Kraze's "The Reasonable Thing" kind of build

Kraze

Kraze

Greenie N00B Member
A little background before we start. I mostly buy vehicles that are known for reliability. I've had an old beater Honda Civic, a couple 3rd gen 4runners, an LS1 Trans Am, and the car that the MS3 will be replacing, a C5 Z06 (which has its quirks, but let's be honest here, LS reliability > DISI reliability). I grew tired of my vehicles just working with no fuss, and if they did need some work, having said work be too easy to perform. So I did the reasonable thing and started looking for a "project car" to replace the Corvette, which I love, but only gets driven maybe 15 times a year due to where I live.

Now to be a proper project car, I needed to get a car that would need some work, or be almost guaranteed to need some work in the near future. Top candidates were: BMW 335i's, Subaru WRXs, and the MS3 (along with a bunch of other random vehicles that I was entertaining). I obviously ended up with the speed, but not just any speed, the rarest of all speeds--one with almost 200k on the clock and still on the original motor and turbo. This was certainly project car status.

This particular MS3 was just about bone stock (it had the Mazdaspeed CAI that had been converted to a short ram, but besides that, motor was all stock). The owner informed me that it definitely needed the VVT replaced, along with needing new suspension and brakes. And it smokes out of the exhaust. Oh, and a tree branch had fallen and dented the hood and passenger fender. Perfect, I hate cars that look too pretty, as I then feel obligated to keep them looking pretty.

So the reasonable thing to do would be to have this bad boy compression tested, or at least compression test it when I get there, but nah, we're not playing those games, we like to live dangerously here. So I pick the car up after test driving it and verifying that it does run, and have a white knuckle drive back home, 7 hours away, with the speed on a car dolly behind my 4runner that's just barely equipped to tow such a load. Sketchy, but we made it, and only had to sacrifice the front bumper, which was damaged getting off the dolly.

More updates to come as I get this caught up to the present date, but here she is:
 
Now let's be clear, I am far from a mechanic. I do my own oil changes (most of the time), changed plenty of spark plugs, air filters, etc, but haven't done too much major work on vehicles before (at least not without the help of more knowledgeable friends). This is the car where all of that is going to change, for better or worse.

First up on the list to address is the VVT/timing chain. You can hear it slapping on startup, and the previous owner was upfront about it needing to be replaced. I bought an OEM kit from Edge Autosport (along with some other OEM parts/gaskets that I wanted to replace while I was in there) and got to work.

Nothing too crazy to report for this particular job, and there's plenty of good write ups and videos out there already, so I'll just share the highlights from it.



1. I put a good nick in the timing cover pulling out the old crankshaft seal :facepalm: That was stupid, but it didn't go deep enough to really affect the seal surface, and I put a little RTV on it and so far it isn't leaking.

2. Just after getting the timing cover sealed and bolted back on, my buddy who was helping me at the time asks if we remembered to torque the cam bolts to spec. I honestly couldn't remember one way or another, so off the timing cover came, which meant scraping all the gasket away and redoing it, and as it turns out, the cam bolts were already torqued. Oh well, rather be sure of it than just assuming it was.

3. The crank bolt. That stupid crank bolt. Getting it off was easy, only took a couple ugga dugga's. But getting it put back on and torqued to spec was a major PITA. I bent up the OTC crank holder tool I had bought, then switched to the good ol' throw her in 6th gear and stomp on the brakes method. Well this method proved to be ineffective for getting the last 15 or so degrees I needed. There was just too much bend in the system between the 15"+ inches of extensions I needed to clear the fenders (working on jackstands) and the cheap breaker bar I was using. This is how close I was able to get it, which at the time, I had decided it was good enough, so I buttoned everything back up and called it good.
 
Well I'm still in the mood for rambling on about all of the great things I've accomplished (sarcasm) on this so-called "build," so let's keep going.

I went ahead and replaced all of the fluids. Coolant, power steering, transaxle, engine oil, but not the brakes yet. I'll get to those later (maybe). I also went ahead and did a bunch of regular maintenance items: new plugs (stock heat range, gapped to .028), new upstream O2 sensor as I was getting a code for that, new PCV valve and gasket, new cabin air filter, cleaned the MAF, bought a Mazda OEM air filter I thought would fit the Mazdaspeed intake, but it didn't, so I bought an AutoZone Spectre filter that worked ok.

This is pretty much how the car has been spending all of it's time since I bought it in January:


Now the previous owner did mention that this would need new suspension, but I thought I could get away with the couple small clunks it had for at least a couple months. But the passenger rear shock decided to piss itself as the car was resting in it's natural state (as seen above), so I decided that suspension should probably be done sooner rather than later.

The reasonable thing to do, and what I had intended to do at first, would be to throw on a halfway decent set of struts and continue using the stock springs, as I really don't have any plans to lower the car. Also, I hadn't mentioned this part yet, but this was supposed to be a budget "build" :pancarta:

Yeah, the budget went out the window in one fateful night when I decided to order a bunch of stuff I probably don't need:
 
So the budget has been blown and we have set ourselves a dangerous precedent. But there’s a saving grace. I haven’t mentioned this yet, but the purpose of this car is to be a semi-daily driver that I can have fun autocrossing and rally crossing, and maybe one day do some road course stuff with. The class I plan to run for AX is STH, which allows a fair amount, but you can’t get too crazy with it. Built motors, aftermarket turbos, crazy suspension changes are out. That should limit the number of things I blow money on for this “build.”

The suspension I went with is the CS coilovers, lower tie bar, RSB, RMM, plus every bushing there is, including the Whiteline anti-lift kit and the Powerflex trailing arm bushings. As it turns out, I purchased multiple sets of bushings that are not the correct ones for the speed. That seems to be a theme for me. So a lot of the OE control arms/links that I just planned on replacing the bushings on, end up getting replaced with some cheap arms/links (was back to trying to keep to a budget at this point).

So the things I will be testing out.

- 1A auto front lower control arms with Whiteline ALK (what a pain to remove the new bushings for that).
- 1A auto rear lateral arm and adjustable camber arms.
- O’Reilly’s Import direct rear lower control arm. I actually attempted replacing the bushings in the stock LCA, but here’s a hot tip for anyone that tries that: support the thin metal "tabs" in between the bushing surfaces when you’re pressing out the factory bushings. If you don’t, you will bend those little "tabs" just enough so that it will never be straight enough to press a new bushing in :BangHead:
- Also did Mevotech front and rear sway bar end links

This suspension overhaul easily took a couple weeks, mostly waiting on parts after I broke something or realized I had the wrong part. I also had to go out and buy a HF shop press, as none of the local shops wanted anything to do with pressing bushings in or out, and I absolutely mangled the bushing that needs to come off for the Whiteline ALK bushings to go on by trying to use 3 jaw pullers and bearing separators (then of course the grinder had to make an appearance):


Now one would think after such a major suspension overhaul, the new setup would be solid. And maybe it would be, if a professional did it and used good parts throughout. But I have more clunks now than when I started that I’m still trying to track down. Everything is torqued to spec (twice) in the rear, but I’m still getting a ton of noise back there. I’m going to pull the RSB end links off to remove the sway bar from the equation and see if I still get the clunks, and if I do, I think I’ll just pull out my hair then proceed to set this car on fire. Just kidding (but not really:flamethrower2:)

Also, the front end links were hitting on the frame:


I just recently saw @JohnnyTightlips thread https://mazdaspeeds.org/index.php?t...abilizer-links-install-and-compare-diy.12523/ where he compares the dimensions of some BMW end links to the Massive Speed end links, so I ordered a pair of those that I will be trying out to remedy that issue.
 
I'm not gonna lie, there's something that's been at the back of my mind, tormenting me in my sleep, haunting me during the day, monopolizing my thoughts... and it's that damn crank bolt. Now the reasonable thing to do would be to figure out a way to torque it to spec. So for once, I did the reasonable thing. I borrowed a buddy's welder, cut up an old roof rack that was laying around, and made my own pulley holder contraption that I shimmed just right to wedge itself on the floor with the perfect combination of wood 1x2s, 2x4s and 2x6s (probably about 1 million dollars worth of lumbar with today's prices). So after getting this made, and culling out the weak extensions (and using a bigger/thicker breaker bar), I managed to get the crank bolt torqued to spec.



I didn't get a picture of it in action, but i used a jackstand at the end of the extensions to support everything so I didn't have to worry about the socket slipping off.

Also, when doing the suspension overhaul, I noticed the driver's side CV boot was ripped. I figured I better just replace the CV, as there's no telling how long it had been like that. I fought like hell to get that CV freed from the knuckle, but it just wasn't giving in. My sanity was running low at this point, so I decided to let the shop handle this one. Best 100 bucks I've spent on this car so far (for the labor, not the CV) :thumbsup2:
 
Buy a project car, they said. It will be fun, they said. Alright maybe no one ever said that, but at this point, I’m seriously questioning my decision to do this whole “project car” thing. But the show must go on. At this point, I’d put maybe 20-30 miles on the car, and I wanted to get it to a point where I could actually start doing car things with it, like say, I don’t know, driving it? :nusenuse:

According to the previous owner, this was likely the original turbo, as he had not replaced it (previous owner was the 2nd owner, and had the car since 40k miles, and it’s at about 200k now). It was still making good boost, but it smoked a lot, so I figured I’d go ahead and rebuild the turbo (remember, the classing I wanted to run in for autocross doesn’t allow turbo changes). So I ordered new OEM gaskets, new studs/nuts, and a Melett CHRA and got to work on pulling the stock turbo.

As it turns out, a turbo with 200k miles/a billion heat cycles on it does not want to come out easily. Those studs did not want to budge. I tried asking nicely, to no avail, so out comes the big guns:


The lower stud closest to the motor was the real pain. Needed the perfect combination of extensions/swivels/u-joints to even get a socket on there, but then I stripped the nut out, so I had to buy a set of extractors for it.


Eventually I got all of the studs out:


But with the studs also came the threads on the compressor housing in a couple locations. Now, the reasonable thing to do, since I had all the parts already to rebuild this turbo, would be to try and retap the housing threads, or worst case, throw some heli-coils in there. So of course I ordered a CST 4 instead of trying to stick with the K04. My reasoning being that I did all of this work to get the damn turbo out, I didn’t want to just get this car back to stock levels of power, I wanted a little bump in power. Keep in mind, at this point (and to this day), I still have not done a compression test on the motor, so I have no idea how healthy it is. Because doing a compression test would be a reasonable thing :imwithstupid:
 
So the new turbo arrives:


Which is awesome. But one does not simply install a bigger (slightly) turbo and just said turbo. No, you also need some accoutrements to go with it. So I also ordered the CS TMIC:


Plus an ebay downpipe, Ultimate Racing test pipe with resonator (I’m trying to keep it as quiet as possible), CS 3” intake, CS EBCS, etc etc.

Now, the reasonable thing to do, when adding a bigger turbo and removing intake and exhaust restrictions, would be to also add HPFP internals. But by now, we all know how I feel about doing the reasonable thing, right? :eyepop:

Kidding. I’m not trying to rebuild this motor just yet, so in went new CS HPFP internals, which was a good thing since the stock spring was broken:


I also cleaned/rebuilt the HPFP with new seals:


And of course I pulled the stock injectors, which all appeared to have leaking seals:



And sent them out to be cleaned:


Now I'm not sure if I got the same injectors back that I sent in, because look at those flow numbers! These were likely 200k mile, never been cleaned injectors (previous owner didn’t seem like the type to have injectors cleaned). And they were all dead nuts even and still flowing over OEM spec before cleaning. That’s impressive. Obviously new Overspeed seals went on and the injectors went back in.

While I had the intake manifold off I figured I might as well blast the valves, so I did that (only a before picture, no after picture unfortunately):


I also cleaned up the TB and did the EGR delete, but left the EGR valve on, as the block off plate in the Damond kit doesn't mix well with the CST 4 coolant line (the hose bend is too tight). No biggie, I just left the EGR valve unplugged and the tube part is still deleted.

I also had a bit of a snafu with the TMIC. When I bought the car, the intercooler cover was already missing, so I bought a new (used) one off FB marketplace. Only problem is, the hood did not want to close with the cover installed:



Those with keen observational skills and an intimate knowledge of Gen 1 vs Gen 2 differences might already see the blunder. I had unknowingly acquired a Gen 2 intercooler cover, which mounts in the same way as the Gen 1, but does not work (at least not if you want a hood that closes). Not to worry, I'm a master fabricator, my resume consisting of shit tons of Lego experience as a kid.

So I did a little CAD work:


Then proceeded to ignore the CAD work and started cutting metal. Everyone knows the golden rule of building things, right? Measure once, cut three times, then realize you cut too much off but try to make it work anyway. I followed the golden rule to a T, and ended up with this beauty, that seals against the hood on 3 out of 4 sides, which is pretty damn good in my book:
 
If you’ve made it through the above walls-of-text with the occasional picture sprinkled in, congratulations, you’ve wasted 20 minutes of your life. But the good news is, you are now caught up to the present time.

So the new turbo is in, the car ran great on the base map from Will at PD, and is now on revision 1. Revision 1 is now targeting 21 pounds of boost, but are we hitting that 21 pounds? Of course not. But even more alarmingly is the HPFP pressure drop at WOT, as seen here: https://datazap.me/u/kraze/revision-1?log=0&data=3-7-15 and attached to this post. AFRs didn't seem to dip, but still, it shouldn't be dropping to ~1,200 psi at WOT, right?

I have not yet sent this log to Will (that would probably fall under a “reasonable thing to do”), but I did decide to order a new PRV. I thought about replacing it back when I had the injectors out. I should have replaced it when I had the injectors out. But I didn’t. I also didn’t test it to see if that’s even the problem, because “reasonable thing.”

I also did not realize that the CS instructions for their HPFP seal kit didn’t break the spill valve down all the way, so I didn’t completely clean that when I had it apart. Luckily I found the thread on here https://mazdaspeeds.org/index.php?threads/hpfp-o-ring-rebuild-michael-rey-facebook-kit.8069/ that goes over that, so I’ll be cleaning that too.

I’m hoping to get the fuel pressure steady before trying a new log. I also need to triple check my boost line routing and make sure there’s not a simple reason I’m not hitting the target boost. And I also need to do the compression test. But I'm not sure I want to know the results of that test, so I'll probably keep putting it off. The car still runs great though, better than when I got it, that's for sure.
 

Attachments

Well the PRV has been replaced, and two new logs only had the HPFP dropping to about ~1500 during WOT instead of ~1200. Not convinced that the PRV is responsible for that, but I'll just keep an eye on this going forward.

Also, I figured out the rear end clunk. It was indeed the end links. The brand new Mevotech end links look beefier, and felt like they had less play than the OEM end links that I removed (that have an unknown amount of miles on them), but after throwing the OEM links back on, the clunking is gone. I will only be using OEM end links for the rear going forward lol.

I also had the car aligned. I went with -2 camber up front, -1 in the rear and factory toe specs. We'll see how that goes and can make adjustments from there. An interesting note about the alignment though. Here's what the front ended up at:


And here are the factory alignment specs:


The caster seems to be the interesting part. Factory caster for the MS3 should be around 3 degrees. I have the Whiteline ALK, which is supposed to add .5 degrees static caster (which would bring us up to 3.5 in theory), and new 1A auto LCAs. However, the new LCAs were an absolute nightmare to get lined up so I could get all the bolts in. I'm wondering if these supposedly Mazdaspeed specific arms are actually regular 3 arms, or if they're just cheap, crappy arms that aren't quite built to factory specs. It seems strange that the caster landed at less than the regular 3s specs even with the ALK that should add 0.5. Thoughts?
 
Easter Bunny said:
People have reported that anything other than oem lower control arms have been poorly made
Click to expand...

That doesn't surprise me after dealing with these 1a auto arms. Luckily I hung onto the LCAs I pulled off. I'll have to take a closer look at those to see if they're OEM, and if they are, maybe I'll throw some new ball joints and front bushings in them and swap over the Whiteline ALK as a winter project or something.

I don't know how many times I have to learn the lesson that buying cheap parts hardly ever ends up being cheaper in the long run lol :shakehead:
 
Did a couple things over the weekend. TLDR version:

I used these parts, plus some others:


To go from this:


To this:


The keen observer might notice that the studs have also been replaced with some longer ones. That's because I purchased a set of wheels and tires from a local guy that were meant for a Subaru. The wheels are Kosei K4R 17x8, 50mm offset. Tires are 255/40 RE71r's, well used but there's still some life left in them. Because of the offset, the fronts hit the coilover, so I had to use a 5mm spacer. The stock lugs must be incredibly short, because even with just a 5mm spacer, I still didn't have enough thread engagement to feel comfortable with it, especially not when they'll be autocrossed on the spacers.

So I tried to track down the ARP extended studs, but those are on national backorder indefinitely. Luckily, Jegs makes their own branded version which were in stock, part # 555-65130.

Some people will tell you that the proper way to remove and install studs (without a press) is to use this ball joint separator like so:


I'm here to tell you: that shit is sketchy. The stud will go flying out the back, and the tool will often come flying towards you once everything breaks loose. Check out my precision aiming though, the stud hole is in the pizza box, and the dent in the tool box/seat (where I happened to be sitting at the time) was from the tooling launching backwards.


Yes, the reasonable thing to do is probably not to use an impact for this method, but who wants to be reasonable. I removed and installed all of the studs from that side with this method (I changed to hiding behind a creeper, standing out of the way though, trying to avoid getting nailed by the tool) and the tool had just about had it at that point. So the other side I used the tried and true hammer the stud out and use an impact to drive the new one in method, much faster and safer for me, screw the wheel bearing lol.

Also, a note on the Stoptech lines. The little holders/clips that secure the brake lines to the attachment points on the car and on the coilover were way too narrow. I tried hammering them in, but it just wasn't happening. So I opened them up a bit with a dremel and now they fit pretty well:


And here's how the car sits with the race wheel/tire setup on:
 
Note for you about control arms and these cars,

Moog control arms anyways vs OEM control arms are different lengths. Not by much but enough to throw my camber off from side to side by .25*. I use to run 3* both sides no issues. That was max on the CS camber plates. Went back to an oem arm on one side as the moog failed(common failure where one of the welds break) and the oem side is now maxed at 2.75* vs the moog side which is maxed at 3*.
 
I wish I had the same level of disregard for my bank account as you do, lol. Keep up the work; great progress already!

How shitty were the oem brake lines to remove at that mileage? I keep wanting to swap mine but with my luck, I'm sure I'd strip everything out.
 
gotovato said:
Note for you about control arms and these cars,

Moog control arms anyways vs OEM control arms are different lengths. Not by much but enough to throw my camber off from side to side by .25*. I use to run 3* both sides no issues. That was max on the CS camber plates. Went back to an oem arm on one side as the moog failed(common failure where one of the welds break) and the oem side is now maxed at 2.75* vs the moog side which is maxed at 3*.
Click to expand...

Good to know, thanks for the info! I don't suppose you have caster measurements for either of those?

gotovato said:
How much of a balloon is this? 255 re71’s is pushing it on 9” wide wheels never mind 8” lol. That is definitely not ideal
Click to expand...

They have a bit of a squeeze going on lol. Some might even say "shawty's thick." But the deal was too good to pass up and the setup worked pretty well for the previous owner. He apparently won some national level autocross events on these bad boys. I'll probably go with 245 RT660s once the RE71s wear out though.

PXL_20210615_015538760.jpg

SharksInSpace said:
I wish I had the same level of disregard for my bank account as you do, lol. Keep up the work; great progress already!

How shitty were the oem brake lines to remove at that mileage? I keep wanting to swap mine but with my luck, I'm sure I'd strip everything out.
Click to expand...

Hey somebody has to keep these credit card companies in business :thumbup:

The brake lines actually weren't too bad. I did have to cut my 17mm wrench in half to make it a shorty for the front lines as I didn't have a short 17mm, but that plus the slight modification of the clips were really the only notable parts about that job. Really wasn't bad at all, and typically even the simple things fight me so that's saying a lot lol.
 
Wrapped up a couple things yesterday. Finally installed my CS skid plate. The fact that there was an aftermarket aluminum skid plate was actually a big factor in choosing the speed as my next car lol.

Also, I finally got around to wiring up my switch for the SWAS. This is the wire I chose to cut into:



And I'm pretty happy with the switch placement! It's nice and out of the way:


This is the switch I used: www.amazon.com/URTONE-Latching-Aluminum-Suitable-Mounting/dp/B01KA4FM4Y/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=Latching+Push+Button+Switch%2C+URTONE+UR129%2C+1NO+ON%2FOff+DC%2FAC+36V+2A+Aluminum+Alloy+Metal+Shell+Suitable+for+12mm+1%2F2%22+Mounting+Hole+%28Black%29&qid=1624033360&sr=8-1

Nice and small, push button, latching style switch. And with that done, it's finally time to get the car out for an autocross event this weekend! I've had the car for about 5 months now, and have been so busy working on it that I haven't driven it much at all, so it will be nice to get it out and actually use it for one of the purposes I bought it/have been building it for. Fingers crossed nothing breaks lol.
 
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