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I recently bought a deceased engine and shipped it across the country so I could get the cams, etc in it. The engine deceased itself by breaking it's nose. Got some pictures of broken nose in situ if anybody wants to see what it looks like.

After spending most of yesterday pulling the engine down, and then the head last night, I was ready to do the cams this morning.

Well, I got to them this afternoon after taking the family shopping. You all know how it goes.

After a bit of a false alarm about them not fitting in due to the size of the HLA boss cast into the head, I had a long long look, measure, look again and decided that they should fit. Put them in, jacked the pistons down to midway on the motor, and spun the camshaft around with my trusty spanner - they did fit!

Set the cam timing, slapped all the covers and whatnot on, in and around. The moment of truth came and I turned the key - and the bloody thing just worked - freakin' marvellous.

Set the ignition timing, turned the engine off, disconnected timing light, added oil and dropped the bonnet.

Jumped in and went for a wild lap of the 'burb.

Definitely stronger in the midrange, and climbs for the redline faster. GREAT induction ROAR. I will give the Gtech a go tomorrow to see the new number.

The cams work fine on the stock ECU. Lumpy idle but otherwise fine.

Other than the crisis of confidence over the cams fitting, the only other problem I had to deal with was little miss 2 (I'm nearly 3) freaking out about how I parked my car in mum's side of the garage and then 'broke' my engine. I will take her for a spin tomorrow to reassure her, dad can fix his car almost as well as her toys.

I am happy. Next to get the Uniship installed and tuned.

Awesome Good to see someone else going the NA route for their roadcar

and pics?

Babalouie - Turbo just does not grab my fancy. I prefer a cammy donk, not an ultrapowerful one. One of the reasons I like the MX5 is that I can wring it's neck on the roads around Canberra, and not be doing twice the speed limit.

Astroboysoup - I have pics of the stock cams against the new cams...I just cannot host them anywhere. If someone can host the pictures, I can send them. Better still, if someone can suggest a free upload tool, I can do it myself.

As for the engine - think aluminium shine, covered with engine oil, with bolt's 'n stuff sticking out.

The HKS Cams are
Inlet 0.06mm bigger base, 0.78mm bigger lift.
Exhaust 0.14mm smaller base, 0.59mm bigger lift.
And fatter all the way through.

Aha - found a free uploader...

Broken Nose


Exhaust Cams

HKS on the right.

Inlet Cams

HKS on the left.

An interesting addition to the sump


Anyone want to buy the sump - or swap for theirs? I don't need an oil return line.

Also selling small nose oil pump, water pump, cam belt.

I'm happy to see my broke engine go to a good home
Post them pictures of the head ;)

nice pics.. its hard to see the difference between the cams with all the shiny reflections...

anyway.. i'll be interested in the sump.. but its a bitch getting the sump out to swap over isn't it?

Looks like a really savage ramp on the inlet cam lobes Adam - watch out for broken valves springs etc at high revs. Did you replace the springs with uprated ones?

EDIT: Was looking at the cam that came out not the HKS Was that a standard cam? My comments above still stand - did you check your valve springs or replace them?

Bigdog,

The ones that came out are stockies - completely OEM Mazda. Even have MAzda stamps in them somewhere or the other.

The head was completely rebuilt and ported and polished 30k kms ago in August 2004. I am content that the valve springs are OK for these camshafts, but bigger, faster ones, yeah maybe.

After this morning driving around (to get an oil filter so I could change the oil) the new cams definitely add more punch in the mid range and where the stock engine used to start running out of puff at 6500rpm, these keep on charging.

Astro,

Yep you need to remove the engine to get the sump off, trying to do it in-car would be very difficult as the windage tray will get in your way by sticking to the sump. This is a problem as the oil pickup is between the windage tray and the sump, otherwise it would just slide off if you jacked the engine up a couple of inches. If you could cut the windage tray off easily, then it would be possible, but access with the engine in the car would be a beatch. Let me know if you would like it and we may be able to work something out.

Didn't get to GTech it as I took the kids to see CARS - good movie BTW. Will try to get some numbers when I get home from the next week in luverly Sydney.

Inlet Port on Roderic's old head.

Might be selling this at some stage - might not as well.

yeh would like to know how much more power you're pushing out with the cams and ported head.

I want a ported head.

adamjp wrote:the only other problem I had to deal with was little miss 2 (I'm nearly 3) freaking out about how I parked my car in mum's side of the garage and then 'broke' my engine. I will take her for a spin tomorrow to reassure her, dad can fix his car almost as well as her toys.

Yep, got one of those
I wouldn't trade this one in.


"Wahini Bikini Girl"


Jules