i'm putting together a motor to swap into my 93, it's from a protege. it has a MBSP, and i bought an oil pan from an 01-05 miata so i could use it. i went to mock up the mbsp, oil pickup and pan today, and the pan doesnt fit.


any suggestions?

 

um dude the 01 is a 1.8 and you probly have a 1.6 is the first thing that comes to mind other than that maybe the mbsp is diff between the miata and protege.

 

do you really think i'm that stupid. i said in my original post that i'm building a motor, it's a 1.8. all the research i've done tells me an oil pan from an 01-05 miata should fit.

i'm assuming that the person who sold me the pan was mistaken, or mislead me when they sold it. i was very clear that i needed a pan from those model years.

 

First off, you didn't specify what motor you were building, there were different engines from the Protege, we can't read your mind.

For your question, it can either be you were given the wrong oil pan or the MBSP from the Protege is physically different than the Miatas. I bet you could mill the oil pan to make it fit the MBSP.

By the way, what is the VIN number that is stamped to the oil pan?

 

I didn't think about checking the vin on the pan until after I left the house this morning.

I'm going to do that when I get home, and go from there.

 

so i just checked the vin and this is what it told me:


Miata VIN Decoder Results

According to the VIN you supplied:

JM1NB3531X0114605

This VIN is for a Mazda second generation Miata car (1.8L), model year 1999, made at the Hiroshima plant.
It was the 14605th car made in the 1st production year.



pretty upset as i bought the pan from a fairly well respected member of this forum, and was very clear that i needed a pan from MY01-05.

 

x = 99. MBSP pan is 01-05, so the 8th digit from the end would be a 1 2 3 4 or 5 depending on year.

 

yea the pan is from a 99. i needed one from an 01-05.

edit: this is actually very useful in my new search for a pan, thank you "so the 8th digit from the end would be a 1 2 3 4 or 5"

 

That's correct. And now you know how to check a VIN for the year of manufacture.

 

That is very unfortunate. Sorry to hear that.
If you can't find another pan, you can have that pan milled to fit. Basically the thickness of the MBSP lip would have to be milled off the oil pan so that when it's assembled, the transmission bolts will line up to the block properly.

 

the pan wont even sit down flush against the block. i think i'd need to have material removed from the inner wall of the pan to make it fit. and thats just more work than im interested in. i'm just going to try to find a new one.

 

Understandable. Just a thought...

 

thanks anyway

 

I just saw this edit that you added to your post. Is this with the MBSP installed or without? If without, you have another issue. If with, that's the way it's supposed to be, the MBSP is "sandwiched" between the block and the pan. If you find an 01-05 pan, it will be the same way, I put a MazdaSpeed Miata oil pan and MBSP on my car.

 

without the mbsp, the pan sits down flush against the block. with it, the pan hits the plate on the sides, and sits about 1/4" away from the block.

now you're making me nervous that i have other issues....

 

Odd. People use 94-00 pans with the Miata MBSP conversions all the time with no interference... Something else going on there I think, maybe a difference in the MBSP from a Protege.

 

FML


so the 01-05 pan isnt wider to accommodate the MBSP, it just has a thinner lip?

 

When I researched MBSPs during my engine build it seemed clear that not any 1.8L pan will fit. It has to be one of the later ones.

That being said, the other thing that seemed clear was that NOT using the MBSP was not a big deal, unless you plan on making stupid power, like 600 HP or so. So I forgot about the MBSP all together. It was not worth the cost.

 

yea i figure i have a couple options.

1. buy another pan and haope it fits over the protege mbsp. if it doesnt i'll have to find a miata mbsp.

2. forget the mbsp and buy an oil baffle from a 94-99 miata


not really sure what i want to do yet. my power goal is around 250whp atm, but you know how that goes....

 

Tex may be right. See if you can find a later pan. When I first researched MBSPs, I was talking to Bill at MiataRoadster about the kit he sells and he said the only modification necessary was the milling of the rim of the pan and any 94-00 pan will work. Of course, he's running a business, but that's what I was going off of. Sorry if that was incorrect.