What all should I do while my engine is out?
 

I picked up a blown up 99 in otherwise nice condition for $700 the other day. This is like my 5th or 6th Miata so I’m generally pretty well versed, but hopefully you guys can tell me if I missed anything. The plan is to get it running again, then mega squirt, then some boost.

I’m picking up a junkyard 99 motor, I got the Supermiata coolant bypass so I can do that annoying shit with the motor out. I bought new heater hoses, I picked up an FM stage one happy meal, I’m doing rear main while the motor is out, obviously. I’m also doing a timing belt, water pump, and tensioner on the “new” motor as a matter of course.

Anything I’m missing that is going to make me cuss a lot when I realize I should have done it with the motor out?

Here’s the car, pre surgery:

Attachment 228049

I might consider the oil pan seals depending on how high the mileage is. It would be annoying to start the motor and have it leak there.

Good point, might as well do that with the motor on a stand.

I wouldn't touch the oil pan seals as they are not a seal that sees any wear. It's more common to see a botched installation of them cause a leak than for them to start leaking on their own.

I'd do front and rear main seals and the camshaft seals while doing the timing belt and water pump.

that’s also a good point, maybe I will just check for leaks. I’ve already ordered a rear main, front main is a good idea too. I think the valve cover set I ordered came with cam seals, if not I’ll order those too.

If you’re planning on a turbo, remove the pan and add your choice of oil drain. Have someone experienced reseal the pan, it is indeed difficult and easy to mess something up.

Shit, I thought about this when I first bought the car a couple of weeks ago, but totally forgot about it. How bad is the oil pan gasket? I worked as a mechanic for years and I’ve done tons of oil pans but I’ve never done a Miata oil pan.

Anyone have a link to a template or something for the oil drain? It’s gonna be kinda hard to judge without the engine in the car.

Do some searching there's an excellent thread somewhere. The spot to put it when the engine is out is different than where you want it when the engine is installed.

I recommend replacing all the coolant lines that go from the rear of head -> oil filter area -> throttle body -> thermostat housing -> mixing manifold.

It's easy while the car is out.

I would pull the pan and drill/tap it for the return, then reseal it correctly, front rear main seals, cam seals, valve cover gasket, timing belt/wp. I'd also clean the motor and subframe really well while it's out and apart. If the budget allows, throwing some rods in the bottom end would awesome so you can run more boost when it's time for boost.

I’ll check into all of these things, thanks.

Lot already said but:

Turbo oil drain.
The annoying little coolant hoses
Coolant reroute
EGR delete (easier to do without the firewall there)
Crank seal
Rear main seal
Cam seals
timing belt/water pump

The rest of the gaskets, just judge based on looks. If it looks like it's been weeping, replace it.

im guessing this is what you’re referring to:

https://www.miataturbo.net/diy-turbo...48/#post972117

because that looks like the best option to me.

Yeah, I forgot to mention egr, I’ve already got the delete parts

Yup that's where I put mine

awesome, need to go buy a drill bit and tap now.

Coolant reroute

I have the Supermiata one sitting in my office right now waiting on the new engine. After fighting with the coil pack connectors back there I realized I had no desire to do the reroute with the engine in the car.

Motor came out saturday:

Attachment 228043

Attachment 228044

Intake was full of oil. I need to add PCV valve to my list, but I think it was a piston ring more than anything, since number 3 seems fubar.

Attachment 228045

Attachment 228046

Attachment 228047

Now I'm just waiting on one of two possible sources to come through with an engine to put on this stand

Attachment 228048

MazdaComp motor mounts, plug and/or weld cursed water plug. If you doing a reroute, just remove the front water neck entirely and use a blockoff plate. More room for future activities.

Consider welding in a bung above the oil drain plug to put an oil temp sensor in later. Easy to plug it if you never need it. PITA to add one with the engine installed. Drilling into a “live” oil pan has never given me a warm fuzzy even though many have done it.

not a bad idea at all

Good idea, ordered the Mazdacomp mounts, I even noticed the stock mounts were busted when I pulled it out, then promptly forgot, lol.

Seam welding, if your able. heat wrap things on the hot side. Wire tuck, shaved bay, repaint

Motor is here, but my mounts won't be in until next week. I guess that gives me this weekend to mount the clutch, replace a shitload of gaskets and drill the hole for turbo return.

Attachment 228042

As the engine bay is empty , clean hell out of it ! Touch up and repaint as necessary.

Yeah that's the plan for this weekend while I'm waiting for motor mounts. Lots of gaskets, seals, turbo drain, timing belt and water pump, and clean the engine bay.

If anyone said "Front crank seal" you win a prize!

Attachment 228041

At least that's my best guess as to where the funk is coming from.

That's better. My timing cover gasket is fucked though so I'm done for today. Have to run to the parts store this weekend and pick one up.

Attachment 228040

Anything glaringly wrong with my oil pan tapping order?

Barb is 3/8 npt to 5/8 hose barb, tap is 3/8 npt, drill bit is 37/64.

Attachment 228039

So, did my dumb ass hit the pickup tube or is this just a baffle?

Attachment 228038

Looks like I might be dropping the oil pan :o

Tube

/easy build

That's what I was thinking, guess I'll pull the oilpan and replace that tube. At least that will make sealing it easier :D

Don’t use a barb fitting for your oil drain. Use a -AN fitting and get good quality braided line.

Yeah now that I've fucked it up, I'm just going to take it and have an AN fitting welded on. Might as well do it right since the quick and dirty way failed.

Okay this is much better.




Attachment 228036





Attachment 228037

On the chassis side of things you may want to trim the shelf by the firewall for better downpipe clearance.

Yep that is the way to do it. What I generally recommend though is welding in a bung on the pan, then screwing in a fitting. This way if those threads ever get messed up you can swap fitting easier.

https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...fe3fdc2e7.jpeg

+1 on the shelf trim. This trim made nice room for a 3” DP and screamer pipe. I have pics of the pre-cut line if you want them.

You don't even need to trim it. Get a BFH and just beat it down into submission. Much cleaner with no metal bits going everywhere.

I hadn't thought of that and that makes a lot of sense.

I missed this, this is an amazing idea, thanks!

Oil pan is back on. Just waiting on lift time. I think I’lol clean the engine compartment and do some shelf trimming while I wait on the lift.

Attachment 228034

Attachment 228035

That would be super helpful, post it if you get a chance.

https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...17d8022938.png
.
https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...80ccaa2961.png
https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...907ca6cae4.png
https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...b6c051cb9a.png

i put on 2 coats of VHT primer and 2 coats of VHT paint after welding was complete. Paint matching wasn’t important to me since it can’t be seen after assembly is complete. I used a ceramic coated Maxgms Alpha manifold that puts both the turbo and EWG flanges in the middle and between cylinders 2 and 3. There’s obviously more room for your DP if you are using a manifold with flange(s) that offset and are between 1 & 2.

Yeah that is definitely something I should go ahead and do. I'm planning on going with an MKTurbo kit which I believe will clear without trimming, but the extra clearance will never be a bad thing.

Heat wrap that front left brake line all the way down, around and under while you have easy access - that is a freakin’ hot area. 1/2” works but 5/8” would have been easier to slide it around all the bends. Moving/replacing the proportioning valve really opens up the DP slot and gets it away from the heat. I also slid my EBC in/under the brake master cavity (also wrapped). This is how we sit right now but still don’t like the proximity of the heater snake elbow to the DP.

Had to route the heater return hose along the firewall, over the brake booster and wrapped down under the CHRA with a 10 AN welded bung on the WP inlet gooseneck. With 4 EGT probes on the manifold and the screamer/EWG pipe, there wasn’t any more room to do the OEM route. Next version will take that heater return hose all the way around and through the CAI, over the A/C compressor and 180 it into the gooseneck WP inlet to avoid the CHRA entirely. The route I have now would be perfect for a water cooled turbo but our Gen2 Precision just didn’t need it.

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...1080f5142.jpeg

I have started to recommend that people bend down that back shelf just a little bit with a big hammer. While I try to build downpipes to clear there, every car is a little differnt so some extra clearance space only makes things easier.

My thoughts exactly, I don’t ever recall being like “shit I wish I had less clearance for this exhaust”, lol.

I think it’s finally done. Or at least I’m sick of putting off the engine install.

Attachment 228033

Motor is in, it cranks but won't run but that's par for the course, just go recheck all your shit etc. I was checking the crank sensor though and noticed this:

Attachment 228032

Looks like a bracket or ground or some shit, anyone know what the hell it is and how I managed to do that? I'm gonna take the pulleys off and I'm sure it will be obvious, but I wanted to give you guys a chance to laugh at my misfortune.

Bracket for the crank sensor, luckily the wiring isn’t fucked and I pried it out.

That looks to be what's left of your crank position sensor, only the bracket remains.

Oops, too late. I reloaded the page before replying and your post didn't show until after submitting...weird.

I'm posting from under the car. I removed the crank sensor when I saw it to get to it. it's the bracket that holds the crank sensor wiring, luckily the car DIDN'T crank so it didn't have time to mess up the pulley or the wiring harness, just pried it out of the way and put it back where it goes a little bit up the timing cover.

Starting fluid made it fire up, but it won't run on it's own. Grounded the FP pin in the diagnostic connector and it still won't run. Tach isn't moving when I try to crank it either. Time to go google every thing.

Composite log

I'm still on the stock ECU. I do have a scan tool though. No codes other than EGR, which is to be expected since I deleted the EGR. Shows fuel pump relay on and injector pulsewidth is non-zero when I start cranking it. It was very low on fuel so I put a few gallons in just to rule out the easy shit. By all measures it thinks it's working correctly, except for not running. I'm kinda concern I screwed up the crank sensor when I took it off to fix the bracket and wiring. I might go double check it, but it's not throwing a crank sensor code and I lined it up with the little nipple on the crank pulley and set the air gap.

I’m thinking crank sensor.

Okay, I'm no longer posting from under the car so I can type more clearly.

Fuel Injector relay is good, tried a known good one. The giant green EGI relay SEEMS to be good, it's clicking when the key is turned on. I only have a couple of NA's here and this is a 99 though, so they don't have the same big green relay for me to swap with a known good one. The engine will turn over, but not run. The only code in it currently is a pile of EGR codes. The tach is not registering engine speed when I'm cranking it. All of this points me to crank sensor, but the only thing throwing me off is the fact that it seems to have spark. I'll pull a couple of plugs out to double verify, but when we hit it with some starting fluid while cranking, it ran for a second. That seems to indicate spark plugs firing to me. Catching up on a few other things then I'll go back out there and tinker some more and verify the fuel pump is coming on (or not coming on) and verify whether or not the spark plugs are firing.

Definitely have spark, definitely do not have fuel pump. Going to check for power at the pump then back from there. I keep updating this thread so no one wastes any of their life typing a reply to something I've already checked.

If you had fuel pump on your bingo card, you have won!

I have 12v at the fuel pump connector but zero fuel at the end of the fuel line.