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Got the car buttoned up. It still seems to have a minor leak at what seems to be the downpipe to turbo gasket. Gonna see if I can get a different gasket for that.
Question for you guys, it looks like the heater core is looped, is it worth getting new hoses and hooking it back up? Car barely gets driven in the summer let alone winter. Thoughts?
Do you know why it was looped in the first place? Heater couldve been leaking thats why its looped?
BTW car looks awesome! Clean black paint looks so good!!
fortunately in the end things worked out. Only gripe is the radio install kit is not ideal. Going to see if there is a better bracket kit out there. While everything was apart I yanked the shifter out, everything looked great so I put it back together.
So despite installing the borla xr1 in the midpipe, the sound in decibels went down a good amount. However the note itself became a bit too bassy...almost like driving with a sub box in the car with the bass turned up. It wasn't particularly enjoyable. So I was able to find a 3.5" resonator and it fit perfectly behind the current muffler. it was 105 shipped..not bad! Now my exhaust system has a total of 3 mufflers! The sound is a bit more smooth and more bearable. I need to put more miles on it, but it's off to a good start. It's weird because I'm usually excited about when my cars get louder but for this particular car I was more excited about getting the volume down so I could hear the rest of the components such as the turbo spooling up and the bovs.
On a more unfortunate note, the exhaust leak is coming from the header to block gasket. So it looks like I'll be removing the turbo once again. Not sure how or why it's leaking from there but I'll take a closer look when it's off. Probably next weekend.
Holy chit.. didn't realize oem gaskets are so expensive! Been doing some reading, the rear rotor gasket is the one that's leaking. Had I known this was a trouble point I would have done more due diligence when the turbo was off. I guess first order of business will be to remove everything again, inspect, make sure manifold is flat then either get a new gasket or clean all surfaces, double layer it with another gasket or copper silicone...does that sound like a decent approach?
Those gaskets on a stock car rarely blow out and are typically infinitely re-useable. I'd track a good used one down. The price Mazda wants for them new is ridiculous. Also make sure you are using an OEM gasket, there's a few aftermarket gaskets out there that are garbage.
NEVER NEVER use RTV on an exhaust gasket. That just gives an easy way for the exhaust to blow out, you will cause more problems than you will solve.
Things to look for -
- All 4 rotor housing studs in good shape and where they should be
- All 4 nuts holding that manifold are tight. You CANNOT use plain nuts here, they will back themselves off. Use the copper coated exhaust lock nuts.
- Make sure your turbo manifold is clean and FLAT. Some aftermarket manifolds can warp. Should be easy to check with a flat surface.
- Make sure other things in the exhaust aren't pulling on the turbo and loading it one way or the other. That can pull things out of alignment enough to warp that manifold or make a small gap for exhaust to get out of.
Those gaskets on a stock car rarely blow out and are typically infinitely re-useable. I'd track a good used one down. The price Mazda wants for them new is ridiculous. Also make sure you are using an OEM gasket, there's a few aftermarket gaskets out there that are garbage.
NEVER NEVER use RTV on an exhaust gasket. That just gives an easy way for the exhaust to blow out, you will cause more problems than you will solve.
Things to look for -
- All 4 rotor housing studs in good shape and where they should be
- All 4 nuts holding that manifold are tight. You CANNOT use plain nuts here, they will back themselves off. Use the copper coated exhaust lock nuts.
- Make sure your turbo manifold is clean and FLAT. Some aftermarket manifolds can warp. Should be easy to check with a flat surface.
- Make sure other things in the exhaust aren't pulling on the turbo and loading it one way or the other. That can pull things out of alignment enough to warp that manifold or make a small gap for exhaust to get out of.
Dale
Just the guy I was hoping would reply. Thank you! Will post updates
So looking thru pictures when i had the turbo off, I see that there was some level of leaking happening and thats exactly where the leak is coming from now. The manifold side I know was clean. When I take it off again, I'll make sure the surface is flat but additionally, i think just to be safe, I'm going to order a gasket and worst case scenario if I see something amiss other than the gasket ill fix it, but if everything checks out OK and I have to end up using the gasket at least I'll have one on hand.
- All 4 rotor housing studs in good shape and where they should be---Looked OK - All 4 nuts holding that manifold are tight. You CANNOT use plain nuts here, they will back themselves off. Use the copper coated exhaust lock nuts.--Double checked they are tight and using those lock nuts as well. - Make sure your turbo manifold is clean and FLAT. Some aftermarket manifolds can warp. Should be easy to check with a flat surface.--Will check when turbo is off again
- Make sure other things in the exhaust aren't pulling on the turbo and loading it one way or the other. That can pull things out of alignment enough to warp that manifold or make a small gap for exhaust to get out of.--manifold bolts were the first thing I tightened, so hoping nothing else is causing contention.
Q&A time. I got the turbo off, you can see where the leakage is at, rear rotor.
Despite the new gasket, it still leaked. Now there are 2 questions I have. First I was suspecting the flange is warped, but now im questioning if the gasket orientation(for the rear rotor) was correct to begin with.
Both gaskets were installed like this, is this correct?
Was this secondary leak the whole time just the gasket installed backwards? also is the buildup on that 1 port anything concerning?
Well after a few tries I finally fixed the damn leak. Ended up being way too much time wasted, should have checked for trueness prior to getting the gasket, but in retrospect, it's always the case. Good news is she's all sealed up now and the next steps now are going to be fixing all the remaining rattles from the suspension.
The car sounds much much better now. Very easy to hold a conversation. Haven't gone wot yet to see how the setup sounds but from what I have heard so far it's great. Only gripe is I wish the turbo spoolup sound was more audible, but I can't give a complete verdict until spring time when I'll be able to do some pulls again.
thanks! Yeah from the looks of it, seems like the flange has been warped since day 1. With the car being so obnoxiouly loud and just never dring it enough to really notice it or fix it.
pretty sure that manifold is a really old HKS one, which means that someone may have bought the whole kit. there are variations, but it seems like the early T04S kits had a tubular manifold, which later becomes a cast one
the T04R and Z kits keep the tubular manifold
its also possible someone used the cast manifold as the basis for a jig, and then made their own, notice how the turbo and WG are in the same places?
pretty sure that manifold is a really old HKS one, which means that someone may have bought the whole kit. there are variations, but it seems like the early T04S kits had a tubular manifold, which later becomes a cast one
the T04R and Z kits keep the tubular manifold
its also possible someone used the cast manifold as the basis for a jig, and then made their own, notice how the turbo and WG are in the same places?
Yep, I'm sure you are absolutely correct. The wastegate is hks, along with the heat shield as well as the manifold design. My downpipe looks the same as well. Thank you for confirming my thoughts!
-fuel filters arrived
-install water injection ordered
-door handles need to order
-inspect and fix suspension clunk
-swap transmission fluid
Will be installing new fuel filters, pressure testing the car for any boost leaks, installing the water/meth kit, changing the trans fluid then I think ill be OK to start putting some miles on the car this season. Car was previously running around 11-12psi and I don't plan to change that. Goal is reliability and consistency, not interested in making more power or tracking the car. I also premix a bottle of 2 cycle oil with every fillup, 1qt.
Plugs are NGK 9's..BUR9EQP...from reading around, it seems like I should be running the Denso Iridium 10's (Denso Iridium IRE01-31) which ill go ahead and order. Anyone have anything else I should do that I haven't listed?
consider this the beginning stage of the engine as far as cosmetics go..got the fuse boxes installed and picked up that front cover as well(not bolted yet)
Glad I found this thread. I have been going down the same road. Whoever built your car must of built mine lol. Same crap with various wires all in the interior and a greddy boost controller in the stereo lid just like yours. I couldn’t ever get mine to work right so I pulled it and just run off of the wastegate spring. I bought an Elite 1500 to replace the e6k in mine and a little bit overwhelmed with installing it. Look forward to updates on yours.
10-21-22, 04:35 PM
