Phen's 2004 Mazdaspeed MX-5 GT Thread

[bazooka joe]

i vote continue trying to find the fix and i bet you fall in love with the car all over again haha

+1
phen, "no good morning", "no whats up", no "hows it going everyone"??????? sad day indeedy!

 

[THE Phen]

Meh, that's no good. Did you ever contact Flyin' Miata to see if they would have some ideas for your search for the problem?

Yep. Jeremy and I from FM have been exchanging emails for a few months now.

I had a thought last night, the Hydra receives vacuum directly right? is there a chance the unit that receives that vacuum is bad?

This did come to mind. I got a price for how much it would cost to upgrade the unit to the most current version. Gonna be around $700 total. If it works, I'm golden. If not... then that's more money tossed at the problem.

I like Pablo's idea about the 1M...but a 335 would be much more practical for it's larger size. My co-worker has a new 335...and I thought the MS3 had low-end torque!!! His 335 has s*** loads of torque from 1500/2000 RPMs. It's a fun as hell car, but it's no M3. The only problem with the new BMWs is that it's not cheap haha.

Maybe you should wait until Mazda announces the replacement for the RX8? Assuming you want to stay Mazda. Also, there's some really cool RWD coupes coming out in the next year or 2. There's the Toyota FT-86 and the Subaru BRZ.



Damn Josh!!!! That looks like you guys did a really good job.




Phen, have you thought about going back to stock with the MSM? I'm not sure how much you've done though, so that might not be easy.

I have. And I have all the parts to do it, or at least the majority of them. I would probably need to borrow someone's intake though. I'm afraid that some of the piping may have been altered.

You guys are right. I probably will fall in love with the car again IF I can get it running right. Perhaps I need some motivation. Right now, the car became the daily driver that I relied on and don't feel like doing anything more than necessity to it. Project / fun car / toy, etc have all been removed from my vocabulary because of this. Desire to work on things had been highly diminished thanks to a constant reminder that no matter what you've tried, none of it has worked... so what makes you think the next idea is the right one? Know what I mean?

 

[princess peach]

can't you just do a quick test with the stock ECU before spending the $700?

 

[THE Phen]

Yeah. That would involve changing the intake so that I have a MAF again, changing the injectors back to stock, and making sure that the stock ECU will communicate with the special WBO2 that the Hydra uses.


I just emailed Jeremy to see if there was any way to troubleshoot the Hydra. Hell, even sending it to them to test it out. If the ECU is ******, then I would pay for the upgrade... eventually.

 

[princess peach]

that would be easier, let me know if you need to borrow some parts again

 

[ajkulish]

take it to a shop

 

[bazooka joe]

no nepoc love

 

[THE Phen]

take it to a shop

That would be difficult since shops now a days only plug into the OBD2 port and diagnose that way. I have a standalone.

no nepoc love

Nothing but NEPOC love Mahk!

 

[ajkulish]

performance shop? i know of one in toledo that would take care of the problem

 

[THE Phen]

Wanna let me borrow the money for that?

 

[ajkulish]

Lol no, I'm just saying. Let someone else figure it out for you.

 

[THE Phen]

Still costs money. I've been working with Flyin' Miata for several months now. Sending datalogs, videos, etc. If anyone should be able to help me figure it out, it would be them.

 

[WillD]

Still costs money. I've been working with Flyin' Miata for several months now. Sending datalogs, videos, etc. If anyone should be able to help me figure it out, it would be them.

I've always like the Flyin' Miata people if they can't get you up and running, especially with all the stuff of theirs that you have on the car, I agree about a local shop not being able to do much.

Is Flyin' Miata willing to send you any parts to troubleshoot with? That could help alleviate a lot of the cost of trying to find the problem.

 

[magnumP5]

I'm still surprised it wasn't an ignition/knock issue. I know we looked at it a bit down in Atlanta and I even drove it myself. What causes breakup?

-Not enough fuel
-Ignition cutout
-Bad tune
-All three?

If I had the time I'd love to head up there one weekend and just spend like a day trouble-shooting stuff. Just sit down with a Hydra manual, a MX-5 FSM and a multimeter...

 

[THE Phen]

After reviewing the datalogs...

-knock threshold is low. 0-5V signal, and mine reads around 0.1V at most. Not enough to pull timing.
-getting plenty of fuel. maybe a little lean in places, but still around 12:1 AFR.
-Changed plugs, coils, and wires. No change. Multiple gap settings tried.
-Tried 4 different tunes, including a baseline sent from FM. Same deal.

Your thoughts matched mine. The ECU itself is standing out to me because it does it the same way every single time. Dyno showed that. Two pulls, damn near the same shape of the curve, even tho the first pull I told the guy to only run at half throttle.

 

[princess peach]

if Jon comes up, I'll come over and diagnose too. If you get the Civic fixed then you could send the Hydra to FM, or I can come over and help you set up the stock ECU.

Have you ever taken the Hydra off and looked inside?

 

[THE Phen]

Well, here's the plan.

I get the Civic fixed.
The Miata gets parked elsewhere
The ECU goes to FM
I wait to find out what they say
Then I make a decision on what to do from there. I'm not about to troubleshoot the whole car before I find out the ECU is ******.

 

[WillD]

Not to sidetrack but what is wrong with the Civic?

What would you be able to tell by looking inside the Hydra?

 

[princess peach]

I use to "fix" ECUs, sometimes a resistor goes out, or the board is corroded. Since the issues only show under boost, I think the unit that receives the vacuum line might be bad, so we would be able to check the connections for it

 

[WillD]

That makes sense.