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I don't really go with a complete kit per se, just get what I need
If you go back through the post I have screen shots of the orders from Atkins and Ray Crowe.
Generally I get the Atkins O-ring kit for all the water seals, oil seals, dowel pin O-rings, all that jazz. I had an old set of new ALS apex seals from 15 years ago that I'll be running. Corner seals, springs, side seal springs, all came from Ray Crowe.
Various other gaskets I just added to the cart that I knew I would need.
Ray is generally a bit better on price on OEM parts than Atkins and charges WAY less for shipping. Also there are some parts - namely front and rear main seals - that Atkins has aftermarket versions of that I don't trust.
I'd like to understand porting a little better. Why is porting the exhaust down beneficial?
Doesn't this reduce some degrees of power stroke and reduces output?
Or is the extra energy in the exhaust what we want for the turbo?
This is one of the things that are specific to turbo vs NA, right? The RX-8 side exhausts open later and increased the duration of the power stroke for example.
Nice! It looks like we're on basically the same path, but started from different places. I'm down in Tampa myself. Looking forward to seeing this progress. Thanks for the port template comparisons as well, those were helpful when looking at my own irons to figure out just how ported they are
Finally got past all the Christmas/New Years stuff going on and got the engine stacked.
Few things -
- When it's finally time to build an engine, get EVERYTHING ready before hand. Everything laid out and accounted for, take each piece and look over it to make sure everything is clean and ready, etc. Takes a good amount of time to do but it's way better than having to stop in the middle to see where x part went or realize you're out of RTV. Even worse is having to go backwards and take things apart to fix an error that could have been avoided.
- Everything looks to have gone together well, apex seal springs all went in nicely, motor turns and makes nice swooshes after assembly.
- End play was dead in spec with the old spacer so yay for that. .0020"
- My front eccentric shaft key was fighting me a bit, took a look and the end of it is actually bent! Had a spare so no biggie. Not sure how that happened, it's a small amount at least?
- Oil pan is on as of last night with the Toyota FIPG gasket maker stuff. Chases all the holes out, cleaned with acetone and rubbing alcohol, sanded everything down lightly with 180 grit to make sure it was clean and had a bit of a texture to grip, then cleaned again. Applied RTV to the pan and a few "dots" of RTV on the engine where 2 sections meet to make sure any void there is covered. Went on nicely with the vintage Chips Motorsport brace.
- Hung the single turbo to see how it will look. Good, that's how it looks!
Picture time -
And I painted the motor, figured I might as well . Gloss black on the rotor housings and matte black on the irons. LIM is ceramic coated from Jet-Hot.
I like the engine color combo. I was thinking about something similar but then ended up staying away from black, makes it harder to see where leaks are coming from. But good news for you, your build is so good you won't have leaks!
Paint is just Dupli-Color engine enamel. I did spray their engine enamel primer down first, that seemed to smooth the surface and give a more smooth coat.
The rotor housings I sprayed in direct sunlight so they got a little dry spray to the finish. Not enough of an issue to worry about trying to repaint or anything.
Also the water pump/water pump housing are now gloss black. Woot!
- Clutch is 100% on with new pilot bearing and seal. BTW one of the BEST tools I ever bought was the Mazda pilot bearing tool. That thing works so damn good.
I also bought a pilot bearing install tool that someone made AGES ago on the old FC3S mailing list. It's just a simple aluminum rod that's been turned to the right dimensions on a lathe but always works perfectly.
I went through the Turblown video and set up the turbo, got it clocked, oil/water lines figured out, etc. Well, water lines MOSTLY figured out, the bottom one I'm having to fight to get it to clear the OMP and I'm going with a different hose setup on the top line, parts on order for that.
Fuel injectors are installed and I went through and gutted the rat's nest. Crazy to be down to ONE solenoid, the FPR control. Well, I guess also the purge valve. Gotta clean it up and re-paint it to make it look nice again.
Also discovered the pressed in stub for the oil fill neck is clocked like 5-10 degrees off. The engine was originally a Mazda reman when I got it so most likely they pulled it during the reman process and didn't install it properly. Going to pull it and install a cleaner one I have from another engine, hopefully now clocked right. I don't think it's ever leaked but it's bugging me
Next major things to get done:
- Get turbo 100% figured out with the water lines
- Create the heat shield for the turbo manifold
- Do some sanding/cleaing up of the UIM and get it powdercoated
- Go through the wiring harness and check it over, clean it up, fix any issues
Also need to pull the car out of the garage and pressure wash the engine bay and start getting things figured out under the hood - repair anything that needs doing, get things prepped for the engine, etc.
I also have the starting bits of an intake on the way so that's fun!
You can get by without the FPR control solenoid. When it's active, the fuel pressure regulator will use atmospheric pressure instead of manifold pressure/vacuum as the reference, which ends up increasing the fuel pressure by 8-10psi. From what I've heard, the factory ECU might activate it during some hot starts to avoid fuel 'vapor-lock'. If your fuel pump and injectors can work well at a higher base pressure, you can get a similar effect by just running your base fuel pressure 8-10psi higher than stock. I've had that removed from my car for 10+ years, base fuel pressure set to 50psi, and hot starts haven't been a problem.
I would keep the evap purge solenoid, if your ECU can run it. It helps cut down on raw fuel vapor smell, I've tried with and without it active. I might also keep the double-throttle solenoid if you have the double throttle blade in the UIM still, I haven't tried this myself but some tuners claim it helps with low-RPM torque to have the double throttle closed.
And if you can somehow run hard lines for oil and coolant near the turbocharger, I would do that too. It seems like soft lines or 'braided stainless' lines fail eventually if they are near the turbocharger.
Last edited by scotty305; Jan 21, 2025 at 12:58 PM.
It seems like the purge solenoid mileage varies for a lot of people. My wiring harness builder did not include it and I was PISSED. I ended up leaving everything in place and just ran the car without the hose connected or the solenoid plugged in. I have not had a fuel smell; either that or I have gotten used to it.
ONE day I'll go single and look forward to less solenoids.
Since I'll be running stock primaries/1300cc secondaries/stock FPR at least until I HAVE to upgrade the FPR solenoid is well worth it. I've spent enough time on FC's to know how crappy a real hot start can be and that system does a great job solving the issue.
Also I'm running a PowerFC so it can control it all properly.
Yeah I don't see a reason to get rid of the evap system, I don't want fuel smell. This is a street car, I don't want an obnoxious stinky race car
I'm VERY close to finally getting the motor dropped back in. Some notes system by system:
- Turbo kit
Overall it's a great kit, fit, finish, and parts quality are great. Few nitpicks and things to be aware of if you're gonna go this route.
The water hard line closest to the block needed a good deal of massaging to comfortably clear the oil metering pump. I don't know if this kit was designed around an OMP delete. I think I probably took the turbo on and off like 10 times trying to get it right and taking the line to the vice to bend. Basically the line needed to be a bit straighter/shortening of the angles to clear. I did also need to get more silicone coolant hose to make it all work but that could have been on me, I cut the provided hose way too early in the process. It's Vibrant 10mm ID silicone coolant hose, Summit Racing has it in 5' lengths.
On that topic, the coolant hard lines are most likely standard and not metric sized. I think they are 3/8" OD or so. You do need to clamp down good with the worm drive clamps for them to (hopefully) seal up. Also would be nice if there were rolled beads on those lines instead of a flare at the end. I thought about getting a bead tool but it was gonna be like $60 for one of the Earl's EZ-Beads with no guarantee that it would work.
The top left turbo nut has to be threaded on first then threaded down as the turbo comes down to the flange, then the others are installed. Fine and dandy, except when you try and use the included double lock washer things with the nut, I tried and tried to get it on but there's just no room. Supposedly it can be done? But I also saw that if I ever needed to pull the turbo this would be a HUGE pain so I bought M10 x1.25 copper clad exhaust lock nuts that are 14mm wrench size. Used all 4 of those and was gold. I did need to get a 1/4" drive 14mm swivel socket to be able to get to the upper right nut to tight it, it's CLOSE there.
- Turbo manifold
Pleased with it, I did make a heat shield from this header armor stuff I got. Basically wrapped the manifold in tape, sliced the tape off, made a template, did a few iterations of that to get a good fit. The header armor stuff I got came with crappy wire to hold it in place, I got stainless steel zip ties. I think I'm happy with it but time will tell if it just burns up. Big thing for me is I want at least OEM levels of heat shielding.
- Wiring harness
So I wanted to modify my harness for single turbo - chop out the emissions stuff, extra solenoid plugs for the twin turbo stuff, etc. I didn't want to go super crazy and pull each wire fully out of the harness, just cut it back and clean it up. Also repair some broken connectors while I was in there. I did read how the black/white wire to the solenoid plugs is important, even knowing that it was a CHORE. That is a 12v power wire that is still needed for the ISC and OMP, I had to carefully splice those cut wires together and fully test to make sure I didn't kill the power to the OMP/ISC. Took me a while to get the harness to where I was happy with it. Also replaced some broken connectors.
- OMP breather
The vacuum lines on the OMP normally plumb into the primary turbo inlet, they are basically just getting a filtered atmospheric pressure source. You do NOT want the nipples seeing vacuum or boost. I got a K&N breather filter that had a relatively small nipple on it, it's now where the solenoids were with 2 3.5mm vacuum lines coming off the OMP injectors, going to a brass tee, then going to a step up from 3.5mm to 6mm brass adapter then 6mm hose to the breather. I think that will work but time will tell.
So, general status as of today. Turbo is all bolted on and done with water lines and oil drain hooked up. Oil feed is ready to install but I have some turbo pre-lube from Liqui Moly to use before startup, basically you squirt this in the turbo oil inlet and it's an assembly lube type deal to pre lube the bearings so they don't start dry. Wiring harness and rat's nest is installed.
Yesterday I pushed the car out and pressure washed 15 years of leaky oil pan off the subframe.
Things on the to-do list:
- Clean up and paint the PS/AC bracket
- Install alternator
- Clean up and do any repairs on the starting/charging harness
- Install upper intake manifold and figure out vacuum lines/caps
- Go through the engine bay and see anything else that needs doing before engine drop in
Once the engine is dropped in hopefully it will be ready to at least start fairly quickly. There's so much custom crap going on that there may be more little things I don't yet know about. I will definitely need to get a new IC pipe made, I have the parts so hopefully that will be not too bad.
wat?
