This makes me sad inside. I also hope that is not your issue, it seems like you would stretch or break the bolts before actually fubaring the head - but what do i know.

Keep us updated. We're rooting for you. srsly.

For real: your speedo vid through the gears is still one of my favorite miata vids to date :)

Damn it. Why don't you take your time and just make sure you are ready for a NASA trackday on May 12-13 at Homestead? They will be running the Grand Am configuration which includes the high banks! I guess you want to slap another HG in it before the All Florida Meet, though. I hope you are done with it by then.

I went ahead and ordered 2 headgaskets from Rosenthal, so when something else screws up I'll have a spare. The plan for now is to pull the head, get it checked/resurfaced and throw it back on with a new gasket. At least that won't involve too much work and should be pretty quick.

When getting the head resurfaced I went ahead and had the machine shop do a valve job. The last of my valve shims are supposed to be here any day now so I can finish adjusting the valves. Hopefully it'll be back on the road in a week or so.

A friend came over this weekend to put in a new clutch so I rolled my car out of the garage. Took the opportunity to remove the stupid pinstripes and give it a good wash. And took a couple pictures.

Lookin good. But why did you switch from the rpf's to the flat outs? I love flat outs but would still prefer real rpf's over them
I see the civic rockin em which makes me sad lol

I swapped them for the extra inch of width (8" vs 7"). After I burn these tires off I'm going with 225's and the wider wheels will fit them better. Don't hate on the civic, the vtak fury needs lovin too.

I really like the flatouts on your car. Nice! Might pick up a set for my miata.

Dude you live like 15 minutes away from me and I have still yet to see your car. I want to come check it out one of these days and learn some stuff from you as I still have much to learn. Looks good from the pics but I wanna see it IRL!

It ran today! I finally finished adjusting the valves and got it running long enough to set the timing before I realized it was pissing oil everywhere. First glance looks like I just forgot to make sure the cam seals were in good so hopefully it's an easy fix.

Sounds good man, I'll be happy to show it to you. Probably be more interesting if it's actually running though. A ride in a decently quick miata will be some good motivation for sure. Have you made any progress on your mess?

Got the cam seals in place today and no more oil. The car was still running crappy like before I pulled the head and still had the same idle dip issue. I downloaded a basemap, made a few tweaks to it and it's running much better now. Apparently I screwed up something in the tune so that's a relief. Can't wait to finish the tune and get more more miles on it.

VIDEOS!!!! :party:
glad you got it sorted man, can't wait for vids of glory

So I got one last valve shim in the mail today, one valve had slightly too much gap that I needed to swap out. I went ahead and pulled the valve cover, timing belt, exhaust cam, swapped the shim, reinstalled everything and timed the motor. I jump in the car, crank it up and hear a loud, "BANG BANG BANG". Turn it off pop the hood and I'd left a ratchet on the crank pulley when I was turning the motor over to time it. FML.

Cranking the car backed the crank bolt all the way out and stripped the shit out of the bolt. I pulled a crank bolt out of my spare motor to see if it would go in the crank, but the crank is destroyed too. Just trying to decide if I should go ahead and kill myself or if I should bother to buy a tap and see if I can clean the threads up. Fae would be proud. :facepalm:

dude

WHAT THE HECK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Its like reading Faefloras thread.

*edit: you live and you learn. Some lessons are more expensive than others. Don't kill yourself lol

wat

are you absolutely positive the crank is fucked?

^ The other crank bolt won't go in at all and started to screw up the last couple threads when I tried it. I'm going to try to clean the crank up with a tap tomorrow. Hopefully it's not too bad but I'm not sure I could handle looking at it again tonight.

Dude, bro. I feel you man, try not to take it too hard and see if you can fix it.

I would give you a hug if I could.

Yer killin' me, man.


I feel for you.

Hang in there man. Learning hurts sometimes, but it will be worth it in the end.

If it's fucked, it's fucked -- tap it, JBweld the next bolt in, and run it as is one last go!

Edit - sorry man, I feel for you. That is one of the worst feelings. But you will make it through. You have nothing to lose really with a jbwelded crank bolt if it comes to that.