Good question.

I looked at the side housings and the ports are a large "street port" in size, but in all honesty I'll have a really hard time determining if it was mine or not...

My car was an original Peter Farrell car from when He owned the business. When I bought it(from a guy that bought it from Peter), it had about 80k so I would imagine that the engine wasn't original at that point. Since I've owned it, a friend in South Carolina rebuilt the motor for me once and Ray has rebuilt it once. Since I never saw it happen either time, I really couldn't say if the original parts were reused or not (I don't remember buying new anything???) And I have the regular old non painted cast parts so there's really no differentiation.

 

At this point you might REALLY want to consider just using what Ray gave you as a core, and just save yourself the time/headache by buying one of those new engines floating around..

Unless you are DEAD SET on having ported internals, it's probably your best bet

 

Can You point me in the direction of one of these new engines? That's not a bad idea at all. I assume since you're talking about using what I have as a core, you're not talking about the F/S forum? I would like to keep the port job I had, but that's not to say that I can't find that somewhere else.

 

I'm pretty sure IRP was talking about having a line on the engines, I *think* Chips Motorsports may have had some as well. But also, Rich (GoodfellaFD3s) is suggesting that Ray Crowe is about to burst back onto the scene, and if ANYBODY in the US can get a new engine from Mazda, it's Ray (my wife refers to him as "good Ray" so as not to be confused with PFS )

What porting did you have? The "Aggressive Streetport" that I got from PFS was less than desirable and likely a solid cause for why I had so much blow-by on his motor...

 

You're correct in your recollection, Ihor at IR Performance currently has access to them. My FD is up there right now for an engine rebuild and a few other things. They're busy but Ihor hasn't left me hanging anytime I've reached out to him with a question or for a status update.

 

usually a core is defined as a complete and assembled short block. maybe they'd accept the pieces as a core after everything has been inspected.

 

When I bought my new engine Ray just needed the motor stacked and bolted up. If I remember correctly it was not inspected. (I just bought a junk motor from a local forum member, I never even cracked it open myself).

I'm sure Rich or Ihor can chime in to clarify the requirements

 

If anyone is looking for a new engine from Mazda, Synaptic 3 Performance has one of the last ones shipped into the country from Japan.... if that will help anyone out.

 

Update to all who have been so helpful: I have had a sudden life change that has provided more motivation than anything else could have; my wife and I are having a baby!

Not sure if its the same for all first time fathers or not but I immediately realized that I had to finish

-------- EVERYTHING!

My brain definitely switched gears into provider mode. One thing literally hanging over my head (on the lift) was the motor-less car. It was immediately apparent that this was unacceptable. The FD has since been towed to a local-ish shop and is awaiting the motor build now. I'm glad I didn't wait on the previous shop to attempt a rebuild as the new shop has already identified a number of issues with box of parts that I was lead to believe were mine. (ported irons - stockish housings)

Thanks again to everyone who chimed in with help and support. Hopefully I'll be back in the drivers seat of my FD soon, and able to move on to, frankly, more important projects (nursery/ keeping mama happy/ recaro child seat!!!)

 

Congratulations man! I've had that feeling before, it's exciting on all fronts!

Where's the car at now?

 

CONGRATULATIONS Josh - texted you also. Bill