Quick question just left the car was today got home and tick tick tick not loud but very faint popped the hood and i knew right away it was SSV so i reached in and hit the lever a few times and poof it is gone no more sound. went out and ran it a few times and still no sound. So my question is should I be planing a cleaning soon????

IMO, yes. When you clean it, grease the metal end of the SSV which mates with the intake manifold. Might want to check this out.

thanks L33 will do

nice!

simple and great blog ;)

i love seeing the (dirty) before and (clean) after pics...makes all the work seem worthwhile.

I have the 0661 code and and seeing some sluggish take-offs/power. Before I take this on though, I've read some posts that it only opens above 6000rpm? So if I don't really take it above 6k than I should look for a different cause?
Side note - i'll be taking out my cat this week :smoker:

Gday fellas im new to this forum, have a 2005 gt 6 speed 121000k bone stock other than k&n typhoon short ram.

had a p2070 code show up and was put into limp mode, this was about a week ago. since then ive been reading on these threads for countless hours trying to narrow down my options and so far i have dropped my cat and checked for any blockages, nothing there, cleaned my maf sensor and no difference, removed and cleaned upper intake manifold, had some carbon build up but nothing major. manually moved the ssv actuator it wasnt stuck but wasnt moving absolutely freely so i sprayed the ssv with deep creep a few times while a mate moved the actuator for me got it moving nice and smoothly. put it all back together and nothing. tweaked my mop a little c*nthair either way resetting my ecu between each adjustment and it changed the idle sound slightly but still stuck in limp mode and running out of ideas before i remove my pants and let the dealership train run through me... any suggestions would be greatly appreciated! Thanks lads.

Oh and im scanning the codes myself using an OSB II scanner and i got the p2070 today but the rest of the time it said no codes found and when trying to clear the code it disappears for a few seconds and then comes right back. also when i first turn on the car it has full power can rev right out but its like limp mode takes over once the cars running for 5-15 seconds. ive only had the car for like 10 weeks so im a bit rattled but i love the car and would love to have it running full bore ASAP! Its drift season!!!!!!

BTW that was popping my post cherry!

edit: also after spraying the ssv i turned on the car and for the first few seconds before the limp mode took over i gave it a few hard revs while my mate watched the actuartor arm and he could see it moving as the valve moved so that leads me to believe the ssv is doing alright in there?
when in limp mode and i give it some gas it sounds like a high pitch air sucking noise? best way i can describe it...

The writeup/ video at the head of this post is excellent. I performed the procedure the other day. It took me 5 hours to do it. Part of that is me being slow, but the key difficult parts here are the vertical hard pipe from the ACV, and removing the actual SSV, which WILL be jammed tight from carbon buildup. I utilized tapping, carb cleaner, and shear stubborness to remove mine.

My big tips here are: 1) Figure out how to remove the water pump pulley ahead of time... you're gonna need a special tool or special knowledge that I didn't have. I figured out "a" solution in my case. 2)Clean your engine block thoroughly before the procedure. You're going to open up the coolant system at the lower thermostat housing and any crud on your block WILL fall into the gaskets when you open it up. 3) IF you're keeping the hard pipe in place, it's not really beneficial to remove the ACV. 4) Have someone with small hands and good upper body strength help you. My job would have been cut in half if it was easier to reach many of the bolts, or if someone was tugging on the hard pipe while I was tugging on the SSV. 5) Look up the electrical connectors ahead of time so you know how to disconnect them. Some are remote and difficult to reach, so a real-time learning curve doesn't help matters at all. 6) If you can manage to effectively cover the engine intake holes inside the SSV socket while cleaning it will really be beneficial. I leaked some carb cleaner into the chambers and it wiped out my oil seal. I lost compression and it took a while to rebuild the seal and start the car.

THIS JOB IS TOTALLY WORTH IT. My RX8 has 80k on it, and it drives like new again.

When I watched the DIY video, I stopped it at intervals and wrote down notes to help me as I did the job. Here are the notes I took:

TASK:

Clean SSV

CAPACITIES:

10.4L 50/50 Coolant

3.75 Quarts 5w20/30 Standard

NEED:

Oil Catch Can?

Oil catch basin for oil change.

Tension ring pliers.

Magnet rod.

Carb cleaner.

Rags.

Large zip ties. (As pulling/holding tools)

Steel Wool/ Copper brush?


REPLACEMENT PART NUMBERS: FYI

SSV Solenoid- KL0118741
Impact Switch- N3H4189B1


THE BASIC COMPONENTS TO REMOVE ARE:

1.Battery and battery box
2.ACV (Air control Valve)
3.Water Pump Pulley
4.Drive Belt
5.Alternator Bracket
6.Thermostat
7.SSV

OPTIONAL COMPONENTS TO REMOVE:

1.Hard pipe from the ACV to the exhaust manifold.
2.Air Pump
3.Disconnect wires to PCM.

Hard pipe-
Having this in the way made it difficult to remove the thermostat.
You also needed to bend it slightly out of the way to slide the SSV out.
Difficult to align the SSV gasket during installation.

Air Pump-
This removed made it easier to reach some bolt.
This is very easy to remove and takes a couple minutes, why not do it to save some hassle.

PCM Wires-
The wire loom the goes to the PCM is difficult to work around and moving this out of the way will free up some room.


>>METHOD ACCORDING TO VIDEO:

1. Drain coolant from radiator via plug at driver's side lower edge of radiator. Philips-head screwdriver.

2. Remove the battery. Socket wrench.

3. Remove battery box by nuts at bottom of box. There are two parts - a battery surround and a bottom tray that must be seperately unbolted. Socket wrench with extension.

4. Remove the hoses that connect the ACV -air control valve. This is the hose clamped with a tension ring of about 1" diameter. The ACV is located about 10 oclock of the alternator. Snap ring pliers.

5. Remove the air pump. The air pump was formerly connected to the ACV. Remove the air pump unit from the car body by unbolting. Socket wrench.

6. Remove the ACV. The connectors appear to be behind/ below the ACV and accessed from the right side of the car. Socket wrench with extension/ 10mm wrench.

7. Open the PCM box, the large black box on the passenger side of the bay near the front and the coolant reservoir. You may need to remove a coolant return tube from the coolant tank in order to access the one of the bolts that secure the PCM lid. Two bolts on the drivers side of the box. One bolt on the passenger side. Socket wrench with extension.

8. Disconnect the wires that run to the PCM. The cable conduit attaches at the rear of the PCM box. Pull the conduit up to access the connector. Disconnect. Move out of the way. Bare hands.

9. Remove coolant hose to thermostat. Connected with a tension ring. Located to 8:45 oclock of the alternator and slightly behind. Snap ring pliers.

10. Loosen tension on alternator belt. Threaded tensioner heads are at top of alternator. Socket wrench.

11. Remove alternator and water pulley BELT. Note belt theading pattern so you replace it correctly. Bare hands.

12. Remove the pulley disc from the face of the water pump. Located at 6:30 of the alternator. Socket wrench. (There's a method you need to look up before doing this step)

13. Remove the alternator tension bracket. The nut is located behind the water pump pulley which is now removed. Socket wrench.

14. Optionally - remove the upper cooler themostat housing for more room. Located where the coolant hose was removed.

15. Remove lower thermostat housing . Three nuts on passenger side of block. Socket wrench. Keep bottom hose of housing connected. Simply pull housing toward youself out of the way.

16.Unplug the wire harness for the SSV impact switch. Bare hands.

(Optionally remove the intake manifold to make the next part easier)

17. Remove the 2 SSV bolts. 11 oclock and 5 oclock. Bolts located facing toward front of car.

18. Slide SSV out. Bare hands.

19. Clean the SSV per recommendations. Clean the SSV socket also.

IMPORTANT:
The video shows us spraying the carb cleaner into the housing.
What you also want to do is stick a shop rag in there and lay in on the bottom, covering the runners so when you spray into the housing, the build-up doesn't run into the engine.
Having no rags covering the runners can cause start-up issues and fowl the spark plugs.
You can wipe the bottom with carb cleaner sprayed onto a shop rag to finish the job.



Good luck.

So recently i discovered this code along with a loss of hi RPM power, so i did this DIY, cleaned the SSV, Checked the actuator for pressure, impact switch, replaced the solenoid(plastic tube was broken on the old one) cleaned the wire harness, and still i have this code. since replacing the solenoid, i got most of the power back, sometimes seems a tiny hesitant but not sure. i have a friend with a really good tuner, and with it we can communicate with SSV. when the car is off, both of the other solenoids will make a small puff, and you can hear/feel them turning on and off when directed to by the scanner. however the SSV will not. Then when the car is running, it works fine. no problems, and directly after turning the car off it continued to work, until car has been sitting for about 10 minutes. I really am tired of dealing with this, anybody have any suggestions? the only things i can think of is a ECU prob? idk, sounds pretty far fetched to me. anyways any suggestions, i would love to hear. thanks.

you'll just have to dig in and troubleshoot it correctly

Thanks Team.guess i get to tear off my UIM, Again. also you have a PM>

Gasket??.
 

When doing this do you need a new gasket or can you use the old one if it's in good condition??

i did this last and i did not replace any gaskets
the ssv is a metal gasket and
the hard tube uses metal as well
the only gasket you will most likley need is the lower thermostat housing i didnt replace mine and it doesnt leak but i also didnt touch or remove it in any way at all so you decide

[QUOTE= but i also didnt touch or remove it in any way at all so you decide[/QUOTE]

So you didn't remove the thermostat??? How long did it take you???

its IMPOSSIBLE to get the ssv out without removing the the thermo housings.

i removed the upper and lower housings yes but the gasket stayed on the water pump perfectly and i did not touch it. it took me close to 3 hours to dissasemble everything but i was taking brakes and cleaning the entire engine bay, checking wires, looms/hoses etc as well cleaned my maf the screen and flushed the coolant as well (my coolant was black) :scared:

98.1 VERY HARD DRIVEN miles after the job and zero issues no leakes no sounds just pulls really hard now and a smoooooooth idle

I'm having low end issues, do u think this might sort it out? It's only been playing up since I noticed the issue with the ssv. Problem is it feel like it's moving freely now.:scared:

your low end issues could be a bunch of things, ssv is PROBABLY not one of them. start with the new members thread read the stickys

nice thread, looks like a common issue.

Excellent videos, thank you!

Well done, very helpful...

Car is a great deal happier. I think it was opening when it should have, the vast majority of the time (only got a few pending codes), but I am not sure it was closing all the way. Car starts a great deal better now and the lower RPM range has a lot more power.

Only addition was that I needed to pull the bolt that holds the sensor wire to get it out. It held the connector up too high on my 04.

Thanks again, car runs a lot better down low. ECU is still re-learning, but very nice.

Just helped someone else do one this past Tuesday night. Surprisingly the SSV on it cleaned up super easy with carb cleaner. I suggested stuffing rags or paper towels in the LIM port openings, but he just spayed it down and let it all run into the engine. When we were done and cranjed it over the engine wouldn't start and then flooded. Had to inject oil into the LIM through the vacuum nipples before it finally fired and began running, then made one heck of a mosquito killing smoke screen ....

took out my ssv valve last night took me about 20-30 mins thanks for the instructions. had a lot of carbon.

Good job!

prepare for a slight world of difference once u put it back in....

I did the troubleshooting test using a brake bleeder pump and the SSV was moving freely. Knowing my perfectionist mentality, I decided to clean it anyway just to avoid future/long-term trouble. This is perhaps the most difficult thing I've done on a car, being a rookie DIY mechanic, I felt really accomplished pulling this off. SSV was very filthy and covered in sludge, and a good shot of Berryman carb cleaner pretty much did the trick.


Thank you very much for an excellent write-up/video. Five hours of my life I'll never get back, but nonetheless I got to familiarize myself with the Renesis and its components more. :)

I suggest to anybody doing this, go ahead and remove the Air Pump, Hard Pipe, and PCM wire bundle. The little extra work makes everything else a much smoother process.

SSV Reinstallation
 

1st, I've been reading this forum about 2 years now and found EVERYTHING I could ever want until today. Thank you all for the loads of info!! Okay, I cleaned my SSV and when I put it back in place it moves nice & free...until the bolts are tight then it's very hard to move. I started over and turned each bolt 1/4 turn (evenly) until it started getting tough to rotate, and the bolts are not fully tight when it starts to get hard to rotate. Has anyone else had this happen or tried manually rotating it after install? I also noticed a slight gap toward the bottom when both bolts are tight, it just doesn't seem right but I have nothing to compare it to. Pic attached, I tried to get a good shot but this is the best my camera will do. I ran into some extra info/detail pages when I tried finding the torque specs for the ssv bolts (still haven't found) so I thought I would share if it comes in handy for anyone. (I will try to give back to this forum best I can)
2004 Mazda RX8 Rough Idel, Stalls
Again, a big thanks to all of you for helping people like me over the years, your work is valued!