As Scotty said, "The right tool for the right job."

I think they cost me all of about $20 each. They're cheap Chinese-made mics, but they work ok.



Well, .002 would be almost exactly the difference between my old stock gearset and a theoretical spec of "0.3700". I'm glad to know that this was by design- it worried me slightly.

It also bothers the hell out of me that the Mazda catalog is looking increasingly wrong in this regard. I really wish they'd give the complete VIN suffix, and not just the last four digits.


Wait.


Holy hell, I'm retarded. Literally, as in "My mother smoked meth during the second trimester." Those numbers AREN'T VIN suffixes, they're datecodes! How the hell did I never realize this before?!

9301 means "year 1999, month 3, day 01."

It is there, in small, smudged print at the bottom of the catalog page. As Willy Wonka said, it's right here, in black and white, clear as crystal:

Attachment 241307

136036 definitely puts my engine in the "middle" production class, between 9301 and 0701.


Hmmm. So going back to the '99-'00 catalog:

Attachment 241308


Wait a minute... ZL01? What the hell is a ZL01?

(google google.)

1.6l Mazda3? Was THIS the engine that went into the Euro-spec 1.6l NBs?

If so, then "the change" didn't happen in March of '99 as Rosenthal claims, it happened in July of 2000, which would be about the time that the factory would have started producing VVT engines for model year 2001. And THAT would be consistent with what Travis has been saying all along, and the catalog is not wrong.

So what the hell is up with Rosenthal's website?

Tommy is not perfect?

Quick question as I currently have my oil pan off because of some slow leakage: how many shims do stock VVT oil pumps come with? Reason being: I bought a Boundary Engineering Stage 2 VVT oil pump for my rebuilt VVT engine (no oil squirters). I'm running a turbo, too. I ordered my pump from Fab9, with 1 additional shim.

after the rebuild cold oil pressure was immense. Like rev a little higher and it would hit right the end of the scale. I then went with 0W-40 oil, but pressure still seemed excessively high. The engine would also leak oil, which I suppose is a result from high oil pressure pushing oil beyond the seals.

today I took the engine out and remove the oil pan. When I inspected the bypass valve I discovered FOUR shims! The first one was a special shim with a hat. It goes into the spring and I suppose it's always there. Then came a shim with letters on it, followed by two other blank shims.

so how many shims are standard? Just the hat? Hat + letter shim? I would like to go back to normal max oil pressure.

https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...c0d9640456.jpg

Stock is hat only on a VVT motor, I checked two stock oil pumps and both were hat only.

Yep, stock is hat only.

Thanks guys. So that means I was running 3 spacers instead of 1 as per my order. Great...

Fail9 Strikes again

go figure :(

Question... did it come in a sealed plastic bag with the Boundary documentation? Looks like someone used plain old Home Depot washers for the additional ones.

All roads lead there.

Now you got me wanting to check my oil pump as it came with 2 shims. I will have to look back at my pictures to see if the box was sealed or not. Definitely not buying from Fab9 again.

They are supposed to come in a sealed plastic bag from Boundary.

i can't remember, but I think it did come in a plastic bag. Even if it didn't it still has all the machined and engraved surfaces that the original BE pumps have. I suppose he'd order BE pumps and add shims as requested by his customers?!

Good question. The bag is too ensure no dirt get's inside the pump during transport/storage. There's been others who haven't got a pump in a bag. I ordered mine through him earlier this year but it shipped from a distributor directly so Fab9 was just a reseller.

If I was Boundary, and a reseller was doing work [adding shims] and representing it as mine I'd be pretty pissed although with distributors in the mix + resellers [Fab9 and others] who knows where the blame lies.

@TravisR any ideas here?

Hello Everyone,

Basically if you order from Fab9Tuning and it is not a dropship, they have our authorization to shim the pumps. Its an easy process, and it does not void customer warranty to shim their own. If you have concerns about getting someone to do it for you, just order the pumps without shims and do it yourself. If you have questions, just call I'm always here. I talked to Fab9 about this, and he is reviewing his records on what happened here. We couldn't figure out Eunis91's name, so we didn't get too far on that! 3 Shims should put you at about 78 PSI, its a little more then we recommend for non-rebuilds without oil coolers, but it should have been safe. We ship 5 shims to Italy all the time, seems to be a thing in that region, and they run stock engines and race engines in that configuration. They see a 100+ down the tach with no issues. So I don't think it would have hurt anything, but we do need to make sure we are getting the customer what they ordered.

Thanks,
Travis

Thanks guys, shots fired of course. Travis just gave me a ring. The photo above shows 3 shims, the spring hat is just to keep the spring centered to avoid plunger alignment issues. I don't know what your order looked like but if you ordered it with an additional shim, it's as it should be.

I'd first like to make this clear, 3 shims is intended to reach 78PSI as stated on our website and the Boundary Engineering site. A perfectly SAFE oil pressure. It sounds like the plunger in this case may have ingested a contaminate and needs to be cleaned up? It's hard to say because problems with these pumps is VERY rare and we ship more of them than anyone.

Pump Shim Configurations:
The Stage 2 (Street/Strip) pumps start their lives as a 2 shim pump. - Shims added beyond this point should increase pressure as advertised.
The Stage1 (Street) pumps begin at a 0 shim configuration - Shims added beyond this point should increase pressure as advertised.

Unless we missed something, it appears we don't have actual data? What was the recorded oil pressure? Is the factory gauge the source of reading here?

@FAB, looking at your web site as I write this...

So, if the Street/Strip VVT Compatible "starts" with 2 shims, it would be 72PSI? So if you ordered that pump with "1 shim" you'd actually get a 3 shim pump? Sorry, but I don't see that as at all clear.


https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...6111e9eb61.png

I understand the confusion there. - this was changed after the initial description of the product because we realized months into it that the Stage 1/Stage 2 pumps were shimmed differently out of the box. I'll clarify the verbiage accordingly.

so Bryan dropped me a PM, props for that. When I ordered in December I was lacking the information that stage 2 pumps already have 2 shims before adding additional ones. This is the only fault I can blame Fab9 for, and I apologize for accusing Bryan of shipping the wrong product.

However the BE oil pump is already under my suspension, since I did have to replace the front main seal shortly after installing the pump (as it turned out the pump came with a non-OEM inferior quality seal). I will hook up a mechanical oil pressure gauge and go from there. Until then, I will reseal the oil pan and pump with a different sealant, and switch to 5W-40 oil (I previously ran 0W-40).

Foxtrot Uniform Charlie Kilo

so my front main seal was partially pushed out, grinding against the timing belt sprocket. I KNOW it was flush because I had to replace the seal two months ago.

https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...84a67ef9c3.jpg
https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...0aec1dc85f.jpg
https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...da64083f3b.jpg
https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...e0002585a8.jpg