I ordered a bunch of those stickers, I'll post up when they arrive and we can work something out :bigtu:

I had a janky old Lenovo laptop with Ubuntu installed and went through the same BS that you did. I only wanted to use the Lenovo because it was small, light, and the battery in it lasted longer than my regular laptop battery. Getting it to run TunerStudio was a chore. Getting it to connect to the USB was even worse (and required entering mysterious Unix incantations). I did get it to work but that was 2 years ago and I've forgotten the incantations, so...fuck Ubuntu.

https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...b470c022c3.jpg

Don't mind me, just buying parts for a car I never drive :giggle:

Looking forward to more antics

Hah, thanks!
Honestly, there probably won't be too many shenanigans until I start screwing things up and raging about it. For example:

https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...85ccc43bfd.jpg
https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...2efc2b8af2.jpg

This weekend marked the 2nd and 3rd failed attempts to install the oil pan on my other engine.

As it turns out, Mazda changed the rubber end seals from NA6/NA8/NB1 engines and NB2 engines. Being the moron that I am, I assumed "it's a BP that shits all the same" so I pulled the OE end seals out of my BP6D rebuild kit and tried to used them with a BP4W block and pan. As it turns out, that doesn't work. Like, at all.

​​​​​​For reference:
B6F410428 & B6F410427 are 90-00
B54110428 & B54110427 are 01-05
...and they don't interchange. /sadtrombone
The 01-05 seals are probably double the thiccness of the 90-00 seals. I'll take some pics when proper seals arrive and you'll see what I mean.

Remember, I fail so you don't have to!

I have owned this car since I think 2008 or 2009 and I've been hoarding little updates and upgrades ever since. After years of reckless and frivolous spending I'm trying to cut that down dramatically, so I'll be blowing the dust off quite a few boxes. Lots of backlogged stuff to screw up in the future. :bigtu:

Holy shit, is that the oil pan that I gave you?

For a "while I'm in there" and since you are waiting for seals, have you considered adding a sump baffle plate?

YEP! Do we have any "before" pictures of it? :giggle:
​Yes. IJ teflon contact scraper and windage tray along with Maruha baffle were considered, then immediately discarded following the "this is a stock motor, don't spend any money" mantra.

You'll probably see some of those things in this thread in the (far) future, but they won't be in this motor. :firedevil

THE TIME HAS COME

https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...28f7e7d2b3.jpg

This fuckery has been making doing anything with this car absolutely miserable. It's gotten to the point where I have to hold the key in the crank position and then reach under the dash and tweak this harness until the car cranks. Something needed to be done.

Thanks to @Mobius I've got this pigtail off an NB2, and its going to be a donor fix this mess.

https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...39ff4cb90e.jpg

The white/black wire is the worst offender, obviously, so it got cut out and replaced with the donor harness end and a single, self-sealing butt connector. The yellow and blue vampire taps had done damage to the white/red and red/black wire, so those will be cut out and patched as well. Connector was de-pinned with an eyeglass screwdriver, because easy. lol.

https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...58894e6361.jpg

So that's exactly what I did.

https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...c6de2860c9.jpg

Red/black wire now identifies as blue wire.

I probably could have done the repair for the vampire tap damage without the additional donor harness ends, but that would have shortened the wire enough to put additional stress on one of the terminals, so I just changed out the color. It seems to have worked out well.

https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...d7c6bd43d3.jpg

Ta-Daa!

And this shit works. The car started 7/7 times directly after hooking it back up. I walked out to the driveway this morning and started it just because I could. It's glorious having a car that starts reliably. This has only been a problem for what, almost 10 years?

Big thanks to @afm for the advice and use of proper tools and @Mobius for the donor harness. I love you all.

You know what? It wasn't until I posted that last pic that I noticed the red vampire tap in the dash harness. SIGH

I don't know what that red/black wire is or why its tapped but I'll fix it later. I'm sure its something to do with the Circuit Shitty alarm, probably a tap on the door switch illumination circuit. Right now I managed to fix what I set out to do so I'm still happy.

https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...8fefa1fea1.gif

That's what makes this forum great, all the luvs!

I was told my car started for the first time in a long time. But then @curly dove in to take things apart again. He's been all up in my engine bay. I suppose I should make an update.

I’m proud of you Gordon! It took me till a week or two to remove the sketchy audiovox alarm box from under my dash. (To be honest, it was my friend Kevin who did it).
I was always afraid of poking at it, assuming it would just kill my car and I’d be left with a 4 wheeled brick. Turns out it was mostly disconnected anyway, except for the part that was draining the battery:facepalm:

Its been like that for the 11 or 12 years I’ve had the car and occasionally would fall down and get tangled with the pedals until I zip tied it back up under the dash.

So finally when I’m getting the car ready to sell I get it extracted. Then I proceeded to fail SMOG miserably so now I have to pull off the header and figure out WTF.

Gotta watch out for that @curly guy, I hear he's shady as fuck. Check to make sure you still have a cat when he's done :giggle:

Also:
https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...8abae7126f.jpg

It's like layer after stinky layer with this fucking onion. Fuck! :squint:

Im convinced Gordon and Richard have the best, most entertaining writing styles in this forum. :party:

lol! That's the funny part, since I bought this car back in 08 or 09 its never had an alarm in it. I think what happened was the PO had it installed, then they traded the car in to the dealer I bought it from, who I think had problems with the alarm murdering the battery while it was on the lot, so they just hacked it out and slapped it back together, then sold me the car. I didn't realize this hackery existed until years later when I dropped the trim panel to install the first MS.

I'm glad its repaired too, its been giving me trouble for a while but its only been the last 3-4 years that its become a serious issue.

Oh god no, what happened? Electrical tape on a vacuum hose? Which NA was this? :cry:

I think the only other guy who gives them a run is Joe P.

Truf

No cat in my car. Way too restrictive. Not even a hamster in that big ole gaping 3" geyser of sweet sweet unfiltered hydrocarbon aromatics.

Cats' in my garage. I should sell it. And the rest of the exhaust associated with it.

Aww. You're going to make me blush as bad as my cousin the first time we danced.

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...5149c13e4f.jpg
Ballin' out of control. Apparently.

I'm tired of that shitass flaky Optima, time to get a real battery in this car. Funny enough, this Odyssey Extreme PC680 + "billet" mount cost less than a replacement Optima. I'm saving whole dollars here mang!

Trackday this Sunday :party: