No i mean they're shitty quality construction and seep.

I've had this set on the car since I think 2010 and they aren't seeping, but I agree, most if not all Mishimoto stuff is eBay grade with a logo and HUUUUUUGE markup. Alibaba will put any logo you want on a product for free if you buy enough of them :giggle:

Just a couple small things.

The garage of plenty has spewed forth some ignition components, so I will dutifully adapt and install them.

https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...57caa785f7.jpg

The plug wires are original and aren't in great shape so I went ahead and order some blue NGKs to replace them. Harness section turns out to be very handy, as I used it to whip up an an adapter.

https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...cb7e7fe7af.jpg

I used the weird Ballenger CONN-100937 to adapt between the NB1 and NB2 harnesses because I didn't want to cut up my factory harness, which is ironic because I cut up my factory harness and extended it about 8" on each of the ignition coil plugs some years ago, at the same time I extended the harness for the temp harness for the M-t00ned reroute back in the day. Ahh, memories.

https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...cf9eb457b9.jpg
https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...b82036ca5f.jpg

It may be that my coil plugs are just worn out, or maybe the Ballenger connectors are meh, but I couldn't get them to stay plugged in. The locking tabs on my connectors are pretty beat so I threw a zip tie around them to keep them from wandering off. Again, this is just proof of concept for now. If it turns out this works well I'll order connectors and build a complete ignition harness from scratch.

I put the gear oil I saved from the transmission back in the transmission and reinstalled the shifter, and also tossed some oil in the engine.

https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...683726eb56.jpg

4 quarts of O'Reilly's finest 5W-30 F U L L S Y N T H E T I C motorb oil.

https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...cab88f639d.jpg

FOUR GODDAMN QUARTS!

https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...e3befb26b3.jpg

As soon as my replacement heater hoses get here I can fill the coolant system and fire this bad boy up. Though I guess I should also finish installing the exhaust, I doubt the neighbors enjoy BP open header bovine flatulence much at this point.

You're mistaken... There are Five!

How about you fuck off back to Cardassia, eh? :giggle:

:rofl:
Quiet hue mon. But those cardassian chicks are pretty scantily dressed, I ain't really into high maintenance ones.

Besides, I don't know how the hell you hacked my phone camera, everything is orange now, like scary orange man.

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...363ea16947.jpg

Aren't they all tho? 🤔
It makes it look like you are using a filter, right? It throws off the color levels in my phone camera something fierce, really makes the QMAX reroute and Xida coaxials POP! I didn't realize exactly how bad it was until I couldn't figure out the difference between a black with yellow stripe wire and a black with white stripe while doing ignition wiring things. Super white LED flashlight resolved the issue but still, it's really gross. It was worse during the Camp Fire but having 604,000 acres of forest burning ~20-30mi from the house for the last month has been pretty damn lame. I feel super bad even complaining about it because there are a lot of people much worse off than I am. :sad2:

Dixie is hitting the burn scar from Camp in the southwestern edge of it's advance, which should slow it considerably in that direction. There hasn't been a ton of growth since 2018.

Yay kitty! My first cat was a tuxedo, very handsome one you have there 😺

What the hell happened to RockAuto? Lol. I bought 6 items and they shipped from 5 different warehouses! Add to that Corsa Technic, Priority Mazda, and Napa and I've got an inbox full of tracking number bukkake this afternoon. Lordamighty!

I don't think I'm going to be around this weekend so updates might be sparse for a week or so, unless I want to post whore progress like installing my exhaust again :giggle:

REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...13ae8e72a4.jpg

What am I even doing with my life?

I believe I told you just to throw in new oil and send it. You did not want to listen.

Where did you come from?! You aren't one of the voices in my head!

If it makes you feel any happier, your moly count looks low ...

Yeah, but look at that Boron!
I'm actually really glad to see the silicon as low as it is, my understanding is that means good air filtration. The K&N with with pre-filter is obviously working.

The cams are out of that block and I didn't see any damage to the head, so it's got to be something in the bottom end. That leaves me main and rod bearings, or the oil pump. So, I'll probably do some basic teardown to check things, REEEEEEEE some more, repair/replace as necessary, reassemble, then that motor will go in the corner.

I mean the 6D is already in, might as well run it.
​​​​​​

Well at least your T level isn't low.

Lol.
I need to poke around on BITOG and see if I can find a recent VOA for 15w40 T6 as I'm curious how the numbers compare. I'm no tribologist so I don't know what most of this means, but I'm curious how those viscosity numbers might have changed after some heat and abuse.

Very surprised the wear metals aren't off the charts. How do you get metal flake without putting a shitpile of metal in the oil? To my untrained monkey brain a flake would be from something scraping away chunks or slivers, like a carving. If it was a bearing I'd expect something akin to grinding swarf, and that would show up in the oil.

The mind boggles.

ITT: Gordon stays true to his sig and over thinks things

Metal scrubby sponges? :)

--Ian

Shower thought from this morning: oil pump fretting against the aluminum pump housing?

Anyone have any pictures of what that damage actually looks like? I haven't pushed a BP with a stock oil pump and damper that hard in probably ever. 3.6+6 while NA just makes you want to get it to the limiter and hold it there, so I spent a lot of time flirting with the limiter. 🤔

:fawk:

probably a few boundary failure threads with swarf caught in the relief valve.

Is the debris aluminum?

--Ian

I'd have to scroll up for that and #neverscrollup.

I was thinking about this and where I thought I had read it.

https://www.miataturbo.net/engine-pe...2/#post1555045. After about an hour and a half, post 7.

I had that thread open earlier today after searching for oil pump related things. I wish people would post goddamn pictures.

I'll definitely be taking apart the oil pump when the bottom end comes apart, hopefully damage will be obvious, if there is damage to find.

I'm no metallurgist but it does seem to be non ferrous white metal, that's about all I know for sure. As @afm pointed out to me, it all looks like yellow metal when its in oil.

So last weekend I finally got the last of the parts I needed from Corsa Technic to finally get the new plugs on the harness and finalize the electrical bits.

Quick note here, I absolutely love Corsa Technic. I'm pretty much done with Ballenger and I'll be contacting them next week to return my last order. Those guys get no more business from me from here on out. I'll go into it later if anyone cares.

New EGR tube and OE heater hoses showed up from Priority Mazda so I got those installed.

https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...16d38803ec.jpg

Well, I didn't actually install the new EGR tube, but I did swoop on the little heat shield thing and move that over to my current EGR tube. You never know when you'll need another stock EGR tube so this one will go in the hoard.

Coolant system got filled with straight distilled water and then I decided to do a super cold/dry compression check.

https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...8a0efb5cd3.jpg

Front to rear the numbers are:

F - 185 - 180 - 175 - 192 - R

Again, this is as cold and dry as it gets. It's not as even as I'd like but I'll run it for a couple hundred miles and see what it does. Unsure if I'll Seafoam this one or not, we'll see. There was A LOT of carbon in the exhaust so I feel like this thing never had a good hard run in its life, a little bit of exercise will probably do it good.

https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...fbf4576c5d.jpg

NGK plug wires, boots for the "coil-near-plug" 6D coil packs and new spark plugs from Dwayne Johnson finally showed up. The wires and such were originals of unknown origin so I figured I should probably replace them before I regret it.

This is my first time with a set of the fancy ass Ruthenium plugs, NGK FR5BHX 96457 for anyone searching. Mazda recommended heat range for the NB1 & NB2 in NGK is 5, where they recommend NGK 6 for all the NA8s. I have like 5 sets of heat range 6 plugs because HURRR DURRR M.NET SEZ BUY RANGE SIX BECUASE EVERYTHING IS AN NA! and I have a terrible time with reading comprehension. These look like they'll be just fine, though that tiny bit of metal attached to the ground strap freaks me the hell out.

https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...dbfc29339a.jpg

I'll be keeping a very close eye on these guys.

https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...6cb9f6d2e5.jpg

Anyway, here she is all buttoned up and ready to go!

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...eb4918b9ad.jpg

And den...



:vash::vash::vash:

I don't know if I have enough hair left to troubleshoot this.

HAHA!

Remember when I asked someone to remind me that I'd un-plugged the FUEL INJ fuse while doing the compression test on the other engine?

https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...8b9213501c.jpg

YOU ALL HAD ONE JOB! :nono:

Anyway, after sorting out YOUR INCOMPETENCE! I plugged in the fuse and tried again. And deeennnn...



https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...5fbdc8f7aa.png

I topped off with distilled and burped it using the Lisle Magic Funnel™ as is tradition.

To celebrate my obvious greatness and once again victory I drove over to Thunderhill to say hi to @afm (who happened to be there doing a trackday) borrowed a tool, and turned around and drove home.

Having successfully completed 100 miles on the new engine I then signed up for a trackday. I'll be returning to Thunderhill West on September 5th to see if I can ruin this engine as well. :party:

I never got the memo. So...
https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...d506fbb09e.jpg

.

https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...97e97a8100.jpg


with enough time and orders, maybe they will give you your own magnet, too

^^ Bwahaha! I wish that magnet was real, I'd definitely want that for the garage beer fridge.

Interesting discovery while swapping engine:

https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...3c3f227db6.jpg

This is my original starter that came with the car. The corrosion in there is a little mind boggling because I don't know how exactly you get water on top of the starter to cause rust, nor how you get rust in that location at all. There's no rust on the wiring harness lug or the bottom of the nut.

The mind boggles.

I purchased a known working used starter from The Internet and chose to install it instead of my original. So far, it seems to be working MUCH more consistently than the old one. All contacts were cleaned and polished, smeared with the good ol' Dow Corning #4 dialectic grease. Hopefully that'll keep any corrosion at bay for the future.

In addition, I also ordered a new positive battery terminal clamp and crimp on lug for the positive battery cable.

https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...0ecf08ec3a.jpg

The crimp on lugs are from McMaster-Carr, PN 6926K76 for 4 gauge wire with 5/16" screw hole. Terminal is an OE Subaru "Terminal Base +" PN 81608GA110 left over from WRX ownership. Stud is M8 so pretty much perfect match. I ordered an extra lug just in case.

I recently solved a long-standing starter problem with a new starter from O'Reilley's. Turns out that the stud that delivers current to the motor from the solenoid had backed out and was making intermittent contact. Not the same as your rust situation, but equally frustrating (after spending weeks tracing circuits and replacing components, only to find a defective new starter). I feel your pain.

PS - I'm interested in hearing your "Ballenger Story". My only problem with them is their outrageous shipping charges, but "What are you gonna do?" I tell myself when trying to source a weird connector pigtail.

Oh man, that's horrible. Nothing worse that defective parts out of the box when you are already trying to troubleshoot something.

I'm looking forward to not worrying about the starter actually 'catching' every time I turn the key, seeing how this has been going on for years now. I know the OE Mazda terminal that's crimped to the positive cable in the trunk has been a little questionable for a long time now, but I've kept it shimmed with some 0.01" brass shim stock and its been "okay" but I know it can do better. The Subaru terminal probably isn't the bestest-best terminal ever, but its brand new and should work fine for this application. She's noice and toight, and the ring lug on the cable gives me some replacement options in the future.

Once I get it resolved I'll post up. At this point it's just me being pissed off, how they handle it is going to decide how it pans out long term.

Thanks for the tip, just ordered some connectors from them - came out a few bucks under BM.

Corsa Technic + THIS THREAD = :love:

Very welcome! CT even sent me a sticker for free, just for checking a box. I do love me a free sticker!

I've got a list of other things I need to buy from CT here shortly so that I can complete the custom harness I need to fab up to eliminate my splicing jankery. Once the PNs are confirmed correct, I'll forward them over to @afm and if he's feeling particularly benevolent he can add them to his Überlist. I don't want to start shitposting PNs for connectors and pins until I know they are correct.

World's largest crimpers made short work of lug installation.

https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...fcd9b14381.jpg

Starts with vigor!

I also snuck some washers in under the lower mounts for the TSE radiator, spacing them up ever so slightly so that the stock fan nolonger vibrates against the swaybar. Sweet. Maybe I'll drive it to work tomorrow.

You know what's better than the Amsoil Dominator I can't get?

https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...3396e438e4.jpg

Redline 40WT Race oil I can get. New Wix 51356 as well. I also dumped the weirdness out of the cooling system and replaced with distilled water, half a bottle of Water Wetter, and a pint of antifreeze, for the stink factor.

I had the O'Rly 10W30 in there for about 350mi and it came out daaaaark. I'll put a couple trackdays on this Redline and then give it another load of FLAPS synthetic and work on flushing out more of this dinosaur oil crud.

Car is loaded up, tackday tomorrow.

​​​

Sir, your VVT solenoid is unplugged... :party:

I'm trying not to sweat the small stuff this morning.

https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...b47db182c8.jpg

Like this coolant, for example, that's coming out of the front of the motor somewhere :party:

Gordon's vvt solenoid is unplugged because M.net said vvt was bad and the devil

Well, that was one hell of a weekend.

(Sidenote: If you are following me on IG a lot of this will be duplicated)

Back at Thunderhill West with Turn8 on Sunday in Intermediate, which was awesome. Things started out pretty great.

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...525b26be4a.jpg

I managed to get a few hundred miles on the replacement engine without incident, and I was feeling particularly good about being at the track again.

First session in the morning went without incident, but I didn't bother with the GoPro or the RaceChrono timer (w/10hz GPS) because its the first session and lol. It went without incident and I felt comfortable in Intermediate 2, which was also a confidence boost. I had a little coolant coming from somewhere (posted that pic already) but source was not readily identifiable and temps were good so I chose to not worry about it. I was very much looking forward to going out for session 2 and actually recording some video and getting some times. This was my second time at Thunderhill West and first time with a timer, so I wanted to see where I was at.

Session 2 warmup lap was fine, next lap at speed felt really good... right up until I got on the power out of T7 and I got a nose full of coolant. Fuck!
Temps were still fine and there was no clouds coming out from under the hood, so I pulled off the line as best I could and cruised to the exit at T10. Quick inspection in the paddock and...



Awesome. The source of the coolant we noticed after the first session but couldn't find is now readily apparent. Water pump is kill.

It only seemed to be an issue under high load/temp so I could have very easily made it home if I really watched it, but we decided to just go ahead and see if we could get a pump and swap it. For those who don't know, the closest "town" to Thunderhill is Willows, which is a bit out in BFE on I-5 in NorCal so we didn't have a lot of options. I called around to the O'Rly, Autozone and Napa in the area and the closest pumps were Redding (1.25h each way) or Sacramento (1.5h each way) so those were not going to cut it.

Luckily, @afm had a brand new Gates pump with a cast impeller bolted to the test fit motor in his foreverproject that's parked nearby so we headed over there and got to work.

https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...922b8ca0af.jpg

owe him a water pump and a bunch of replacement gaskets. As usual, @gesso was on hand to lend invaluable help, something I can't stop thanking him for because I know he missed track time to help me out.

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...270a36201c.jpg

Time to strip it all down again!

https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...cc5fd8724d.jpg

A rare pic of me actually doing work. Hah. Ancillaries came off pretty quickly, though this is the first time I've taken apart the top of a 6D with the intent of actually putting it back together, so uncharged territory here.

https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...8bd4de0e5d.jpg

With the valve cover off we see the horrors of conventional motor oil. This film is GROSS and I suspect it's going to take a while to work it out of this motor. It's not chunky but I don't want to tempt fate so probably won't Seafoam this one. Just because its "low mileage" doesn't necessarily mean its "well maintained." Based on this foulness and the carbon I found in the exhaust ports, I suspect this poor motor was short hopped a lot and probably never really run up to temp. More on this in a bit. Thankfully, the VVT actuator filter was clear.

https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...c6b78f9a1e.jpg

Some debate as to if we were going to pull the cam gears off, but glad we didn't do it.

https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...d056c504ea.jpg

FM cam gear came in handy. Ish. Heh. I've always felt the teeth on the FM tool are a little off, but we made it work.

https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...10e5c6b07f.jpg

First sign of danger: more clear silicone bathtub calking coming out with the pump bolts. Jesus christ.

https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...d917a20494.jpg

Horror of horrors, they glued the pump on with even more bathtub silicone. Well, thars yer prablem!
Remember I found this shit absolutely GOBBED on to the water pump inlet so I guess it should be no surprise that whatever monkey did that work did this as well. It looks like the pump itself was actually fine, in fact it was pretty new and there was no coolant in the weep holes on the pump. There was however, a ton of pink and white crust completely surrounding the pump and alllllll the fasteners were rusty. It was bad enough that the steel spring pins that hold the timing belt cover to the block were completely rusted in place. We removed that cover without removing the crank pully so of course it broke. Hopefully we got the timing right!

https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...5446039d3a.jpg

Along with the bathtub silicone on the flange, we have another interesting find for the backside of the water pump. I don't know if it comes through in the pics but the hub in the center of the pump is actually making contact with the wall of #1 cylinder. There is actually bright metal in there, indicating direct recent contact. Fucking hell. Is this common? I'd love to know if anyone else has seen this on other BPs in the past.

Super glad the Gates pump is going on this block. I'm ever so slightly worried there might be more bathtub silicone floating around in the block, based solely on the size of the gob they used for the pump, but temps seem to be OK for now so I'll keep moving forward. At some point I'll backflush the head from the stock thermostat neck and hope for the best.

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...c66a229afa.jpg

New-to-us pump in the foreground and @gesso getting dirty in the background. Luckily we had an OE Mazda gasket available (one of many I now owe @afm ) and a tube of The Right Stuff gasket maker, which is awesome stuff. I may move to this stuff exclusively as it has virtually no cure time. I believe the instructions say "use immediately."

Temps at Thunderhill were straight up out of control while we were doing all this work and we absolutely roasted in the sun. I drank almost a gallon of water and never made a trip to the restroom. We started in the shade but that didn't last forever. It was getting to the point where tools and parts were so hot we had to put on gloves to handle them. Big yikes.

Pics pretty much run out at this point because we were trying to get things done before the event was over, so gross coolant was reused and everything was slapped back together. It really killed me to put that horrible coolant back in the motor but I didn't have much of a coice. A bit of a burp and I made it back to the paddock about 10 minutes before the end of my groups last session. After a bit of negotiation and listening to my sob story, the organizers were kind enough to let me run the last session of the day with the Novice group, which was just fine! I didn't get the timer started but I did get to run in the afternoon, so that was rad.

After running with the Novice group which was the very last session of the last group of the event, I parked it in the paddock and noticed things smelled quite oily. I didn't think much of it because we reused a lot of single use gaskets, but rolling the car back after coming off track (as is my habit) showed this:

https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...9608f5967c.jpg

Which is juuuuuust a bit more than a leaking valve cover gasket.

While you can usually get away with reusing the VVT oil pipe banjo bolt gaskets, it turns out I wasn't that lucky.

https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...475d77f366.jpg

Hard to tell but tings are super oily back there. I added some more torque but it didn't seem to solve the problem, so back to the garage where afm had a set of OE copper banjo washers stashed away. I got those installed and help pack/clean things up, and we called it a day. I had to stop at Walmart in Willows and chug a liter of Pedialyte in an attempt to rehydrate myself, then it was off home.

I'm glad Monday was a holiday because I definitely needed the recovery time after baking in the sun for so many hours on Sunday. It was a bit of a push to get it done, but I got the oil and coolant cleaned up before noon.

https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...ebd163836f.jpg

A can of Engine Degreaser from the FLAPS and little weenie Ryobi electric pressure washer was a good call here. Put the car about 2' in the air so I could get under it and really get it clean, and it came out looking incredibly good. I mixed up some Simple Green and fed that into the pressure washer as well, then did the wheel wells, the rest of the undercarriage and engine compartment, then went for a 40min drive to get it all dried off.

Things I learned this weekend:

1. low mileage doesn't mean well maintained
2. always change the water pump and timing set on a used motor
3. don't reuse copper crush washers without annealing them first
4. 6D works "fine" with all stock 4W electronics (sans VVT control, of course)

I took a risk and just sent the motor without doing the pump and timing set and it didn't pay off. I know better than to do that but in my defense, RockAuto was sold out of timing sets and could get me parts within a reasonable time frame before I needed to get the motor in for this event.

https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...2fddc4e23e.jpg

I'll order a timing set along with cam and crank seals to arrive eventually along with all the parts I now owe afm to replace his stock. I probably won't do the timing set immediately as the belt and pulleys seemed to be in decent shape. The cam and crank seals are leaking, and I'm slightly worried about the wobble you can see in the coolant dripping video above. It might be that the timing plate is slightly tweaked, or maybe the muppet that put the bathtub silicone on the water pump ALSO did the timing set, and maybe didn't get the crank key back on properly. I'm just questioning everything at this point.

Once again, I'm very grateful to have awesome car friends to push me to get stuff like this done, and loan me the parts and sweat equity to make it happen :party:

https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...94dac86f44.jpg

I feel I'm going to miss the simplicity of a VVT NA engine once my car is back on the track.

Shoulda done nitrous bro

You won't, it sucks. Literally negative PSI. Boost is so much fun
I should just put the turbo back on. AND NAWZZZZZZ

No seriously, while frying my brain like an egg in the heat on Sunday swapping that water pump it occured to me that my turbo setup has been infinitely more reliable than this "circle of life" naturally aspirated bullshit.

I think I did 3-4 trackdays with the turbo and no failures. I've done 2 trackdays NA and both times I've had engine related challenges.​​​​​​

x1,000,000 :likecat:

the truth!

I see what's going on here

https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...616b464bd0.jpg

Amateurs don't use Nitrous Oxide. I've seen how you drive. You've got a heavy foot.

I know I can do better and modulate my right foot, I swear! Ya gotta give me another chance... I just need a little spool shot!

How am I supposed to pass time during my Monday morning meeting if there isn't an update?

I got excited for a Monday update while I'm waking up at my desk, but instead all I got was Andrew asking for a Monday update.

Lol, you guys are killing me.

Last weekend I was camping with frens so the Miata didn't feature. This weekend I spent Saturday doing infuriating truck things, and Sunday we went to visit out of town friends all day. Again, Miata didn't feature.

https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...b62d1499e2.jpg
Pictured: infuriating truck things. Lol.
I need to change the body to bumper gap as it's waaaay too tight right now, and also order some additional mounting hardware that was missing from the install kit. Its cool as shit though, will be gr8 for intimidating Priuses when fighting for parking spaces at the mall.

Also it rained on Saturday. Like, seriously WTF. Not a ton, but at least it's something and it should help a little bit with current fire suppression. A 1/4" of rain isn't going to solve a year of drought. Its going to be 91° peak today climbing to 97° by the end of the week so we haven't hit fall quite yet, but we're getting there.

Back to Miata things, I'm working up a parts list of things to order for the 6D. Timing kit, crank bolt and key, cam and crank seals, and a bunch of gaskets, seals and a water pump to replace the parts I jacked from @afm to fix my shitshow. Like I said in the other thread I don't know if I trust any of the work done by the PO of this engine, and I think the timing wheel might be bent. Or worse, they put the crank key in upside down or backwards and now the harmonic balancer isn't running true. I tried throwing a dial indicator on the balancer but it's so damn rusty I couldn't get a good read. Crank seal is confirmed leaking anyway so might as well just pull the whole mess and do it right.

It'll help me sleep at night. Or something. Whatevs.

https://media4.giphy.com/media/3o6Zt...giphy.gif&ct=g

The layer composition of that taco is seriously freaking me out right now

My intermittent starting thing is still an issue, even after replacing the starter with a known good one and polishing all the contacts for the electrical while swapping the motor. Swapping the battery seemed to provide temporary relief, as does keeping the battery on trickle, but that only seems to make the very first start reliable. After my 360° into the infield on the session one outlap at Thunderhill back in August, my "brown pants" moment wasn't the spin, but the frantic attempts to restart the car. Clearly I need to look deeper.

Enter: the keyswitch.

This is a known problem area in both the NA and the NB as the contacts in the switch tend to wear over time. If you start googling around there are videos on youtube, a billion threads about it on m.net, and more than a couple here on mt. Symptoms generally include intermitant accessory function, like stereo and windshield wipers. My intermittent starter activation is actually the only instance I've been able to find in my brief search, but its a reasonable assumption. This is an easily replaceable part, in fact Moss carries a "Genuine Mazda" replacement part for the 99-05 for about $50 so I'm sure you can get one for $40 elsewhere (Oh look, $41 from Priority Mazda) and probably $25 from MazdaComp. PN for the NB is N053-66-151 so its an easy one to find. The NA uses PN D001-66-151A

But I don't like easy, so I've chosen to attempt to fix it myself.

M.net would have you believe this is an incredibly difficult operation that requires disconnecting the battery, removing the airbag and taking off the goddamn steering wheel. That is, of course, the impossibly difficult way to do it. What you actually need is a 90° screwdriver, or a 1/4" wrench and a P2 screwdriver tip.

Start by removing the 3 screws from the column surround trim, rip that off, then unplug the big chonky white connector from the back of the keyswitch.

From there, 90° screwdriver on the top screw...

https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...5aec55bfba.jpg

And then the switch kinda "unhooks" from the back of the key pack. Easy!

https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...84ccadce66.jpg

Mine is gross because its old enough to drink.

Next we move to the workbench

https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...fc8606667f.jpg

Using the various picks and things you can release the 3 clips that hold the body together. Please note, this little fucker is full of springs and small parts and IT WILL EXPLODE if you aren't careful. Take lots of pictures so you can see how it goes back together later.

https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...df0d5ff956.jpg

Now that its apart we can see the horrible, terrible, no good very bad schmoo. We're going to remove that so we can see what we are working with here. A quick spritz with the WD-40 helps loosen this stuff up and then it wipes away using an old cloth. WD-40 is great for this kind of thing, and generally safe on automotive stuff. I like to use it to help thin out of goop, then use something like CRC QD Electronic Cleaner or CRC Lectra-Motive as a final rinse. As I had neither of those chemicals at hand, I opted for CRC Mass Air Flow Sensor Cleaner. I figured it was probably also electrical component and plastic friendly.

https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...d041db03ae.jpg

As you can see, there is some uneven wear on the contacts (notice the partial polish) and there is some discoloration on others, indicating a bit of tarnish.

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...a60c5f49d1.jpg

Dielectric grease inside the contact section is clearly past is prime. I'll need to clean that up as well, so the copper contacts need to be carefully lifted out of the switch body. CAUTION! HERE THERE BE SPRINGS!

https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...dab0b052d3.jpg

Goop wiped off and we can see some tarnish and even a big ol' divot in a couple locations.

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...428109a207.jpg

A little trip to the red/maroon Scotchbrite pad and we can polish this right up. These contacts are pure copper and very nicely made, those Japanese sure know how to make nice stuff.

https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...6ef460eda8.jpg

Tarnish was easily removed, the divot was a bit harder. I went back and abused it a bit more with the Scotchbrite after this and it smoothed it out a bit, but its far from perfect.

https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...e6e9a4bedb.jpg

Second contact in-situ. Also SPRANGS!

https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...264d0bbc01.jpg

There are SIX SPRINGS in here. Thankfully, they are all the same length and diameter so no worries about mixing them up. Springs removed the switch body cleaned up as well.

https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...f9b9b58e61.jpg

Gross schmoo is gross.

https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...0859c2682f.jpg

Tarnish on this one too, and also an ENORMOUS divot for this one.

https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...ef23e84a07.jpg

I polished them up as best I could but that divot is YUGE. Not sure this is something that can be fixed, unless you wanted to try to flow some solder in there and get all Clickspring with it. I don't have that level of patience so clean and polish will have to do for now.

https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...46adfbfbd2.jpg

As the Brits say "assembly is the reverse of disassembly" and as far as grease goes, I'll be using my super awesome Dow Corning #4 Electrical Insulating Compound. This shit is the bees knees. This should add some lubricity but more importantly, it'll prevent future corrosion.

https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...eaab858ac2.jpg

I polished the contacts on the black section and then packed it all with grease, and reassembled. It just pops back together, no drama.

https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...5cf19d6c21.jpg

Following the theme, I also used the red Scotchbrite to polish out the contacts for the harness

https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...79095bf7e2.jpg

And slathered with #4 to prevent future corrosion.

https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...4b8721bed3.jpg

Here we can see the 1/4" drive P2 and wrench I used to reinstall the screw. Super simple.

So, did it help?

Maybe? I haven't had much of a chance to test it but it seems to have improved. First crank had a 1/2 second delay from where I expected it to kick over, subsequent starts were perfect. I'm cautiously optimistic but we'll see. After all, its a $41 part.

The elephant in the room is of course this shitshow:
https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...10aeee7ddb.jpg

If I'm reading the wiring diagram correctly, WHT/BLK is the starter trigger wire and this fucking shitshow is the result of a Circuit City alarm hackjob that some PO of the vehicle had installed, then removed. I need to find a NB in the junkyard so I can crib some wire off the harness and eliminate a couple of these crimps. They feel like they are PROBABLY fine, but this is the kind of shit that keeps me awake at night.

Wiring harness hackery is inexcusable. If you can't do it right then don't fucking do it. Anyway, I'm not sure its actually contributing to my issue but its sure can't be helping. I'll get it sorted eventually.

I don't like that little fragment of red wire hanging off of the starter wire, hopefully you wrapped that up in some good electrical tape to keep that from shorting out.

It was removed with very pointy long nosed wire cutters, but yes. Usually this is wrapped in electrical tape and hidden like an unplanned 1950's teenage pregnancy.

Don't really care if it fixed the problem or not, watching the process of cleaning that switch was soothing. :likecat:

I mean, I care :rofl:

Haha! Well thanks! I guess we've all got a little @Jeffbucc in us from time to time :p

If I can find an NB in the junkyard it should be super easy to de-pin that plug, and then snip about 8"-10" of wire off then harness. From there I can put a single, proper splice in this and never worry about it again.

If anyone has access to a junkyard with a wrecked NB, holla atcha boi :party:

For anyone searching and finding this in the future, @revlimiter apparently has his on his site as well, though its NA focused. https://revlimiter.net/blog/2021/03/...ent-refurbish/

Because of course he does. Damn that guy! :fawk: :love: