[ Alto Works ] Oil Cooler Project, Part 5: Epilogue

Now that my Oil Cooler Project has mostly come to a close, I don’t feel quite finished yet as there are some minor things I’d like to address. Though, in all fairness, when is a project car ever really “finished”?

Looking from the wheel well, we can see a bit of the rear of the intercooler is still exposed to rock chips. The tires constantly kick up debris, so protecting the radiator from excessive strikes is important. I fashioned a simple bracket holding a .5mm aluminum plate to block off the areas where rocks might strike directly. I might redo this later for a wider plate to also limit airflow around the space between the radiator and bumper, but for now it’ll do.

Let’s go back to the right side where the IC is. More than half of the 12.5mm diameter round opening is the radiator, but the remainder is exposed radiator brackets and hoses. It looks a little bit haphazard and not professional, so I considered blocking it off for a “clean” look. Out comes my polypropylene sheet again.

This time, I’m using the sheet to partially redirect airflow toward to the radiator and block off those hoses and mounting brackets. This is how I plan on doing it: a simple curved piece mounted here.

I also considered adding a bracket to hold it in place, but why bother when some zip ties will do just the same and are easier to remove for maintenance. To keep it looking good, I added a bit of carbon fiber vinyl to the sheet. The additional volume of redirected air should be more than adequate to cool the radiator and look great doing it.

But wait, I’m not done yet. While I know these angel eye halos aren’t super bright, they might provide me with a bit of lighting to supplement the parking lights and won’t require significant modification, nor block off too much airflow to the radiator.

I reused the existing fog light connectors, so they will be controlled by the OEM fog light switch in the center console. The right halo is easily attached onto the mesh. Not too bad, if I say so myself.

I have something else in mind for the left side. Take a look at my process and see if you can guess what I’m doing with this.

If you can recognize this, you might be a bit of an anime nerd, just like me.

Maybe you’ve previously noticed my car’s project name. This little Alto Works beater is named after an early antagonist in Neon Genesis Evangelion, my favorite anime of all time. (If you have no idea what it is, I highly recommend giving it a watch now on Netflix. It’s essentially a fresh take on the boy-in-a-robot show… but that would be an over-simplification.)

Everything seems to be running well over the past few weeks, having taking a few short jaunts around to Kyoto. There is a very tiny minor leak where the oil filter adapter attaches to the engine, but I don’t think I’ve lost more than a few drops over this time that I could tell. This is probably not a fault of the adapter itself, rather the limited space we had to fully tighten it properly.

I could find no change in oil pressure nor oil levels, so the loss is probably at a few drops every hundred kilometers. I’m glad I installed an oil pressure gauge so I can generally assure myself that there is no notable drop in pressure. As always, I’ll keep an eye out for any issues should they develop.

Conclusion
In the end, did I need this modification that took so much of my effort? Nope, certainly not at this time! But it sure was fun to give it a shot, having never done this previously. And in the future, should I ever run gymkhana, auto-cross, or on a racetrack, it will definitely prove useful to protect the longevity of this poor, little, old engine.

As for value… The price difference is huge between this universal oil cooler kit and a legitimate model-specific product made by a proven manufacturer. For some, paying the difference for a better kit and prefabricated mounts are worth the price. For me, the effort and hassle was fun in its own way. You really do get what you pay for in terms of quality. I spent $100 USD for the cooler kit and more than $20 in assorted brackets and screws, plus a ton of labor and the unknown, very huge risk of not fitting right. There were quite a few times where I could just barely make it work.

In terms of the time spent, granted, I wasn’t quick and it took awhile to think things through to get them the way I wanted. In hindsight, I would’ve also preferred mounting the radiator on the left side for weight distribution. But overall, I am more than happy with how everything came out.

And now I have a cool little external logo to finally mark my project car. Ain’t it cute?

I look forward to doing this all over again on one of my other cars!

[ Alto Works ] Oil Cooler Project, Part 4

This is now Day 5 (or so) of my oil cooler and gauge install and I’m hoping this will be the last day! I’m eager to get the oil cooler properly working. Today’s challenge will be getting the aforementioned oil relocation plate installed and oil flowing between all the components. This means I have to get the oil filter off, which is really inset into the engine bay behind the AC radiator, as I mentioned previously. Terrible location, seriously.

We actually had to unmount the AC radiator and with a lot of finagling, cursing, and sweat, the oil filter finally came off. The adapter did not want to install easily, either. For the thick AN10 hoses to fit, we actually had to cut 5mm off the front crash beam to give us a bit of clearance. Even then, it was an extremely tight fit. Properly tightening it was also tough, since there was little room to reach in, even with my friend’s huge variety of tools.

With a final tap, we figured it would be enough. Let’s pray this won’t leak.

Remember when I said not to trust cheap Chinese products? <l> Well, yet again we ran into another issue. Similar to my ⅜ -16 threading issue, the oil radiator itself had poorly cut threads, preventing me from attaching the AN10 hose smoothly. So close, yet so far. With additional filing work, we were finally able to thread it on, barely. We had to be extremely careful since both the radiator and hose connectors were made of aluminum. We couldn’t just “man-handle” them and crank them on, as too much pressure and either or both could be irreparably damaged.

My Alto usually takes about 3 liters of oil in its tiny engine, but with the additional capacity of the car, as the oil cooler itself will now occupy a bit of oil, he estimated 4 would be good. We first put in 3 and cranked on the engine, checking thoroughly for leaks. Matsuda-san felt confident after a few minutes, then he topped off and added the additional 1 liter of oil. Circulating it through, we let the car idle for a bit, checking for leaks. So far, so good. After a few minutes with everything warmed up, we rotated the throttle cable and idled at high RPM for awhile longer. Everything seems fine so far… no leaks or issues that we could see.

But before I button up the front end back up, the hoses are obviously a bit of a mess right now. With some wire loom protectors and cable ties, I fixed all the loose and dangling hoses, hopefully preventing excessive movement and protecting them from debris, rubbing on the chassis, and each other.

The left side has now a gaping hole where the fog light was. While I could just drop in a mesh to match the right, I don’t think that’s what I want to do. With the whole oil cooler radiator setup, I’m doubtful extra cooling needs to be done for the left side so there is no reason to expose the remote adapter.. Not to mention any rocks or debris could potentially damage the rather fragile oil filter and oil pressure gauge.

This leaves me with plenty of potential options, but this will be a temporary placeholder: A simple sheet of polypropylene and carbon fiber vinyl. While this doesn’t look bad, I miss having the additional lighting from my fog lamps. This is how I rolled for a few weeks until my other parts came in…

But before I drove off that evening, he warned me to check frequently for leaks and lowered engine oil pressure. While I’m happy to leave it as it is now, running right. But there are some minor issues I’d like to address. The final post on this project next time!

[ Alto Works ] Gauge Install, Part 2

I picked up these gauges online. Defi Racer gauges! Wow!

Look again. Yup, they’re knockoffs! I’ve complained about knockoffs before and I will state so again. At the very least, if they had no logos and only the trademark appearance, I would be less bothered. I would’ve preferred a set of gauges that were this complete, at this price, with no logos. I only paid less than $45 USD for two gauges, shipped. So knowing that, I have accepted the likelihood these products are absolute garbage and I’m curious to see how well they work.

The gauges themselves look ok. Upon closer inspection, they don’t look much like real Defi gauges at all. I was worried that the knockoffs are starting to look too good, but they definitely have a long way to go. One thing I can see quite obviously are the rather short, high-gauge wires. It’s not just the thin-ness of the wires, it’s their brittleness. When I started to strip the wire for soldering preparations, it was evident the quality of the wiring was rather low. But, like the oil cooler, it was cheap so my expectations are kept in check.

The manual consisted of a single-page leaflet, but REAL MEN DON’T NEED NO INSTRUCTIONS. I’m joking, of course. I’ll figure it out. I’m somewhat impressed with the whole kit, as each gauge had the corresponding sensors and accessories to install. Not bad for the price, right? How well do they work? I have no idea til we get it all wired up.

In hindsight, I should’ve test installed the gauges first to check function even before continuing and getting serious with the whole wiring and soldering. But with the car already on my friend’s lift, I had to take this opportunity to get the wiring done when I can easily access the car and with tools and electricity (for my soldering gun) accessible. Otherwise, I’d be doing this in the parking lot in front of my apartment, with a long extension wire coming out my window. Not really ideal working conditions, so I did my best to finish on this long weekend.

Technically, this is Day 4 of the progress of the Oil Cooler Project on my Alto Works. Without my friend’s help to drain the oil and find a way to get that recessed filter out, as he had other projects to work on, I continued the work on the gauges instead. With the necessary tools in hand and the car laid bare in front me, under the oil cooler surgery, it was perfect timing to put these gauges in.

I think I became halfway decent with soldering wiring at my last job and I figured I would get some use out of an iron for projects such as this so I purchased a new mid-range unit. I started with wiring from the oil pressure sender. I roughly measured the stock wiring loom and the wiring coming from the far side of the engine bay, soldering on proper connectors. Roughly being the operative word...

I also properly wrapped the entire length of cable with as much wiring harness protector as possible to protect from the heat, weather, and wear that engine bays are subjected to, tucking them along with the stock harnesses as I could for a cleaner look.

Now onto the interior wiring. My steering wheel was removed easily with a quick-release adapter and my bucket seat came out with only four bolts. This gave me plenty of working room to get under the dash.

Out came my head unit and the huge mess of wires that came with it. I actually needed to snip a few cables like the Electronic Toll Card (ETC) reader which was vampire tapped into the head unit by the previous owner(s). The radio wiring loom was a mess and nothing was cable tied for organization. It was a disaster of half-hearted lazy installs.

While some of my friends have mocked my “metalwork” I did before, I would never allow something like this to pass. (Hey, I know what I’m good at.) So I wanted to clean up the wiring, making the gauge install as clean and smooth as possible. This involved lots of soldering and attaching proper split Y-harnesses. Of course, back to the hardware store for a fourth day in a row for more bullet crimp connectors often used in JDM radio harnesses. (Stateside, we often just use simple joint crimp connectors. While arguably more secure than quickly-removable connectors, I think it’s much nicer to have the flexibility of disconnecting rather than cutting when needed, especially on non-critical components like radios.)

With more connectors in hand, I split power from the head unit for Illumination, constant Power, Accessory power, and Ground to provide power to the ETC reader and gauges. The gauges only need one power line, as the consecutive ones are daisy-chained in serial succession.

With that done, back to the interior. While this panel looks removable as it should be given that it’s a clock option on some Altos, for some reason this is most definitely a solid molded part with the dashboard. Just as well, I had to drill a hole just big enough for the harnesses and wiring to poke through.

After cleaning up the wiring as professionally as I could, I put it back in the dash, connecting the power terminals and tucking the wiring cleanly under the dash, leading to an unused grommet near the door jam. Finding a similar grommet on the outside of the body behind the door panel and right fender, I tucked the loom of wires through for a somewhat clean install.

These grommets lead up inside the fender to the engine bay, where I discovered I should’ve *properly* measured the wiring instead of merely roughly measuring. With the wiring tucked alongside the stock harness, weaving up and around the engine bay, through the fenders, and up from under the dash, it came out short. About 30cm too short... Rookie mistake. Didn’t I say I was a “pro” at this?

To my displeasure, I had to re-solder some of the wiring and extend portions of it. After properly wrapping protective sleeves over all exposed wiring, I am now quite happy how it eventually turned out, but disappointed that I wasted more time on this than I hoped. With all the seats back in, it was already relatively late in the evening.

I turned the car on and… no radio or accessory power. My ETC reader, my 12V DC / iPhone charger USB port, and my radio were absolutely blank. At this point, I was just glad the car still drove. It has been roughly 4 days, yet still the oil cooler and gauges were not installed and now my radio wasn’t working. What in the heck have I been doing all this time?

After work the following day, I finally found some relief. I discovered I inadvertently messed up the wiring in my zeal to clean up and simplify the radio harness and tap it for power. I actually overlooked two things: First, I failed to connect a grounding wire from the radio surround to the actual chassis. That explains my radio. But as for my cigarette lighter power socket, it turns out at some point of my install I must’ve accidentally crossed the positive and ground terminals, shorting out my fuse. Replacing the spare 20V fuse included in the lid of the fuse box, it was back to good.

Finally, the two gauges powered up in accessory mode! So far, so good… Let’s crank up the car… Awesome! The boost gauge lights up and seems to be getting a reading off the sensor. The oil pressure sensor is not getting any reading since the oil plate isn’t connected, so it is constantly beeping a warning. It was maddeningly annoying, so I had to disconnect that for now.

(Temporary) Conclusion
Everything seems to be working as they should be for now. I’m not too concerned on the accuracy of the boost gauge or the oil pressure senders; as long as they work to a fair degree to show roughly the engine operations under the hood, I’m happy. This fits perfectly with the budget, DIY build of the rest of the car.

And you know what? These aren’t terrible. You get what you pay for, but in this case I mean it in the kindest way. The quality of these knockoff gauges can’t possibly match the real deal in terms of reliability or accuracy, but then again these are a quarter of the price of Defi stand-alone Racer gauges. They will be replaced when I come across better units in the future, but for now they will suit their purpose.

…let’s get back to the oil cooler next time!

[ Alto Works ] Gauge Install, Part 1

The automobile is a wonderful invention and you probably agree if you’re reading this page. One thing I always need to keep in mind, though, with all the mechanical marvels of cars operating generally trouble-free for thousands of kilometers, they can be finicky machines if things go wrong. Luckily, cars don’t usually just break down suddenly. There are plenty of tell-tale signs that they can tell us, such as tainted fluid, high temperatures, inadequate pressure, leaking seals, among countless other hints if you know what to look for. Checking these signs before and after operating a motor vehicle is essential to minimize major catastrophe before it happens.

What about during extended or intense drives? Besides listening to your cars noises, another great way to ascertain information is through checking gauges or error lights. Unfortunately, most cars are made for dummies who don’t need or want to be notified about every little variation, as long as it doesn’t cause the driver issues. That’s why error lights only come on when major faults occur and why the water temperature gauge doesn’t move past the usual middle mark unless the temperature fluctuates widely. (In fact, I don’t know where the threshold is on this built-in water temperature gauge. Does it simply move beyond the middle when it’s just way too hot?)

For example, the oil pressure gauge in the dash on all 1995-2005 Mazda Miatas are simply dummy gauges. They only register pressure or virtually none at all. By the time an engine has completely starved of oil pressure, the engine may already be damaged. To fix that and keep a clean OE appearance, I had to install a proper oil pressure sender and gauge from a 1990-1994 Miata. Now the gauge rises and falls quite evidently when driving, as it should.

Therefore, more precise and informative aftermarket gauges are also a must for my little Alto.

Tuner cars often have a plethora of gauges in the interior, all lit up along the A-pillar and half a dozen more on the dash. I blame the Fast and Furious franchise for popularizing them. Don’t get me wrong; F&F is a bit of a guilty pleasure and I am not a car “hipster.” Inherently, popularity is not a bad thing at all, but with popularity comes the comical silliness that some is good and more is better. On some of these over-the-top cars, I wonder if the driver can even see over the dash with all those bright gauges and neon lights flashing. Y’all know what I’m talking about...

We are lucky now to have a huge access to a wide range of aftermarket gauges, dramatically ranging in price starting around $20 USD for an off-brand, simple analog pod gauge to $400 or more for electronic multi-function displays. Some have incredibly important info, detailing air/fuel ratios, exhaust temperatures, and the ever-popular turbo boost gauge, down to questionably less useful voltage meters.

For my Alto Works application, I decided on the following gauges, in perhaps the rough order of importance to me:

1. Oil Pressure: This is probably the most important gauge for stock-tuned turbo cars, especially since I am running an external oil cooler. Oil pressure is critical, since oil is essentially the lifeblood of the engine, circulating through the engine and turbo, lubricating parts and maintaining temperature. A drop in pressure means I need to check the system to see if the oil pump is failing or if there are any leaks in the system since there are more failure points with the external cooler.

2. Boost Pressure: I’ll be honest, this is more for fun than anything else. I never had a boost gauge in any of my previous turbo cars so I felt those were missed opportunities to see the needle rise and fall with the RPMs. However, boost gauges can also tell if there are any leaks in the system or issues with the injectors or intake.

3. Oil Temperature / EGT temperature / AFR / O2: I’m not extremely knowledgeable about this, but some say either temperature gauge and an Air-Fuel Ratio gauge are enough. A rise in oil temperature or exhaust temperature is a sign of air/fuel ratio issues with the engine running too lean, potentially leading to major engine failure. Similarly, an increase in oxygen could also reveal issues with fuel or combustion issues.

I am generally a pretty simple (not to mention cheap) guy, so I want to keep my view as unrestricted as possible. This means I want the front pillars thin and unadorned, leaving the dash and gauge cluster the only areas where I would like gauges. Not to mention the future addition of a roll cage would potentially block them from being seen. Luckily the dash to the left of the gauge cluster is a perfectly flat and clear shelf space to allow a few to be placed.

Discussing the matter with my mechanic and a few friends, I narrowed my choices down to an oil pressure and boost gauge, two being adequate for my current needs, especially since I am not tuning the boost or making any power alterations. My sharp-eyed readers will notice that I already previously installed an oil pressure sensor along with the oil filter relocation plate.