My new whip.. :)

[crazycanadian]

They weren't to pricey.. I get a pretty good price on beckarnley stuff

[crazycanadian]

Last night I took the car back out to the 1/4 mile track.. With the new ksports I was hoping I could solve some of my wheel hop issues and start seeing some 2.0 60's... I got close but no such luck... I still had pretty bad wheel hop.. I was actually getting worried I was going to break something at one point... I am pretty positive its due to the fact I have no LSD installed yet, and I am trying to use Kumo V710's as drag radials... Not the best combination but its all I have...

After 5 runs last night my best 60' was 2.103.. I was with in 1 tenth all night with my 60's.. My fastest run of the night was a 15.288... I ran 15.3's for 3 of my other runs and a 15.4 for my first run... My mph was consistent as well.. With in .5 all night long... 86.3 - 86.8mph... I tied running the front coil overs with the shock turned down soft in the front/hard in the rear... Soft in the rear/hard in the front.. and hard all around with little difference to my launches.. I was also running 91 octane gas this time around, played with timing a bit and tried shifting at 6k instead of 7K like I was last time..

I had a lot of fun over all though.. A friend who has a KL swapped protege5 was out racing again.. Him and I had a little grudge match going on all night.. I lost 3 out of 4 runs we had... He is much better on the tree then I am... I tend to sleep at the light.. His best run of the night was a 15.1 at 91mph with a 2.2 60' on street tires...but he was usually around the 15.3 - 15.4 mark.. We had a good chat and did lots of comparisons on set up... Some of the pieces to the puzzle as to why my mph is so low are coming together... The P5 is running a mazda speed lsd diff and gear ratio set up in his transmission.. so he has the 4:10 final drive, where as my car has the mx3 stock trans with the 4.38 final drive.. He runs a 205/50/16" tire, where as I run a 225/50/14 So with my slicks I pull hard on him out of the hole and up to the 1/8 mile every time... The P5 runs threw the 1/4 in 3rd gear though, I have to shift into 4th by the 1000' mark... We both are running stock KL's with headers, 2.5" exhaust, and intake... His came from a 97 probe.. mines from a 93 626... With are both running stock ecus... my car weighs in at 2260lbs... His is just a little over 2700lbs... At some point we will get both cars side by side and do compression checks on both motors for a comparison.. It'll be a good way to see if my motor is getting weak or not as well...

I also met a guy with a BP-T powered festiva as well.. Managed to help him out by lending him some wheel spacers I wasn't using.. He had installed new coil overs recently and hadn't checked for fitment with his slicks.. He didn't have any wheel spacers but needed about 1/4" so that the tires would clear his supension.. Lucky for him with my k-sports I didn't need my wheel spacers anymore so I lent them to him for the night.. Made a pretty big difference.. earlier in the night was was running 13.9's on streets... With the slicks on he was able to get it down to a 13.6...

[crazycanadian]

Todays fun started bright and early this morning... I packed up my spare set of knuckles, the rx7 ball joints and mx3 gs power steering rack and headed off my work.. With the car up on a hoist at work I went to town installing everything...

I made a great discovery with the Rx7 ball joints... The pin that goes up into the knuckle happened to be the same size as the stock mx3 ball joints that were installed in my spare 94+ mx3 gs knuckles... This meant that I didn't have to do any drilling/modifying at all to make the Rx7 ball joints fit... The Mx3 spindles though that were on my car happen to have a smaller ball joint.. I don't know what year these spindles are off of though.. I believe they came from a 93 gs, but I'll have to talk to the original owner of the car to find out first..

94+ mx3 gs ball joint(left) old unknown year mx3 gs ball joint (center) 86 - 88 Rx7 ball joint (right)



94+ mx3 gs


old unknown year mx3 gs


86 - 88 Rx7 ball joint


My old spindle and ball joint..


The new Rx7 ball joint and 94+ spindle.. You can see the difference in length here..


Stock 323 ball joint center to ball joint center is about 54".. with my 323 running all mx3 gs suspension I was about 56".. With the Rx7 ball joints I am just over 56.5"..

Installing the GS rack was easy... I think I did a comparison of different 323 racks early on in this build threw when I originally was setting the car up with power steering and changing out my non power steering rack.. For anyone that missed that here you go...

manual steering rack is 4 and a bit turns lock to lock.. 4 cylinder power steering rack is 3 and a bit turns lock to lock.. an Mx3 GS power steering rack is just over 2.5 turns lock to lock... I have run all of these combinations now in my car including a depowered 4 cylinder rack and this is what I have to say about it all... Unless you are drag racing only, depowering or running a manual rack is a waste of time.. The depowered rack increases turning effort a lot and makes it really hard to do quick transitions and fast steering maneuvers.. The manual rack ratio is way to high.. It causes you to turn the wheel a lot when making any kind of transitional maneuvers.. This really affects how quickly you can turn the car... Any kind of spirited driving/track racing becomes increasingly difficult... If you want a fun sporty car with really good quick steering you need power steering with an mx3 gs rack...

With the rack installed I got my car up on the alignment rack at work...


After tweeking and playing here is what I got my front alignment set at..


The full alignment specs..


With all the suspension stuff I have I can max the front camber out at -4.7deg with no camber bolts.. In the rear I can max it out at -3.4 with no camber bolts...

it might be hard to see but at -3 deg its noticeable how much weight is sitting on the side tread of my tire so I don't think I'll be going any higher with camber for now..


Tomorrow I am taking it out autocross racing.. I am looking forward to seeing how it all handles..

[FE3-323]

again how so much castor?

[Mazda_Powered]

wow caster! that's awesome! lol oh ya, nice balljoints too

[crazycanadian]

again how so much castor?

Your control arm bearings with the rear ones set to max out caster, mx3 control arms and the rx7 ball joints (the increased length helps increase the effectiveness of your off set rear bearings)... Ksport 01 - 03 protege advanced upper plates set up to max out caster the most.. (the top adjustment plate has slightly a bit more adjustment then the bottom plate, so I set the top one to max caster out)...

I will have a big long update on the car with video's from todays autocross after I get back from holidays... Right now I have to pack my bags and head off to meet up with my family at the lake...

[crazycanadian]

Well I am back from a week of camping with my son. We had a great time, great weather it was really nice to get away from all the stress and work...

Updates from the last event.. Well it was a blast.. The car felt much more responsive... I was able to toss it into corners and get the back end to step out a little more easy.. Couple of my friends out there took notice to how much more planted the car looked out on course.. I was great to be able to step the car out and get a little bit of a slip angle going on during corner entry then get on the gas and have the car hook up straighten out.. I started out in the morning with my front shocks set about 3/4 of the way firm and my rear shocks set just a little firmer then the fronts... This seemed to work out great.. For the afternoon I wanted to see if I could get a little more front grip and get a little more rotation out of the back end... I dropped my front shocks down to about 1/2 and the rears almost full firm.. This made a big difference in the car... My fastest morning run was 45.487 on warmed up tires.. In the afternoon we got 2 runs.. my first run on cold tires was 45.436... After that I ran my fastest time of the day.. an even 45.500... Huge improvement in time, all though it came a price.. I threw a rod bearing in my motor and corded one of my tires... I attempted to drive the car home, but it just sounded way to bad, so I had to turn around head back to the pad and call a tow truck..

In raw time I ended up 11th overall out of 62 drivers...

On to pictures..

dead tire... (they were pretty dead to begin with but I was hoping they would last the rest of the season)


Up on the tow truck.. I should have gotten a flat deck, it took 45min to get the car up, and even still it was pretty close to crushing my front header.. The car is to low to tow with out it on the dolly, and it wouldn't fit hooking it up to the front.. All was good at the end the car made it home safe and sound..


My poor motor..

http://youtu.be/6H7Ylmt82lI

My fastest morning run of the day..

http://youtu.be/jn6RYNa_enQ

My first afternoon run

http://youtu.be/6R6usHBCJ5s

My fastest run of the day.

http://youtu.be/JdpI_zsHmsE

[FE3-323]

bad luck sir! sorry to hear. whats the plan now??

[crazycanadian]

A local competitor/friend runs the same size tires on his ES miata.. Last time we talked he had some old hoosiers that still had some life left in them.. Hopefully I can get a hold of him and get them for cheap to keep me in tires for a while..

For a motor I am going to try and find a KLZE with engine harness and ecu.. If I can't find one for a reasonable price I'll just swap another DE in and run it till I blow it up again.. I am also going to try and step up my transmission build/gear ratio swap so I can install it when I have everything apart..

With the suspension getting more dialed in, the courses getting more open and my car getting faster I am starting to spend far to much time between 6 - 7K rpms when racing.. On one of my slower runs I can see my tach.. for almost the whole back stretch I was really reving the motor out...

[FE3-323]

i hear the oil squirters are actually problematic in the KL's as the rpm's increase. perhaps shimming the oilpump with a few washers would do some good.

[crazycanadian]

So I have been hunting around this week trying to get my hands on a motor.. A KLZE is out of the equation There are no local importers left in business anymore. I called about 6 or 7 other company's that do importing, mostly from back east but haven't had much luck. Mainly they are all selling curve neck's and wont pull a valve cover, so I can see if it will at least have ZE cams in it. Also they want $1000 or more with shipping costs....

I have decided to go with a KLG4 swap. Why so new? why that swap? Well locally all the DE's for sale at 200K plus milage. I can pick up a KLG4 with about 140K on it with wiring harness and ecu for around $700.. If I want to spend a little more cash I know where I can get one with only 84K miles on it... I also really want to update the car to OBD2...Why OBD2 you might ask?? Well I do all the drivability diagnostics for the shop I work at for a living... OBD2 data streams make for really easy diagnostics... It also allow me to data log easier..

Plus I just bought this for my tool box..




I picked up the laptop used for a screaming deal.. Then I bought the Auto Enginuity scan stool with OEM enhanced software for all domestics for now... If I like how it all works I can add enhanced software for other car lines down the road for cheap... PLus compared to snap on updating the software cost only pennies...

The program also comes with a little side program that allows a person to do dyno pulls, mpg calculations, acceleration pulls and stuff much like some of the hand held programers on the market.. Since I needed this tool for work, I figure now if I update my car I'll be able to make good use of the scanner.. I also have OEM tooling at work giving me the ability to program the pcm if needed..

I also have a line on a 2.0L SOHC escort transmission that I can use to change up my gear ratios.. If all goes well I'll hurry up my transmission build so I can install it all when I do the motor..

[crazycanadian]

Here is how I left the car tonight...


At this point the motor is coming out of the car.. I can't see where the noise is coming from but something isn't right.. I drained the oil and didn't see any bad things there.. I pulled both accessory belts off, pulled the timing cover off had a look at the timing belt.. I don't see anything bad going on there.. I ran the car with the timing belt cover off and no accessory belts... It really sounded like the noise was coming from the rear cylinder head, especially when I put my hand on the motor.. It felt like thats where it was coming from as well.. So I ripped both valve covers off and had a little look.. I couldn't see anything..

Took a couple more video's for the fun of it incase anyone following along was curious..

This is the video with the motor running with the accessory belts and timing cover off...
MVI 4837 - YouTube




This next video I took because I though it was interesting.. I cranked the motor over with the start while I had the intake and valve covers off.. I could one of the reasons why my motor was lacking in power.. With it all apart I could watch the back sides of the intake valves while I was cranking the motor.. I still had the spark plugs in so the motor had compression.. cylinders 4 and 5 both had a valve that would occasionally leak... You could hear and feel the compression pulses coming back up threw the intake, then it would go away... All my intake valves though showed signs of poor sealing as well.. There was a bit of fuel down on all the valves and while I was cranking it I could see bubbles on the back sides of the valves during compression... I am not sure how bad it really is to see that, but I am sure if a machine shop leak checked the valves they would find worn or pitted valve seats/valves...
MVI 4838 - YouTube




In the morning I am headed off first thing to go look at 2 different KLG4's before my sisters wedding in the evening... One set up is $600 for the motor(forget how many miles), but I have to go pull the harness and ecu from a different place for another $150... Another place is $700 for everything, but they have all ready pulled the motor so who knows what condition the wring harness is in... The motor only has 124K and its out of a 2001 so it shouldn't be to bad.. I can get my hands on one other one, but that guy wants $1200 for the motor/wiring harness and ecu... The motor only has 84K on it though... Remember for all you american guys reading things.. I am quoting everything in Kilometers..

[FE3-323]

a freshen up of any motor is never a bad idea. some valve grinding compound & relapping the valves in usually works wonders.
the only downside is the cost of parts & time spent.

[crazycanadian]

Well some updates...I got some new Kumo V710's over the weekend for free.. A local competitor/friend had them sitting in his garage taking up space, he was just going to throw them out.. They are old but they still have rubber on them and the price was right so they will do for now... I took all the rims and tires to work today and got them all switch over... I don't know how I could afford to keep my self in tires if I didn't have access to a tire machine... My boss and coworkers think I am nuts since I seem to be switching tires over almost every couple of months..

The new motor arrived today... All though to say I was disappointed would be an understatement... The yard I bought the motor from shipped me the wrong one...On top of that they were 4.5 hours later dropping it off then they said they would be... :s... I am not impressed.. My better half had wasted most of the day waiting around and was grumpy about it all... By the time I got home from work to find all this out they were closed, so tomorrow morning they will be hearing from me...

Stock 94 KLDE hanging from the hoist(wrong motor)


I can see where someone might mistake this motor for a 99 with the writing on the valve cover...



On a fun note Rob stopped by tonight.. He's going to have some fun this saterday at the up coming autocross event.. I was origonally thinking about codriving with him but that has since changed.. I had mentioned that he could use my r-comps and he's decided to take me up on that offer... Tonight we test fit them just to be sure we wont have any major rubbing issues.. Everything seems to look good...

Some pics..

[FE3-323]

god that car is sexy^

hopefully you get things sorted asap with the motor