Fixing the NC Miata's Engine Bay

[Music] [Music] n [Music] it's a Miata it's Miata welcome we are uh continuing the build series for project NC um I'm going to be doing some track time with this thing so one of the areas I wanted to focus on what what's one of the things you should focus on with with sustained high RPM Quinn Nas Nas obviously we got watch out for the intake manifold though so you could pass somebody yeah Danger Danger on the straight yes not just the corner yes yes exactly no cooling cooling yes cooling is very important I uh I kind of a thing about my engines running cool on track I'm I kind of obsess over it um some of my friends make fun of me for it that I go to the track with but you want you want a cohesive cooling package and modifications that make sense to the car yes um and and a lot of the way that the NC is is designed from the factory isn't necessarily designed to to withstand like the the the sustained high RPM of track driving I mean it's probably okay it's just not ideal yes right so like there are some things that people will say you absolutely need and a lot of time that's just cuz they want you to buy the product but there are things that like match you said make sense to do and then the piggy back off of that what we're going to install today cleans up the engine bay the NC so that's where it really makes sense um because Matt is also trying to personalize the car for his own tastes and I see him the way that he looks at my NB me in the and how clean and tidy it is so the NC is a little bit of a cluster comparative to the na NB is that a fair statement yeah oh yeah yeah it's more modernized and not as like aesthetically pleasing but our good friends at track dog racing make a solution for that y we you talked to um Dan over at track dog racing and uh we decided to work together and and he sent us over one of the his super cool track dog racing kits um for the NC it relocates things to make a little bit more sense and that's what this video is going to be is a an install and an overview of this this whole package it's a real clever y clever kit uh so kudos to them for for reorganizing the clustered NC engine bay I love things like this cuz they're you know aesthetically pleasing and also function functional there it is yes that's what you were trying to say that's what I want yes that those are the words that I couldn't find before all right so about let's take a look we're going to take a look at the kit all right so if you're unfamiliar with the NC engine bay here's here's a look at a really disgusting one um and one of the things that and these are the things that get moved around in the uh track dog racing super cool kit um this washer fluid bottle actually a reservoir gets actually moved back here so that you can install a battery over here which which is is right behind the radiator so clearing up some of that area one of the things I don't understand and we'll show you more detail is that there's actually a lot of things blocking the radiator the NC actually has a similar vmount style radiator to the RX8 and there's a lot of but there's a lot of things behind it not leaving enough room for the air to escape from the radiator and that's what this whole kit focuses on is is fixing that issue so washer bottle Reservoir is getting moved to the back battery is getting moved further over here uh the intake is going to be gone altogether I actually have their their cold air intake kit uh what you have to do when you do the super cool kit because one of the the main things that gets moved is also the ECU which is underneath the the airbox it gets moved vertical and then there's a whole plastic Shield that gets removed allowing all that air coming in the radiator to escape I have a question yes I actually have two questions yes well number one do you remember the good old days when the ecus are just located in the passenger footwell I do not in the engine bay like easy accessible so there's I I still think there's some good things about having in the engine bay I don't think necessarily right there is the best idea I don't mind when they're like somewhere like back here because then like the engine harness you could typically just unplug and so if you're pulling an engine out of a car you can just unplug the harness right from the ECU that's right there and then pop the whole thing out this is true that that's I think some of the benefits to having that but I I hear what you're saying though like I I missed my my 94 which had the ECU right behind the passenger seat that was kind of nice so my second question yes is what's going on with this battery here why does this look like this came from the bottom of the ocean well I don't know it looks like it's an accurate battery an accurate symbol on it so I didn't touch that cuz I knew I was doing this were you stealing batteries out of people's cars yes yes exactly that's I just picked it up off some RSX that was on the side of the road all right we'll just we'll just give the sneak peek here yeah I I ended up uh I feel like I found a nice happy medium for a battery because a lot of the lithium batteries that are super light don't quite have the cold cranking amps that I wanted because this is a daily driver um I wanted I wanted to have a little bit more power uh this Braille battery is an AGM battery but it has and it's 15 lb so it's super light I mean not super light but it's pretty light compared to a stock battery lighter yes it's lighter it's a it's a good mid-range but it also has 425 cold cranking amps so it should be enough power for for you know the amount of driving I'm going to do high compression racing NC it's not that high compression yet um but yeah I feel that's a good mid middle ground for as far as the battery goes but so here's everything that comes with the kit um we have brackets to relocate the the uh windshield washer Reservoir um battery brackets which I actually chose the option to use an NA or NB Miata battery um I'm pretty sure it won't be a problem like it's just going to be the battery is going to be sitting in that bracket that's my fault that's not track dog Racing's fault cuz I kind of Switched what I want wanted to do after I ordered the whole kit I'm sure we can make it work I'm sure we'll be able to make it work it um it comes with a bunch of uh um battery cables to move the battery where you're supposed to where it's supposed to go also a quick shut off Quinn you're such a millennial with your phone sorry um this is one of the great like this I love when things are actually like packaged like this they they do a great job like organizing the the kits and everything like that I love this I love these sort of like like shrink wrapped and all the all the everything's like individually wrapped and everything this this this these are new um lines for the power steering because the power steering gets relocated so it's just different length to to accommodate for that there are very very very detailed instructions oh that's nice and the color too color photos um where you have you know you have to make slight modifications with like cutting we we'll go over the the things that are worth highlighting on the install so very very organized and thorough which I really like and we got a cold air intake here yep which does uh it mounts the filter into the front bumper um which is really great it's like I said it's necessary because you move the ECU uh from from where it is under the airbox to vertically and there's no no room for the stock airbox anymore so you have to do some sort of cold air intake there's going to be some weight savings to all this which is great oh yes there is I plan on weighing this thing after we're done awesome Yep and then what we we got a heat shield here for the header heat shield for the for the header um they've done a lot of testing on this and I have to look up the numbers but they uh they saw a a drastic decrease in underhood temperatures with the with these installed that just focuses the uh the heat down lower I mean that's a pretty juicy yeah heat shield yep so yeah I could see it I could see it absolutely doing stuff but then the question comes down to how much do you want to cover that pretty header over there you know well function versus being Riser exactly it's a dilemma but the nice thing is is that like it's super easy to remove and super easy to install Perfect so that's that's that's where we're at all right so let's going let's get this install [Music] yep [Music] [Music] all right matchu what's next in the process so we um we installed a radiator real quick we're going to do a whole separate video for that I didn't want it to be like tied into this video so we were at a point where it made sense to stop doing the the the um track dog stuffff and do with a radiator just to get that done and over with up next is the um the ECU bracket um this this bracket mounts on this uh this like I guess it's a frame rail support um it holds a whole bunch of different things on the in the car but uh what this does is this bracket gets installed in here um it's kind of hard to do this it gets installed here it does move the power it comes with a there's a new power steering line uh the uh the return and then the feed as well so we're going to be we're going to have to actually like drain some of this power steering fluid at least up to like where this this bung is right here MH and um and then we're going to replace both these lines cuz it's a much shorter line to bring the bring the power steering reservoir over here it's got two holes that are already threaded for for the power steering line to move over so that's going to get slit slid over um the ECU is going to get mounted up like this and it's pretty cool because there's a there's a factory Cooling duct for the ECU that still gets utilized um this is the duct right here so it's actually it's that's for the ECU cuz it's in the engine bay yeah yeah cuz it's in the engine bay so this this duct is still used um there's just a little adapter that actually feeds it to the ECU where it is on the bracket so I thought that was pretty cool that so we're still going to have some ECU cooling I was going to say this 167 HZ per engine couldn't possibly need that much ECU power where it needs additional cooling so we got the bracket in uh one thing to note you do have to take off the fuse box cover um this ground right here um I think it it went underneath this wire so you have to like reroute it that makes so it makes more sense um so you just have to loosen that one and then wrap it around so it makes sense and fits right um the bracket fit in there really nicely um reconnected the cables while you have to you have to reconnect the cables while it's loose you can't torque this down first cuz the the little um bracket holders for the for the cables need room so you can close them if that makes sense um cuz you know why match you cuz we're all about making sense around here yes exactly and if it doesn't make sense we're not going to tolerate it so this is a sensible Channel yep and uh I really like this you know this the the bracket also comes with the two new holes for the power steering um we're going to try and um move the power steering over without spilling any fluid strategically but first in a way that makes sense yes first so this is the cooling bracket this is the cooling duct for the ECU ECU cooler um they they give you an adapter so you can adapt this so so you can still use it as a cooler it it came up here previously to to shoot on the back side of the ECU um now track dog racing just gives you a little thing to adapt I just got to drill a hole in this to zip tie it but um I don't know if that makes a whole lot of sense it's it's extrair K I'm just kidding ecus need cooling too uhhuh um yeah so we're going to do that first and then we're going to move the power steering bracket with the new lines and everything so all right we got the the power steering reservoir moved over um we only spilled a little bit of power steering fluid I mean that that stuff smells disgusting but we didn't we did it strategically how we moved it but yeah it's all in there it fits nicely it's uh you see it's like right up against the int well we installed the intake as well which I don't know if I had mentioned I I did decide to go with the the cold air intake cuz you have to do a different intake um just because the ECU is moved you can't use the stock airbox anymore so um we've got the intake I like that it's all silicone hose cuz it it's uh it won't absorb heat um it's flexible flexible easy easy to install like it's really it was really not too bad of an install um so I I know that this isn't going to add much as far as like power goes but I just want to hear that induction noise that's that's really like the big thing with me and an intake just get itbs and get it over with will you someday it you know I I plan on doing a high compression motor for this thing then I'll do they go crazy with it yeah yeah yeah let's go what else do we got um so we got the power steering fluid reservoir moved over look at look at this I mean we don't have the Moroso tank in like yeah I still have to put the maroso tank back in but like look at how much space there is like you can tell he they want to position everything so it's out of the way of the fan um I think this thing would probably do well with some hood vents but I don't know if I want to go that far no but um so Hood anything anything aftermarket is probably heavier yeah yep um yeah so much room next up is the battery um I'm I still got to like look through the directions but it looks like they they retain like the stock positive side of the battery cable um negative has to be replaced it also comes with a kill switch as well um which is pretty cool because if I if this thing does sit for a while like next winter I'll be able to just kill the battery and uh leave it on a tender um so yeah we're we're going to look over that and get going on the the battery install to make room for the battery first we need to relocate the windshield washer fluid reservoir towards the back of the engine bay this is held in with a couple of nuts there are three tabs on the reservoir that need to be removed this is easy work with a cut off wheel and a file to clean up the cuts then you need to cut the washer hose to the appropriate length L after that it's just a matter of attaching the reservoir to the included bracket and extending the harness all of the wiring shielding and heat shrink is included in the kit due to some technical difficulties we didn't get the battery install on video but even with modifying the incorrect bracket it's a simple and straightforward [Music] install the engine bay definitely looks a lot more tolerable yeah it was that was one thing that always had a big gripe with the NC was you pop the hood and it's just vomit it's starting to look like it makes more sense you know yes and you get a little bit more sound from the intake too um right now it's it's got an intake header uh midpipe full full exhaust and a tune it feels more powerful we haven't we haven't done the rebuttal race yet with the uh with this guy um that's what's in in store for uh the next time we get together maybe we should just did a a race after you did your cooling kit yeah I don't know that wouldn't have done anything except to keep my cooling t sorry sorry yeah no the track dog's done extensive testing with this they the underhood temp temps have goes down significantly with this kit um I I wanted to see the I wanted to see how this header was bronzing so I didn't I don't have the heat shield on it right now but I am if I ever do like track days on a hot day I'm definitely going to throw that that heat shield on there too just to keep like the the uh underhood temps down wrap it up B yes exactly got to wrap it up guys come on um but yeah um I'm I'm super happy with how it all came out it just looks like everything makes more sense this right here if you're looking at this and wondering why uh this is because when I when I um originally talked to Dan I was going to do the na NB battery and then I decided to change my mind and get a get the Braille battery so that's why that that bracket's made for the na NB battery that's why it comes off a little bit we had to modify it we're going to modify it again I'll probably cut this tab off and make it look nice you know nobody was ever even going to say anything until you just pointed that out I'm I'm people notice you can't even notice that people notice leave it in the comments if you actually noticed that yeah they're all going to lie and say they did yeah exactly if you do if you say yes I'm going to call you a liar but but yeah I mean um working with track dog was super awesome uh if you guys want any of their products for for your NC um if you go in to their website you can type in the the promo code slip 10 and get 10% off your order uh thank you track dog racing it was really awesome working with you um but yeah um I don't know what else what else do I have to say about this go buy some stuff from track dog they're they're awesome they're well known in the Miata Community like they're they're good company um yeah awesome wrap it up B all right go like and watch other videos comment subscribe do the things that people on YouTube say to do help our Channel go to slip angam media.com we're going to have a lot of these a lot of the products that that I'm using to modify this car on the website we're going to keep adding those out keep an eye on the website um but yeah do all the things do the things all right [Music] done

Channel: The Slip Angle

Views: 7,866

Keywords: Slip Angle, Mazda, Honda, Miata, MX-5, S2000, RX-7, RX7, MX5, RX8, turbocharged, supercharged, turbo, supercharger, boosted, GQM, Garage Quinn Motors, adamlz, tjhunt, tommyfyeah, carthrottle, doug demuro, NC, NC Miata, PRHT NC, PRHT Miata, PRHT NC Miata, Enkei, Enkei RPF1, RPF1, Miata NC, NC MX5, NC MX-5, Project Car, Club Miata, Miata Club, PRHT Club Miata, MX-5 Club, FD, K swap NC, NC Miata K swap, 2.5 NC, NC Miata 2.5, Miata 2.5 swap, Miata K swap, K Swap, K24 Swap, K series, K miata

Id: IeKkONVVTVg

Length: 18min 56sec (1136 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 29 2024