I was the first person in the office today. That's not unusual. I just did not suspect it would happen when the first step of my commute was putting a fresh starter into the M3.
I'm glad it's in there, I hope it works better than the previous starter, and I'm really hoping it doesn't rain.
Thursday, August 23, 2012
Monday, August 20, 2012
Finally, un-messed the MX-3 Intake
My latest combinations of intake fixes finally got the MX-3 running well again. There is now 99.8% less J.B. weld around the intake tract.
The first problem was with the throttle body. While I had ground it until it appeared to fit, I was still off a few thousandths of an inch and I believe that was causing a bit of a leak. In my frustration and aggression I may have been a little over zealous with the angle grinder. Over zealous enough to actually make a hole into the IAC valve's air passages. This has led to retaining .2% of the JB Weld. The pictures of this fix didn't come through with my phone's camera.
I've also learned quite a bit about the Mazda KL series V6 in the last couple of weeks. Our car originally came equipped with a KL-K8. This is the 1.8L V6 that Mazda was insane enough to build. According to any record I found this is the smalled V6 ever put into a production car. It could have had a super-high-RPM, awesome headed, crazy wonderful S2000 appeal to it. But instead of being made by Honda or Nissan, who would've done such a thing, it was built by Mazda and they sorta skimped a little in the corners. This ensured the car would feel "peppy" for people who'd never driven a car that was actually "peppy." The computer and various accessory electronics are still all powered by the K8.
Recognizing this fault, the previous owner swapped in a KL-ZE engine. This was the V6 put in various Japanese Mazda's into the late-90's. This V6 has 2.5 liters of displacement, good cams, higher compression, and usually comes equipped with a good intake and throttle body combination. We didn't get that whole good-intake-throttle body business. Instead we got the intake with giant blue boogers.
The throttle body we fitted to our new intake is from a KL-47 (Millenia). The intake itself is from a KL-G4 (Late 2000's 626). I came to discover that the castings for the KL-ZE has ports for EGR built into the heads. On the KL-47, the old intake with Cookie Monster's mucus, this port is blocked. No problem! On the new intake, the one without the sticky-blue, there is plumbing for this hole. This created a giant vacuum leak and the car would barely idle. I plugged it with a frost plug from the local parts store. The car now runs and drives as well as it ever did before and we mitigated the risk of instant and unexpected engine death from JB-Weld failure.
The first problem was with the throttle body. While I had ground it until it appeared to fit, I was still off a few thousandths of an inch and I believe that was causing a bit of a leak. In my frustration and aggression I may have been a little over zealous with the angle grinder. Over zealous enough to actually make a hole into the IAC valve's air passages. This has led to retaining .2% of the JB Weld. The pictures of this fix didn't come through with my phone's camera.
I've also learned quite a bit about the Mazda KL series V6 in the last couple of weeks. Our car originally came equipped with a KL-K8. This is the 1.8L V6 that Mazda was insane enough to build. According to any record I found this is the smalled V6 ever put into a production car. It could have had a super-high-RPM, awesome headed, crazy wonderful S2000 appeal to it. But instead of being made by Honda or Nissan, who would've done such a thing, it was built by Mazda and they sorta skimped a little in the corners. This ensured the car would feel "peppy" for people who'd never driven a car that was actually "peppy." The computer and various accessory electronics are still all powered by the K8.
Recognizing this fault, the previous owner swapped in a KL-ZE engine. This was the V6 put in various Japanese Mazda's into the late-90's. This V6 has 2.5 liters of displacement, good cams, higher compression, and usually comes equipped with a good intake and throttle body combination. We didn't get that whole good-intake-throttle body business. Instead we got the intake with giant blue boogers.
The throttle body we fitted to our new intake is from a KL-47 (Millenia). The intake itself is from a KL-G4 (Late 2000's 626). I came to discover that the castings for the KL-ZE has ports for EGR built into the heads. On the KL-47, the old intake with Cookie Monster's mucus, this port is blocked. No problem! On the new intake, the one without the sticky-blue, there is plumbing for this hole. This created a giant vacuum leak and the car would barely idle. I plugged it with a frost plug from the local parts store. The car now runs and drives as well as it ever did before and we mitigated the risk of instant and unexpected engine death from JB-Weld failure.
 |
| Winning? Seriously, Mazda, less creativity please. |
Thursday, August 9, 2012
The Start of the MX3 Rally Car
This one doesn't have any cute nick names yet. No MESStang, the MESS3, etc. It's a Mazda, we're going to put a cage in it and then go dodge trees in Rally America.
It's cute, eh?
I'm not a professional mechanic, but I don't think "put more goop on it" is better than spending $7 on an intake gasket.
Oh good, JB Weld Stalagmites.
This is the new ground clamp. It's also the anti-theft device. Note the high quality Walmart nEverStart battery.
After discovering our high quality intake, I ran to the junkyard and got various KL-series V6 parts without a lot of knowledge about what actually fits. This is a KL04 intake. I was told it doesn't fit into the MX3 on various Mazda forums. Well, jeeze that sure does look like it fits. Oh, and the TB is the KL47 (Millenia), which also "doesn't fit." The throttle cable bracket rubs on the brake reservoir, by a few millimeters, my angle grinder will fix that later.
Oh, we were also told that it will hit the battery. Damn, one of these times the Internet will be right.
While I was pulling the old intake, I saw and felt there was a paper towel in the back. That happens sometimes and didn't really worry me. It didn't worry me until the intake was off and I realized that it was used to hold in a large wad of JB weld. The paper towel was an integral part of this intake. Whoever did this work really needs to remove themselves from the gene pool.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
