pressure= .15 in/H20

Engine Bay
40mph= .40-.50 in/H20
60mph= .75-.85 in/H20
80mph= 1.00-1.25 in/H20

Fender
40mph= .35-.40 in/H20
60mph= .50-.60 in/H20
80mph= 1.00 in/H20

Anything below 40 mph was too low to record over ambient pressure, and anything over 80mph made the gauge needle bounce so irratically that it was difficult to even decipher a reading. It should be noted that the rate of which air pressure rises is not linear with speed at all, so it increases dramatically as speed goes up.

So now its confirmed, I am getting some crazy ass air pressure building up in my engine bay. This can explain a lot of issues. Such as soft steering at highway speeds, twitchy almost oversteer like tramlining effect, and excessive nose diving when braking from higher speeds. My coolant system is ok now because I have a bigger KoyoRad Radiator, and an SP63 fan controller, but obviously I am leaving cards on the table with this engine bay pressure issue.

So Penguin, are you going to block up the hood scoop and front mount better? No. After weighing my options I have decided to go back to a TMIC. Why? Frankly I am sick of the FMIC life. Every year I find a new pin hole leak in the tr10 core, I've had to butcher up my front bumper to make it fit, eventhough I kept the OEM side baffles there is a giant gap where the crashbar is nowhere near the bumper. I've been meaning to seal up the crash bar to the bumper, but its such a huge gap that I haven't figured out a good enough way to tightly seal and stabilize the bumper to the crash bar. Its just too big of a project. Finally, eventhough I spent a decent amount of funds ditching the shitty treadstone piping and switching to the HTP kit, I cant get more than 500 miles without developing a boost leak. I've replaced all the t-bolt clamps, all the couplers, measured everything for optimal fitment, tightened the clamps (in true OCD fashion) just enough to seal while pressurizing the couplers, and even made support brackets for all the piping. Yet I cant get more than 500 miles without developing boost leaks. It is not a fault of the HTP kit at all. I think it is just a mix of the engine bay pressure vibrating the piping enough to loosen it, and also the tight fit of the whole kit with the few spots it manages to rub on despite my best efforts to prevent it.

In conclusion, it is likely that the suspected torque steer that remains is actually Lift. It would explain the light and twitchy steering, which can kind of be confused with torque steer. So next up I am going to clock the BNR, install a TMIC, and put back the OEM crash bar. At which point I will measure the engine bay pressure again so I can have a good before and after, and to confirm 100% that this is the issue the car is suffering from.

Stay tuned...

 

[Easter Bunny]

This drives me nuts whenever i see a fmic installed. Everyone thinks it's better at cooling but it only works if you seal the air paths

 

[Mauro_Penguin]

Yup. I bought the tr10 kit 5 years ago because I thought I was going to want to push more power. I knew it needed to be sealed to force air through it, I just didnt realize how bad it was going to be leaving the hood scoop open. First mistake...

Also the OEM crashbar does more than just hold the bumper and absorb low speed collision, it seals up the front air feed. Something I neglected to realize, that was my Second mistake.

I can shove my whole arm in the front area between the bar and the bumper. I have plastic particle board and a 1 1/4" sheet of stiff styrofoam that I was going to use to seal it. However the one time I tried to mock up a first draft, it was so goddamn difficult and time consuming that I gave up and kept putting it off. I had the bumper mounted and the lower radiator cover removed, but any measurements that you try to take can cause the bumper to flex which leaves a gargantuan margin of error unless you literally have sticks for arms.

The Gen 1 and MS6 guys have it easier in that they can just buy one of those Air Dam sheets to replace the TMIC feed ducts. So long as they leave the stock crashbar on, all they need to do is seal the sides.

Here are some pics of my front end, about a year old but its the latest shot I have of my whole front end. This is from the day Neal came over and helped me with the BNR install.

Here is the front end


Here is what I did to seal the front. OEM side baffles by the end thanks, foam along the whole radiator rim, and some plastic sheeting covering some duct holes.


Here is where I neglected to seal the front, and where air is coming through along the sides of the fenders. This is just what's in the pic, where people commonly install catch cans is another huge vent for the "stray air" to force it's way into the engine bay. Also, I left a hole to feed air through the OEM duct onto the intake. This is completely unnecessary and will be sealed as well.

 

[Easter Bunny]

The one you are forgetting is that you aren't actually forcing any air through the intercooler. It's all going right by the intercooler to the radiator

 

[gotovato]

Hmm. It looks like my major project for next season will be to duct my front end to force max air through my fmic and radiator. This is definitely something that’s over looked as on 99% of people’s cars, they don’t see any issue and typically you won’t on the street. Being that I track my car often I see some real temps lol. Hoping to bring BAT’s down significantly for next season. Losing a lot of power due to high BAT’s. Also need to experiment with blocking off my hood scoop.

have definitely felt the effects of lift on track. That’s interesting you noticed this too. Good thing I still have my oem crash bar installed.

Hoping between ducting/sealing the front end, and sealing the hood scoop I see noticeable results.

 

[Mauro_Penguin]

The one you are forgetting is that you aren't actually forcing any air through the intercooler. It's all going right by the intercooler to the radiator

I thought that was already understood, but I guess I never actually stated it. So yes, you are correct. It's just acting as an obstacle and little if any air is going through it.

@gotovato
Yes, this is the type of stuff that I was mentioning in your track thread. If you have your stock crash bar on, that's a big win. You just need to seal everything up. Before you do anything permanent to your hood scoop, remember to account for venting of heat from the turbo and manifold in low speed. There is a reason Mazda didnt tightly seal up the TMIC duct. There is a reason that the Mad Max Gen1 guy almost had a fire start in his car despite his extensive Aero work.

Like I said a few posts ago, my current goal is to smooth out the car. It has sufficient power, it has corner capability, but I realize now that I fucked up a lot of work that Mazda did so in some aspects it drives like shit.

I've also begun to take note at where Mazda fell short of engineering on the speed, but I think that has more to do with limited funds on the speed version and sharing the same platform as the economy Mazda3. It has to do with Aero, but that's a topic for later after I fix my lift issue.

 

[gotovato]

I am going to do the best I can to duct the front, then test. Taping off the hood scoop like you suggested is an easy way to test at the track and see the benefits.

The dive my car experiences when braking from speed is unbelievable. You want to shit yourself? Yea control the rear end when braking DEEP in the braking zone lol. It can be fun, but it’s sketchy and it’s less then ideal. This said, my coil overs are far from great and they are way too soft to be “track” coils.

the squat under throttle is terrible also. That should also be addressed with better suspension and a higher spring rate.

 

[Mauro_Penguin]

Cupcake sized update, lots of pictures....

Happy New Year to the 3 people that read this thread.

The holidays obviously kept me busy and I have had some family issues to deal with, but I did manage to squeeze in some wrench time on a couple of days.

FMIC is gone, TMIC is back in. Reclocking the BNR was a good afternoon of cut up fingers and cursing. I didn't have time to remove the FMIC core that day, so I drove like a fruitcake with it still on for a week. 2 intercooler cores make twice the rice cakes. I reinstalled the factory crash bar and all the bumper parts that I originally removed in order to make the tr10 fit. Well, in order to make it fit I also had to cut a lot of material off of some panels too. So I had to go to the dealer to order some parts. Tasca was much cheaper in parts, but stupid expensive at shipping the big stuff. So I hit up Raider's dealership and ordered some parts. All in all it came out almost the same because of their mark up, but everyone has to make a living so its all good.

So far the car feels so much more stable, oh my God! The nose dive is significantly reduced, and highway stability is great once again. The stupid part is I haven't installed the replacement panels yet, so even with all the leaks that are present, it is still better than the FMIC with all the lift. I am waiting to finish installing everything before I take measurements with the magnehelic gauge again and compare with old datalogs, but already I can tell that the project will be a success. Funny thing I noticed also, my coolant fans don't come on as often as they used to on my drive to/from work. So even with the current leaks, coolant is a little more stable too. I will confirm all of this once everything is done.



Front Bumper area before the crash bar swap


Relocation of EBCS from firewall to brake booster line bracket

Better shot of the mount, lines had to be cut a bit shorter, win!


Mr BNR

Side shot of the turbo, with a glimpse of the t25 turbo blanket. Yes the wrap creeped down on some of my manifold, don't care. If ever I remove the manifold I will rewrap it out of the car and obviously do it better.


Used some RTV to seal the edges of the compressor cover


This hole boggles my mind, this leads to where the factory intake box was. I do not recall ever having anything there, and I even checked the factory filter box and I could not find anything to block it. So this whole blows air into the engine bay and makes shit worse from factory.

Cut up some corrugated plastic and sealed it.


Another hole from factory that boggles my mind, this is a hole that leads to the intake snorkel that holds the coolant reservoir lines. This is a fairly large hole, and yes it is from factory. Some gorilla duct tape and rubbing alcohol, fuck it, sealed!


Shot of the finished engine bay after the swap. Nothing special, just another TMIC MS3.


After shot of the crash bar swap.


This is what's left of my bumper after the OEM parts were swapped back in. Its hard to tell but I had to cut up the bottom mounts of the smiley along with the lower lip on the front of the bumper. I have to order a new lip and a new smiley grill.


This is a spot along the lower part of the smiley where air can creep off to the sides and flood the engine bay again. I am already making plans for some kind of brake ducting through here, it will kill 2 birds with 1 stone.


This is a funnel that feeds the factory air snorkel through a conduit system behind the Mazda logo. I have already blocked off the feed to the snorkel, so I will more than likely trim these funnels a bit to continue to direct the air to the radiator instead.


Side note, Fuck EBC. I had 2 situations over the last week where the car was warm and I needed to hit the brakes hard in street traffic and these shits do not grab worth a damn. Currently running new EBC Reds, which was a change from the previous EBC Yellows. I ordered some G-Loc R6 pads from Damond, should have those in a few weeks and will swap them out. I'll probably keep the EBC pads and shave off the pad material, so I can keep the backing as pad shims.

That's all for now.

 

[macdiesel]

Welcome back to the top mount life. I never went fmic and don’t plan to. Seems like every meet I go to someone has a problem with a coupler coming off or an overheating issue or an engine lets go. So fmic was never on my radar.

So is the plan to replace all lost radiator panels, keep tmic and call it a day? I had to replace a few radiator bits when I installed a Damond oil cooler. I feel you’re pain. They’re quite a few little pieces that make sure air flows thru the radiator.

And yes. EBC suck. I chucked mine when they started to crumble

 

[Mauro_Penguin]

Everyone that I ever met that had a front mount has had cooling or fitment issues, and then they all traded their cars or parted out instead of admitting that a FMIC was a bad decision. The plan right now is to keep the HTP piping in case I want to revisit the FMIC idea but if I do, it will somehow be WITH the stock crashbar.

I already picked up the panels that need replacing, once I have them installed I am going to further seal everything in the front end.

The end goal is to get the car smooth again. Admittedly I am tired of the MZR engine, but I love how useful the hatchback is. So now instead of trading in and jumping into car payments again, I am going to refine the way my gen2 drives even if it means spending a couple of more bucks.

The EBC reds had a slightly better bite than the yellows at a cold temperature, but they have a worse bite than the yellows when warm. Neither had a hard stop bite. The amount of pedal travel needed to stop on a dime is stupid, so I'm looking for harder initial bite. Hopefully the R6 are better.

 

[Awafrican]

Interesting about the ebc pads, I love mine, yellows not so great when cold but I find them better than OEM and not too much peddle travel to stop. I always did a fresh brake flush / bleed when I put them on so maybe that's part of it.

Cool to see you back on TMIC, part of me always wanted to upgrade to FMIC. as I really only DD my car, I really just want to to be reliable and a nice ride. Nice to see mac Mac and yourself confirming my selection for when I finally upgrade the stock pos.

 

[Easter Bunny]

what is it that you are tired of on the motor? i have the pretty much opposite opinion, my car is loud, squeaky and generally uncomfortable but when i have a chance to get into the throttle just a little bit any desire to get rid of the car goes away completely.

Plus i am cheap and the car is paid off.

 

[macdiesel]

The end goal is to get the car smooth again. Admittedly I am tired of the MZR engine, but I love how useful the hatchback is. So now instead of trading in and jumping into car payments again, I am going to refine the way my gen2 drives even if it means spending a couple of more bucks.

I hear ya. I try to learn from other people’s mistakes. And I’m in the same boat, granted I don’t have the upgrades you have I do not miss car payments.

Cool to see you back on TMIC, part of me always wanted to upgrade to FMIC. as I really only DD my car, I really just want to to be reliable and a nice ride. Nice to see mac Mac and yourself confirming my selection for when I finally upgrade the stock pos.

I’m content with my ETS. Also, when I bought my genpu I was living in Chicago and street parking a fair amount. Seen enough people bouncing hard of bumpers to fit a car in a spot. And my last car was sandwiched in a fender bender. That’s started me down with exploring fmic alternatives. Then it was solidified when I went to a few meets and hearing about issues.