My 1995 Miata Support Thread
 

Hey everyone I'm new to the forum, and will be posting issues I'm having with my current build and hopefully some o you can help me out along the way. I'm also willing to share al of my knowledge to anyone that asks! Welp here it goes 1995 Miata 1.8L

7/28/2017:
Beginning of support thread

One night I was out having fun with some friends doing burnouts and drifting and such. Whilst I was mid drift my engine started making a really wierd ticking noise so I turned it off and let it cool while we had dinner. Got back to my car started back up but the noise was still there, decided to risk it and drive it home on the highway. Right when I got off my offramp to my city my car dies and refuses to start. There's just a ticking noise when I turn the ignition. I've replaced the battery and tried again, same result.

Now I have the engine out of the car and I find my some of my crank bearings are torn to shit causing meta fragments to spread al through the engine. I found metal shaving in the head and oil pan in rather large amounts. Here's pictures:

Also see this other picture and tell me if the vent/hole on the passenger side of the block is normal as in supposed to be there? Or did I blow a hole in the block?

Hole looks alright, I think it is an oil return passage. Those bearings on the other hand are hammered junk.

My 1.8 vvt im building has that same hole. Should be fine. You might want to have your crank checked out? Mic it.

Another user suggested this is what caused the bearings to shred:"It's caused by an oiling issue. Either contaminated oil, not enough oil in the system, or not enough oil pressure."

Do you have any input?

I read your other thread. You did not mention drifting. Drifting is terminal to Miata engines. Just like the cars are very poorly suited to drifting due to their low polar moment of inertia, the stock engines are not designed to operate free revving at the rev limiter for extended lengths of time without exploding. It's called abuse. The bearing you are holding in your hand is its fruit. I'm not trying to be mean when I say that stupidity is expensive. It just sounds that way because reality is a bitch.

I need more knowledge. I feel like an idiot on a daily basis.

Lets say I were to buy this engine rebuild kit: 1995 Mazda Miata 1.8L L4 Engine Master Rebuild Kit - EK490M -16

Do you think I would be able to get it to start? My cams and crank do not seem to be scorned, I will post a picture of those in a moment. The plan for this build is a small budget turbo kit.

Here is my thought on engine kits- I hate them. After a few rebuilds, I only trust genuine Mazda gaskets in certain places.. pretty much everywhere except The head gasket. lots of luch with the $35 ebay MLS gasket. You dont know MAD untill you install a brand new engine and have to pull it after 10 minutes because of a shit rear main seal. this happened to me.

NPR (and most ebay) rings will last a long time but be prone to oil consumption.
I like quality bearings - King, ACL..
I like the 949 sourced water pump- cast impellar instead of welded or stamped
I like gates timing belt kits
I like oil pressure, so I use good pumps from BE. for you, just a VVT pump might be ok.


All of this leads me to purchase things separately.
Think about what you are doing here... redline bumping for minutes at a time. this is not the place for "budget" parts.

Here is my thought on engine kits- I hate them. After a few rebuilds, I only trust genuine Mazda gaskets in certain places.. pretty much everywhere except The head gasket. lots of luck with the $35 ebay MLS gasket. You dont know MAD untill you install a brand new engine and have to pull it after 10 minutes because of a shit rear main seal. this happened to me.

NPR (and most ebay) rings will last a long time but be prone to oil consumption.
I like quality bearings - King, ACL..
I like the 949 sourced water pump- cast impellar instead of welded or stamped
I like gates timing belt kits
I like oil pressure, so I use good pumps from BE. for you, just a VVT pump might be ok.


All of this leads me to purchase things separately.
Think about what you are doing here... redline bumping for minutes at a time. this is not the place for "budget" parts.

I'm the same way. I got dicked over on a ebay rebuild kit once. The valve seals leaked, the main seals leaked, but the HG was stellar. (It's probably pretty hard to mess up a MLS gasket?) Same with supertech valve stem seals.

I used whatever rings came with my supertechs... I have heard some have issues with those though.

Valve stem seals: OEM or felpro.
FMS/RMS: OEM
Coolant gaskets: I had a rash of shitty paper gaskets. I make all mine out of fel-pro blue paper now.
Bearings: ACL/King
Intake manifold/exhaust manifold gaskets: I used ones with the ebay HG kit. They work fine.
Timing belt: I'm a cheap ass here, I use autozone ones. Same with the water pump. Never had an issue with either. Other people have had different luck.
Cam Seals: OEM.
BE oil pump here as well.

So basically, I bought a ebay headgasket set, trashed half of it, and bought OEM main and cam seals, and made my own cooling system gaskets. I'm just using the head gasket, valve cover gasket, and intake/exhaust gaskets out of the flea bay set up.

I want to see pictures of the crank and rods - including the rod caps...

Both these posts are about dead on. OEM for all the rubber seals in the motor, along with the oil pickup gasket. Ebay MLS head gasket. I get GMB water pumps off eBay along with the timing belt and have not ever had issues. Quality bearings and rings are worth the money. If you are pulling everything apart spending the $250 on rods is a smart move.

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