Bosswagon Ver 7.0 beta1

[rodslinger]

Eveything except the front tires and my fuel economy are holding up well. I'm getting about 16 to 18mpg in city driving. But this is almost 100% stop and go driving, hills, cold weather and happy feet. Honestly not much worse than my pre-turbo city mileage. I would see 18 to 22 back then and that was in summer weather. I expect the mileage to come up as the weather warms and we get rid of the winter blend fuel.

It is a hoot to drive. I expect the front brakes to suffer the most damage as I find myself coming into corners and approaching stoplights way faster than I did before. It is a bit of a sleeper since I still have the stock exhaust and you don't even hear the turbo spool until you lean into the gas and get into boost. It's funny watching the typical younger import tuner car owner raise a WTF look on their face when you pull away from them on the interstate merge. Double points when the kids are strapped into their seats.

What kind of pictures does everyone want to see? I'm in Miami now and the van as it the airport. It will be Friday when I get around to it.

 

[foxhound1979]

It's funny watching the typical younger import tuner car owner raise a WTF look on their face when you pull away from them on the interstate merge. Double points when the kids are strapped into their seats.

i'd love to see that hahaha
must be hilarious passing rice boxes in that 5 !

 

[Silentnoise713]

What kind of pictures does everyone want to see? I'm in Miami now and the van as it the airport. It will be Friday when I get around to it.

Pics of the manifold, turbo, downpipe, how/where all tubing is routed, and generally where and how things are mounted/placed relative to the engine with this kit.

 

[rodslinger]

Few more pics

Well here are a few more pics.

View from underside up into exhaust area. The charge tube runs off the turbo, down the rear of the engine block and forward underneath the oil pan toward the intercooler. It connects on the passenger side behind the bumper cover. The oil return line taps directly into the oil drain plug. You can also see the recirc valve in near the top left of the pic. It vents back into the intake pipe just before the turbo inlet.

Just a little better view of the bottom side of the manifold and downpipe. Looking at the bottom of the turbo again. Oil feed line is on the top of the turbo and not visible. The turbo coolant lines run off to the left of the image (black hoses with orange heat wrap).

This is a top view of the downpipe. Looking into the rear of the engine compartment from the passenger side. The top sensor is the factory air fuel sensor. The one just below it is the AEM wideband sensor. A/C lines wrapped with heat shield.

This is looking down in the area the stock airbox would normally go. All stock intake plumbing is done. The smaller tube closer to the bottom of the image comes from the outlet of the intercooler. The larger 3" line is the inlet tube. It extends down into the area in front of the LF wheel behind the bumper cover. That is where the air filter is located. The MAF is in this line. It goes rearward between the ECU housing and the engine block and turns down to the turbo inlet. The blue vacuum line and the wiring harness beside it go to the AEM F/IC which is mounted in the battery box.

This is the same 3" intake tube where it makes the downturn to the turbo. The turbo inlet is well hidden unless you take it all apart. You can see the 3" silicone elbow that connects the intake tube to the turbo. The recirculate valve vents to a port on the backside of this tube that isn't visible in this shot.

Air filter location. This is in the cavity in front of of the left front wheel behind the bumper cover.

 

[coolmazda5]

Awesome thread

 

[daan]

Very cool! You make this look so easy... I'd love to do this mod to my 5 but I thought having an auto would make a turbo a no-no, how is your trans holding up? When I lived in the city with my 5 (100% stop-and-go, 4 mile a day commute) the trans fluid would get burnt (turn brown) within a year. And that's driving like an old man with my kids in the car. Now that I have a crazy commute (and the car's paid off) I'd like to change it the car up like I had done to the Miata I had before this. How many miles did your 5 have before you put the boost to it? I put a turbo on my Miata after it turned 100K and it didn't seem to affect it at all. I'm wondering how my 120K 5 would handle boost.

 

[rodslinger]

, how is your trans holding up? .

It is doing fine. Feels normal. I didn't like the way the shifting felt at first and made some adjustments. Boost was coming in pretty early. I could see 4 to 6psi at 2800rpms under very light throttle loads. While it pulled nice the transmission didn't know how to shift. The motor was putting out a lot of torque with very little throttle input. The trans would short shift and would sometimes get a lot of flare on upshifts.

I've since backed off the tension on the wastegate forcing the boost to come in later. It really helped driveability. Now it will not start builting boost until probably 3500 and then it may only be 2psi. It ramps up from there and I see around 8psi from 4500 on up. Basically at wide open throttle above 4500rpms I see full boost. At lower throttle loads the vehicle (and transmission) behave like a bone stock 5. Doing it this way the trans is shifting normally under load and the trans computer is seeing higher throttle input to call for firmer shifts when in boost.

The boost build is very linear and predictable. I like it much better this way. Very easy to drive smooth, no hiccups or surging from boost coming in too quickly.

 

[Orangutan]

The AT fluid looks and smells okay? What's the actual difference in acceleration now? Stock is in the 9+ second range to 60.

 

[rodslinger]

The AT fluid looks and smells okay? What's the actual difference in acceleration now? Stock is in the 9+ second range to 60.

I'm not noticing any premature discoloration or burnt odors from the fluid. I'm not using an external trans cooler either. Realistically the vehicle is driven normally 99% of the time so additional fluid wear should be negligible. I also do a drain and fill about every 12-15k miles anyway on the trans.

I've not taken any times on acceleration but it is definately quicker than the 2006 Nissan Sentra Spec-V I sold last year. That car was stock. My wife has a 2013 Chevy Sonic sedan with the 1.4 turbo and automatic. I've put a tune on that car also. There are about 20 samples of the 1.4 turbo Sonic's running 1/4 mile tracks with the same tune and they are anywhere from the high 14's to the low 15's depending on various factors. I can pull out two or three car lenghts on her Sonic by the end of a freeway merge ramp pretty easily. I would guess it is in the 6.0 to 7.0 second range to 60 with 1/4 mile in the 14.5 to 15.5 area.

 

[d-machine]

awesome, once i pay of the 5 i am soo going this route... i always had a feeling one of those good mazda3 kits would be damn near indentical fit for the 5

 

[hibern8r]

awesome, once i pay of the 5 i am soo going this route... i always had a feeling one of those good mazda3 kits would be damn near indentical fit for the 5

Me too! Very clean install Rodslinger!!

 

[foxhound1979]

any updates ?
still running smooth ?

 

[rodslinger]

6000 miles later.....

Still running smooth. All is fine. No leaks, noises, odors, check engine lights or other oddities that makes me raise an eyebrow and get some concern. I would sometimes get a P2096 code (downstream O2 sensor lean) when it was cold out but that has been gone for 1000 miles now since the weather warmed and the long term fuel trims are where they need to be. It seemed to take a few months to really get the fueling maps and the wastegate dialed in to where everything just worked like I thought it should and the transmission was happy with the arrangement. I was comfortable enough with it to let my 68 year old mother drive it last week when she was in town for a few days and she was none the wiser to the mods. The boost will build very smooth and in a predictable manner so there is very little need to modulate the gas pedal. Some cars drive like they either have full boost or none at all. Not a lot of middle ground.

The only issue I have now is a light rattle in the exhaust pipe. I installed a high flow catalytic converter and the hanger is tweaked a little. It doesn't rattle all the time so it hasn't bothered me enough to pull it out to fix. You have to be accelerating at just the right load for it to rub so I usually only hear it once a day. No biggie at this point. I may wait to fix it until I have to go to Miami again next time. There is a exhaust shop down there that does mandrel bending and fairly reputable (Miami Muffler). They've done some work for me before and I may just let them run a new cat-back and fix the converter hangar.

Early on I can recall spending most of my time watching the A/F gauge and driving with the scanner connected to watch fuel trims, O2 function and other items. It is at the point now where I just get in and go and it has been on a few long road trips with no issues and decent fuel economy. I'll be taking it next week from Atlanta to Charlotte, Charleston, Savannah, Jacksonville, Tallahassee and back to Atlanta.

 

[Rally Man]

You need to start making a few kits for the 5's Awesome job rodslinger.

 

[rodslinger]

You need to start making a few kits for the 5's Awesome job rodslinger.

That's the good part. The kit is already available. I just used a Mazda3 kit from Tri-Point engineering. There were two or three steps on the install that had to be changed slightly from the 3 and it wasn't anything that needed custom parts or special trips to the auto parts store. For you guys with a manual transmission it should be a direct bolt up. The only other difference is the tuning on the FI/C. Seems the MAF sensor tube ID on the 5 is a little different than the 3 so the MAF scaling is different. To get around that you can do two things. The first is to just adjust the MAF scaling via the FI/C before working on the fuel tables. The second is to do what I did. Just put an smaller diameter tube in the MAF sensor area to reduce the intake size to the same as the stock air box. MAF signal is perfect and no need to tweak it.

 

[Silentnoise713]

May I request some videos of some runs or revs?

 

[rodslinger]

May I request some videos of some runs or revs?

I'll get some revs but it'll sound like a stock Mazda5. Still running the factory catback exhaust at this time. I did get a highway test pull on this road trip. This was in South Carolina. Me, full tank of gas, 90F temps and 150lbs of luggage and test equipment in the boot.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UubGwyhfuqM&feature=youtu.be

If it isn't up it will be soon. I may mount the camera on the hood or fender so you can actually hear the thing spool and/or the bypass valve vent during shifts. The torque management on the auto drops the throttle and revs just enough to vent the bypass valve the way it would in a manual trans car.

On a very positive note I averaged 28.66 mpg on this trip. Very pleased. Really helps when you don't drive like a douche-bag.

 

[Secondtyme]

Do you still have your intake tuba in place or have you removed it? That looks satisfyingly faster than a stock 5 thats for sure!

 

[Bluesideup]

I like seeing someone has done this. My wife's '08 has 130k on it and may eventually become my vehicle. Regarding the install if you're in a state that requires a visual inspection every two years how many hours of work will it be to return the van to stock? I've done engine swaps and turbo installs in the past just curious about what it'll take when it comes time to switch it back.

 

[rodslinger]

I like seeing someone has done this. My wife's '08 has 130k on it and may eventually become my vehicle. Regarding the install if you're in a state that requires a visual inspection every two years how many hours of work will it be to return the van to stock? I've done engine swaps and turbo installs in the past just curious about what it'll take when it comes time to switch it back.

To answer your question on time I would imagine you could spend a day or two swapping everything back and forth. The hardest part would be removing the turbo and manifold and putting the stock system back in place. You'll be dealing with the oil and coolant lines, intake plumbing, etc...

HOWEVER..... I don't think that would be necessary. If you take the extra steps and just put a legal catalyst back in there as well as get the tune in check so that the ECU is happy you'll probably be OK.

Georgia does visual to verify catalyst and other emissions items are still in place as well as plug-in. I was able to pass without having to revert back to stock. I did install a 49-state legal high flow catalyst in the downpipe to replace the unit missing from the OEM manifold. The stock cat-back system is still in place so the secondary catalyst was still there also. I'm looking at cat-back options now but will re-install another high flow catalyst to replace anything I take out. I want to keep this thing legal and would also rather the ECU be able to do it's job normally without me having to trick anything. If you wanted to get really picky you can get some 50 state, CARB certified high flow catalyst and use them instead. My cousin has a 5-gas analyzer at his shop and he let me hook up one day. At idle, high idle and cruise load it would still be able to pass a sniff-test if I had to have it done in an area that required it.