If your pickup tube cracked from lack of mounting, you would have lost oil pressure, and a lot worse could have happened. If all it requires is a m6 bolt and a trigger wheel, I guess consider yourself lucky. I would suspect there's more damage to that pickup tube than you've seen with your scope, or there's some sort of manufacturing defect that keeps it from sitting flush, putting more stress on your loc-tited bolt than there's supposed to be. Regardless, I think I remember K-power releasing a "v2" pickup tube with better welds.

 

That was the dream back in ... 2020? Damn, have I been doing this for that long? Oy.

I will be pulling all the bolts I have already installed in the bottom end - the oil pump stuff, the windage tray, etc, and applying red loctite AND safety wire. I will **** off future-mechanic me in order to make future-driver me happy.

I've already got the "v2" pickup tube and pump. Actually, I may have to scroll back and see, but I think they-who-shall-not-be-named comp'd me the pickup tube, or gave me a discount on it, after the last failure. With all the other replacement stuff I had to buy at that time, it amounted to free shipping. Not that I'm bitter or anything. I don't have a good enough memory, maybe there are notes somewhere in this thread, but there's a chance that the new v2 pickup tube didn't sit flush when I installed it. We'll see when the engine comes out.

The current plan is:

• Flush the rear sump with WD40 and/or brake cleaner, from the crank sensor hole, to get any potential sparkles out of the sump
• Fill the rear sump with a couple of quarts of cheap oil
• Run a compression test to make sure the engine is worth saving
• Pull the engine
• Pull the crank - there is no way to get the crank trigger wheel off without pulling the crank
• Replace the main and rod caps with new Honda bolts
• Replace the crank trigger wheel with new Honda part
• Remove any bolts that are part of the modified oiling system and inspect threads
• Drill bolts for safety wire
• Decided on torque spec for each bolt, WRITE IT DOWN, and check rationale with MT.net and others
• Apply red Loctite
• Drill any necessary holes for safety wire - thinking windage tray and oil pickup tube specifically
• Safety wire all the things and cover the engine in blood from wire stabbings
• Put the engine back in.

Some of that list was snarky, but is there anything I've overlooked or chosen wrong?

 

You've already confirmed you're getting oil pressure during cranking and that no glitter came out of the old oil. If it sounded like it reached a normal speed when cranking when you had a full battery, I don't see much point to doing a compression test as I don't think it could have damaged the cylinder bores or valvetrain. To be fair, I don't see much harm in it either.

Do you have a datalog at the time it stopped running? If oil pressure looked fine then and it was otherwise running well until it wasn't, I'd assume you have gotten super lucky and just destroyed the crank trigger wheel. But only a teardown will tell what other carnage that bolt could have caused if it was getting knocked around before it found the trigger wheel.

 

While some of the steps may be considered overkill, in general, I support the path as long as you have to remove the engine anyway. Sucks to have that happen, but if the trigger wheel is the only casualty, that's pretty lucky.

 

Y'all owe me $20. I ponied up to upgrade MegaLogViewer from the old MS version I had to the HD, which reads Haltech logs. Just so I could show you what my data logs show happened.

Actually, it's money well spent. I have a dedicated cheap Windows laptop for all the car-related software that tends to be Windows-only, but I live life on Macs. In the last week or so I've set up the Windows box to share the Haltech folder, in its entirety, to Google Drive. So now I have a backup of my tunes, and logs. Now I have MLV, which runs on Mac (though it's ugly as hell), and I find more comfortable than the Haltech software. I'm calling it progress.



I need to re-configure the channels I'm logging so that I have some better data. I have way too many log channels dedicated to DBW stuff, since that was my last electrical gremlin, other than the fuel pump issue, which really didn't require logs to decode. I didn't have a crank-angle or sync-status channel configured, so this is the best I can come up with. At least it shows that I had oil pressure. I'm assuming that the loose bolt flying around is what's causing the knock. From what I recall, and I can pull the video from the Garmin at some point, I was accelerating, hit the limiter, shifted, and then nothing happened. I think that can be seen here.

I have started on the "clean the garage so you have room to work" process, but got pulled into servicing the rear air suspension on my sister's Mercedes E350 wagon. Spent all day Sunday on that, will probably spend another day this coming weekend installing the new parts with my nephew (and maybe a niece too).

I really want to keep the "while i'm in there" **** to a minimum on this engine-out procedure. Wish me luck!

 

Damn! What a turn of events. Jesus man sorry to see this.

 

Thanks all.. yeah, it sucks, but onwards.

I've been doing minor tasks when I have a few minutes, pulling connectors, removing small bits. I got involved in a project to repair the air suspension on my sister's E350 wagon, so that's a joy. At least I get to teach the niece and nephew a bit about car mechanics while I'm there.

I'll hopefully pop the engine out this weekend, so long as the Mercedes project goes well... keep your fingers crossed, those Germans are tricky!


(eta Whoops, I already told you all that. Ignore me, too much coffee.)

 

Sounds like me, there's always something popping up that distracts me from what I *want* to work on. Just makes it that much sweeter when you get to work on it! Goodluck with the German!

 

The Mercedes is fixed, my niece and nephew had a great time and got their hands dirty helping me, and I got to give them the traction circle lecture because they asked a very good question about … I don’t recall what. It was fun!


More formal process post later, but what the hell is up with these alternator bolts snapping? This is the second bolt I’ve lost.

 

The snapped bolt was just sitting there… Look at those threads, WTF.

 

The engine is ready to come out. I just need to move some junk to the curb so that I can move the engine hoist and engine stand from the back yard to the garage. That'll take a bit of effort.


Getting to this point really wasn't that difficult. This time I'm going to leave stuff like the starter and intake manifold on. I don't think it makes sense to take this stuff off right now.

The water that came out of the cooling system wasn't particularly pretty, which concerned me. I ran a hose through the radiator after I removed it and nothing disgusting came out, so that's good. I mixed some strong cleaning vinegar into some water and ran it through the engine block before rinsing with plain water. Again, nothing disgusting came out, so it doesn't seem like there's a lot of crap in my cooling system. I'll keep an eye out the next time I drain it. All I had in there was distilled water and Redline Water Wetter. I know Supermiata recommends a tiny dose of coolant for leak detection and galvanic corrosion prevention, but I haven't done that yet. Maybe if I can find a small bottle of undiluted coolant - I don't need more half-full jugs of stuff lying around.

Speaking of disgusting looking fluids... my clutch fluid looked disgusting, particularly when you remember that I only got this car back on track earlier this year. I hope this doesn't indicate an issue with the KPower concentric slave cylinder.



Also noteworthy, my brake fluid was also dark (but not nearly so much) and the sensor read it as containing a lot of water. I think I need to be more proactive in bleeding my brakes. I should add it to my post-event checklist I think. I think what happened is that installing new pads right before the last event caused me to retract the caliper pistons a bunch, forcing old fluid out of the lines and back into the reservoir. So even though this fluid was clear and low-moisture after the prior event, I probably had bad fluid in the lines.

I went ahead and ordered some new fluid from our friends at Supermiata. I usually use RBF600, because I just can't stomach the premium for 700. This time I'm trying the elf HTX 320 stuff that seems to have replaced RBF600 in their store. Its dry boiling point is a whole 8C lower than the RBF700, and the wet boiling point is a stunning 1C lower. Yet it costs $10 less per 500ml jug. That's math I can enjoy.

I also ordered a set of their new-and-improved alignment bolts for my next alignment (hopefully a long ways away) and treated myself to a new shift ****. I'm back to using the MR shifter and it's working great except that I had to borrow the shift **** from my street Miata because I have misplaced the nice (cheap) delrin **** I had on it previously. I'll find that sometime but this gives me options.

I ordered the replacement exhaust gaskets from Amazon and then I went ahead and kicked off a "while I'm in there" kinda project. It's time to change the fluid in my diff and since I've already removed the drive shaft, I may as well pull the diff and have the housing reinforced. I ordered the plates from MiataCage since Mazdaspeed doesn't have them in stock. I'll have them welded in by a pro, not something I'm willing to try myself.

That is the only "while I'm in there" project I'm allowing myself. Other than maybe drilling the 6-speed for a temperature sensor.

 

Currently blocked by these two wasp nests. I only had half a can of wasp spray, and I didn’t notice the closer of the two nests until I had already started spraying the bigger nest. I was standing right beneath it. I managed to get some spray on it before making a not-at-all dignified retreat that my neighbor totally didn’t laugh at me for.

The engine hoist is in the back yard, behind the gate.

I’d feel better if I could destroy these nests with fire, but it’s an old, dry, wood house and this is California. Florida man would probably go for it, but I figure fire season is rough enough without my help.

 

The engine is out. Having made that radiator support bit removable made things so much easier.

I really don’t like the KPower engine mounts.

 

This Florida man likes to wait until night, when the wasps are dormant to spray them. They are usually all on the nest, too, so there are no stragglers. Been stung enough to not try it other ways anymore. Brakleen works pretty well in a pinch if you get the non-California, chlorinated version.

I would never use fire.

 

And that’s why there’s never been an article about you in the news.

🤣🤣

 

No one does. My GLTC Miata chat is always discussing alternatives, not of which have been much of an improvement.

 

AWR now has a set of K swap mounts that look promising, but the price is a bit insulting at about 60% more than their BP mounts. https://store.awrracing.com/1990-200...ine-mount-kit/

Also, reports on social media are that they raise the engine ~1/2", which will be a problem for NA hoods.

 

I have a simple, elegant solution in mind, but am trying not to get pulled off onto that project. These would be specific to the stock subframe and involve off-the-shelf poly bushings. I'd be happy to share my thoughts with people who have more experience than me, in case I'm re-inventing something that's been tried before, but I'd like to keep that discussion private(ish) for now. What are the kids using these days, Facebook groups or something? I'd be happy to set one up.

 

I've got a stock subframe so those won't work and there's no way I can raise my engine any amount without removing a chunk of the hood. But thanks!

 

The culprit is not who I thought it was



This used to be part of my windage tray.

The windage tray seems to have fractured in multiple places. I found chunks of it in both sumps.




Yes, the bolt holding on the oil pump pickup tube did fall out, but it was almost perfectly intact. I don't know if it backed out first or if the windage tray fractured around it and that let it back out. The large chunk of windage tray in the first picture came from underneath the pickup tube.