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Timing chain is on and timing is set correctly. I did have some very slight interference with between rod #4 and the modified windage tray. My M6 washers are 0.058" which I thought was too much, so I punched a couple holes in some thin aluminum sheet I had lying around and use those to shim the tray up a bit, 0.025" thick or so IIRC. Plenty of clearance now.
You can see the scrapes on the windage tray from turning the engine over by hand. Top of the tray, right between the two holes.
Next up is to clean the oil pan (again) and scrub the RTV off the timing cover.
Last edited by thebeerbaron; Aug 25, 2025 at 01:24 PM.
The timing cover is on, I took a one-day interlude to install a transmission temperature sensor into my 6 speed. Now I’m preparing the new Ecotec Miata slave cylinder and replacing the flywheel friction surface.
KPower quality strikes again. Failure to design for serviceability.
Screws holding the friction surface to the flywheel use flange nuts (nice) with 3/8” hex. Counterbores in the flywheel are 0.5”, maybe a touch more if I cared to measure accurately.
So, to hold these nuts while removing the fastener (1/8” female hex), one needs a 3/8” socket with 0.00625” thick walls.
But hey, it’s not my company, I don’t get to decide whether they care about serviceability or not. Not my circus, not my monkeys.
I really wish SuperMiata had been able to pull off the K-series flywheel they designed a few years ago.
I dang near got a headache reading the last post, but a good chuckle from the necessary socket with near-invisible walls. Glad the fastener setup on that thing didn’t hold you up too much.
I dang near got a headache reading the last post, but a good chuckle from the necessary socket with near-invisible walls. Glad the fastener setup on that thing didn’t hold you up too much.
I think the heat has broken my ability to think and write. Three days of hot garage plus all-out wrenching has melted my brain. Good thing tomorrow is a regular work day so I won’t be using it.
Last edited by thebeerbaron; Sep 2, 2025 at 01:58 PM.
Oh no I was saying the situation with the flywheel fasteners was headache-inducing, not your writing haha. I agree with your sentiment about wrenching in the heat frying the brain. I think I spent a little over an hour in the garage yesterday before tapping out lol.
Progress last night, though my back is unhappy with me this morning, and I may have to go back a step…
New SuperMiata clutch disk. @turbofan and @emilio700 develop and support amazing products. I wish all aftermarket suppliers put in the work that these folks do!
Fresh pressure plate, also from team orange.
My super awesome neighbor came home just as I was easing the transmission into place for the third time. With his help, I got it on and bolted up. The Ecotec Miata clutch slave did make this a little more tricky, in that it has a light spring that keeps the slave extended unless it’s under pressure from the pressure plate. It just means that you have to pull the trans and engine together the last little bit with the bell housing bolts. I prefer the security of knowing the two went together with no force, but I’ll happily give that up for better clutch hydraulic performance. And one less v1 KPI part.
Sadly, I forgot to attach the special pins that align the bell housing to the adapter plate. I know the Honda pins that align the adapter plate to the motor are critical, and those are in, but I’ll have to do a little searching this morning to see if I can find any statements about the criticality of the bell housing alignment pins. Part of me wants to put them in just to have the best chance of success (also known as “having made no mistakes on which some future failure may be blamed, whether deserved or not), while my back wants me to leave well enough alone.
After a hard weekend slog to get everything in place, it has to come out again.
Clutch slave is leaking. I think that with all of the fiddling to get the trans onto the engine, and the engine into the car, I think the hose unthreaded itself from the slave. I don’t think that Loctite would have worked on the threads, since they’re basically spun on with fluid dripping out of the line. Will have to come up with some anti-twist bracket.
I do feel a bit of relief at this. I’ve been working really hard for too long. I’m exhausted and that’s not a good way to show up at the track.
Glad you've got a good outlook on it, though. Working day in and day out to get the car ready for an event makes for a fun story, but it's a fast track to burnout. Would way rather show up with calm nerves and a good round of testing on everything.
Got the engine out and back in on Sunday. The "back in" is kinda half-assed, I only got one engine mount connected and it's nowhere near the passenger engine mount, so it must be resting on the subframe lip or something. It was late so I punted, I can finish that up later this week.
I didn't find a smoking gun for the leak, I just re-seated the push-in fitting and tightened down the AN fitting further. It wasn't exactly loose, but I was able to get an extra quarter turn or so on it. I paint-marked for alignment, then slathered paint below the fitting. If there's a leak, I should be able to see it via the inspection camera, the brake fluid will be dragging blue paint with it.
I re-bled the slave and after bolting the trans up, applied pressure to the master with a clamp and let it sit under pressure for a couple hours. No visible leaking. As noted in the instructions and by Cameron specifically, do not press down on the master when the slave is extended/has nothing to push against. That's why I bolted it up before applying pressure.
While I had the trans out, I ran a thread-chaser through the fill and drain plug threads. They needed it. I also replaced the fill plug. Hopefully this eliminates the seepage I've had from the trans over the last year or so. Apparently the M18x1.5 thread is shared with some oxygen sensors, as the cheap Lisle chaser I bought was advertised specifically for them.
The property manager is coming by tomorrow for the annual inspection. He's a good guy and I take care of this place, but I need to clean the place up a bit, there are a few too many car parts, etc in the driveway right now.
I’m ticking off the “todo” list to get the car to the track this coming weekend and used this opportunity to measure oil volume vs distance to the windage tray. Right now I have 6 quarts dumped into the engine and the oil level is already above the windage tray.
This makes me question the common “overfill it by X amount” advice that seems to permeate KPower discussions.
The engine is not running, some of the oil galleries may be dry because it hasn’t pressurized yet, but how much does that really count for? I pumped a few quarts in via the oil pressure sensor port, so there’s that too.
Kpower's oiling solutions are garbage for heavy track use and overfilling is the lesser of two evils. If you don't overfill, you have a much harsher oil starve during braking.
I fill closer to 8qt and still see sub 10psi during decell. I run every baffle there is in addition to the trap doors built into the kpower pan. It is what it is unless you drysump or accusump.
Kpower's oiling solutions are garbage for heavy track use and overfilling is the lesser of two evils. If you don't overfill, you have a much harsher oil starve during braking.
I fill closer to 8qt and still see sub 10psi during decell. I run every baffle there is in addition to the trap doors built into the kpower pan. It is what it is unless you drysump or accusump.
Kpower's oiling solutions are garbage for heavy track use and overfilling is the lesser of two evils. If you don't overfill, you have a much harsher oil starve during braking.
I fill closer to 8qt and still see sub 10psi during decell. I run every baffle there is in addition to the trap doors built into the kpower pan. It is what it is unless you drysump or accusump.
I'm curious what kind of g you're seeing under braking? I know you're running a LOT more tire than I am, just wondering what the numbers are saying... I'm usually seeing ~.85g average, with spiking up to 1.0g and my logs don't show any corresponding pressure drop like you're seeing. My engine is a JDM K24A, standard KPower pan, filled per the instructions.
I'm curious what kind of g you're seeing under braking? I know you're running a LOT more tire than I am, just wondering what the numbers are saying...
I'd have to go find a log, but I think 1.2-1.5g is normal. I'm also moving a lot faster so my brake zones/time spent in decell would probably be more sustained.
I'd have to go find a log, but I think 1.2-1.5g is normal. I'm also moving a lot faster so my brake zones/time spent in decell would probably be more sustained.
Definitely true, I was just curious about the numbers... It seems there's a threshold where things are fine, until they aren't. 1g sustained decel, maybe?
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