Nothing to see here, just project Sisyphus, move along
#1641
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Its actually been down for the last 2~3 weeks but I've been focusing my attention on getting the motor together and other stuffs, plus they are STILL DOING CONSTRUCTION ON MY STREET This is why I haz Sooboouoo
I need to put the intake and the injectors back together, fill it with coolant, burp it and then maybe replace the shifter bushings I mangled while removing the shift ****. So not insurmountable. I'm more worried about getting it out of the driveway. Plywood may be in order.
I'm like a god damn ninja with the top end stuff. I can start with a fully assembled running car and get a set of injectors out and back in working alone with hand tools in under 20 minutes.
I need to put the intake and the injectors back together, fill it with coolant, burp it and then maybe replace the shifter bushings I mangled while removing the shift ****. So not insurmountable. I'm more worried about getting it out of the driveway. Plywood may be in order.
I'm like a god damn ninja with the top end stuff. I can start with a fully assembled running car and get a set of injectors out and back in working alone with hand tools in under 20 minutes.
#1644
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Nah, its all good, I fully admit my progress is most accurately measured on a geologic time scale. You've built, got bored with and sold 3 Miatas in the time its taken me to get this done?
No worries, just don't do something silly like drop it on a tile floor. That'd be bad. For the tile not the ****. Bu thanks for messing with it!
No worries, just don't do something silly like drop it on a tile floor. That'd be bad. For the tile not the ****. Bu thanks for messing with it!
#1646
Yep! I found another set of feelers that has 0.0005 graduations and yes, you can add .0005 to nearly all those measurements. I suspect its even more on most of them. It is on the tight end of the spec and I ordered a couple shims to take care of the ones that are way out. Doing a bit of digging it looks like the Spec Miata guys run these motors even tighter to try to fake a couple extra degrees of duration out of the cams. While this is not a SM motor and while I don't usually condone copying things they do, it does not appear to destroy things. I am going to run it through the break-in naturally aspirated and see where things end up. Once it settles in and before I install the turbo I'll go though and reshim back closer to OEM. If my budget will allow I might even go SUBs. Maybe. Probably not though I can dream.
Typically turbo/power dense engines run looser clearances vs NA motors due to higher thermal expansion closing the clearances. My C63 has the M156 AMG engine and they're setup loose from the factory. When cold you can hear several of the valves tapping from being loose till it warms up. It's embarrassing but it's harmless vs being tight which can burn a valve.
Regarding shim under bucket, I've rev'd my VVT head to 8,800 with stock shims and the heavy double valve springs, never spit a shim and I have zero lash wear. I don't think you "need" shim under bucket if you're not reving the crap out of it.
#1648
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Typically turbo/power dense engines run looser clearances vs NA motors due to higher thermal expansion closing the clearances. My C63 has the M156 AMG engine and they're setup loose from the factory. When cold you can hear several of the valves tapping from being loose till it warms up. It's embarrassing but it's harmless vs being tight which can burn a valve.
But that's a concern for later and I'll cross that bridge when I get there. Need things running first.
#1650
Note that even if you convert to SUB, you'll still need a big pile of new shims because it won't come with all of the right sizes. Tight clearances you can fix by just grinding the end of the valve down, that'd be way easier and cheaper, IMHO.
--Ian
#1651
Yup, reshiming the ones that are grossly out of spec and not worrying about the rest. I will reshim the whole head once its broken in and the clearances settle down. No turbo right now, I'm breaking the engine in N/A because I have no safe turbo tune to work from. echo echo echo
Yup, when I re-shim the whole thing I'll aim for the loose side on the exhausts for just this reason.
It would be more of a convenience thing than anything else. I'm finding out that actually locating the shims through Mazda is a huge pain in the *** and availability is absolute ****. I can do SUBs for $300~ish whereas buying 16 new shims from Mazda is somewhere between $160 and $200. Granted there are probably some shims in the motor I'll be able to reuse but cost is not the primary factor. Plus SUBs will give me some over-rev protection.
But that's a concern for later and I'll cross that bridge when I get there. Need things running first.
Yup, when I re-shim the whole thing I'll aim for the loose side on the exhausts for just this reason.
It would be more of a convenience thing than anything else. I'm finding out that actually locating the shims through Mazda is a huge pain in the *** and availability is absolute ****. I can do SUBs for $300~ish whereas buying 16 new shims from Mazda is somewhere between $160 and $200. Granted there are probably some shims in the motor I'll be able to reuse but cost is not the primary factor. Plus SUBs will give me some over-rev protection.
But that's a concern for later and I'll cross that bridge when I get there. Need things running first.
I guess I never thought about having to buy individual shims, that would kinda suck especially if they are hard to locate and expensive.
If it helps, if you have a valve that's just a touch tight and don't have the right shim, a flat surface, sand paper and some time can make that shim a bit thinner. If you're in a pinch and only need to change 1 or 2 shims this wouldn't take that long to accomplish. Obviously you would sand the bottom side of the shim.
If you need safe turbo tuneage I can send you some of my old turbo files, or look at the ones you already have and want to use.
#1652
But yes it's way easier and cheaper if you have the tools to do it. I built one myself for less than the cost of a bunch of shims, but it took 3 days to get it built and working well. Mine was built on the overkill side though (ground tooling to hold valve, tuned mass damper for vibration reduction, very heavy duty construction with bracing, rubber mounting feet, variable speed control, diamond trued grinding wheel...)
#1658
You can, as long as that v-block is perfectly square to the rock, the rock is square, it doesn't vibrate too much. I tried doing this at first, and it vibrates way too much to actually do any type of precision grinding and my v-block wasn't actually perfectly square (as could be seen by circular pattern on head of valve after grinding). (If you needed to remove .001" you couldn't do that reliably). Once I built a better machine as I described removing .0005" was easy to do. I was able to set all my valves exactly to the clearance I wanted making them identical. All 16 valves took 2 hours to do.
#1659
You just to go their website and open an account. Then call their number and explain that you are building your car currently (thus have no race results) and they will activate your account. Only down side is you have to call to place orders vs being able to do so online. At least for me. I just add items to my cart and call to order. Great savings and I've gotten items in 1 day a few times, apparently they have a warehouse in Dallas and I'm in houston, UPS ground = 1 day!