Is this my oil plug????

[Amdeus]

Side note I wonder if that rod might of been flexing also because I've seen holes punched in the tops of the domes before and the rod still not come apart and this was at 4k rpm on stockers.

 

[FlyinHawaiian]

From the picture it looks like the rod snapped. You can see the break just above the end of the rod...

 

[thepope540]

Rod definitely snapped, but its hard to say wether it was the bolts or rod that went first.

 

[BOOSTR]

Tear it down to find out and look at the bearings also.

 

[Amdeus]

yeah from looking at it again im leaning more towards one of the bolts head either snapped or it just started backing out and it finally backed out enough it came apart. that top part of the jurnal actually dont look that bad. I mean it looks beat up but not narrled up you know like you see in high rpm failures lol

 

[Alamo1]

Wow... that sucks. Good luck on gettin' her back up 'n' runnin'.

 

[HondaEat-R]

Good luck man, that's horrible. I'm suprised at how well people take news of blowing their motor... I'de take the car down a hill in neutral and crash the thing just to total it... In all seriousness, (Debbie Downer moment), this is pathetic how much these motors AND trannys fail horribly... It makes me just want my MSP gone gone gone. It's like holding your breath driving these things, just waiting for s*** to break. I may do a total FI parts part-out and go NA, so maybe the car will last ? ! Whack.

 

[FlyinHawaiian]

Good luck man, that's horrible. I'm suprised at how well people take news of blowing their motor... I'de take the car down a hill in neutral and crash the thing just to total it... In all seriousness, (Debbie Downer moment), this is pathetic how much these motors AND trannys fail horribly... It makes me just want my MSP gone gone gone. It's like holding your breath driving these things, just waiting for s*** to break. I may do a total FI parts part-out and go NA, so maybe the car will last ? ! Whack.

Heh... look up any of my threads on my old car... All you're gonna find is that the engine is weak, no matter if you're NA or FI. Just drive the thing like there's no tomorrow, and have fun with it. If something does go wrong, well its just a car and can be fixed. There are much worse things that can happen beyond blowing a motor...

 

[thepope540]

I knew when I bought it that this was a possibility just like I knew the diff could be a problem. I didn't expect to have both in 8 months, but I did know that owning the car meant that I might be doing some large repairs. I bought it cheap enough that I haven't been hurt too bad, but as I said before: crap happens.

 

[FlyinHawaiian]

And the beauty of it all is, once you're done, it'll be even better than it was before.

Every situation in life is an opportunity...

 

[thepope540]

Sounds like I'm buying a Ranger to drive around so I don't have to rush through the msp rebuild. A truck will be nice too because I can haul the greasy crap around and it make mountain biking much easier. Now, where to spend money in the rebuild? I'd like to keep this to the bare minimum (I don't want big power, and I'm on a limited budget), but I don't want to penny pinch and end up with a sub-par motor that wasn't worth the effort. I can easily get a 100K mile 626 with a toasted trans for $500 (there are two of them within an hour of my house). How would you spend another $500, $750, $1000, or $1500?

edit: I'd like a reliable 12 psi motor

 

[FlyinHawaiian]

Sounds like I'm buying a Ranger to drive around so I don't have to rush through the msp rebuild. A truck will be nice too because I can haul the greasy crap around and it make mountain biking much easier. Now, where to spend money in the rebuild? I'd like to keep this to the bare minimum (I don't want big power, and I'm on a limited budget), but I don't want to penny pinch and end up with a sub-par motor that wasn't worth the effort. I can easily get a 100K mile 626 with a toasted trans for $500 (there are two of them within an hour of my house). How would you spend another $500, $750, $1000, or $1500?

Having been through the process twice, I'd say buy a brand new motor and a used tranny and be done with it. I've not only dealt with getting a used motor which crapped out on me 3 months after I got it (warranty was good for 90 days and it blew on day 97) and I've also had a machine shop screw up an engine build, which cost me another BUILT engine.

If it were me, I'd buy a BRAND NEW engine and a lightly used transmission (from a wreck prolly) and not worry about anything...

 

[HondaEat-R]

Heh... look up any of my threads on my old car... All you're gonna find is that the engine is weak, no matter if you're NA or FI. Just drive the thing like there's no tomorrow, and have fun with it. If something does go wrong, well its just a car and can be fixed. There are much worse things that can happen beyond blowing a motor...

So the glass if half full, huh ? I hear ya, but I'm not interested in constantly performing the largest mechanical repairs a car could possibly need.... In the short time I've had this car, I've spent over $3,000 fixing the tranny, twice....that sucks and cannot be justified by any explanation. When compared to any other car I've owned, this is a lemon. It's nice to see people are so committed to keeping their MSPs , but I know when to bow out of a bad situation. I think people will agree, these cars are the proverbial "money pit".

 

[thepope540]

My trans should be good and I jus put a welded diff in it-it's a keeper. Why not get used a used motor and build it myself? I'm not an experienced engine builder but there's not much to it. Get good parts make sure everything is clean and then assemmble with the proper torque.

 

[FlyinHawaiian]

So the glass if half full, huh ? I hear ya, but I'm not interested in constantly performing the largest mechanical repairs a car could possibly need.... In the short time I've had this car, I've spent over $3,000 fixing the tranny, twice....that sucks and cannot be justified by any explanation. When compared to any other car I've owned, this is a lemon. It's nice to see people are so committed to keeping their MSPs , but I know when to bow out of a bad situation. I think people will agree, these cars are the proverbial "money pit".

Look at your mods though. Mazda spent thousands of hours developing a car in which all the part were to work together in a certain way. The instant you start modifying any part of it, thinking you know better, you immediately set yourself up for potential disaster. Yeah they screwed the pooch on a couple things, but I would bet you'd be hard pressed to find a bone stock MSP that was driven nicely, which experiences the same problems a lot of people on this forum do.

My car has 67k miles on it, I am the second owner, and has very few mods done to it (exhaust, SMIC, Tokico Illuminas). The only repair items I have faced so far are known items (WGA, swaybar bushings, coil packs) which can also be problems on any other car.

My trans should be good and I jus put a welded diff in it-it's a keeper. Why not get used a used motor and build it myself? I'm not an experienced engine builder but there's not much to it. Get good parts make sure everything is clean and then assemmble with the proper torque.

Again, I would advise against it, just from personal experience, but I would never want to discourage you from trying. Its definitely a cool experience, but expect it to take 2x times as long as you plan and 2x more $$.

 

[BOOSTR]

Since you don't want big power and there are plenty of stock internal engines running at or near your power goal, then by all means have at it or at least let a master engine builder do the critical assembly items and you put the rest together. Sounds like a pratical plan to me.

 

[thepope540]

I've decided to put the car up for sale for next 2 weeks. If it doesn't sell I'll keep it and build it myself. If it sells, its been fun and maybe I'll get another one someday. We'll see how it goes.

 

[Amdeus]

I agree some people buy a car and baby it. I drive it likes its going out of style. Good luck on the sale btw

 

[thepope540]

I'm keeping her and she's getting a bump in displacement. I'm doing a KLDE swap and adding a turbo to the mix. I was considering a KLZE, but from what the probe guys are saying the DE likes boost better and will make 250-275 whp with only 6-8 lbs of boost. I already have the perfect turbo laying around - its like it was meant to be. I even found a pair of mx6s (both KLDE 5 spds.) for $800. That way I can get the car running on one and have a spare I can build up for bigger power someday down the road. I'll start a build thread once things get underway.

 

[yudkib]

freaking SWEET. nice pick man!