You can have hard oil feed and oil return lines no problem. Same with water feed and return. If your turbo is moving independently from the motor you have an issue.

While motor is out I would upgrade the rods, pistons, oil pump.

 

I thought about that, but I don't have the cash for it this winter. Maybe next winter if I'm not in the middle of moving across the country or something.

 

So would I, hint hint.

 

I don't know if you're aware, but we have enough harmonic vibration to stretch turbo studs.

 

Buy the FM Crank Tool, it is worth every penny. Makes doing front crank bolt or flywheel bolts easy to do.

 

Does firesleeve actually keep heat out or judt slow burn time and contain fluid?

 

Ever seen a silicone pot holder? It does both, very well from what I understand.

 

Meh... just another thing to add to the upgrade list. Right now I've got the silver foil DEI crap. me thinks the sleeve is much better looking too

 

I'm in the same position as OP. Just about to pull the motor to fix some stubborn leaks.

So far this is my list. Compression test the motor before pulling it, if compression is good i will do the following:

Clean the ever living hell out of the engine bay and motor
New front/rear main seal.
New waterpump/timing belt/seals
Paint valve cover, new gasket
New CAS O ring
Pull off and Drill/tap oil pan return line(using ---- tastic stock greddy one), since i'm pulling the pan probably get it welded, reseal oil pan.
Possibly motor mounts, will see how the oem ones are looking
Delete AC, maybe powersteering as well.
New turbo manifold gasket. Have turbo and manifold checked for flatness to run without gasket.


If compression numbers come up shitty I will most likey do one of two things.

1) budget rebuild 1.6, forged rods, stock pistons, new rings, cyclnder hone, head gasket, etc.

2) try and source 1.8l to swap in, keep stock internals for now, build/buy turbo kit for it.


What do you guys think? I'm thinking if i did a budget rebuild on my 1.6 with forged rods it will come out around the same price as sourcing a stock lower mileage 1.8, which would you guys choose in that case? I'm leaning towards my 1.6 with rods if it came down to it because I already have the turbo kit.

I'm really not looking for huge numbers, i've been running this car at around 200whp for ever now and my plan is to tune for 15psi this summer and get around 240whp or so.

 

Great "motor is out" time to do this:
https://www.miataturbo.net/useful-saved-posts-8/slave-cylinder-uber-clutch-line-dummies-20209/

 

I can put a piece on my finger and then attempt to light the piece on fire using my gas stove, and I can't feel any heat.

 

my head

 

lol @ Savington stuffing his sex organ in a -4 fire-sleeve to test this for Hustler Bear.

 

Without having head and intake/runners in front if me I can't give exact measurements, but from my memory there is not a big discrepancy between the castings of the ports in the head and the runners, so there is no huge edge to take away to improve flow. If there are some it is much smaller then the gap to the gasket edge.
What do you think you do with the flow if you make a bulb on the effective runner (making the runner/port area bigger just an inch on either side of the gasket)?
If you continue to make the area larger through whole runner you might be on to something, but them you should aim for a continuous taper all the way though.

Or am I just being to ---- and thinking tuned tapered runners for N/A.?

 

If I do this, how do I keep the metal shavings out of my engine? I don't feel like stuffing some paper towels in the ports would be enough.

 

tape off any holes that you don't want shavings in. that's what my dude is doing. he's also covered the the top of the head with rags

 

It's not enough. Porting/gasket matching with the head on the motor is possibly the worst idea in the world.

 

oh ----, i didn't realize what he was asking.
def take the head off to port it

 

That is what I figured. I wasn't planning to take the head off as long as there was no evidence of a bad head gasket, so I guess I'll leave the port-matching for another day.

 

Hrmm good to know. I think I prob should use this for my oil feed line which snakes through my exhaust octopus