Nothing to see here, just project Sisyphus, move along
#1063
I was worried about leaks at first, but so far it has been nice and dry.
#1064
Early 1.8's (97 & earlier I think) had the handy water and oil ports on the block, just like the 1.6's. After that, Mazda - in their infinite wisdom - closed them off. The water port could be drilled and tapped, but I'm not that adventurous - I've got a 97 block in my car, so I have the luxury of the water port to feed the turbo.
#1065
Early 1.8's (97 & earlier I think) had the handy water and oil ports on the block, just like the 1.6's. After that, Mazda - in their infinite wisdom - closed them off. The water port could be drilled and tapped, but I'm not that adventurous - I've got a 97 block in my car, so I have the luxury of the water port to feed the turbo.
#1067
I fall in the late year 95 block shafted category. 95 block and I searched hard thinking I missed it and then discovered it was really early 95 blocks that only got them.
G you can make the coolant off the front look really clean like I did by running a hose to a push lock 3/8 barb off the front like mine is.
G you can make the coolant off the front look really clean like I did by running a hose to a push lock 3/8 barb off the front like mine is.
#1069
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I saw your setup and I'm thinking thats where I'll end up, except I probably won't have the barb fittings in the middle. I need to see if I can fit my M14x1.5 adapter plus an -6AN 90° in there with the wastegate mounting bracket. For teh return I'll probably rip the factory nipple out of the mixing manifold and tap it for 1/8"NPT and do the same at the water neck, then run -6 to the turbo. Where your setup goes from the blue LOL hose to AN scares me a bit, it seems like its a lot of unsupported weight hanging out there in space. If it works it works though, no need to latch on to my paranoia
#1071
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That sounds complicated.
A 2 pole 7psi switch and giant blinking warning light and/or buzzer somewhere on the dash is more than enough. Unless you are logging coolant pressure, but I'm not sure thats going to be amazingly useful for much.
A 2 pole 7psi switch and giant blinking warning light and/or buzzer somewhere on the dash is more than enough. Unless you are logging coolant pressure, but I'm not sure thats going to be amazingly useful for much.
#1075
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Look at my ports
My ports are amazing!
Also visible are the back cuts on the ss intake valves and the correct length valve guides. No giant bronze valve guides hanging out in my ports blocking the flows. The divider between the cylinders has a pretty solid knife edge to it as well.
Here you can see when the chamber is deshrouded around the intake valves. Contours are perfect, as expected. Very tasty!
Having working on a project like this some years ago it confirmed a lot of things I had come to suspect about OEM production processes. For example, things like core shift in the castings. I'm not completely surprising to see stuff like this:
At a cursory glance one would think "Well, that's certainly fucked up. They didn't finish machining the combustion chamber!" The point is not to hog out the chambers, the point is to deshroud the valves, take out the high spots and remove only enough material to make all the chambers consistent with each other. If anything, this shows exactly how inconsistent the factory castings are to begin with! In this shot you can also see how much meat there is in the edge of the silver colored inconel exhaust valves. Good thing too because they are probably going to see some abuse.
The deck is also seriously perfect. Everything in the chambers are as consistent as they need to be and the edges on the quench pads are all perfectly uniform. No high spots, no ridges, no nothing. Glorious.
Unexpected bonus:
Lifter bores and head are very clearanced for higher lift cams. That's probably a temptation I don't need
A small note: When the head showed up weeks ago I unpacked it to give it a once over and noticed some damaged on the head gasket surface that made the head pretty much unusable. I documented it, contacted the vendor and got an immediate response. We worked through some options and it was decided I would send it back to have it worked over and corrected. I was sent a prepaid return shipping label and got the head back in the mail the next day. The problem was corrected in a timely and professional manner and then the head was shipped back, once again, free of charge. (Are you paying attention Kraftwerks?!) THAT is how you do customer service. Bravo once again to the boys and girls at 949 for going out of their way and making it right.
I'm seriously jonesing to get this thing bolted to my shortblock
#1077
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I'm honestly in no giant rush and I know you have stuff planned. I've got a bunch of projects that need to get done before I can even dream of swapping the motor. If I was worried about it I would have gotten off my *** and mailed you the weld bung already