The ButtStallion Build

Discussion in 'Mazdaspeed 3 Build Diaries' started by VashEXE, Oct 29, 2017.

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  1. Awafrican

    Awafrican Moderator Gold Member

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    those vydno numbers are great! love seeing a build with the TMIC, where did you get your hood struts?
     
  2. VashEXE

    VashEXE ButtStallion Tuned Greenie Member

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    I got the cheap TheSpeedLine kit for Genpu. They're alright. I'm not sure how much I trust them for the long term, but they hold up fine for now. One tidbit is, the fender flexes where the brackets bolt to for this kit whenever you open/close the hood. You can see it wobble around a little bit. Obviously don't just fling the hood open/slam it shut or anything and that's not a huge problem, but still a little sketchy.

    Can't beat that price though.
     
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  3. VashEXE

    VashEXE ButtStallion Tuned Greenie Member

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    So I decided to replace my coolant line that has been leaking for a little bit now. I got a banjo fitting to -6AN to mate up to the stainless steel lines I got from a guy on one of the Mazdaspeed groups.

    I pulled the old one off and it was just falling apart. Here are some pics:

    [​IMG]


    [​IMG]


    The DEI heat sleeve and tape underneath just disintegrated as I pulled it off. I can't really fault them though. The coolant line was probably a half inch away from one of my exhaust manifold runners, so it was just seeing direct heat from that constantly. I tried to work with what I had when I was getting everything back together and ended up having to redo it. Do things right the first time boys!

    I bought this in order to go downward with the coolant line rather than up and over the turbo. It turns out you are not able to clear the bottom coolant port on the EFRs with a straight banjo fitting... You need one with a slight angle on it. So that didn't work. I found that out at 1:30 after messing with the car for an hour or so. My local race shop closed at 2... I rushed over and bought some 14mm x 1.5 to -6AN fittings and got everything figured out. The end result was 14mm x 1.5 to -6AN to a 90* -6AN fitting to a -6AN male to male adapter off of the turbo down to my ss line. The nightmare began here.

    The turbo is pretty close to the block and one of the exhaust manifold studs is right up near where the banjo bolt goes in and the axle/oil drain are really in your way. I had the biggest pain in the ass of a time trying to get a wrench on each of those goddamn -6AN pieces to get them tightened up. I had to do them one by one on the turbo because there is not enough room to just twist the whole unit onto the turbo while on the car. After getting it all together and getting douched in coolant I go up into the engine bay again to fill up the coolant that I had lost. As soon as I took off the cap I hear a stream of coolant pouring down... I didn't tighten one of the fittings enough... So all of it came back off and I was able to get everything tightened up as best I could. The angle you're working at is so awkward, so I couldn't really tell how great I got it all on there. I went for a test drive and no leakage though, so I called it good.

    We went out to dinner and I checked under the car every time we stopped. Everything seemed to be holding up.
    I decided to ring it's neck a little bit to see if anything was gonna rattle loose or have problems when the car was under load. After that I started seeing some small drippage. I went to Harbor Freight to get a wrench for my angle grinder to swap the disks (unrelated, but ended up finding a ton of wrenches and stuff that I thought would be perfect if I had to tear all of this coolant line stuff apart again, so I ended up leaving with some offset box wrenches (perfect for the turbo coolant fitting), a small adjustable wrech since it was hard maneuvering my medium sized one, and a creeper, which I've been putting off buying for a while.

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]


    I get under the car after cooling off the garage and the first thing I see is this:


    [​IMG]

    I check and it's actually oil though. I don't really see a ton of coolant or anything. I just assumed the puddles were coolant because I was messing with all of that. It turns out I didn't tighten up my oil drain off of the turbo after I was messing around on Saturday... Tightened it all up and wiped up the puddle of oil under the car. Checked the oil levels and I was perfect still. Just over half on the dipstick. It's lucky I didn't decide to go out and do pulls last night, because I could've definitely had some bad times with that.

    After getting that tightened up I looked at the coolant lines just to see how it was holding up.

    [​IMG]

    It was leaking a little bit from the fitting on the turbo itself. I was able to get my smaller adjustable wrench up on that and gave it a good quarter turn. I'm hoping that fixes that. I didn't notice coolant levels going down really, so I think it was a very small leak from that fitting. I'm going to go out and give it some hell today to see if I get any more drips, but I think we're finally good on this.

    I have a dyno day that I set up for the guys here in Phoenix on the 24th, so I don't want to be dumping fluids anywhere.

    My garage MVP is finally back and VERY necessary again. This is the first time I've had to fire it up in a while, so I was a little worried it wasn't going to work out.

    [​IMG]


    All in all the car is running real well. I'm considering getting an exhaust cutout right off of my downpipe since the FullRace downpipe is actually only like 2.85" and not 3" as advertised... I'm going to go with a boost controlled cutout and have it open up after like 10psi or something and dump right to the ground. I'm wondering if some of my dropoff at the top end could be due to how restrictive this DP is and how much air I'm flowing. I'll update on that as soon as I figure out how I want to do it.


    [​IMG]
     
    Last edited: Jun 8, 2023
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  4. VashEXE

    VashEXE ButtStallion Tuned Greenie Member

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    A while back some chump at discount tire messed up one of my center caps. I didn't find out until I pulled the wheels off on my own. They taped it all up to get it to fit, but it was barely in there. Luckily I had one extra, but it was not the right color since TSW changed their center caps to blanks that you just stick a metal sticker over. I bought a couple of different center cap stickers to go over the existing center caps and I'm not sure how I feel about them yet. The matte gunmetal wheels are kind of a pain in the ass to find something to match, so this is what I'm going to stick with for now. For like $8 you can't really beat it. TSW wants $49.99 a center cap or something, so that ain't happening.

    Don't mind the dirty ass wheels. These matte things are hard to keep clean.

    [​IMG]


    [​IMG]
     
    Last edited: Jun 8, 2023
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  5. SharksInSpace

    SharksInSpace Planets and shit. Silver Member

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    I like 'em
     
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  6. Awafrican

    Awafrican Moderator Gold Member

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    Yup they're nice
     
    Awafrican, via a mobile device, May 14, 2019
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  7. mangosmoothie

    mangosmoothie Silver Member

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    I learn so much following this build.
     
    mangosmoothie, via a mobile device, May 14, 2019
  8. VashEXE

    VashEXE ButtStallion Tuned Greenie Member

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    I cannot be held responsible for anything that you've learned from this thread.
     
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  9. VashEXE

    VashEXE ButtStallion Tuned Greenie Member

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    I got my second oil analysis back from Blackstone today. Things are looking great so far. 2000 more miles on the oil and even better levels than the last analysis with 3000 on it. They say I can run this for 7000, but I'm not sure if I want to push my luck. Things are going pretty good though!


    [​IMG]
     
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  10. VashEXE

    VashEXE ButtStallion Tuned Greenie Member

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    Got a present in the mail today:

    [​IMG]

    Boost controlled 3" exhaust cutout. It opens up around 6psi which is child's play, so I'm probably going to have to run a manual boost controller in line to it, but the goal is to dump right after the primary o2 sensor straight down to the ground. I'm trying to eliminate as much of the Full Race downpipe as possible because it isn't a true 3" piece. I'm interested to see if/how this effects my flow up top.

    The boost controlled ones are nice because you obviously don't have to touch anything to open it up, but also the electronically controlled ones I've heard have had some issues. The little electric motors on them can be a little flakey, whereas this boost controlled one basically just has a wastegate actuator that opens/closes it with a spring.

    Will report back after I get it installed this weekend.
     
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  11. anthony

    anthony Greenie Member

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    Nice! I've been looking at this recently I'll wait for your review and some mileage to decide.

    Only concern I have is if it doesn't seal that well closed and lets fumes get crazy since it'll be directly under the cabin.
     
  12. VashEXE

    VashEXE ButtStallion Tuned Greenie Member

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    Yep, this definitely will not be an air tight seal, but it seems like it is very close to a perfect fit. You can see in the image how close it is. I don't have any concerns with it closing properly, but if the cutout is closed and there is a path with less resistance (regular exhaust path) I doubt I'll have much leakage there. I'll follow up for sure.
     
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  13. Awafrican

    Awafrican Moderator Gold Member

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    Sadly I'll admit I didn't realize those boost controlled cutouts were a thing, sounds like a great idea, at the very least cutting out any muffler or bends will improve flow, makes me want one.
     
    Awafrican, via a mobile device, May 17, 2019
  14. JohnnyTightlips

    JohnnyTightlips Motorhead Silver Member

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    I 100% support this.
     
  15. Enki

    Enki Motorhead Platinum Member

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    Should post this report to the Oil thread.
     
  16. VashEXE

    VashEXE ButtStallion Tuned Greenie Member

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    So it's getting a little warmer now. Logs are starting to stabilize a bit. Got the cutout installed and it's fucking comedy. It's actually easier to stay out of it than I thought it would be, so I'm not going to bother with a manual boost controller. When I get on it it's brutally loud. It hasn't really made a difference in drop off up top, so it's looking like turbo is just out of steam, which was expected. If/when I get something bigger I'm going to have a lot more room for growth with this dump.

    Here's where things are settled at now:

    [​IMG]

    Looks like logs before probably had a little spin that I wasn't feeling. The curves are looking a lot better now aside from some drop off up top. Only so much you can do and the turbo is making exactly what it's rated for. Making over 400wtq for the whole curve is great and the car pulls super hard.

    I'll have to get a video of the cutout sometime. I didn't get a chance to take a lot of pictures, but my buddy did a real nice job with the welds. There is no difference in idle/normal driving sounds which is great. I don't notice any fumes in the cabin or anything dumb like that, so I'll consider this a success.

    Dyno day this Friday, we'll see what I put down for realsies soon :)
     
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  17. anthony

    anthony Greenie Member

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    I'll be getting one soon too then. Did you notice any quicker spool?

    A picture of the set up too pls since in the pic you didn't have a Y pipe curious where and how it's fabbed in
     
  18. Enki

    Enki Motorhead Platinum Member

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    It won't open till he's already making boost, so no faster spool for him (plus it's an EFR turbo anyways).
     
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  19. VashEXE

    VashEXE ButtStallion Tuned Greenie Member

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    I'll definitely get some pics when I get under the car again. I need to make sure nothing is melting.

    The car feels great. Got my fastest ever 60-100 time when I went out and did a log with this thing, but there was no difference in dropoff or spool that I really noticed. My turbo is out of steam and the EFR spools up so fast anyways. This would probably be a much better mod for somebody with a fatter turbo.
     
  20. Enki

    Enki Motorhead Platinum Member

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    It would also need to open *before* spool to be of use in *increasing* spool. The goal is to reduce the backpressure and increase the pressure ratio across the hot wheel to put more energy into the turbo.
     
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