323Permin's 323 SE transformation into a GT

[H5N1]

Nice write up. Hope to see your car on the road

[323 mazda]

wow looks nice man!!! hope i had the time to work on mine!!! but been working a lot lately.

[323Permin]

So, I got busy this weekend and got the head on, water pump, timing belt, timing belt cover, clutch and pressure plate all buttoned up... cleaned up and painted afew more components.








Then started to work on the Valve cover ..... I decided to go that little extra and filed out all the casting marks from the factory . Smoothed them all out . Then sanded out all the machining tool marks in the " Mazda " and " DOHC 16-Valve " lettering that the factory had left on .

Sanded all the small tiny areas... my fingers hurt now !! Taped it all up and prepped it all to paint .

Went with a fine textured look .. not a heavy krinkle finish . More like the valve covers you see on Ferrari's.

[Turpro]

Damn that's clean

[Mazda_Powered]

holy crap man haha, looks awesome!

[323Permin]

Here is the final finish product on top of the engine ... plus a new shiny goodie for the engine. :0)

I was very surprised on the quality of welds on the OBX Racing header . And for the price of $159.00 I couldnt have done better .

All I am hoping is that is an improvement over the cast iron exhaust manifold . Time will tell.

[Mazda_Powered]

she's a shorty! but i'm sure it'll flow much better than the cast iron lump lol

[Turpro]

[Ace]

Whats your opinion on the header so far? and is it an exact oem fit?

[323Permin]

Hey Ace ... Well I haven't been able to bolt the header up to the head yet, as its on the engine stand.

But I did put it up against the stock manifold and the bolt holes are an exact match up .

[323Permin]

Ok ... Got some work done on the beast and here is an update for those following along ...

Ya I know am going slowon the project, these but darn responsiblilities and work keep getting in the way ..LOL


Here is a before and after of the pedal assembly










I am onto the last piece of the engine clean up and detailing. The intake manifold/carb set up.. I torn it all down today and now am contimplating what I am going to do ??? I was thinking of powercoating or painting the intake the same as the valve cover . And where the old red/black "injection sticker" was , have it CNC machined with a " GT " logo so it looks like what I have done to the valve cover .









I mounted on a few more bits on the engine ... alternator, valver cover , distributor, wires. Its starting to look like an engine again.








Lastly ... on to the Kia tranny .. its also apart. Finally got all my new bearings and small parts to rebuild and assemble it. Which is going to be fun ...My 1st time for rebuilding a Transmission ... hope I get the shimming and bearing pre-load right the first time .

[323Permin]

Oh I forgot about the set of wheels I picked up . I figured these would work well as my set of wheels for Auto -X and road course track time . They are an older set of American Race wheels . 15 x 7. fairly light , solid one piece wheel . Not sure what I will do with them yet when it comes to finishing " painting " . I played around with some red pin strip tape to see what they would look like black and a touch of red . I will have to mount them on the car to see what it will look like .... Not sure yet .







Here is what both rims I have right now look like on the car .

[Mazda_Powered]

nice progress man!

[tireboy]

nice wheels .. are24's..

[Turpro]

I'll lovin the wheels