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 :vash: This is why I haz Sooboouoo :bigtu:

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 knob. 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.

>can tear part car in 2 hours
>down for 2 years for turbo install

:laugh:
I'm sorry I'm such a ahole today

No you're not.



G, I lost your shift knob. I had it in my hand last night, checking to see if the threads were cleaned up enough (they are). Somewhere between then and when I came in, I set it down someplace. It's around, but it's hiding.

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? :rofl:

:likecat:

No worries, just don't do something silly like drop it on a tile floor. That'd be bad. For the tile not the knob. Bu thanks for messing with it!

Question is will this beast be ready for MRLS 2015??? :)

So what did they say? Just reshim some of them? Are you going to fix the tight exhaust valves? Those are the ones I would be worried about, especially on a turbo motor.

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.

I own miatung.
They just aren't very exciting yet.
If anyone on the west coast wants a kitten, I will personally deliver next week.

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 ass and availability is absolute shit. 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.

Why are these things being posted in my build thread? Are you trying to tell me something? :D

I'm not complaining, I'm just wondering what part of the west coast you'll be visiting :likecat:

Really? When I needed them I just ordered from Mazdacomp and they showed up 2 days later, easy peasy, and they only cost $6.50 each. You won't need 16 new shims, probably more like 5 or 6.

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

Well good luck with getting the new motor installed and broken in! I'll be curious if your lash changes after breaking in the motor. It shouldn't, so hopefully you can set it now and be done with it.

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.

ONLY do this if you have a valve grinding machine designed for this. Tipping the valves is how 99% of shops adjust the valves, and it works. I did this too. But I built a machine to allow me to precision grind the tips perfectly square with a very good surface finish. Walking up to a grinder and trying to tip a valve is not going to work and will result in constantly wearing valve lash due to the head of the valve being damaged from point contact on the bucket as it won't be perfectly flat/parallel.

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...)

While I'm probably a bigger fan of SM then you are, I'd hesitate to copy them on this one. The guys doing this are rebuilding heads frequently and 1hp is worth a lot to them. Probably not the tradeoff you're looking for.

Is this not the random topics thread?
I will be in Oregon, but I'll make a special trip for you:party:
I have nothing to ad about your car. Carry on.

I've read you can do it with a v-block mounted to the grinder, but I've never done it myself.

I would imagine that you could measure it, take the valves to a shop, and say "take 4 thousandths off this one, 2 of this one" etc, and probably not pay very much.

--Ian

<p></p><p>Pictures of said kittens? If there is a calico apparently we're taking it.</p>

Yes, I need to figure out how to join MazdaComp.

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.

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!

The "race results" bar is also super low. Seriously, sign up for a couple autocrosses, you'll learn, get a nice sunburn, and get cheap parts. I'm technically eligible right now, but don't have an account or I'd help out. Dunno if the track day thing has gone anywhere.