That is beautiful! Good luck, can't wait to see what it does on the dyno, and more importantly, the track!!! Spec Miata racing eh? I'd love to do that someday, when time allows--I am jealous!
Wow, looks like the runners have really been cleaned up from the horrible job the factory produced. Nice...
Was this work mostly done by hand or repeatable C&C work like has been done with the previous R53 heads?
Good question, I am not exactly sure. My understanding was that he was going to create a C&C plan for it, but the work does look hand done. Honestly it took so long to get it done, I didn't really ask that many questions. I was just happy to have the work finished.
Honestly, I would just take up crack instead of SM racing.... It's less addictive and has to be cheaper! In all seriousness, the cars handle great (sorry much better than the Mini) and the racing is SUPER close. In qualifying the top 10 positions are usually covered by 1/2 to 3/4 of a second on a 2 minute lap. Basically, every tenth of a second gets you another grid position.
I've heard people say Spec Miata is about the best racing you can get involved in, and the best racing is in the middle of the pack, where most of the cars are. When life slows down, I'd love to get into that-- there is a place reasonably close by that builds, and sell used, Spec Miata's. As for the Endyn head--check with Keith or Endyn, but I'm pretty sure it's both CNC'd and finished off by hand--the best of both worlds.
I have bought a bunch of stuff from them for my Miata. Dave Wheeler, the guy that owns Advanced, is a good guy.
The majority of the machining is CNC. A jig made specifically for the R56 from huge solid billet holds the head precisely while the work is performed. The final blending is done by hand, with many flow quality/quantity tests during the process.
That would be them. They're about an hour and a half a way, near my favorite track, Blackhawk. Just out of curiosity, what MINI parts did you buy from them? I'm seriously thinking of using them to do my next alignment, although I finally found another shop closer by.
I replaced the oil line tonight, turns out if remove the downpipe, heat shielding and the turbo bracket you can slip it through. All in all it only took about an hour and a half to remove and replace it, not too bad. I thought it was going to take longer than that. I ran the car for a good 5 or 10 minutes and everything seemed good. It was still up on jack stands and the interior is pretty torn apart. Another couple of hours with that and I will take it out for a test drive. I am keeping my fingers crossed there are no major issues I havent discovered yet.
Nothing yet. I didn't have any codes, but I have yet to actually drive the car and hence haven't produced any boost yet. I suspect if there is anything it will not like it will be under those conditions.
Really great news that this project is going again. I sincerely disliked the lines of the r56, but yours made me appreciate them. The color, wheels, stance...and badassness... Cant wait to see it complete and being used like it is intended to be ! Was your head the first r56 Endyne did, and was that ultimately the reason for the huge delay ? Or is that length of wait time to be expected for all their products as well ?
It was the first R56 they have done. All in all there were numerous reasons for the delay, they are working on a large job for the USPS and it looked like quite a bit of work to build and flow test the porting job on the head. I would not imagine that they have this large a delay in all their projects.
Headwork has a three to five week turnaround, if it is for an application programs have been written. Engine build time is largely dependent on parts availability.
So far so good. I did have the oil line that goes to the oil cooler come off and dump about 3 quarts of oil on the driveway. Not cool!!!! That wasn't so much a problem as it was a huge mess, the car was running at the time and the fan was on, so of course it sucked oil through the fins in the radiator and sprayed it ALL over the engine bay. I secured it back with a pinch clamp so I shouldn't have any more issues with that. I have a couple of codes that keep trying to pop up, sometimes they are pending codes, sometimes they actually trigger a CEL. They are P0012, cam timing retarded, and P000A, intake cam slow to respond. I replaced the intake solenoid but that didn't net any change. I also removed the timing chain tensioner and inspected it, it seemed fine as well. I am fairly certain the timing is set right (for one the car idles fine), I have the crank pin, the cam blocks and the timing chain tensioner tool. Even when the codes are present the car seems to drive fine. I just ordered the Access Port today, so that might shed some light on what exactly the car is doing. I am not 100% sure this is due to the cams and or head porting. I have noticed several of the parts not fair too well to not being in use for over a year.