Sh*t just got real son!
 

The winter project is underway. This was by far the easiest pull I've ever done. Still kicking myself for not going this route the first time around.

Nothing too major in the works, just a new clutch/flywheel kit, rods, and some random leaky seals and she's going back in. I'm also going to clean the hell out of everything so she looks nice and purty.

I attempted to leave the downpipe in the car. but as you can see from the pics I had a few studs snap the fuck off! Oh well, now that it's out, extracting them from the turbine hopefully won't be too painful.

Progress pics as parts start to arrive.

I was planning on doing this similar thing this winter. Rods, Godspeed 3076, head redone, hone/ rings, crank case evac, new IC plumbing/ DP. You pulled the engine and trans as a whole? That's what I was planning. It appears it worked out well for you!
Can't wait to see more progress!

Sounded crazy the first time I heard it, but it's no more difficult to actually pull the motor and saves you the pain of trying to line up the tranny.

Yeah.

Just me, a compressor, a harbor freight picker, and about 3hrs. Back in '09 before the begi kit went on, I did a ring and hone and had a 3 angle done to the head. I left the block and trans in the car and dropped the cradle to remove the pan and pushed the pistons out the top. It was a pita.:giggle:

Congrats on using your brain. It really is THE WAY to work on these motors. Yank it all out, bolt everything together without cutting your hands up or crawling into places like a damn worm, then just plop it back in.

Fast, easy, and painless.

120k mile clutch? 7k miles boosted, the last 3k at 11 psi.

did you have issues with the tail end of the transmission hitting the floor? I was thinking about pulling my motor this way to do a swap and clutch job. Figure it's easier than dealing with those sumo wrestler tightened bolts I'm hearing about on the top of the tranny

the top tranny bolts are cake if you have several lengths of wobble extensions. Just add them all together until the ratchet handle is below the car and crank. the harbor freight ones are strong enough as long as you throw away the 1/4" ones that come in the package.

i don't understand? isn't this how motors get pulled on rwd cars since the beginning of time?

Welcome to doing it the right way.

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C

I had the car on four jackstands about 2ft off the ground with the hood removed and it came out nicely. Once you get the two engine mounts out of the way and the coil packs removed, it sneaks right out.

I'm pretty sure mazda assembles them this way over in Hiroshima.

Here are a few more shots showing numerous oil leaks and the damn studs that snapped on me. Gonna need a drill, extractor, tap, heat, and a prayer to get those two bastards out.

Good luck with the extraction. Thats a doozie

If you're not wanting to really deal with extrating thoes studs, just get a new exhaust housing and have it poorted while you're at it. They aren't really that expensive. I'm sure BEGi can get you a hotside housing...I got mine from them with no problems.

Well, I broke off the extractor in one of them and ended up just drilling out the other one. :vash: I have better tools at work so I'm bringing the turbo with me to extract the extractor. Hopefully a good forward cutting drill bit can get it out of there.

If that works, I'll tap the holes and get new studs, if not, I'm thinking 2560 churbo ftw.

Here are some pics of the wonderful bp4w's inner workings. The brown coloring is from an octane booster I like to run along with the 93 octane pump gas.

Update on the broken stuff- I successfully managed to not only remove the broken off extractor from the housing but also managed to save the turbo from an early death with the help of some heli-coils. It'll be a while before it gets tested but I think all will be ok.

The other two shots are of the stock rods and they look great. 7k miles of emanage/lc1 street tuning and 11psi didn't see to have any adverse effect on this tough little bp. I kinda wish I would have bumped it up to 13-14psi before the tear down just to see what would of happened. :giggle:

Who is still thick enough to pull the motor without the transmission attached? :giggle:

I only pulled a motor like this from my old RX7, but I had that problem so I ended up jacking the whole car off the ground and let it sit on 4 jackstands. Worked like a charm.

Another update-

The block is bare and ready for hot tanking. As soon as the new rods, rings, and bearings arrive, everything will be going to the machine shop for cleaning and assembly.

The diy hone job from a couple years ago looks terrible.:facepalm: I just couldn't get the depth needed to get a nice crosshatch while the crank was still installed. I'm surprised it ran as good as it did.

*If mods want to move this over to build threads, feel free.

BEEFY!

I don't have a scale, but they feel slightly lighter than the stockers.

I got the block back from getting honed last week, and my rings and bearings just arrived today. So far I've only had time to swap over the rods, install the bearings, and measure and install the rings. All the gaskets and other misc. items should be arriving before Friday.

I still have to paint the block and VC before everything goes back together.

Clean oil pan!:yippee:

New paint! I think it'll look nice in a silver engine compartment.

not a fan of the blue, but its not terrible.

It's VHT ford light blue. I'm gonna bite others style and do a black wrinkle paint for the valve cover and fill in the lettering with the same blue. I'm thinking about flat blacking the IC pipes as well.

Today will be all about assembling the bottom end. I'll be installing the rotating assembly, oil pump, water pump, oil cooler, pick up tube and oil pan.

Progress pics to come.

Got busy today and only ended up installing the crank and rods. Maybe after xmas dinner tomorrow, I can sneak away for a few hours and get more done.

I was able to put some more time in today and got most of the lower end put together. New rear main seal and gasket, crank seal, oil pump gasket, cooler gasket, new water pump, and oil pan installed.

And yes, I am aware my garage is super cluttered.

Which rod bearings did you go with?

Clevite rod/main bearings and hastings rings. All standard size. I ordered them from one of our engine suppliers at my work.

In other news, I just finished replacing the cam seals, rear vc cap, front and rear coolant gaskets earlier today. The head is all ready to bolt back on tonight. Pictures to follow.

Not much to look at here, but the manifold is all back together after a thorough trip through the parts washer at work and has all new gaskets throughout.

The head got a good spray down with brakeclean and I hit the HG surface and ex/in with an abrasive disc. Everything is back in my garage now and I think i'm gonna put off assembly until the weekend.

The anticipation must be killing everybody.:sleep:

Edit- quick question, I had the cam sprockets off and forgot how they go back on. Right now I have the intake cam sprocket (I) mark lined up with the pin, and the exhaust sprocket (E) mark lined up with the pin. Is that right?

I was all set to install the head this weekend but decided to be patient and remember that this is a winter project, not a 4 week project.

The head gasket kit came with new premium valve stem seals, and even though I just had the head professionally refreshed 7k miles ago, I figured better to be safe than sorry and regret not doing this while it was already out of the car. So....

I ended up disassembling the valve train so I can lap the seats/valves and install the new seals.

Here are some pics of the lobotomy. The valves and caps will be going to work with me tomorrow so I can de-carbonize them on the wirewheel and clean them in the parts washer. Lapping (can I say lapping Rick?) and final assembly will be done at home. I may even try my hand at some porting but probably not.:noob:

Are you changing any of the hotside parts while you're building the motor?

Not right now. If I have an issue with the heli-coiled turbo (see above) then I may be forced to.

I will be adding a new exhaust system besides the begi downpipe once I am certain it runs good and isn't going to blowup but it'll stay stock until then.

Plans for the year include, exhaust, wheels/tires, suspension upgrades, and finally I'd like to convert the tan leather interior to all black with either cloth or racing seats. That's probably when I'll upgrade to a full stand alone as well. I was never a fan of the silver/tan combo, but the price was right and it came with a hardtop.

Finished lapping the valves. What a messy, time consuming project that was.

I still need to brake clean the hell out of all of it so none of that compound finds its way into the bearings.

Ok. Valves lapped, head got a decent cleaning, new seals installed, valves, springs, washers, keepers, and tappets installed. So far so good.

I think I'm going to wait until the head is back on the block to install the cams and check lash.

More updates to come later in the week.

So how hard was it to install valve seals? I'm going to be installing rings/rods shortly. I've never done anything more than a water pump as far as motor goes so I'm a little nervous about the whole thing. I wasn't planning on touching the head but after some reading I guess I better replace the seals while I'm in there. Just curious as to what im getting myself into.

The seals themselves are way easy, pull off- slip on - the time consuming part will be compressing the springs and getting the retainers in place.

Head meet block.

I'm hoping to have the majority of the engine back together by tomorrow night. I still need to order my clutch kit, anyone have luck with F1? I plan on resurfacing the stock flywheel and re-using it.

Head installed and torqued to spec.
Cams installed and torqued to spec.
Valve lash checked and to my surprise all 16 are still within spec.

Next up, timing belt...

More pics-

I have the urge to replace my turbo to manifold studs so I'm waiting to mount the turbo until I aquire some.

Also, I just bought some black wrinkle paint so the cover won't look like that for long.

sanded
primed
wet coat
coat after 10 minutes in front of my kerosene torpedo heater. For some reason the pics look way lighter than in person.

I'll post a pic tomorrow after it dries completely, and then after I fill in the lettering.

I Filled in the lettering today and installed the cover. I also got around to swapping all the studs and nuts out, mounting the turbo and running all the oil and coolant lines.

On the way home tonight I stopped to pick up my flywheel from getting resurfaced. Hopefully my clutch kit will show up friday morning.:yippee:

Progress... I got an F1 stage two carbonized kevlar clutch and PP. Should hold up to 250ftlb of torque, it looks like a quality product but the clutch material isn't very thick. Will probably last 10-15k miles with the type of driving I do, but I only put on about 4-5k miles a year.

I'm off to autozone to pick up a slave cylinder and then it's complete.

Next stage, clean engine compartment.

Has anyone ever painted their waterpump pulley? I'm thinking about painting the front of it the same blue as my block. Add some color to the front.

Yay or nay?

Bit of an update....

My new engine mounts came in the mail today, and since I will be installing the engine in the driveway I have been hoping for a nice weekend to get started. This weekend appears to be in the high 30's/low 40's so I will try to at least shoehorn this bastard into place tomorrow afternoon.

I had a 2hr window last weekend where I pulled off the hood, gave the cradle a good cleaning and had a chance to wipe down most of the engine compartment and get it ready.

If the weather works out, I will hopefully be posting pics of progress by sunday night. :werd:

Progress...

Well, I got more done today then I thought I would. Engine is in and the engine mounts are installed, I still need to bolt together the ppf, install the driveshaft, exhaust, radiator, IC piping, etc, but most of the wiring is connected so I am hoping to have it idling by tomorrow afternoon! :drool:

She runs!

After I realized that I had the s-wire and the oil sender wire crossed, I dry cranked until I got oil pressure, popped the INJ fuse back in, and it fired right up.:winner::friday:

It sounds healthy, no leaks I can see, and the stiffness of the s2 clutch kit feels so nice. I'm still a couple of days away from a test drive but so far so good.

I will put up a vid soon.

Looks great man!

How did you clean the head/block headgasket surfaces? I'm going through the same thing and was told not to use anything abrasive on it.

Use this exact disc. It's good for the block and head, and anything else on your engine for that matter. Don't use the green hard discs, those cut away too fast and will mess up aluminum pretty quick. Just make light sweeps until the surface is clean and even looking. You don't need to run the grinder at full speed, I usually turn down the regulator on my compressor to about 40-50psi.

Back to the car, I haven't started it/worked on it since Sunday night and from the looks of my week probably won't have any free time until the weekend. I will update on the weekend. :)

Well, Detroit got hit with 4" of snow friday night, so my lazy ass spent all weekend on the couch. Hoping for some better weather in the coming week so I can wrap this build up.

Ok, I got a chance to do the first test drive on Saturday afternoon. I've put on around 30 miles so far and the only issues to note are a very small oil leak running down the oil return line and my downpipe is touching the trans tunnel causing a vibration/humming.

I am pretty sure the leak is just a loose clamp on the hose, and the vibration may be from the new engine mounts I installed. I think I need to add a shim or two and hopefully that will give me more clearance between the tunnel and dp.

I kept it under 4k rpm for the first 20 miles, but let it rev up to about 6k after that. (wastegate wired open and zero map on emb) It runs good, the clutch already feels pretty solid, it only hops a bit when backing up but even from a dead stop going forward it feels really nice and the pedal travel feels stock. Only 470 miles to go before I reconnect the wga and let the fun begin!

The next time I take it out, I will snap some new pics.

Definitely make sure that you let that clutch have it's break in period. You should have done some more research before buying the stage two, I think there's a couple threads here about it. It's pretty good up to about 200, but once you fry it once it starts to degrade. Mine would slip getting on the highway when I hit like 4500 rpm in third gear full throttle. I wasn't dropping it at that point, just accelerating. Sorry to post somewhat of a bummer post. If it does slip, I would suggest just getting a fm setup.

I hope I have better luck.

Specs for it say 291hp/260tq. My turbo is only a china 2854 so I don't think I'll see anywhere near those torque levels at 15psi.

I guess we'll find out in about 470 miles:x:

Went on a nice long 80 mile excursion today and my confidence with the engine and clutch is building! But no boost yet.

The clutch has felt great since about 20 miles in. The pedal is a little stiffer but I like it, and the engage point feels identical to stock.

After I hit 60 miles, I ran it up to about 6500rpm a few times and one thing I noticed is how much stronger this engine feels above 4k then before the rebuild. I can feel the vics kick in like vtec yo! :giggle: Even with 0 boost (watching the gauge) it just feels like it's going to be a beast. Compression numbers at 57 miles was 185 psi even across all four when warm. I will test it again at 500 miles.

I was able to fix all the leaks but the dp flange where it meets the cat is touching the trans tunnel and driving me crazy. Lots of vibration in the cabin whenever they rub together. I am not gonna sweat it though since it will all be replaced shortly with a nice 2.5in system ending at a straight through muffler. I am debating on cutting the flange off of the dp and sliding a new intermediate pipe over it then relocating my wb into the intermediate pipe.

I also removed the little vapor canister from the engine compartment and capped the ends off. It definitely makes for a cleaner look. I ordered a new 2 row aluminum radiator from ebay which should be here by Wednesday, and yes, I will be wrapping the heater core hoses very shortly.

Only 375 miles of break-in to go. :jerkit:

250 miles to go. Honestly, the engine and clutch both feel rock solid and I am growing impatient for da boosts.

Today I went out and did some NA launching with redline shifts and nothing has slipped, leaked or exploded. I'm seeing boost creep to about 1-2psi by redline and it's making me horny. Me thinks 300 miles is my new target for the fun stuff.

Does anyone think I should go the full 500?

I don't know if i'd be doing redline shifts half way through breakin period? Just take a quick trip up to bay city and back and your good to go. Only 4 hours away from boosting with piece of mind.

RX8 injectors arrived today.

Here is a shot of the new radiator.

I installed the new injectors on Thursday night and have been tuning for 12psi at the moment. It's so nice to have bigger injectors! I'm seeing afr's in the low 11's at 70% DC. :party:

The clutch is holding the power just fine so far, and I plan on turning it up to 15psi within a couple days.

I really need to get the exhaust situation taken care of, I feel like I'm leaving about 30hp on the table with this pos stock system. I don't want to wait 2 months to order one, so I think I'll make a trip to my friendly local exhaust shop and see what they have to offer.

Huge difference the exhaust system.

Good job!

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...1&d=1353635723
https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...1&d=1353635723
https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...1&d=1353635723

3" straight, magnaflow#12579.