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Yeah, it was a huge stroke of good luck, to be able to to take advantage of someone else's bad luck. <-- Bad karma thataway
The plan, such that it is, is to knock it all out over the next 2 months, while it is too hot to be at the track. I'll see how much I can get done working evenings and some mornings on the weekends. I have a dyno from a local operator showing a Miata with a healthy VVT engine making 137 whorespower with bolt-ons and a tune. I want to see how close I can get to that.
K&N intake mostly assembled (MAF is temporary, because emissions in September).
New coils, emilio's favored plugs, and Magnecor wires, because I seem to have more money than sense.
Installed.
Other than that I spent some time underneath the car removing all the braces and blowing the exhaust apart, which all went smoothly. If I have time tonight, I am going to finish pulling the exhaust and get the transmission ready to be dropped.
I think I want to find a good welder to install a wideband bung in the header to make passing emissions basically plug and play.
Also, what the f*ck was Mazda smoking, when they came up with this O2 sensor routing? I have to pull the driver's seat to swap the rear O2 sensor?! WTF?! There might be some redneck crimping going on in the near future. Or, maybe this is an opportunity to just bolt my seat to the floor and ditch the heavy, fiddly rails.
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Last edited by Steve Dallas; 07-18-2017 at 08:16 AM.
If you were running MS, that rear sensor would be a nice little paperweight by now.
Some of us have to pass emissions every September, which requires the OE ECU to be swapped back in, which requires the sensor.
Originally Posted by 18psi
You can easily remove the sensor without taking the seat out. Unless you are goliath and have 12" wide hands.
Emissions testing is a plug and play ordeal for most (all?) of us that don't ridetheclit and actually learn things from time to time.
The way I mounted my seat and brackets leaves zero clearance back there. Come to think of it, I haven't seen it with the center console out yet, so maybe there is hope. I'm just going to reuse the old sensor and hope it survives being swapped over. If it doesn't, and I have to pull the seat, I'll be selling the brackets and bolting the seat directly to the floor, which is what I should have done in the first place.
I love IPAs, but they're just so played out right now. I just get a sculpin, green flash, or racer 5 if I get that itch. I'm tired of the dry hopped to hell with no character or flavor stuff... Heady topper is great when available too.
Yugggeee fan of sessions, saisons, and farmhouse ales (tank 7!).
Definitely no over-hopped nonsense allowed in this non-boosted thread.
I have decided that I will only take up cycling, if I am allowed to run every stop light and stop sign I encounter, then throw water bottles at ghey Miata drivers. Without those niceties, Hustler can have the whole cycling thing to himself and his extra ghey peloton "friends".
(Don't mind me. I'm just trying to become an "elite" member, like ridetheroids.)
This post details why you should not use a seal removal tool to remove this or any other seal on your Miata. The correct way to remove a seal is to drill a small hole in it, screw a screw into said hole, and pull on screw with channel locks, like so.
Wait. Why? Seal removal tools are for removing seals!
Because, I'm a numb nuts and somehow gouged my crankshaft with the tool, which could have been a disaster.
Those 2 gouges were sharp, and would eat a new seal. They would, except that I got extremely lucky.
New seal is 8.8mm thick.
Closest gouge to the front of the crank is about 10mm back from where the front of the seal would seat.
Just to be safe, I very carefully knocked the raised areas of the gouges down with a fine file, being very careful to stay off all the forward material, then polished the area with 800, then 1500 grit finishing paper. I can't feel any surface imperfections when gliding a razor blade over the area after working it over.
Picked this up for $10. Probably the best $10 I have ever spent.
New seal installed. Hopefully, I really did dodge a bullet here. ***** crossed it doesn't leak.
Here's the kicker. The seal I removed was in perfect condition--just as pliable as the replacement. I didn't need to replace it. It turns out, the leak is from the oil pan seal. It is a slow weep, and I'm just going to clean it and ignore it at this point. Is it worth scrubbing the existing RTV with denatured alcohol and applying some new RTV to the surface to try to stop or slow the leak?
Did you use a new OEM rear main seal? Also you are right on ignoring oil pan leak. No easy way to replace that. You either pull the motor, or drop the subframe.
Yes. I bought a transmission re-seal kit from Track Dog, and that kit includes a new OE rear crank seal. All seals in that kit are OE Mazda. I probably could have sourced the seals myself for a little less, but I like supporting local businesses.
One quick look at the oil pan configuration, and I knew that leak is not bad enough to be worth the work at this point.
07-16-2017, 07:32 PM
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