Today I'll be playing the engine hoist shuffle to get the new engine prepped for install. I think I'll just go buy another stand (I'm borrowing this hoist and stand), it'll come in handy for my NA project as well.

The oil pan baffle I got from Sagespeed arrived, and I noticed some interference between it and the stock baffle plate. The listing describes it as a "Mazdaspeed Replica", but it's clearly got some modifications. I was watching a video from Jesse Prather (the guy Mazda Motorsports buys it from) and it goes under the stock baffle plate. So I reached out to Sagespeed and the feedback I got was that the "most common" installation omitted the factory baffle plate. Not sure why the vagueness, but oh well.




I'll see how I feel after test fitting it in the oil pan - it's ready to pick up from the machine shop after getting a 1/8" NPT bung welded in. On one had the stamped steel stock baffle would sandwich and stiffen up the flat aluminum Sagespeed baffle. On the other hand, the raised lip will obviously slow the oil return due to the extra height. I think I'll go without but will let it consume my thoughts for half the day.

I really gotta stop overthinking things.

 

You typically have to shave them a bit in a few areas to get them to fit anyways, the mazdaspeed ones at least. Never heard of one using both though. Granted I’ve only installed 1 mazdaspeed and 1 garage star (kazespec maybe) flapper style one.

usually i use the stock baffle with no oil pressure issues…but i also don’t typically run big slicks, and every track is different.

 

That's a good score on engine and transmission! JDM engines are slightly higher compression so you've done good. The engine and trans I got imported also didn't have a VIN.

I too had to trim the oil baffle, but supermiata does mention that in their instructions.

 

The price isn't too crazy now days. Clean VVTs are getting hard to find, most of them need rebuilt at this time. Though the price is higher than I'd like as well, but that motor looks crazy clean. If everything works out I'd say it's a score, especially with a 6 speed.

Goodluck! And looking forward to this thing going in.

 

Well, engine is on the stand and getting torn down.

If you've ever used the combination of a Harbor Freight engine hoist and engine stand, you know that's always a fun job. Because they don't fit together even at the longest extension. I bought a second stand and left the wheels off of it, hoping to get under the hoist legs.



Second time is the charm on getting it level.

Well, with the valve cover off it's not the worst I've seen, but definitely not the best.



And of course, the VVT actuator screws are always a pain in the ***.

First I tried just taking them off. I saw the bit turn but the screw didn't, so I backed off. Then I tried using a a hammer to tap the bolt on it's face while turning it with a ratchet. Then I tried an impact and broke off the screw head.

I hate these damn screws. Last time I did a cam seal replacement, we disassembled the VVT actuator to bypass these. I'm not wanting to do that this time around.



I can't find my dremel to slot this screw. Hopefully tomorrow will bring better luck.

 

Well boys...



I got curious and wanted some context. Here is my 195k mile engine with loads of track miles (well, maybe not compared to some of you SoCal folks) compared to this unknown specimen that was intended to be its replacement. Guess which is which.



Based on the cam lobe color, looks like a few of the valves on my engine could use a valve adjustment. Maybe I should have done that before deciding the misfire was entirely down to cylinder condition, pulling the whole thing out, and buying an expensive replacement.

When I got to removing the rear main seal housing, I found some dings and gouges on the crankshaft. I thought "well... maybe it's just from a bad clutch job?" No, there's more damage still. I removed the seal housing and found some gore. Below is what was left after more than 30 minutes of finger numbing polishing with Nevr-Dull, a very mild polish, in an attempt to remove the rust.



And another spot. Note all the rust divots are right on the seal wear line.



None of that is focusing on the rest of the dings and damage I found on the crank, as I'd already scotch brite'd the crank with the seal still in place to knock down any nicks that could tear a new seal. Someone wasn't that nice to this thing. Additionally, I've found RTV on the water neck o-ring that clearly is not factory, so it's gotten a deep service before. Methinks this is going to eat up a seal in short order.

I'm pretty sure I'll be visiting the machine shop to get his opinion on the rear main seal first thing on Monday morning, then I'll call the importer with that info in my back pocket. I know what I think, but being able to say "I talked to an engine shop" carries a bit more weight. I'm not thrilled about the idea of continuing with this engine and am leaning towards returning it, even if I take a hit on a restocking fee. My original engine can probably be overbored and overhauled. I'm curious to hear other people's thoughts, other than "You should have taken one look in that valve cover and said no. Dumbass!".

 

Oh man, that's a huge bummer about the damage on the crankshaft. Hopefully they make that right for you, or is at least fixable.

Regarding the color under the valve cover, that's a shrug from me. Not ideal but I wouldn't have said no to a donor engine because of it. My current engine does have some darker hues in there too and had much more rusts in the cooling jackets than I have ever had before. But now you've made me realize I haven't checked the valve lash on this one...

 

I don't mean to complain too much about the varnish, as many people have pointed out to me it's not that bad and will likely clean up somewhat with frequent changes of a nice synthetic oil. It's just disappointing and a sign in general that maybe it wasn't as great an engine as I was hoping for when I went to purchase one.

The previous owner clearly wasn't the greatest at using a clutch. I found chunks of clutch fibrous material loose on the clutch when I removed it and compared to my own clutch that may be original. While mine has more wear, it's clearly related to long term use with no excess material piling into the clutch rivet holes. The timing belt and water pump must have been replaced as there was silicone around the water neck o-ring. Some 60,000 mile engine this is.

I've found a Miata dot net thread with some people talking about using a crank repair sleeve to fix the seal area. Hopefully the machine shop will have some good ideas or cheap prices on repair. I'd like to get some sort of concession from the seller as the entire point of buying a replacement engine was not taking major components off of the engine.

Repair sleeve for rear of crankshaft - MX-5 Miata Forum

 

If it makes you feel better, this was what I was greeted by when I did my first valve cover gasket on my car. I ran the car like that for a pretty solid 2 years. A crock pot off of craigslist filled with a lot of simple green helped clean everything up when I rebuilt it.




Bummer about the engine. I feel similar about my 6 speed purchase. It's a bummer having to roll the dice on some of these parts.

 

On the ground, the 6 speed shifts okay after I installed the cheapest brass bushing I could get off of Amazon. It definitely needed a bit of love to fit though, I spent quite some time with sandpaper making it work. I have no trouble finding 5th quickly. I still need to replace the top ball shifter bushings to eliminate some slop, but didn't put any more time/money into making improvements until I knew what was coming next and if I am keeping it.

I spoke to a Spec Miata engine builder, and a more local machine shop I trust. Both said the damage would result in almost immediate leaks. With that info in my back pocket, I called the importer and lead with "I'd like to do a warranty claim". He asked for pictures so we will see where this goes.

Should I wind up keeping the engine, I can either go with a repair sleeve or the "liquid metal" both shops mentioned as possible fixes. I might prefer having the crank ground and having the correct repair sleeve installed. There's a few part numbers floating about, but none are sold as a direct repair for a 2001 Miata. The fact that the flywheel centers itself on this same surface makes things a bit more complicated and is probably why they aren't considered to be repairs for a Miata, but if I'm stuck with this engine at least I have options.

Oh, adding to the "what #$*&ing idiot did this clutch job??" was how I found the pilot bearing. I took these pictures after the thing fell out from a very light touch and just placed it back for dramatic effect. That line on the bearing is how far it was pressed in.

 

I get you were looking for a good core, and honestly that one is in great shape, but why not just replace the crank? They seem to be ~$250 used, which is way less than buying all of that nicely zinc'd hardware new from mazda. Sad that someone bought a Miata, barely drove it, then took it to the mcdonald's of clutch and timing belt shops. Maybe ask for $500-$1000 back, and enjoy the 6-speed/square top while you fix up the crank.

 

Well, I came into this from the perspective of wanting an engine that was drop in and go other than a quick reseal and oil pan swap. I wanted to be driving the car by now.

It's not that I think these parts are unusable or can't be fixed, but the whole point of this was to avoid the machine shop and pay a bit more for parts in better condition than typical for cars that have lived their whole life in the US. I also suspect the 60k mile service has been done, and not recently. The timing belt isn't a fresh new part, but there's silicone sealant under the water pump and water neck o-rings. All of which is to say I feel like I paid a premium for parts that were not as described even if there's no way to verify the mileage.

I'm still waiting to hear back from the guy past "I'll get back to you". There's lots of ways this could go and I'm not dead set on any one path. I want to see what the seller has to say about full return, maybe return only the engine and I keep the trans, or a partial refund to price it more like a rebuildable engine like you say before I go start throwing more money at what should have been a good engine to begin with at the price I paid.

 

Ya, once you crack the engine open it turns into a big can of worms of "let's just change this too" and next thing you know you've spent a lot of money. I totally get your sentiment of not wanting to touch it beyond some basic seals being replaced. That's kind of how I feel with my car now.. I've already spent way more on this "cheap miata track car" than originally planned.

 

Well, I spoke to the seller yesterday. I told him the shops quoted me $300-500 to fix the crank, he offered me half of that as a partial refund. So $250 discount on an engine with a messed up crank. And he clarified the convoluted "warranty" - it's 30 days. Their website said 30 days, and the paperwork said 15 days in one spot, 60 in another. I know there's multiple fixes available and some are cheap, but I didn't spend $2,000 with the plan of getting an engine that needed machine shop work or have the crank swapped out. Once I do that I'm sure he would reject any warranty claim related to the rotating assembly.

I've spoken to a few people about this (thanks @curly in particular!) and the answers are mixed. Most people say return, some advocate a speedi sleeve fix ($40 shipped from rockauto and possible issues due to flywheel centering on the crank), and some say to do a crank swap/repair.

It's stupid, but the whole thing leaves a bad taste in my mouth when I'm having to do unexpected repairs, plus the other smaller issues I found that indicate it's not almost surely not what was advertised. I don't mind driving back there and I have next Thursday off. I'm chewing it over. If I can keep the 6 speed and return the engine for $2k, that'll be a bone I can throw to the seller. At least I wouldn't be returning everything. I can get a new set of pistons (maybe even 10.5:1 JDM overbore pistons) in my current engine for a lot less than $2k, and that money could go to other "while I'm in there" upgrades. Having my original engine would give me warm fuzzies and I've long wanted to actually rebuild an engine. It just wasn't supposed to be this time.

 

In the end it's your call. I'm always the perfect buyer for sellers like that because I hate the idea of spending my time to haggle and actually return the thing. I'd probably take their partial refund, slap a repair sleeve on it and send it, be done with it, and know that I'll throw a new crank in it down the line when it's rebuild time. That said I've never actually had to use a sleeve so I'm not vouching for that part of things, but I assume they work well if done right.

That said, you totally deserve a full refund for that if you want. That's a pretty big deal. And the rest of the motor had you questioning stuff too, so maybe a good chance to just get out of the whole deal.

The trouble here is that these old BPs are just getting hard to find, so who is to say the next one you find is much better. I've seen nightmares from the JDM UK ones, and plenty of friends buying junkyard stuff that was.. junk. I kinda just assume a BP in 2025 needs a rebuild unless it was a low mileage garage kept kinda rig. That one looks pretty clean to me despite the varnish. Maybe a cold leakdown test on it while you have it, and if that has great results just keep it and sleeve it.

 

Long time no talk. Sadly there has not much need as I move a lot slower than some people on this board.

I got the JDM engine returned. The seller offered me the option to either pay the 35% restocking fee since I hadn't even bothered to run the engine and find if it had a deeper issue, or pay $1,200 for the transmission. Since I was going to spend $1,050 anyway, I kept the transmission for another $150. It seems to shift fine on the floor - I put a cheap brass bushing in it and that really improved things, but the bigger shift ball bushings still have quite a bit of slop in them. I'll get those replaced before it goes in the car. If I'm happy with it, I'll run it for a while and see how shifts on track. I expect to put my original 5 speed on the back of this engine again though as the 4.3 FDR is going to make for busy shifting, and I'll save the 6 speed for another project.

With $1900 back in my pocket, I started tearing down my original engine for a rebuild.

Finally, I got a clearer view of what kicked off this entire project. This damage on cylinder 2 (along with some on cylinder 3) is what I originally suspected was causing my warmup misfire.



I measured valve clearances before pulling the head, and the ECU didn't lie. As someone that's done engine calibration at an OEM, I should have trusted the diagnostic capabilities even of this fairly primitive ECU. Cylinder 4 had zero lash. If I hadn't seen the cylinder wall damage, my next planned step was to check the valve lash and do the usual 60k timing belt and water pump service. That probably would have let me get a few more years of decent service out of this engine!

It's not easy to see with how little depth of field my phone camera has, but the valves definitely have some curvature to the seat area. These are the valves from cylinder 4, so it looks like I didn't burn anything and managed to get away with my neglect.


Unlike last time I was here 9 years ago, this time I wasn't a coward and I used an impact driver to remove the stupid Torx bolts that always strip on the VVT actuator. I may open this up again to make sure it was assembled properly, because back then the title of this thread was a bit more truthful.



I was pretty peeved when I found this damage on the intake cam under the VVT actuator. Man, did I really return an engine over some small damage only to have similar damage on the engine I'm keeping? Well, someone pointed out to me that the VVT actuator is keyed stationary. This isn't a surface that will see any rotational movement, so there's no need to worry. I've no idea if this happened back at Mazda, or when we were drunkenly flailing about on this engine 9 years ago.



The crank mains had some wear and one or two had light scoring. It could all be felt, but wouldn't catch a fingernail. The crank doesn't appear to have any significant damage and should polish up fine.



I got bored over the 4th of July holiday and did some grinding inside the crankcase to smooth the inside and hopefully speed oil return. I guess I watched too many Saturday morning Speed Channel Powernation videos as a kid!



I also ported the oil galleys where I could reach them. On one hand, there's not a lot of loss to doing this if I'm already cleaning out the oil galleys. On the other hand, that's a lot of shavings that could be missed for basically no benefit.



After some talk with the machine shop, last week I dropped off the crank, block, and complete cylinder head. I don't have any boost planned, my original engine put up with a lot of use, and I still plan to chase power with a different motor in a different car, so I decided for a pretty straightforward OEM rebuild. Mazda Motorsports took $1,100 off of me last week. In short, they're sending me:

• 83.5mm oversize 10:1 pistons and rings
• valve springs
• oil pump
• '94-'00 head gasket
• Some miscellaneous bolts and hardware
• most every seal and oil galley plug/restrictor on the engine.

The only aftermarket parts I've got planned now are some Viton valve stem and other oil/coolant seals from Miataroadster, and a Supermiata coolant reroute hanging off the back, hence the older gasket. Once I've proven to myself I can build and engine and not have it blow up before the second oil change, I'll consider a Fluidampr to protect the oil pump. I've seen enough issues with Boundary pumps lately that I think I may make more problems than I solve with that. I was considering sticking with the OEM VVT gasket, but having cylinder 4 be the only one with zero lash had me considering if that could at all be related to coolant flow paths. I did a lot of research on the valve stem seals and was leaning towards OEM. Bill Wilner at Miataroadster said he'd never heard of a leak in ten years of selling the US Seal viton valve stem seals, and the machinist recommended them as well, so to save $120 and get a technically better material, I went with those. I might spring for forged rods just to have some overhead in case I ever boost this engine.

The shop said they'd just hone the cylinders out if I went for the 83.25mm pistons. I wanted to get it bored enough to ensure all this was cleaned up, so I went with 83.5mm pistons. Normally I'd be conservative and leave another overbore option on the table, but oh well. They'll also polish the crank and let me know what bearings to order - I'll likely try to see if I can get Kia Sephia bearings to save a bit here while still sticking with OEM, and likely the same Tier 1 supplier that Mazda uses. The cylinder head is going to get a basic valve job, the clearances will be adjusted via grinding the tips, and it'll be reassembled with new valve stem seals and springs that should arrive on Wednesday. I asked them to only skim as much material off the head and block as required to true things up.

So now, while I wait on the machine shop, I'm going to tackle a few projects that have piled up over time and hopefully knock them out before I have to reassemble an engine. More to come!

 

Good sh*t dude! Well, mostly. Bummer about the donor engine being a bust but great diag on the teardown of your current motor. That wear for being used and abused for 9 years is honestly pretty good. Glad it's all stuff that could be taken care of by a mostly basic refresh.

I'll be following along closely. The crankcase smoothing is something I've never heard of before. Maybe I'll pick up some other tips from you too lol.

 

It's typically only "required" for older engines with oil drain back issues, but I guess it never hurts. You can also paint the inside of the block with a special paint that makes it smooth and slick.

OP, that cam damage is definitely someone ******* around. I've never seen a Mazda engine with damage there. Looks like someone was prying off the VVT gear and stuck the screw driver in a little too far if you ask me.

I'm starting to see more and more valves cupped like yours, our valve springs are now up to 24 years old on the first year VVT motors, they're no longer up to the task of high RPM on the race track. I've so far had a mild turbo street build, N/A track day car, and a N/A enduro car do this.

 

Like I said... I won't say it wasn't me and my buddy that did the timing belt job 9 years ago. I had a bit too many wobble sodas way back when. Post college days and all. That said, it was at 120k miles when I bought it and its entirely possible someone else already changed the timing belt by then. But hopefully you don't think it'll be an issue going forward given the location on the cam?

Yeah, the block smoothing and internal porting was a total waste of time to be honest and an unnecessary risk. I was bored. These are much better quality castings and machined better than something from 1975 Detroit. I had thought about playing around with some minor head port cleanup but didn't see enough room for improvement to be worth the time invested when I want my car back on the road and am just doing a generally OEM rebuild. Plus, just freshening things up, new valve springs, and a valve job should be worth a few horsies.

If the machinist isn't happy with the exhaust valves after grinding them, I'll grab some new ones. I didn't even look at the intake valves to be honest.

 

I don't think that's an issue at all, no. My biggest issue is if any of that debris went through the motor, but if it happened 9 years ago, it's a bit of a moot point.