Anyone know what this between the spark plugs is ?
It says "Guarantee Void if Removed"'

 

Never seen that before. My best guess is if that was a re-manufactured FD short block, maybe Mazda or whoever the builder was put that on there? Though if that were the case, you could literally tear down & rebuild that motor and not disturb that thing in any way, so it wouldn't have much use as an anti-tamper device for warranty claims.

Along those same warranty lines, perhaps it is attached with a heat sensitive adhesive - Overheat the motor and it falls off?

 

junkyards put those on, if it gets too hot they can tell

 

Same here, never seen before. It has been years since I've seen a Mazda Reman keg and I don't recall anything like this on the housings. Also, I can't find the blue Mazda Reman plate on this engine...on front cover as I recall.

 

Bump for more info on what these are?

 

For my money, I think j9fd3s got it right. A friend of mine needed to order a few J series Honda engines for a project from a scrapper. All of them came with little plaques that looked similar to that (and also said something along the lines of "warrantee void if removed") placed at certain points on the block.

 

Yep I've seen those before. Common for junkyards and rebuilders to put on.

If the car overheats it falls off or changes color or something to let them not warranty the engine. It's just stuck on, totally cosmetic. Also means that ain't the original engine in the car, Mazda never put those on at the factory.

Dale

 

Thanks Dale...Yes I agree, over heat indicators .
Also I found in my records for this engine that it is a Pettit off-the-shelf keg rebuild and they use these stick-ons for warranty purposes.
Thanks to all who replied ......you guys are good

 

Rotary resurrection uses them as well.

it was kinda handy to see that mine had melted when I was chasing down a random over heat. It kinda gave more data to me that the coolant seal probably failed. I then pressure tested the System over night and coolant flooded the garage when pulled the exhaust manifold off.

 

Correct. Kevin with Rotary Resurrection has been using them for years on his builds. If it gets past a certain temperature it will melt so you can tell the engine was over heated. As a former engine builder very very few people are honest enough to admit they had a massive coolant leak or their fans weren’t working after forking out $3-8k to get their fd back on the road. Everyone blames the builder who is very rarely at fault for a premature coolant seal failure.