I went for the first and second drive today! Well, first and second since I parked the car four years ago. Before that though, some more troubleshooting was in order.

My new pressure regulator arrived, it maybe helped the idle a little bit but not much. I ended up turning my attention to ignition timing after that since I knew it wasn't quite right.

I had a thread here all about how my CAS was behaving strangely. The solution turned out to be a bit unconventional:

"I realized that L1, L2, and T1 were firing at the same time. Meaning that the ECU was locking timing at zero split. The fact that it was way at the extreme of the adjustment suggested it was also changing from the usual 5 ATDC lead timing.

I dug into the training manuals (Foxed.ca), and found a page that describes what the ECU does with timing under various conditions. Most are related to the Automatic models but there are some for when the AC is running and when the Power Steering is turned.

When the AC is on, split becomes zero and both Leading (L1 and L2) and Trailing (T1) are locked at 10 degrees ATDC.

So I pulled up my carpet and backprobed the ECU. Pin 1E is supposed to be below 2.5V when the AC is ON, and around 12V when the AC is OFF.

My pin 1E is constantly below 2.5V. Come to think of it, back when I had the little condenser fan for the AC it was also constantly running. Presumably there's a switch someplace that tells the ECU when AC is on and mine has failed in such a way that the ECU is always told it's running (and presumably it's been this way since I got the car, four years ago).

The reason for the weird bog I had when getting onto the throttle was this: The ECU only does this adjustment at idle. So at idle I had adjusted the CAS all the way to the left to make it fire at the "stock" time (albeit with zero split), but the moment I got on throttle it would detect that I wasn't at idle and drop like 5 degrees of timing before advancing properly.

I added a temporary jumper for pin 1E to give it 12V and my timing now works as expected, with the CAS landing right in the center of its adjustment. Split is normal, advance works."

With that done I still had some issues where the engine was a little rough below 800rpm (stock idle is 750). For now I just set my idle at 900rpm and I'm not worrying about it.

I ended up deciding to stick with the TII mirrors. Put in the replacement glass, fairly happy with the fit:






Here's how it looked when I pulled it out to the end of the driveway before the first drive (sorry for the crappy phone photo, today I was in a rush and didn't lug out the SLR):



After an hour and a half on hold with the insurance company, I took it for a drive. Here are were my observations:

- Stuttering under acceleration with the infamous 3800rpm hesitation
- No low end torque (predictable, but I never thought I'd call my 1.8L Celica "torquey" by comparison)
- No high end torque either (uh-oh!)
- Doesn't drive straight (expected, need an alignment)
- Brakes have no power assist, I need to stand on them to come to even a very sketchy stop.
- Engine bay was crazy hot, cooling fan started running even though I was still moving (means I had at least 195 degrees coolant temp even at 2000rpm in fifth).

When I got it back I let it cool down for a few hours and took a break to go order a main fuse from Mazda. By the time I got back I was ready to do more diagnosis.

Since I was in a "backprobe the ECU connector" mood and I've already replaced practically every part on this car, I started there. All of the ECU pins (except the aforementioned troublesome pin 1E) had readings exactly where you would expect them to be except for the AFM voltage reading when idling. It was supposed to be 2.5-3.5V at idle, I was getting 2V. Hmm.

So I pull the AFM out of the car and start testing it as per the FSM. All of the readings were normal.

But that wasn't good enough for me, so I ripped the top off the AFM:




It doesn't show great in the photo (don't have a macro lens), but the middle three pins are ripped from the circuit board. I'm not sure if this is some sort of freak failure or a relic from the previous owner. The whole pads had lifted up and cracked. I initially tried soldering them but like every other electronic on this car I can't get it to take solder for some reason. I remembered I had a spare AFM in the shed someplace and 15 minutes of heavy lifting later I had it free.

Installed it in the car and the stuttering is completely gone. No 3800rpm hesitation, smoother idle (not perfect, still happier at 900rpm), and the car ran much cooler. The car also has top-end torque again! The cooling fan still came on just as I pulled into the driveway but since I had just been accelerating away from a stoplight and then immediately pulled into the driveway and came to a stop I'm reasonably sure that is normal. Going to hook up my real coolant gauge as soon as I can just to be sure.

So what's next?

- The brakes are the obvious priority, because I can't drive it safely until that's fixed. Eyeing the Subaru Legacy / Master cylinder swap, if anyone has info on specifically which years are good donors then please let me know. All of the forum posts I find just indicate "1990s" but there are multiple models with different boosters and cylinders.

- After that I can take it to get an alignment, then just start driving and enjoying it.

- I'm going to hold off until after the alignment to pass judgment on the de-powered steering, but so far it's very irritating.

- I also want to finish the door speaker installation and reinstall the air conditioning.

So there's still a lot to be done, but overall it's been a satisfying day. Always nice when diagnosis actually results in a successful repair


Home after the second test drive

Oh, and I know the shifter bushings are good but the shift feeling is unacceptable and the throw is really long. On my Celica I went to all aluminum bushings and it's great, very firm and direct. By comparison shifting the Rx7 is like moving a very tall spoon through a bowl of soup with gears floating somewhere in it. I have an eBay short shifter for a Miata and a few stock Rx7 shifters, so I may try and graft them into something that will work. If not I'll probably get the Mazdatrix shifter

Until next time

 

Yesterday I left off mentioning the possibility of swapping in a Subaru master cylinder.



It's been a busy 7 hours, but I'm just about done with the swap and frankly it's surprisingly easy (provided you get the right parts). I called a few junkyards near me this morning and none of them had any Subarus Legacy at all. I ended up phoning a place well away from me and they told me they had a few and were kind enough to let me take a look at the parts from more than one Legacy before purchasing, so I made my way down there (1 hour one way).

I also mentioned in my last post that people were not very specific about what years and models of Subaru got this part, so I'll be as clear as I can about it:

- This particular booster and MC are from a 1996 Legacy AWD with ABS. It's a dual diaphragm booster and the MC has two outputs on the right hand side (as viewed from the front of the car). This will require you to obtain one tee for the brake lines to account for the extra output as the stock MC has three outlets. This MC is a 1-1/16" bore which is larger than the stock 7/8" so I should be able to drive larger brake calipers in the future if I should choose.

- I had an opportunity to inspect a booster from a 1998 non-ABS Legacy (not sure what drive-train layout) and it was a single diaphragm booster with four outputs on the MC. This may work, but dual diaphragm boosters are apparently considered superior and the extra output will need to be blocked off.

- Apparently years 1995-2000 are compatible.

- Some reading tells me Outbacks from 1995-2000 should have the same boosters and MC but I have been unable to verify this.

So after the 2+ hours of driving and $60 I now have the booster and MC I need.



The only serious modification I had to do (if you could call it serious) was to cut 5 threads from the threaded end of the booster because it wants to hit the pedal when adjusting. Then I cleaned the threads with a die and threaded on the FC clevis:




I'll save others some time with their head under the dash and their back aching: If you cut exactly 5 threads off like I did, the clevis will want to be right at the end of the adjustment +/- about 1 thread. Conveniently the firewall bolt pattern is identical, so that part of the job is a drop-in swap. Then I turned my attention to the proportioning valve for the rear brakes:




The left-most line didn't want to come off, so I left it in place. Removed the rightmost line for now as it's a pass through for the front-left brake pedal and we'll need to work a tee into the system first.

I also read about how the stock prop valve didn't fit on the Subaru MC and had to be re-positioned somewhere below. Well I can't speak for all the Subaru booster & cylinder combos out there but in my case not only did the stock bracket fit onto the MC mount bolts, but the prop valve ends up in exactly the stock location:




That's right, this means that the front-right and rear brake lines can remain 100% stock. I'm shocked that the prop valve and bracket fit so perfectly, it looks OEM. For the front-left line all I did was unwind the factory loop in the line to get a bit more distance and then bend it gently up to the front output on the MC. The level sensor plug is incompatible but you can just snip and strip the wires and then join them to the connector from the factory sensor.

That's how it sits for now. I'm going to grab an 8" prefab section of brake line tomorrow and the tee should arrive from Amazon on Thursday (unfortunately not available locally) and then I get to have fun bleeding it and I'm good to go I don't want to declare victory too early but so far this project has been a piece of cake (comparatively speaking).

I'm in a bit of a rush to get this done because after I have functional brakes I can get an alignment. School is starting to heat up again as I approach my assignment deadlines and exam season, so if I can get the brakes done and an alignment in the next few days I can at least drive my car a few times a week even if I don't have time to work on it.

Hopefully all goes as planned tomorrow and then I can report back on how it feels

 

So the brake line splitter arrived today and I was able to grab the 8" prefab line I needed. After bending the lines together this is the final setup:



If I had been able to free the leftmost line on the prop valve I could have made this cleaner and positioned the splitter on the other side under the coils. Or used a 40mm bolt instead of a 30mm and mounted it on the prop valve itself. The end result is rigid and neat enough that I find it acceptable. Then I gave the MC and calipers a good bleed before starting it up.

However, it didn't work. The brakes were definitely easier to depress than with the Rx7 booster, but they were still way firmer than they should have been normally. So I removed the little fitting on the LIM that provides the vacuum source and blew it and it's banjo bolt out with brake cleaner. Still no improvement. I then ran the car with the line disconnected and I felt vacuum pulling at that port. I went to the other side by the booster and pulled the hose from the hardline, and wouldn't you know it there was no vacuum there!

I removed the hardline and put it on the garage floor before blowing brake cleaner into it. Nothing came out the other side at all. I had to attach a compressor to one side with over 100 (!!!) psi of pressure to get it to blow whatever crap was in the line out. It seems to have been a large clump of rust and oil, so I have no idea how that got in there. Reattached it and went for a test drive, now the booster works great

Now the $65 I spent on this project may not have been strictly necessary, but I would totally do it again if given the opportunity. The brakes are smooth, linear, and very firm without being hard to depress (thanks to the functional booster). One of the things I realized when driving my mum's NC Miata is just how great a driver's car it is. Firm brakes, suspension is amazing (although a tiny bit bouncy for my taste), good steering, etc. Even if it is an auto.

Now my mom may still own a faster, lighter, better handling, red rear-wheel drive Mazda than I do, but at least I can say my brakes are on par.

Then I tackled some smaller things:



My car is too early to have a clutch switch for the starter, but I found out recently it does have a clutch switch. This tells the ECU that the clutch is depressed, for reasons I have yet to completely learn. When I depressed the pedal a little plunger was supposed to pop out but on my car nothing happened.

I pulled out the switch and disassembled it to find the spring had broken into many pieces and no longer wanted to pop the plunger out. I installed a spring stolen from a Bic pen and it works fine. After reinstalling I noticed another weird issue:



There is supposed to be a pad on the clutch pedal where the plunger lands, but mine is missing. The hole in the center of the land is also the perfect size for the plunger to spring through, so the switch would always read "clutch is depressed" as far as the ECU is concerned. I put one of those felt pads they sell to put under the legs of chairs onto the land for the plunger and that seems to have fixed it.

I didn't notice any difference in the ECU's behaviour, but then the only reference I've found so far to this switch is that the ECU bumps idle slightly when the clutch is depressed to ease take off. It seems like this switch isn't super important.

Last little job of the day was to get the intake snorkel to fit:



This piece is actually really well designed, and I appreciate the work Mazda must have put into it. On a stock car follows the lines of the fan shroud, before mounting at the top of the rad and with the two bolts at the very end where it inhales the air. There's a silencer at the back (eliminated on my car) and the mouth of the intake has a big wide surface for a gasket to seal against. Then a matching gasket on the hood seals so that the intake only sucks cool air from the front of the bumper instead of sucking warm air from behind in the engine bay.

I removed the silencer years ago to get it to clear the stock rad shroud with the aftermarket rad, so all I had to do now to get it to fit is cut off the center mount and notch the gasket sealing area.

And lastly I realized that the reason my rad fan was running constantly was that the switch-on temperature was too low. I originally ordered a 210F on 195F off switch, but people rightly advised that this was a bit too hot. Then I went with the next option down I could readily find which is the current 185F on 175F off switch. The trouble is that the temperature regularly gets to 85C (185F) according to my gauge while driving. Doing some reading it looks like operating temp is 185F to 210F, so my fan is a bit overzealous. I managed to find a 200F on 190F off switch and place an order for it, so we'll see how that does.

Now that my car has functional brakes I can take it in for an alignment as soon as the local shop has an appointment. It may be a few days, but I only take my cars to the one place because I trust them to actually follow torque specs (unlike all the other shops I've tried where I personally witnessed them hammer lug nuts on with an impact and then send it out to be driven home). Right now the car is terrifying to drive above 80kph because trying to keep it in a straight line becomes virtually impossible.

So overall, despite the fact that my brake upgrade was unnecessary, it's been a successful day Until next time.

 

And here all I did was paint my driveshaft and rack body...

I threw my brake booster in Le Garbagio.

 

Did you go to a manual brake setup? I looked into it out of curiosity and found that you would have to change pedal geometry to get the necessary leverage. And since my car is only street driven I didn't want to chance it in traffic (hence why I've only been test driving my car on rural roads so far).

 

I bought the booster delete kit from chase bays. No idea how it works as im no where near that point. I do know it is a larger master cylinder to help with the lack of booster.

 

I was under the impression a larger MC (all else equal) meant harder pedal effort, but I actually found the Subaru MC (3/16" larger than stock) to be easier even without assist. So there might be something to the other aspects of the cylinder like stroke that cause them to be easier.

Once you're done let me know how it feels. I'm definitely keeping the booster but I'm curious how hard it actually is to stop with a proper manual setup.

 

It occurs to me now this morning that the way I split the lines might not be ideal. The MC has two outputs, one goes straight to the front left caliper and the other goes to a splitter and then from there to the front left and the prop valve for the rear.

An ideal setup would be the front output to the splitter, then splitter out to both fronts. Then the rear output to the prop valve. Looking at a diagram of a master cylinder online, it shows two equally sized pistons (one for each output). This means my front left caliper is getting all the power from one piston, whereas the other three are sharing the power from the other. I didn't notice any uneven braking but then my car was already vibrating from the unaligned suspension.

After my alignment I'm going to get some more prefab lines and try to find a way to free the stuck line on the prop valve so I can change over to the ideal setup. I don't want one caliper locking before the others, especially without ABS.

 

Before I went for my alignment I wanted to have a real temp gauge. Unless most S4 gauges mine lands right in the middle at operating temperature, which is pretty nice. Except it still doesn't really give me any info about other things, like how much the temperature increases when I accelerate from a stop or at what temperature my fan turns on.

Conveniently I had this set of four-conductor shielded cable left over from... something? Anyways, this gives me the signal wire for the temp gauge sender I installed way back when plus three future sensors.



Installed it with the cheap eBay gauge I've had for a few years. I don't have a faceplate to go below the radio yet, so I've zip tied it above the ashtray temporarily:



After that I took it for an alignment, and now it's good to go. The steering wheel still needs re-clocking, but I specifically asked them not to do it during the alignment because I knew that turn signal mechanism would break again. I also played with the steering rack pre-load a bit and it's certainly improved, but power steering is on the short list of things to re-install. Also AC because this car is like an oven.

After that I took it for a short drive to get gasoline:

Rx7 in it's natural habitat. The fuel hose handle kept clicking every two seconds of pumping, so I need to check out my tank venting.


How it sits now. I'd like it a bit lower, but I have no compelling reason to replace my (brand new) struts and lowering springs with coilovers.



One other little issue cropped up. My Taurus e-fan is still running while driving due to the temp switch activating too low. I'm still waiting on the new temp switch so I just have to live with it for now. However, the 150A alternator breaker is popping shortly after I start driving. I'm definitely not pulling more than 150A, so I'm fairly certain the under-hood heat is causing it to trip at a much lower current. The obvious solution is a fuse instead of a breaker, but again it will take a few days to arrive.

This leads to a bit of an issue; My alternator breaker pops so I lose charge over time, then the e-fan runs constantly further exacerbating the issue. I'm not going to let that stop me from driving my car though, I'm just carrying a jump pack in the hatch for now.

The plan for now is to just drive and enjoy. I'll keep doing minor fixes as necessary and then anything that stops the car from being drive-able will probably wait until winter.

Until next time

 

May not be something you like but I bought a knockoff defi multi gauge. It gets good reviews and has a TON of sensors.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/174351853750

I plan on flushing it, the PLX multi gauge from the wideband, and the Alpine controller for the PWD-X5 where the radio lived.

https://www.plxdevices.com/PLX-Multi...sors-s/108.htm

 

Man, that is an amazing value for the price. I'll definitely be looking into that.

I'd also like a wideband but with a stock ecu and no ability to tune fuel it's not strictly necessary.

 

Well, it's only 200 for the wideband and guage. I need to replace the old oem one anyways and the old has a factory output. Then if I go standalone it's already there.

 

The price is good, but $200 is a lot for me. I make minimum wage and go to university. Plus I live in Canada, so I have to pay the exchange rate. And even if the parts were made here they'd be 2x as expensive.

To put this in perspective, gasoline is $1.35 / liter near me. That's just over $5 / gallon for 87.

 

Gotcha. I bought my fake zd on AliExpress if that helps.

About 10 years ago when I still had my NSX has hit like $6 I think for premium. Lucky for me no one else would pay for premium.

 

Super sweet. Ordered.

 

Yeah, it's a knockoff of a real defi that is no longer made. The real one didn't have boost.

That being said I watched a few videos with folks claiming that they had no issues. I don't expect it will be quite as accurate as the real thing, but it will be good enough for me.

 

Over the past few days I've been doing small things. The first order of business was to stop the alternator breaker from popping all the time. As I mentioned before breakers can pop due to heat (not necessarily current), so the best option was a fuse. The electric fan breaker hasn't been a problem yet but I decided to replace that too.



Painted the panel wrinkle-black too. Since it was cut from the bottom of an old aluminum pan (and by old I mean possibly older than me) it was fairly pitted. It would've taken hours of polishing to make it shiny again and the wrinkle-black makes it disappear a bit more easily. Fuses and holders are the $15 Amazon special. The holders came with top pieces, but they only allow the cables in/out straight through on a 180 degree angle. Cutting them to fit my wiring would have removed the mounting clips so I decided to just leave them off.

The next thing I did was to adjust the preload for the pinion snubber. For anyone unaware, the snubber is a bandaid designed to remedy a weakness in the FC front differential mount. The metal mount on the sub-frame side goes more/less up perpendicular to the ground. The rubber mount bolts to this on the left and the differential on the right (or vice-versa, I was looking at it from below). When you accelerate hard the mount is put under strain and the front of the diff wants to point upward. This causes a shearing motion on the rubber mount. The snubber is a bump-stop that installs above the diff pointed downward. This way when you accelerate the front of the diff pushes upwards against the snubber instead of flopping around or tearing the front mount. I installed the snubber way back when but neglected to actually set the preload with washers so it was touching the nose of the diff, making it basically non-functional.

Since my front diff mount is suspect (read: definitely bad) I jacked up the car and rolled underneath. I had a severe clunk on gear changes and knew that the front diff mount is the likely cause. It was marginal when I decided to re-use it a couple years ago. Having loosened the bolt on the snubber from inside the cabin I realized I actually couldn't remove the snubber to get the washers in without dropping the front of the sub-frame down. Instead I decided to modify some washers:



This lets me slide them between the snubber and the bottom of the car. I got about 7 washers in there before it was less than 1mm above the nose of the diff. I don't want it to touch because it might transfer vibration to the cabin. Then I cranked down the bolt and went for a drive.

Man, what a difference. The car is way more torque-y from a standstill and launches much better. Vibration in gear is significantly reduced (though not gone). I'd imagine that with a good front diff mount the snubber is unnecessary but it's served it's purpose as a bandaid for now. It also lets me know the expense of a new diff mount is warranted because mine is definitely bad.

Despite the brand new engine and trans mounts I can still see some shaking in the engine and shifter at idle. I don't have a vacuum leak and compression is good, so I'm hoping it's something obvious I've overlooked. I also have a vibration when in gear and driving that goes away if I put it in neutral and free-rev, but that's almost certainly related to the known-bad front diff mount.

On to the temperature related issues, I installed the new 200F on 185F off fan switch. It actually turns on at 185 and off at 167, making it even more overzealous than the one I took out. Going to request a replacement and see how it fares.

The next one isn't an issue so much as an improvement I'd like to make. As I still have the stock exhaust manifold I should have a heat shield on it. I don't. All of the mounting bolts are snapped off and the heat shield I have is rotted out. I think I have the one my dad and I made a few years ago (oddly enough, also from a pan) but no way to mount it with all the bolts snapped off. As a result I currently don't have a heat shield and I have no doubt it's affecting IATs. The upper intake manifold gets hot enough that I can't rest my hand on it.

I'm thinking that I should take some of my sheet aluminum and make some new shields. First a small one for the engine mount to protect it. Then one that bolts to the frame rail and arches over the exhaust manifold to mount at the LIM bolts or some other convenient place. Then I was thinking I might make a small aluminum duct that goes up the front of the frame rail and seals against this opening above the sway bar:


(picture is after a wash)

That should replicate and improve on the stock system by supplying airflow over the exhaust manifold when moving. Will it be measurable? No idea. I won't have time to build and test it for awhile anyways.

Also even without cooling issues I plan on getting some foam to seal the bottom of the rad, the oil cooler, etc just as the factory did to prevent air slipping around them.

Until next time

 

A few days ago I received my order from Atkins which included a new diff mount and transmission crossmember. My crossmember is actually fine, but I need the center bushing and it isn't sold separately.

Before I get to any of that though, I needed to disassemble my starter. I've had the starter get sticky a few times and require me to hit it with a crowbar to free it. Interestingly BOTH of my cars are doing this so I now need to carry a crowbar in each of my cars with which to hit the starter.

I decided to disassemble and inspect my starter. A new one is on order anyways (why take the chance?), but I wanted to see if I could improve the situation for now and continue to drive my car while waiting on it.





This is what the inside of the solenoid looks like. The solenoid is the little canister looking thing beside the main body of the starter motor. When you turn the key the small spade terminal on the starter sees 12V. This energizes the solenoid.



This spring loaded plunger sits in the solenoid. One one side it has a clevis that connects to the starter gear. When the solenoid energizes it pulls this plunger up, and the clevis pulls on a linkage that pushes the starter gear out to engage in the flywheel. At the same time, the plunger hitting the back of the solenoid depresses a button that closes the circuit between the +12V post on the starter and the motor, spinning the engine. In this way the solenoid is sort of like a relay (in that an electromagnet causes a circuit to close) plus it does double-duty controlling the starter gear. When the car starts and you release the key, the spring returns the plunger to its home position. The circuit becomes open and the gear retracts from the flywheel.



My thumb is where the clevis connects.



Planetary gears where the motor connects. I just cleaned and regreased them. I didn't disassemble the motor because I don't have new parts for it anyways.

I gently scrubbed a bunch of dust (clutch dust maybe?) from inside the solenoid and gently sanded the interior smoother. Since then the starter seems to work well. I don't trust it permanently, but it was an interesting educational experience.

I also replaced the right side retractor relay with a generic 5-pin. Apparently on most cars this is integrated into the motor itself but on my early model it is in fact a separate relay. Mine was full of mud and rust, so I am left wondering why Mazda didn't weather seal it. Oh well.




Going to try looking for one of those connectors to make this a bit cleaner. And the yellow wire was later soldered to the white one properly, after testing.

Next, the parts from Atkins. First the transmission crossmember:



Old crossmember, complete with the home-made urethane bushing my dad and I cast a few years ago.



New.



Interestingly there are some differences. On the original there are spot welds for the ear where the mount connects, but no stitch welds like the new piece. The new heat shield mounts don't have their captive nuts, so I needed to add three M6 nuts. Nothing major. Except...



I bought a turbo cross-member because it was $40 USD cheaper. Which is significant since after shipping, customs, and taxes these two pieces cost just south of $500 CAD. The only difference as far as I can tell is that the mounting holes are slightly offset. Mazda makes them slotted then welds a plate over one side to differentiate them. Why? Who knows.



Slotted them with my die grinder and a carbide bit. I had flashbacks of the 4+ hours grinding out exhaust diffusers on my old housings... Luckily this only took 20 minutes.



This is all the swarf removed by the grinder. To pick this stuff up easily, put a magnet inside your old glove. Collect all the swarf, then invert the glove around it and remove your magnet. Then toss the glove.

I also found one of the transmission mounts was slightly misaligned, which is on me for trying to assemble the mount in-situ. I've found the best process is to assemble the y-piece with mounts on the bench, then install it by slipping the 12mm bolts in and using a slim wrench to tighten them down.

The car is now way quieter and the vibrations from the engine are significantly reduced. The shifter also feels a lot firmer and doesn't wobble as much at idle, although I'm still not happy with how shifting feels.

To be continued.

 

Continued:

Next I went to the rear of the car. My main issues were a clunking when transitioning on / off throttle, even I was super gentle while rolling onto the pedal. Then there was a vibration at speed. I also had an irritating squeak coming from the poly bushings in the front of the trailing arms.

First order of business was to drop the y-piece from the exhaust. Then disconnected the main camber link and removed the nuts from the two sub-frame mounting studs. After that I could just pop the whole sub-frame downward one side at a time to get to the bushings. I started with the driver's side since the diff mounts on that side too.



Sub-frame popped down.



Sorry about the blurriness. Even with the whole sub-frame popped down the inner two mounting nuts for the differential mount are tough to reach. Luckily I have an impact wrench, a wobble joint, and several extensions. I popped the mount out, then went to the trailing arm bushing.



I don't have a picture of the process (anyone who has used the Energy Suspension poly grease knows why I wouldn't bring my camera near it). Basically I made a paint mark to remember where the alignment was then disassembled the joint. Disassembled and re-greased the bushing before slathering grease all over the saddle mount and putting it back together.



Mazda sure has a way with words, describing the differential mount simply as "rubber".



Old mount vs. new. Another change, my original mount doesn't feature that big dampener. In fact, it doesn't even have the arm to mount it. Either this is a cheaper aftermarket mount the previous owner used or an earlier revision. This mount actually wasn't torn or damaged, just very rusty, but I'm guessing the rubber was simply too old judging by the clunking and vibrating.

After jacking up the diff I put the new mount into place and then assembly was reverse of disassembly. Greased the other bushing and then I was good to go.

Then I took a brief test drive and I can safely say it feels like a new car. Buttery smooth at speed (well, in comparison to before), shifting is better, no clunking, and the car takes off from a standstill much better. It may have cost a lot of money, but that money was very well-spent in my opinion. Now the only noise is from the exhaust, which I still want to make quieter but is certainly tolerable.

I still have a slight squeak (not sure if it's those bushings acting up still or something else) but I'm calling this a successful day of work.

Until next time

 

heres a great place for connectors

Motorcycle Connectors

 

I may need them sooner than later!



The other day I went for a drive at dusk and my headlights failed halfway through! The headlight relay is also full of rust. This one was also replaced with a generic relay.

Conveniently though I had just finished up with making a simple harness for the running lights:







So conveniently even if I couldn't see anything, people could see me. Looking to get some brighter LED bulbs for these sockets so they're actually visible in the day.

The new fan switch arrived, defective out of the box. I ended up just putting back the first one (185/175) and wiring it to ignition switched operation only. I used the wire from the diagnostic port in the engine bay, both for the e-fan relay and the running lights. I'm guessing since it's designed to flash lights to tell you error codes it's safe to draw this much (two small bulbs + a relay. If I add anything else to that circuit I'll need to add relays and fuses on their own circuits.



I had a slight bouncing idle, the fix was fairly obvious.

Lastly the 3800rpm hesitation has come back. I don't know what could possibly be left that is causing it at this point since everything has been gone through more than once. I'll give everything another once-over tomorrow but honestly if the 3800rpm is the only problem then I'm not too upset by it.

Then I took some pictures:









And that's all for now. I still have things on my checklist like:

- Squeaking from rear (the poly bushings weren't the culprit, suspect the known old strut tops)
- Finish the door speaker situation
- Radio surround + proper gauge mounting
- Floor mats
- Track down the last black interior pieces I need (seat belts, door seals, door handle)
- Restore AC for certain, possibly power steering too.
- Address that brake line change I wanted to make

But mostly I'm satisfied for the time being. After a long wait I can finally drive my car and I'm just going to enjoy it for the time being while deciding what to do next.

Until next time

 

That was short lived.

Went over a bump today and unexpectedly became a member of #cambergang.







I got home safely, no other damage to car other than some rubbing on the inside of the tire.

The home-made camber adjuster on the passenger side tore out its threads. It was originally an Integra sway bar link (DC5 maybe?), cut down as per the instructions in a thread in the archive. I'd tried to weld it after alignment as a precaution but for some reason it wouldn't take the weld very well. I guess whatever thread engagement was there was not enough. It's been so long that I'm not sure if the error was mine (3+ years since I modified and installed that part) or possibly the alignment shops. I trust the shop would've refused to install it that way, so this one is probably on me.

I have another set of adjustable links in the mail that should require little to no modification to work and hopefully will have much more thread engagement. It's a bit of a gamble since I can't measure them in person, but if it pans out and they're safe to use I'll do a small write-up. If not I'll have to get the Mazdatrix version or something similar.

Until then I'm back to driving my Celica

 

If it helps I haven't touched mine in weeks so I took a perfectly working car and made it into a lump.

My coilovers showed up tho so whoopee

 

Which coilovers did you get?

I'm looking at possibly getting a set sometime next year. Ride quality is still important for me though, so I have to make my decision carefully when the time comes.

 

Bc racing BR.a friend has a dealer account. I had them change the rates to 7/5 from the stock 8/6 for that exact reason. Hopefully when I finally get to that point they work out.