When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.
just now saw this build thread. very nice. i dont miss doing all that work to my car during the build at all. lol
that's a nice and stout looking cage.
i also had the spec clutch initially. make sure you add clutch petal stop so the pressure plate diaphragm doesnt go past center. that happened to me which caused the clutch pedal to get stuck on the floor during high rpm shift. took me awhile to figure out why it was doing it. then i eventually went with tilton 5.5" clutch.
just now saw this build thread. very nice. i dont miss doing all that work to my car during the build at all. lol
that's a nice and stout looking cage.
i also had the spec clutch initially. make sure you add clutch petal stop so the pressure plate diaphragm doesnt go past center. that happened to me which caused the clutch pedal to get stuck on the floor during high rpm shift. took me awhile to figure out why it was doing it. then i eventually went with tilton 5.5" clutch.
The shop that did my cage is a reputable one that does a lot of BMW cages. My preference was more toward safety versus super lightweight. I realized when I posted the cage photos that I didn't get any shots of the seat floor and rail changes and method for seat mounting. So, I'll add those soon.
Thanks for the recommendation of the clutch stop. It's a good idea. I wanted to go with the less expensive and more durable larger clutch to start with.
Originally Posted by trackjunkie
i would also highly recommend doing S2 fuel pump down the road. unless you planing to do surge tank like radium or something else.
I've got an S2 fuel pump that I plan to install to start with.
I thought that once I started this thread, that it'd be easier than it has been to catch up with my posts. I've got quite a ways to go to get to where the project is now. I'll keep chipping away at it.
are you building for any particular race class or just a weekend track car? you might want to look into the rules as to what you can mod if you plan to do competition in the future.
Boy, it's been more than two months since I posted on this thread. It's not because I haven't been working on the car. If I have an available day during the weekend, or an hour or a few minutes during the week, I'm trying to do something to make progress. Working on the car during those precious moments is a higher priority than post ing here. However, I would like to continue posting to share information. I have a long way to go to catch up with my project status though.
Briefly jumping to my current activity, I'd like to get input in case there are options that I'm not aware of. I've made huge progress in trimming down the entire car's wiring harness. Before I started the physical work, I considered a plan of attack from a high level to decide what needed to be retained (green highlights), and what could go (orange highlight). Unhighlighted area were unknown or undecided at that point.
As I was approaching the completion of this harness reduction activity, I realized that I didn't have a plan to deal with the dreaded immobilizer. After various forum and general web searches, I have found that there appear to be two options:
Use a re-flashed ECU (Racing Beat or similar), or a replacement ECU
Keep the immobilizer wired in the electrical system, and keep the key within its vicinity so that the antenna can sense the key's presence.
It wasn't very difficult removing the immobilizer (on the right) from the ignition cylinder.
Going with option 2 though seems to require keeping the keyless module also wired into the electrical circuit. My problem is that I already removed that module, thinking that I wouldn't need it. It shouldn't be a problem though, as there only 2 wires going from the immobilizer to the keyless module. I just have to determine what other minimal wiring is needed for the keyless module to bring it alive enough to keep the ECU happy. Does anyone have insight on that?
How many wires does it take?
I will likely go the route of getting my 2004 ECU re-flashed at some point. So, perhaps I should just do that now and skip this immobilizer / keyless module hassle. Thoughts and experience on this?
There isn't a lot of good information out there. I wasn't ever able to find out how to delete the immobilizer unit entirely without disabling it in the ECU. When I was running a factory ECU (NC MX-5 in my case) I left the RX-8 immobilizer in place but had the immobilizer handshake disabled in the ECU. Once it's disabled, obviously you can just delete the keyless entry stuff altogether.
I'm looking for help. I need to briefly use a Cobb MAZ-001 Accessport to remove the password on my PSM.
I will buy a unit if I must, but would rather not just for this one step needed before Racing Beat can flash my PSM.
I'm in San Jose, California if anyone is near. I'll drive to where you are.
I had the RB flash tune on my '04 s1 years ago. Good value for the money imo and I was pleased (within reason) with the tune. All that was involved was removing PCM and shipping it out. Only issue I had was return shipping took a couple days longer than promised.
Racing Beat has my PCM in their lab/shop now. I talked to them today and they said that they cannot flash it because it's password protected. They said that the AccessPORT uses the password to prevent the dealership, or anyone else, from inadvertently flashing over what the AccessPORT installed.
I send an email to MazdaManiac to see if they can suggest any options. Maybe I need to uninstall the AccessPORT flash to remove the password.
Jeff from Mazda Maniac (the sole seller of the AccessPORT) replied to me saying, "The AccessPORT does not lock your powertrain control module (PCM). It only locks the tune in the AccessPORT. If you're trying to reflash your car to stock, you can simply flash right over the existing calibration. There is no AccessPORT 'password'."
So, tomorrow I'm going to call Racing Beat back and get more detail and see in they can try flashing with the factory image first.
Ok, it can be flashed over if it has a Cobb tune in it. The paired Cobb device would be locked to that pcm and unusable afterward, but you don’t have that issue.
However, there may be a tune on the pcm that is from another tuning application. I don’t know enough about the other software programs to comment. I do remember it coming up a long time ago on the forum.
I talked to Racing Beat again with the additional info from Mazda Maniac. The RB tech clarified that he was able to connect to my PCM and communicate with it, but he's not able to change any parameters because of the tune that's on it. He said that he's seen this same issue many times before. The next step has always been to return the PCM to the requester.
I asked about flashing my PCM back to factory, but he said the tool that they use won't work because of the previously described limitation. So, they're going to ship it back to me. As I see it, my options are:
.
Contact the seller of my car and see if he still has the AccessPORT, and negotiate to buy it. Very very poor odds.
I was able to contact the car seller. He said that AccessPORT is gone. He also said, "The car was factory tuned. The Cobb was for the turbo kit that never got put on." However, I remember him trying to reflash it when it wouldn't start to see if that would help.
Find a dealership that is willing to restore the factory flash (as Mazda Maniac indicates could be done), preferably on the bench and not installed in the car. Very poor odds
Find and buy a 2004 PCM, and hope that it still has a stock flash on it. Best odds
Last edited by racer-tom; 08-07-2020 at 04:59 PM.
Reason: Added follow up
Dealer re-flash should be very easy, or purchasing a second hand PCM is another good option imo. Oak Tree Mazda parts and service will absolutely take care of you.
Dealer re-flash should be very easy, or purchasing a second hand PCM is another good option imo. Oak Tree Mazda parts and service will absolutely take care of you.
Jeff Abrams from Mazda Maniac says, "Any Mazda dealer (or a mobile reflash and diagnostic tech) will be able to do what is called "PMI" to return your PCM to stock using the Mazda IDS system."
Thanks for the recommendation of Oak Tree Mazda, as I haven't yet made a good connection with a local dealership.
Waiting for my PCM to arrive from Racing Beat now.
you might also ask one of the pcm repair companies too, there are some posted on the forum here, because I’m thinking they might be a lot cheaper than a dealer. Most dealerships will charge you $200 just to write a work order. Not sure if they can handle a loose pcm either as compared to plugging into the OBD2 port on a factory car.
Well, with a significant attempt we struck out. We're still not able to connect to the PCM. My wiring is such that the OBD datalink two data lines are going directly to the PCM. The photo above isn't the final setup. That doesn't have the gauge cluster plugged in and a couple of other items that had to be done.
A race friend of mine, who owns a vehicle control systems company, met me with his shop equipment. Unfortunately, his Mazda specific software and interface could not connect to my PCM. I also have a fairly simple OBD scanning and data reader and it gets stuck on the "connecting" step.
My friend said that sometimes the programming system expect other CAN components before it will proceed. So, maybe because I don't have the keyless control module in the harness, or the ABS HU/CM. So, wiring the keyless control module back in and plugging a ABS HU/CM may be my next step. Option 2 it to source a different 2004 PCM to see if the behavior is the same.
Realistically there are only a few times, generally the only times it's really needed is when replacing a motor since you'll be installing a new e-shaft position plate. Sometimes you'll also repair a misfire, yet the misfire code will return even with you not noticing anything, in those cases clearing the NVRAM will sometimes help. Also during PCM replacement it's good to clear it.
2) Figure out the "Room" fuse:
Racing Beat states:
"the oxygen feedback information to correct the engine’s operation at light to moderate throttle settings. The fact is, in our experience, the PCM will usually build a 2% to 3.5% top level trim, which means the engine is running that much richer than best power mixture. In general, this is a small amount, and will only cause a fraction of 1% loss of power. On the other hand, if you don't want to run with this factor (i.e. racing applications), you have two choices:
.
Disconnect the Front Oxygen Sensor (at the top of the bell housing), pull and reinstall the "ROOM" fuse (in the left kick panel) to eliminate the 3 trim levels, and the PCM will NEVER build a fuel trim (it will turn on the "Check Engine" light, but that's all).
As an alternative, you can simply warm the engine prior to a competition run, shut off the engine, pull and reinstall the "ROOM" fuse, and begin your competition shortly after starting the engine. In this way, the engine never sees the "cruise" operation it needs to build the trim level."
I eliminated the "Room" fuse and all of the other ones in the body harness because they were all going to non-essential items that were removed. No need to have fuses that go no where. But Racing Beat says that pulling and returning the "Room" fuse affects the trim levels. So, I need to determine what's on that "Room" line that affects the signals to the PCM.
05-20-2020, 09:03 AM
