Sid's sleepy 6

sid

sid

Greenie N00B Member
So time has come to start this thread. Quick summary:

Bought MS6
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Bought more MS6 (broken one)
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broke MS6 :( It became the donor.
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Now building new MS6
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Background:

The grey MS6 was my daily for a while until the VVT gave out. At that point, I decided it was time to build the clean (red one) and scarp the rusty grey one (I couldn't even jack up the car from the rockers anymore). I bought the red 07 with a blown engine, carnage:
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The PO was an old lady too so im not sure what she did, but she sure did enjoy the car.

On to the build. I decided to buy an engine with a spun bearing and forged internals (because who had enough engine parts??), salvaged some Manley H beams and some supertech pistons. That said I needed to bore out the cylinder walls so I got some brand new 88mm supertech pistons matched with the H beams I salvaged. I wanted to get an S4 but edge was out of stock, they said BNR wasent able to supply the S4 so i decided to get the s3 instead with the expectation of swapping it out later on for a bigger turbo. For now I dont plan on upgrading fueling until I get the build up and running. Since this is my first time, I dont want to get ahead of myself just yet.
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Got the block and crank machined and build the lower block a few days ago. I wasn't going to delete the balance shaft until i saw what reinstalling it entailed. Got a BSD kit from JBR with the baffle. Now im just starting to work on the head. I got the deck resurfaced at the machine shop and wasn't planning on taking out any valves until I saw the valve seals in the rebuild kit. Decided I might as well clean the intake valves while I change the seals.
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I dipped them in some engine part cleaner (greez off) for a few hours. It took most of the carbon off but I still have some valves that are cruddy so Ill probably dip them in for a little longer and scrape off the carbon with a brass brush.
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I did notice one valve has a small dent in it though.
IMG_20200614_225833.jpg That said the dent is only on the bottom and dosent seem to affect the sealing surface ... Any thoughts on this?
Anyway, once the intake valves are cleaned, i plan on putting them back in without lapping them. The machine shop did a vac test on the exhaust with good results so i doubt lapping them will change anything.

Once thats all done, hopefully soon, i plan on putting the engine in with a cpe tmic and some damond motorsport mounts. Im still debating on the dp (ebay or not). I know ill be going catless since etests are banned here. I know ill be using the magnaflow cb from the donor. Hopefully Ill be able to make decent power with this until I decide its time for some pi and meth.
 
JohnnyTightlips said:
Welcome, I personally wold lap them while I was there. It takes a few hours but it cost like 10$ for the tools and you would be kicking yourself later if that was an issue. I have a how to on it. Put on a crappy movie and work through it.

https://www.mazdaspeeds.org/index.php?threads/lap-valves-valve-lapping.8710/
https://www.mazdaspeeds.org/index.php?threads/cleaning-valves-outside-the-head.8720/
Click to expand...
Best part is I already have the tools and the compound so i guess ill do it, i just needed a little kick to do it. I was just worried that I might cause more harm than good.
 
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So quick update. Thanks to @JohnnyTightlips I was saved from a crazy headache. Ends up all valves on cylinder #4 were bent. The way i found out was by trying to lap one, realizing it was only grinding on one side. After putting the valve in a drill chuck and giving it a few turns, i noticed the valve was bent. Same with all other valves on cylinder 4.
A few things came from this:
1. The machine shop said they checked the exhaust valves for vacuum. Either I need to find a new shop, or the exhaust valves were not bent enough to cause a major leak.
2. I had a pretty bad low boost issue on the previous owner of this head. I never got to the bottom of it, blamed it on the rusted out cat, but now im guessing it was those bent valves. How did they get bent? Beats me. I wonder why only cylinder 4 had bent valves. If timing was off, i would expect the valves to be bent on all cylinders.
Lesson:
I should have done a leak down test before taking this engine apart. It would have given me a hint that I should check my valves. A compression test would of given me some info too.


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Long story short, I got 4 new valves.

Anyway, back to the build. All my valves are lapped, head is on and torqued.

Here is a shiny deck:
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Checked and rechecked the seal on the valves by poring some water in the compression chamber and blowing some compressed air in the inlet. I had to plug the DI port with a rag to stop the water from leaking out. Had to do a few touch ups but all good now :)

I also got my cams polished, so ill have to check the valve lash, plus i have 4 new valves so definitely will need to switch some buckets. Thankfully i have 2 more heads sitting so maybe ill be able to get away with just swapping buckets instead of having to get new ones. I've heard buckets wear so ill probably just check with my feeler gauge, mic some extra buckets and replace them as needed.

Now that I have my polished cams, I started working on timing and realized I lost one of those bolts that hold the timing chain guide. Called Mazda, almost everything is on back-order. I decided to just get the 3 bolts on tasca parts. Also got 2 new camshaft sprocket bolts and 2 bolt that hold the timing chain tensioner. Anyone have any experience ordering from tasca parts? Im wondering how long they will take to ship this stuff out here. h

While I wait, ill be checking my valve lash and hoping to god i wont need to order some new buckets because i would not be surprised if they are also on back order.


Last but not least, got some goodies in the mail:
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I also got their EGR delete kit the and PCV plate with hopes of running occs one day.:)
 
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sid said:
So quick update. Thanks to @JohnnyTightlips I was saved from a crazy headache. Ends up all valves on cylinder #4 were bent. The way i found out was by trying to lap one, realizing it was only grinding on one side. After putting the valve in a drill chuck and giving it a few turns, i noticed the valve was bent. Same with all other valves on cylinder 4.
A few things came from this:
1. The machine shop said they checked the exhaust valves for vacuum. Either I need to find a new shop, or the exhaust valves were not bent enough to cause a major leak.
2. I had a pretty bad low boost issue on the previous owner of this head. I never got to the bottom of it, blamed it on the rusted out cat, but now im guessing it was those bent valves. How did they get bent? Beats me. I wonder why only cylinder 4 had bent valves. If timing was off, i would expect the valves to be bent on all cylinders.
Lesson:
I should have done a leak down test before taking this engine apart. It would have given me a hint that I should check my valves. A compression test would of given me some info too.


View attachment 15091
Long story short, I got 4 new valves.

Anyway, back to the build. All my valves are lapped, head is on and torqued.

Here is a shiny deck:
View attachment 15092

Checked and rechecked the seal on the valves by poring some water in the compression chamber and blowing some compressed air in the inlet. I had to plug the DI port with a rag to stop the water from leaking out. Had to do a few touch ups but all good now :)

I also got my cams polished, so ill have to check the valve lash, plus i have 4 new valves so definitely will need to switch some buckets. Thankfully i have 2 more heads sitting so maybe ill be able to get away with just swapping buckets instead of having to get new ones. I've heard buckets wear so ill probably just check with my feeler gauge, mic some extra buckets and replace them as needed.

Now that I have my polished cams, I started working on timing and realized I lost one of those bolts that hold the timing chain guide. Called Mazda, almost everything is on back-order. I decided to just get the 3 bolts on tasca parts. Also got 2 new camshaft sprocket bolts and 2 bolt that hold the timing chain tensioner. Anyone have any experience ordering from tasca parts? Im wondering how long they will take to ship this stuff out here. h

While I wait, ill be checking my valve lash and hoping to god i wont need to order some new buckets because i would not be surprised if they are also on back order.


Last but not least, got some goodies in the mail:
View attachment 15093
I also got their EGR delete kit the and PCV plate with hopes of running occs one day.:)
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Tasca is slow but they have done well for me. You can use ford buckets I think for the ST, check my build thread as those are likely cheaper and easier to find. I am glad you are getting it all sorted and that I could help. Looks like you are on the right track.
 
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JohnnyTightlips said:
Tasca is slow but they have done well for me. You can use ford buckets I think for the ST, check my build thread as those are likely cheaper and easier to find. I am glad you are getting it all sorted and that I could help. Looks like you are on the right track.
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Thanks, hopefully i wont need to get some more buckets considering i have 32 extra ones sitting around
 
JohnnyTightlips said:
They only issue with the ones your have is the might be too short , as you lap valves and wear items you need thicker buckets.
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Yeah i can see that, i already have an intake valve that has 0.356mm of clearence. So far, i already have 5 clearences that are over spec (out of 7 i checked). I need to wait for amazon to ship out my other feeler gauges (the bent ones), since i can only really fit mine in some spots.

Also just installed my rockauto injector seals on the fuel rail side and cleaned the injectors with some non chlorinated brake clean. Im still waiting on those cs ones that got shipped a month ago:(


I noticed that the seal that connects the fuel rail to the fuel line needs to be replaced according to the shop manual. Has anyone gotten away with not replacing these? Reason i ask is because they weren't included in the rebuild kit from edge and i didn't really see these mentioned anywhere.
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Yes you will also want to lube it with a little bit of silicone or oil. Make sure you tighten the bolts down evenly and walk it back on so you don't pinch it. Same thing when putting the rail back on the block slow and even.
 
So I finally got all my valve clearances within spec. I got lucky. Since i already had two heads, i only needed to buy two buckets and even after putting the new buckets in, one of them was too tight and I ended up just putting a bucket I had from an other engine. Also got the fuel rail on and the intake. I ended up needing a new crank pulley since all of the ones I have are in bad shape. I gotta wait for that to come in so i can finalize the timing ... That said, how did you guys manage to hold down the crank when putting in the crank pulley bolt? I know @JohnnyTightlips mentions a friend holding down the crank in his thread. Was this done by just using a flat head wedged in old fly wheel bolts? I know I dont want to trust the TDC pin to stop the crank from turning ...

Also, I managed to fu** up the vvt install and didnt mark the vvt actuator when removing it from the cam. I had to improvise and match it with an other cam that still had the vvt on it. That said, i keep reading that aligning the vvt actuator has no impact? Is this true? I read somewhere that aligning the vvt actuators purpose is to make sure the teeth line up when you are just replacing it and want to avoid timing the whole engine again. My guess is that it does not matter as the vvt assembly has a gap that allows the oil to reach inside the assembly. Since the vvt assembly is not flush on the cam (where the holes are), the oil can reach the vvt assembly regardless of how its aligned. Any thoughts?

Last but not least, anyone recognize this exhaust manifold? Got it off the donor but it has no markings.
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Hopefully ill have this build done soon. Im still waiting on my ACT clutch and all my Cpe goodies :)
 
That looks like an old XS Power manifold and those are known to crack easily and don't flow much better than OEM, I would stick with OEM. As far as the tool goes. I borrowed one from a friend but you would want something like this. LINK HERE You can have a friend hold it which is likely what you will need as you have to apply a ton of tq and angle. I am not sure if that tool fits the mazda or not but it would look like that. From everything I have read you do not need to worry about the VVT direction if you are doing a full re-time. I have heard from multiple people who have done it the way you did without issues. I believe you only need to keep it the way it was before if you are not re-timing the entire engine.
 
JohnnyTightlips said:
That looks like an old XS Power manifold and those are known to crack easily and don't flow much better than OEM, I would stick with OEM. As far as the tool goes. I borrowed one from a friend but you would want something like this. LINK HERE You can have a friend hold it which is likely what you will need as you have to apply a ton of tq and angle. I am not sure if that tool fits the mazda or not but it would look like that. From everything I have read you do not need to worry about the VVT direction if you are doing a full re-time. I have heard from multiple people who have done it the way you did without issues. I believe you only need to keep it the way it was before if you are not re-timing the entire engine.
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Sweet thanks. When it comes to these crank shaft holding tools, they only really hold the pulley right? From my understanding ill need someone holding the crank with a prybar at the flywheel side while i torque down the bolt and hold down the pulley with the SST? I know the alignment bolt is just there to align the pulley and i need the special tool to hold down the pulley, im just confused as how the crank shaft is held in place while i torque the pulley down. Im assuming the tdc pin is not strong enough to hold down the crank.
 
You'll need to either buy a tool that locks the flywheel in place. I forget who on FB sells that...but if I find it, I'll share. Or have someone with a prybar holding the flywheel in place.

Other option is what we do when timing the engine with it in the car. Put the engine in, put trans in 6th gear. And then have someone stand on the brakes while you tq the crank bolt
 
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Sho said:
You'll need to either buy a tool that locks the flywheel in place. I forget who on FB sells that...but if I find it, I'll share. Or have someone with a prybar holding the flywheel in place.

Other option is what we do when timing the engine with it in the car. Put the engine in, put trans in 6th gear. And then have someone stand on the brakes while you tq the crank bolt
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Ok thanks, i remember the way we got it off is by putting in the flywheel bolts and holding it down with a prybar. Ill probably just use that method to hold it down while i put the bolt in. Not sure where ill be able to get the tool that holds the pulley down though. Hopefully i can find one with reasonable shipping time.
 
Yeah prybar and the flywheel bolts will hold it with the engine out. I make a crank pulley tool thats for doing a timing job with the engine in the car. And to echo what @JohnnyTightlips said, you dont have to worry about VVT actuator position on the cam.
 
Maisonvi said:
Yeah prybar and the flywheel bolts will hold it with the engine out. I make a crank pulley tool thats for doing a timing job with the engine in the car. And to echo what @JohnnyTightlips said, you dont have to worry about VVT actuator position on the cam.
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Do i still need the pulley tool if im holding the crank at the flywheel though? My understanding was the tool was needed to hold the pulley either way.
 
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