infernosg's S5 N/A Build

[infernosg]

Originally Posted by WE3RX7

I honestly dont have a stock fender laying around but I'd say the front is wider than 20mm over stock... don't know on the rear (not using their rear fenders.... yet). The shine front fender has a 20 degree less cut on the arch, that may be where you got the 20mm vs the normal 30mm. They are modeled after the foresight fender which is 30mm. If you need me to take a fender off and make measurements... let me know.

That could be it. I've already placed the order with Shine so I'll have them in a few weeks to take the measurements myself. Either way it can't hurt to have a little more room. Depending how close everything is to the suspension I may want to space the wheel out a for more mm anyway.

For anyone's reference Tirerack says a lot of wheels won't fit our cars not because the wheels don't physically fit but because they don't carry the correct 59.6 mm hub rings. I find this strange because a quick internet search yielded literally hundreds of results for 73-59.6 mm rings. I got a new set from Discount Tire Direct coming in today. Not only will the fit but they're also metal unlike the cheap plastic ones from Tirerack.

[WE3RX7]

Yea.. The plastic ones I got from tirerack on the enkeis for the rx8 were plastic and have since destroyed themselves on track. I don't even run them now... The fc has metal ones though.. Also from discount tire lol...

Can't wait to see ur beast on the ground with those wide fenders

[infernosg]

Originally Posted by WE3RX7

Yea.. The plastic ones I got from tirerack on the enkeis for the rx8 were plastic and have since destroyed themselves on track. I don't even run them now... The fc has metal ones though.. Also from discount tire lol...

Can't wait to see ur beast on the ground with those wide fenders

I know a lot of people that don't run them or say they aren't necessary. It's justa peace-of-mind thing to me. The new ones came in (neon teal in color) and fit perfectly.

Small update today. Got the steering rack centered and installed this weeked:



I think I've have actually gained a little extra steering angle. I reattached the outer tie rods to my previous marks and the hubs were definitely pointing off to the driver's side. I re-centered the rack by measuring the total displacement and splitting the difference of one of the inner tie rods. Perhaps the piston on the rack also acted like a stop?

I test fit the rear wheels with the car on the ground. I'm going to need a little more camber and some small fender work:





Nothing a roller and some time won't fix.

After that I played around with the front splitter. This thing is going to take a lot of work to look halfway decent:







Basically it's 2-3 inches too wide at the front wheels and seems uneven from side-to-side. According to ISC-Racing this is the quality of a "race part" I should expect. Maybe it'll fit better with the bumper cover actually mounted and not held on with duct tape and once I notch the splitter for the stock fender bolts. That won't happen until I get the other fiberglass pieces in and get everything lined up.

[infernosg]

On a whim I looked up the 929 MC and brake booster upgrade. Found a set with 161k miles locally that I'll probably pick up for the hell of it. I never really intended to do this swap as I still have the stock brakes but if the parts check out, why not?

What got me thinking about this was I've increased the height of the accelerator pedal to match the range of motion of the new TB setup. This causes that pedal to be even higher than the brake pedal and I'm worried this'll make it excessively hard to heel-toe. Hopefully the decreased brake pedal range of motion with the 929 MC and booster the pedals will be better matched again.

[infernosg]

Originally Posted by infernosg

On a whim I looked up the 929 MC and brake booster upgrade. Found a set with 161k miles locally that I'll probably pick up for the hell of it. I never really intended to do this swap as I still have the stock brakes but if the parts check out, why not?

Turns out they had already scrapped the car. Found another 929 booster/MC somewhat locally and went to check it out this weekend. Looks to be in pretty good shape but the car was at the bottom of a "stack" of three cars. They're going to pull it for me over the week and I'm heading back up next weekend to pick them up.

While I was at the scrap yard I asked if they had any Miata transmissions lying around. I ended up coming home with this:



Miata transmission without tail housing:



Miata bell housing removed:



Side-by-side with my stock transmission. I wonder why the Miata transmission doesn't have the huge harmonic balancer on the output shaft.





This is about as far as I got as I'm unsure how to proceed. Everything I've read on the subject just says "swap the 'guts' and modify the input shaft." Not very descriptive. Do I need to swap the output shafts to keep the harmonic balancer? What about the gear housing? Is there an easier way to remove the input shaft than what's outlined in the FSM? Whatever the end may be I plan on cleaning up the housings and painting them and replacing all relevant seals.

Lastly, here's the driveshaft bearing in my tail housing:



Is the bearing usually this color or is the bearing toast? FWIW, the bearing on the Miata tail housing looks similar.

[N.RotaryTech]

Interesting build.

I like that wiring. Clean.

[FC Zach]

I wouldn't fret about the harmonic balancer being on the original transmission and not the Miata, I believe only S5 transmissions got those. The bearing looks fine to me.

[infernosg]

Originally Posted by N.RotaryTech

Interesting build.

I like that wiring. Clean.

Thanks! It's far from perfect and nowhere near as nice as some of the other builds going on right now but it should serve its purpose. I figure I'll probably redo everything in future so I'll spend the big bucks on fancy loom and connectors then.

Originally Posted by FC Zach

I wouldn't fret about the harmonic balancer being on the original transmission and not the Miata, I believe only S5 transmissions got those. The bearing looks fine to me.

There's a little more wear evident now that I've cleaned the tail housing some but I plan on just leaving it. I really don't want to mess with removing that and installing a new one.

I spent a good amount of time in the garage this weekend and got seemingly nothing done. I was finally able to remove the large lock-nut, which holds the harmonic balancer, with some large channel-lock pliers and a vice.



After that I removed the selector rods ends and pulled both intermediate housings.



That's as far as I can go now without the tools needed for further disassembly. I spent the rest of my time trying to clean 24 years worth of oil residue and road grime from the transmission housings.

I also picked up the 929 brake booster and master cylinder. I don't remember the booster being this rusty when I looked at it last week.



The inside of the booster and backside of the MC were both completely dry so I assume the leak is from the bottle. Does anyone know if the seals for the 929 bottle are the same as those for the RX-7? I took a wire brush on an angle grinder to the booster and forunately it's only surface rust.



It's pretty pitted but still structurally sound. I need to pick up another wire wheel to remove the paint from the backside then I plan on hitting the whole thing with several layers of hot temperature primer, paint, and clear. The MC cleaned up pretty decently with some solvent and a wire brush.

[infernosg]

Got the transmission disassembled as far as I care to go.

Started by removing the gear selector rods and clutch forks.



This was the best method of organization I could come up with - taping parts onto cardboard and scribbling the disassembly number from the FSM on the tape. In the end I have two of these cardboard pieces completely filled.



The modified puller from FC Fach to get those hard-to-reach bearings and clutches:



After that I basically forgot to take pictures because I started having difficulty. The mainshaft lock nut didn't cooperate for the longest time. I ended up completely disassembling the 5th/reverse clutch to remove it. The biggest PITA was the main countershaft bearing. The mainshaft popped right out of it's bearing but the countershaft didn't want to cooperate. For reference the FSM states to "tap the end of the countershaft lightly with a brass hammer." Yeah, that didn't work. I ended up having to pull the bearing out of the bearing support plate. Shortly after removing counter shaft bearing:



You can see the giant-ass socket FC Zach made for the mainshaft lock nut in the background. Quick shot of the countershaft, maintshaft, and bearing plate.



You can see the bearing still on the countershaft and the mainshaft bearing still in the support plate. Both have been removed since that picture was taken. All that work just to get to this:



The "input shaft" and second gear pinion. The input shaft needs to be cut down a bit to fit the RX-7. Once that's done I get to clean all the individual pieces and reassemble. Synchros all look good so no plans to replace them now. I spent the better part of Sunday cleaning 24 years of demon sludge (road grime + engine oil + transmission fluid) off/out of the transmission cases in preparation for paint.

[tweiss3]

Looks like a great weekend of work. You have more guts than I do, transmissions scare me.

[infernosg]

Originally Posted by tweiss3

Looks like a great weekend of work. You have more guts than I do, transmissions scare me.

Maybe other transmissions are different but the Mazda "Type M" really isn't all that bad. The hardest part is having the right tools and keeping track of everything. Speaking of keeping track of everything, here's the entire gear set exploded:




Something interesting to note; the Miata 2nd gear is double-synchro'd:



Another odd difference is the RX-7 reverse gear is straight cut whereas the Miata is helicall.

I've also got the housings mostly clean.



If the weather ever warms up I'll finish scrubbing these and slap on a few coats of paint.

The input shaft is with a machine shop to be modified (also modifying my RX-8 rear stationary gear). While I wait for that I'm debating swapping the RX-7 5th gear over to achieve a taller 5th for highway driving. Because of the Miata input and countershaft differences the ratio bumps up from .697:1 to something like .75x:1, which is still better than the .814:1 of the Miata. It's not like I'll ever go into 5th on the track anyway.

Shine body parts will arrive tomorrow as well. It's going to be a busy couple weeks

[RETed]

Originally Posted by infernosg

Something interesting to note; the Miata 2nd gear is double-synchro'd:

Is the ratios like the FC ratios?
If so, this makes sense...
If the ratios from 1st to 2nd are pretty wide, then the double syncho would make for a smoother shift between the two, especially at high revs.
FC's are known to scratch the 1st -> 2nd gear shift when getting close to redline.
Also, trying to downshift and rev match is a royal PITA from 2nd -> 1st, although most people don't need to, but some really low speed autocross course might...

Another odd difference is the RX-7 reverse gear is straight cut whereas the Miata is helicall.

This makes sense too...
FC's tend to scratch going into reverse gear...
A band-aid procedure is to shift into 1st (or 2nd) first and then into reverse on the FC.
This seems to help.

Kudos and documenting this and posting the info!


-Ted

[diabolical1]

Originally Posted by tweiss3

Looks like a great weekend of work. You have more guts than I do, transmissions scare me.

this ...

Originally Posted by RETed

Kudos and documenting this and posting the info!

... and this.

[infernosg]

Originally Posted by RETed

Is the ratios like the FC ratios?
If so, this makes sense...
If the ratios from 1st to 2nd are pretty wide, then the double syncho would make for a smoother shift between the two, especially at high revs.
FC's are known to scratch the 1st -> 2nd gear shift when getting close to redline.
Also, trying to downshift and rev match is a royal PITA from 2nd -> 1st, although most people don't need to, but some really low speed autocross course might...

Everything I've read about the Miata gear ratios has 1-3 being taller, but closer together than the RX-7 ratios. 2nd gear gets slammed quite a bit both up from 1st and down from 3rd so I can see why Mazda added the second synchronizer. I can see this being even more advantageous in an RX-7 application due to the higher engine speeds. It's a more complicated design, which means more points of failure so I'm curious how it'll hold up. It's a completely different transmission, but does anyone know if Mazda made this same change to the Type R transmission in the FD?

Originally Posted by RETed

This makes sense too...
FC's tend to scratch going into reverse gear...
A band-aid procedure is to shift into 1st (or 2nd) first and then into reverse on the FC.
This seems to help.

I recall having this issue. Fortunately I spend very little time in reverse. It was just something interesting to note. These transmissions are all fundamentally the same so it's interesting to see all the little internal revisions Mazda did throughout the years. My transmission came out of a '96 Miata so it's possible other years are different. I've heard the latest ('04?) Type M's are the best to get because they have the most amount of improvements.

Originally Posted by RETed

Kudos and documenting this and posting the info!


-Ted

I'm going to try to take more pictures during the reassembly process. My goal is to use them in reverse in a "how-to" thread. There are many other small differences between the transmissions (e.g. snap rings, bearings, etc.) and I'll try to reference them all there.

In other news the input shaft modification is supposedly done so I'm going to pick that up after work today. I gave them the dimensions from Mazdatrix's website but I'm still a little worried it won't turn out right. Just an annoying trust issue I have I guess...

[Gregory Casimir]

That is some damn good info in this build keep it up! I'm really looking forward as to how you will set-up the 929 MC as my friend has his installed in a 88 turbo. I haven't done this yet (91 turbo conversion) due to the brake like set-up.