Big Enchilada Arrives: Install Log: Episode 1 July 6
I made the trip to Ogs this morning to pick up the four boxes of goodness containing Flyin’ Miata’s Big Enchilada and the Energy Suspension differential bushing kit for Ginger. Now that the gear is in my hands, I’ll be maintaining an installation log here to document progress, problems, etc. I’ll try to remember to take pictures, but can’t promise anything — once I get into the groove and I’m covered in crap, reaching for the camera ceases to be something that occurs to me.
On getting the stuff home, the first challenge was where the hell to put it! FM packed everything really well, and in the case of the exhaust system (downpipe, midpipe, muffler, and tailpipe), that meant huge boxes full of expanding foam stuff. Once I got the big stuff out of the boxes, I dropped them in the living room (sorry Ped!) and set about getting the car onto jack stands. That went well enough, but the subsequent removal of the stock exhaust wasn’t as smooth as I had hoped. Two of the studs on the turbo’s outlet casting came out with the nuts, and they looked pretty rough. mikethemachinist on mazda-speed.com suggested I just replace the stud/nut combination with equivalent bolts, which will make future work much simpler. I’ll go shopping for the bolts in the AM. Getting the bits behind the downpipe out was tedious — particularly the rubber exhaust hangers, which seemed to have welded themselves to the steel hangers on the parts.
With the exhaust out, something that required removing all of the car’s under-body bracing, there is considerably more room under the car right now, which has me reconsidering my original plan. That plan was a sound and rationale approach that would see me make one change, live with it a while to make sure everything is ok, and then move forward. Unfortunately, I now realize that my approach would mean installing the new exhaust and then removing and installing it again to install the Hydra ECU, and doing it all again to change the differential bushings. That’s pretty daunting, as the downpipe is a truly hateful removal job.
So, I’m considering doing everything in one sweep. While this would be much more efficient and much less painful, it would mean that trouble shooting would be much more complicated… scary. At any rate, I’ll try to find some bolts tomorrow and then decide how to proceed. Stay tuned!
Tags: big enchilada, bolts, bushings, car, Diff, differential, downpipe, ecu, energy suspension, Exhaust, exhaust hangers, exhaust system, Flyin' Miata, FM, Ginger, Hydra, install, Mazda, Mazdaspeed, Miata, mikethemachinist, muffler, ped, stock, stock exhaust, suspension, tailpipe