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Major milestone achieved! The engine and transmission are officially installed!
As expected, the load leveler interfered with the install. Here is the visualization of the interference. It's a race car with bumps and bruises so I don't care too much about the scratches I added. If it was a clean street car, it would bother me.
So when I got to that point, I supported the engine and trans from underneath with my floor jack and swapped the load leveler for a good ole chain. That gave me a lot more clearance as you can see.
From there just slowly got the engine in position. It was a bit awkward to install. I had to resort to sometimes using the hoist and other times using the jack from underneath but I finally got the engine sitting on it's engine mounts. Took 1:45 working slowly by myself. Not too bad. I lost about 15-30 minutes trying to find what was causing the driver side to not seat into the engine mount. Took me a while to realize that the rubber mount is meant to 'slot' into part of the aluminum bracket and they were interfering with each other. Oops.
The oil filter took a beating so if I ever do this again, I will install w/o the oil filter and cover the area with something like a latex glove.
The PPF is a heavy beast! Much heavier than the NA Miata. I used the jack to lift that into position rather than strain my body.
Installed the starter and started connecting the wiring under the car while it was on jack stands. Now need to get the top end of the engine and 'accessories' assembled...
TO DO list:
- install the UIM
- install the ECU
- figure out which of the various connectors I found on the driver side of the engine are actually still being used and where they go
- coolant hoses
- etc etc
I suspect the electrical connectors are going to be head scratchers. I lost my old disassembly pics and it doesn't exactly match OEM configuration with all the emissions deleted. Hopefully, the FSM can help me sort this out. Thanks for following along.
Last edited by gracer7-rx7; Sep 30, 2024 at 12:37 PM.
Almost forgot... I weighed the car before installing the engine trans. 2,273 lbs. Ignore the corner weights. Those are not accurate, scales were not level. No engine, trans, exhaust, seat, drive shaft, front bumper, hood.
It does have an unknown quantity of fuel in it still and the rear wing is installed, roll cage, fire system.
Last edited by gracer7-rx7; Sep 30, 2024 at 12:50 PM.
Made a bunch of progress on the getting the car ready for its first start.
Intake is together.
Started installing the coolant system together. Was able to cut and reuse the 2 stock upper radiator hoses. Will need to do something custom for the lower radiator hose since the stock one won’t fit on this cross flow, dual pass Ron Davis radiator.
i also discovered that I ordered the wrong coolant hose that goes between the thermostat housing and the bottom of the coolant overflow tank. Looks like I’ll have 2 new oem hoses to post for sale soon.
Temporarily installed the new oem coolant tank.
Installed the ecu and related parts in the black box.
I had installed a new clutch slave so decided to bleed that. I tried to suck out the 8 year old brake fluid from the reservoir but couldn’t figure out how to do so. So I tried to flush it out via the driver side caliper. Discovered that the bleeder was clogged so grabbed a bleeder screw off one of my Miata’s spare front caliper. Used my mityvac handheld vacuum pump to suck the reservoir dry via the caliper bleeder screw. Then repeated the process with the slave bleeder. Then refilled the brake reservoir with fresh Motul 660. Repeated the vacuum bleed of the caliper and slave and called it good enough for now. Will bleed and flush the system again more thoroughly later.
I also tackled maintenance on the rear diff. Drained the old oil. Pumped 1/2 quart of oil through it to flush out any old oil. Filled it up with 1 quart of Torco 80-90 and topped up with 1/2 quart of Torco 75-90. The oil came with the car. Magus had a lot of good things to say about this oil so I’m going to try it.
I hate the stench of diff oil…
Once I got the diff sealed up, I started looking around in the general area. Discovered something is leaking. Not sure if it’s the seal where the axle inserts into the diff or if there’s something wrong with the axle.
Inspected the diff bushings. Looks kinda like they might be poly. Subframe bushings look like rubber. Can anyone confirm?
I still need to watch that race
I wish the 8 and other cars in T4 had a lower minimum weight. It is kinda silly to run them so heavy. I understand why but think it sucks.
Progress has slowed as I've had a lot of family related travel recently and contracted covid on the return flight of course... But I started feeling better yesterday and ventured off into the garage to make some progress.
I re-installed the driveshaft, exhaust, the various catch cans and got the car into a ready to start state. I want to get a better reservoir for the pre-mix. The black Moroso bottle at the bottom right of the pic is not well placed and a bit of a pita to open up.
Then I moved on to pumping out the 8 year old fuel. Ghetto rigged what you see pictured below by getting power from my Miata via the jumper cables since I don't have a usable battery at the moment. I had my wife standing by holding the fire extinguisher, which was very entertaining since she was scared that I was concerned enough to have her stand by with a fire extinguisher. I had one too. The first 5 gallon jug pumped out fine. When I went to switch to the second jug, I realized the flow had reduced to a trickle so I started researching and investigating. My first thought was that the fuel filter in the pump was clogged or something so I spent some time learning how to open up the fuel pump and buying a special tool from the local auto parts store that barely worked but eventually allowed me to open up the retaining ring on the fuel pump assembly. I need to get a better tool for this...
Once I had the fuel pump out of the tank, I couldn't find anything that would cause the pump to stop pumping. It was very clean inside. So I bought one of those cheap, orange, fluid transfer hand pumps and pumped out the remaining fuel directly from the gas tank so... mission accomplished. Pumped out about 12 gallons. There's a wee bit sitting at the bottom of the tank but that will dilute without issue. Still not sure what's wrong but I did read something about the ECU restricting fuel flow if there was no speed or load signal while the fuel pump was pumping.
Every idiot light on the cluster was illuminated so it looks like first start might be electronically challenged. I'm hoping some of the lights will go away once I get a battery installed and clear any codes. I suspect it will not go smoothly. Sigh...
Anyway, Got one more coolant hose to buy, add oil and ready to start.
Last edited by gracer7-rx7; Oct 28, 2024 at 12:12 PM.
I was planning on using some silicone coolant hose in custom shapes and lengths to use for the radiator inlet / wp outlet since the stock hose doesn't fit very well. The stock hose is too long and the bend was kinda interfering with things. So I measured the radiator outlet and water pump inlet with my cheapo harbor freight calipers and ordered a 90* 1.5" ID hose, joiner and a length of straight from Pegasus Racing.
So, received it yesterday and went to fit it and realized my mistake... The outlets on the wp and rad are not 1.5" / 38mm ID... I must have measured wrong... The caliper makes it look like 1.5" ID will fit but re-measuring makes it look closer to 35mm ID... Sigh...
I'm suffering through another round of covid so I'm going to blame that on the mistake...
I decided to try my luck cutting down the stock hose. Figured I'd trim a little bit and sneak up to the correct length. I cut about 3" off the end of it and fit it up. I should have started by cutting 2.0 or 2.5" instead but it worked. There's just enough length to slip the hose over the radiator inlet and barb and fit a hose clamp on it. I haven't always had luck cutting the end off a molded hose and having it seal well long term so I'll be inspecting this hose regularly and hoping it lasts.
Finished emptying the gas tank. I bought a special tool to remove the plastic rings to siphon the gas out into a container. Broke a few of the raised plastic bits on the one on the passenger side. Driver side unscrewed more easily for some reason. What a pita... I need a better tool for this. And I should get a replacement ring sometime...
Added 5 gallons of pre-mixed fuel back to the gas tank.
Filled the coolant system with distilled water.
Filled the oil with some conventional 10w30 for startup and initial run in.
Filled the transmission with oil. I frickin hate the smell of transmission oil...
Temporarily placed the battery from my Miata in the engine bay and connected the terminals.
Removed the FUEL relay from the main relay box in the engine bay (so that I could crank to build oil pressure before firing it up).
Temporarily threw the race seat in the car.
Ready to start! Turned the key, saw the pretty lights, turned some more to engage the starter and... nothing... No click. No crank. No braps. Hmmm.....
Then I remembered that I had broken the clutch starter interlock switch a while back when I was removing the sound deadening from the firewall. I was able to reassemble it and it looked ok but that is my prime suspect for the lack of starter cranks and braps. I was out of time at that point.
Next up - remove the seat, check the clutch switch, figure out how to bypass it and then hopefully start the car.
If anyone has any pointers, advice, or bad jokes, post em up.
The reason I did a build thread was to keep me motivated. After writing the last update, I decided to go out and check the clutch switch.
Removed the seat and laid down there on my back. Depressed the plunger thingy manually and confirmed no start. Removed it, unplugged the connector, added a jumper, turned the key and the starter cranked over. Yippee!
Wrapped it up in electrical tape, zip tied it out of the way, then turned the key again to make sure it still worked. Surprisingly, the car started! Turned it off right away. Didn’t think it could start with the fuel relay removed. Obviously I was wrong.
Did a quick inspection for leaks and started it up again. Let it idle for a few minutes while I looked for leaks in and under the engine. So far no leaks.
Gave it a few revs. Revs surprisingly fast. Engine sounds smooth. So exciting!
The engine died when I let off the gas but started right up again.
Going to check fluid levels tomorrow and idle it again while I look for any trouble spots. This is frickin awesome!
Car is running but dies once it warms up. Been searching old threads which have not been helpful. I could use some help with this.
While cold and warming up, it idles well at around 1,000 rpm. Once it starts to get warm, the idle starts to fluctuate a bit. It drops to about 500 rpm for a moment and then will go back to the normal 1,000 rpm. Eventually, it will die as observed in the video.
Last edited by gracer7-rx7; Nov 20, 2024 at 01:27 PM.
I did the ecu reset where you press the brake 20 times.
I did not yet do the "fuel trim reset" which I learned about recently. Idle at 2,500 for 15s, Idle at 3,500 for 15s, idle normally for 60s.
I did the ecu reset where you press the brake 20 times.
I did not yet do the "fuel trim reset" which I learned about recently. Idle at 2,500 for 15s, Idle at 3,500 for 15s, idle normally for 60s.
Nice YouTube channel btw.
Get a scan tool or something that will let you look at OBD-II information. When the car is running you can look at that diagnostic information and you can report back what its stating about the sensors i asked about. They can often help diagnose things like vacuum leaks, faulty sensors, stuff like that
Get a scan tool or something that will let you look at OBD-II information. When the car is running you can look at that diagnostic information and you can report back what its stating about the sensors i asked about. They can often help diagnose things like vacuum leaks, faulty sensors, stuff like that
@Ricky SE3P
Thanks. I get it now. I do have an old scan gauge but it does not display that info.
If you have a preferred or recommended tool, please post. Was thinking of getting VersaTuner once the car was running to tweak the tune. Maybe I should do that now?
The rest of my fleet is 90s junk so all this ODBII talk is a new thing for me.
I would go with Mazdaedit over versatuner. That said, you can buy one of those OBD2 scan tools from like harbor freight to view the live data and just report the numbers to us for far cheaper.
Your scangauge, if a scangauge 2, can read MAF airflow. It might be a custom PID input that you will have to go down the rabbithole and try and find. There's specific codes that Mazda ECUs will show, and that's one of the codes. The information isn't particularly hard to find, and there's a bunch of other useful codes you can add, such as catalytic converter temperature, and there's even a lambda code you can add (this one only reads in lambda and not AFR though).
I routed my scangauge 2 to sit in my cigarette lighter spot on the dash, and it was a great solution for a while. But I did run into an issue where the RJ45 jack connector came loose and seemingly shorted itself out, causing my car to shut off mid autocross run one time. I am guessing the heat from the transmission tunnel was too much for the scangauge. Mine was also about 17 years old, and my car was being co driven that day, so there was a fair amount of heat in that area. Since you'll be tracking your car, I cannot recommend mounting the scangauge in the same spot as I did, lesson learned.
@SparklingFresca the ancient scan gauge is a pita to setup custom pids ime. I am overdue to modernize this tool now that I have an ODB2 car that I can 'communicate' with.
@Ricky SE3P thanks for the reco. Will probably go with MazdaEdit eventually.
It seems like I can download a free version of VersaTuner to read codes (with the necessary adapter) so might try that first. Do either of you have an opinion on that route vs a generic ODB2 scanner?
The ECU has a Racing Beat tune on it currently. Not sure if either option will allow me to make any modifications to that tune...
General update:
- Followed the steps on the Essex link along with the rev to 2,500 for 15s, 3,500 for 15s, idle for 60 seconds. Idle seems a little better. - I drove the car for the first time! Pulled it out of the garage, did a u-turn and drove it back into the garage nose first. I wanted to exhaust pointing out of the garage so I can run the car without smelling up the garage. This engine revs ridiculously fast thanks to the tiny Tilton clutch. The clutch is like an on/off switch though. Spun the tires accidentally trying to move the car. This should be fun!
- Discovered that the seal at the rear of the transmission where the driveshaft inserts is leaking There goes some very expensive Torco transmission oil...
- Discovered that the fans were not engaging while I was watching the water temps. Checked the relay/fuse and it was broken. Swapped in the Heater that was alongside it. Hopefully this doesn't blow up too since I don't have much experience troubleshooting electronics.
Ordering the parts from Mazda Motorsports shortly.
Last edited by gracer7-rx7; Nov 21, 2024 at 01:07 PM.
Doing a lightweight flywheel/clutch makes the idle really finicky, you need to bump the idle speed up and maybe tweak some other idle control stuff so it's faster to react but less aggressive about dropping the RPMs down to idle speed.
Doing a lightweight flywheel/clutch makes the idle really finicky, you need to bump the idle speed up and maybe tweak some other idle control stuff so it's faster to react but less aggressive about dropping the RPMs down to idle speed.
Good point, @DocWalt . Is there a way to mechanically increase the idle settings? I don't see anything on the throttle body...
The car has a Racing Beat tune which I understand is locked. If it is locked, I'm going to assume that I cannot edit idle and other settings using a tool like MazdaEdit or VersaTuner. Correct?
Not sure if it’s the seal where the axle inserts into the diff or if there’s something wrong with the axle. 
Pulled it out of the garage, did a u-turn and drove it back into the garage nose first. I wanted to exhaust pointing out of the garage so I can run the car without smelling up the garage. This engine revs ridiculously fast thanks to the tiny Tilton clutch. The clutch is like an on/off switch though. Spun the tires accidentally trying to move the car. This should be fun!
There goes some very expensive Torco transmission oil...
