I presume the air bleeds assist in fuel atomisation. I broke mine when upgrading the fuel system on my 20B, and just decided to forego them. I was having some idle issues which I successfully resolved with the IAC on the TB, but I always had a 3500ish RPM studder. Any correlation?

Also, which should I use for the 20B, the 13B-REW air bleeds?

Thanks
ryan

Reasoning? I deleted all four of mine when I went to top feed injs (870/1680) and havent had a problem.

Just atomization. Without them the fuel may tend to wet the manifold/runner walls a bit more than usual. Not a big deal; it won't kill your engine or make it run completely like crap. More along the lines of efficiency. I have done no objective testing, so don't think this is any deep wisdom, but I don't think Mazda put them in there without a good reason. By belief is that it slightly improves BSFC and emissions from better atomization.

Hurley Corner Seals
 

I was on their site today and noticed the corner seals with three coil springs. They're supposed to provide more even pressure so the seals don't cock in the bore. Are these things any good? Are they fixing a problem that doesn't exist?

Sounds like a solution to a non-issue to me. It might also be wise to let other people be the guinea pigs on this one, at any rate.

Stay far far FAR away from Hurley's engine internals. I broken about 30 of their 'long life racing seals' back in 2000 and 2001. I'm not kidding.

Guys, thanks for all the advice!

Alternator Relocation: I have the Pineapple kit that relocates the alternator to the side of the engine, but I recently read that it shouldn't be used with high performance engine mounts. I was planning to use competition mounts on my FB. How serious is the problem? What's the failure mode? Can I gusset this thing so it will survive?

I'm using a serpentine belt from the main pulley to the water pump to the alternator. With the alternator in the stock location, will I have belt slippage issues?

Blake,

What do you guys prefere? Water or methanol injection? I've been thinking about adding a system to my FD (Stock port, large single turbo) but there are so many options....besides the water or meth question. Any suggestions? CJ

Electric Water Pump
 

How's your progress on this kit? What issues have you come across? Are you using the 110 LPH Davies Craig? And the digital controller?

I'm curious to your answers about the last two questions as well, just thought I'd give a little bump.

I whent ahead and orderd a methonal setup. I like the idea of being able to run pump gas. The cost of race gas is killing me. :( CJ

the cost of pump gas is killing me. 3.25/gallon for 93 today

btw is there any more info on that electric water pump deal? I've been thinking about that setup for a while

No progress on the EWP setup, but I did build the engine that it will be tested on soon. Sorry for being so slow on that but it's not a particularly high priority. I can still sell the parts, however. This is not an "unproven" setup...it's won LeMans. I just haven't made a 'kit' for RX-7s yet.

On the other topic: Water or Meth injection is a nice safety net but we do not recommend ever tuning your engine to *require* it in order to not blow up. Other people are more risk-oriented, but that's our position.

Blake, top thread man!!!! Ive also really enjoyed seeing your online "rebuild" videos.Are you the guy in the actual vids?? :icon_tup:
keep them up, you should spend a few more hours and get a complete "rebuild" one up. If the snippets are anything to go by, the complete version would be way cool.

Now, just wondering your opinion on this proposed engine set up:

Basically Im building a 12A turbo motor, using the rotating assembly from a 12A turbo but the plates from a S4/S5 and the housings from a very late model 13B Rx5(or Cosmo in some parts).
Basically Ive got a machinist milling 5mm of each side of the housings, and dowling the whole lot. I will then street port the lot and put it together using all brand new OEM mazda steel seals.

have you ever done something like this before?? If so any pitfulls I may encounter?? If not, can you think of anything Im overlooking??

I was also wondering who large I should go with the exhaust port. I was intending on just lowering the floor of the port in the housing to suit the steel sleeves in the ports, maybe a slight "D" shape in the top of the port and just tidy it all up. I dont want to go too big and sacrifice low end response.Rembering, that it already is a 13B housing with a wider port than the 12A ones.
As for the inlet, I was intending on a street port but keeping the bottom of the ports reasonably narrow(much like stock) again to aid low down response.

You wanna share any other tips that may yeild me some good results??

Il be running a Gt35r and IDA throttle bodies for an intake.Im hoping for 400RWHP on less than 20 PSI and I hate lag, so I want to minimize that too.
any hints or ideas would be greatly appreciated :cool:

How to remove Carbon from your engine
 

Is there a recommended way to remove the carbon build-up from a motor while it is still in the car. Are there commercial fuel additives or some other method?

Yes, we've done that sort of combo before, but it is very tricky to get the clearances right with all that machining. You probably want a large streetport and an earlier opening exhaust with stock closing timing. The low-end will completely depend on turbo spooling, since your runner volume is too large for good off-boost torque.

Well there is preventive maintenance (avoiding carbon buildup) and remedial mantenance (removing carbon buildup). Prevention is driving the car the way is was intended, including occational visits to the redline. To reduce existing carbon buildup, we recommend "steam cleaning" with water. This method involves pouring or sucking water into the engine intake as it runs. Inside, it will turn to superheated steam, scour the carbon off and take it out the exhaust. With a carburetted car, you just dribble the water down the carb while keeping the engine RPM up, so it doesn't die. With a fuel injected car, you use a vacuum line to suck the water out of a bottle as you keep the RPMs up. The car will run rough and try to bog down a bit, but it can actually consume a lot of water quite rapidly without dying or hydrolocking. There is a small risk of a piece of carbon breaking off and getting stuck under a seal, but really no more so than it just falling off at some random time and doing the same. Better to be pro-active and get the motor internals clean.

Thanx Blake. I wouldnt have thought it would be to hard setting the clearances tho??
If the housings are machined to perfect Mazda Tolerances, and the rotors and plates are in also to tolerance, it will be just a matter of setting the endfloat up properly wouldnt it??
As for the porting, do you think there is any advantage on this steup of making the intake port "fatter", ie wider than the standard ones?? Just worried about putting too much Boost behind the corner seal as it sweeps past the intake port.
Also, the exhaust port, by opening earlier, do you mean lowering the floor of the port and leave the top of it standard??

Blake, I am in the process of putting an S5 motor into my S4. One part of it requires me to swap front covers for the mechanical OMP etc, I figure this would be a good time to replace the front main seal, and the front cover gasket. Is there a difference in the mating surfaces between the two? Also, I figure while the motor is out I will do a rear main seal, pilot bearing w. seal, and throw out bearing. Do you sell those parts individually or will I need to order a "kit" and hold onto the stuff I wont use. And can you think of any other seals that would need replaced in this process? Thanks

If you are doing an S5 motor in an S4 car one of two conditions will exist.

If you are using the S5 ECU you will have to use the electric OMP or you will get a check engine light and other issues.

If you are using the S4 ECU or a stand alone you have the luxury of dumping the OMP and pre-mixing which is really more desireable and very easy.

I premix in my S5 even though i still have the OMP, cheap insurance.

Seafoam works quite well for this too.

You will want to use an S5 front cover gasket and backup washer for the front cover O-ring. All the fasteners are in the usual places. If you are doing the rear main seal, pilot bearing and TO bearing, then you might want to consider the front transmission seal and gasket too. Cheap and easy while you are in there. Shoot me an email and I can quote you a price for the package. sales@pineappleracing.com.

So what exactly are the benifits of cleaning out the carbon build up??? Simply to eliminate the risk of carbon jamming the seals? Could one expect a more efficient combustion after steam cleaning?

-Ben

I have the ecu and engine harness, I thought that the S5 harness would have to be ditched so I can use the S4 ECU and harness. From what I read on Kevins site it seems like that is easier than trying to get the S5 ecu and harness to work in an S4 chassis. Something with the plugs being different etc etc.

The carbon builds-up in seal grooves and in the combustion bathtub in the rotor. Decarbonizing the engine lets the seals move more freely and helps the combustion by getting back that room in the bathtub. Carbon also builds up on and around the sparkplugs...

I do not recommend chemical decarbonizers. Steam is about the most effective technique period, plus you don't have the risk of damaging the oil control ring O-rings (either eating at them or swelling them up) or the protective coating around the edge of the rotors on the sides. When we clean engine parts in the shop, we don't use carb cleaner or other nasty crap but, instead, use a big, commercial hot water parts washer...basically an overgrown dishwasher. Steam is very powerful stuff!