Constantly variable ignition timing - oops!

Engines, Transmissions & Final Drive questions and answers

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Guran
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Constantly variable ignition timing - oops!

Postby Guran » Wed Apr 22, 2009 10:20 am

I spent all of yesterday fettling on my MX-5. It was a good opportunity to fix a few issues and find some new ones.

1) After first putting the car up on jack stands, I rotated the tyres since both fronts had been flat-spotted on my last track day. The vibration is less troublesome with those tyres on the rear.

2) Removed the aftermarket central locking system that had been causing me grief recently. Much simpler to just use a key to lock/unlock the doors. I also used the opportunity to re-grease the window mechanism.

3) Fitted a Sparco raceseat onto the old driver's seat rails. The seat is a permanent loan from a friend. Nice!

4) Fitted a Sabelt 4-point harness - another freebie from a friend who's moving to the US.
seat-harness.jpg


5) Removed both front quarter panels in order to clean out the dirt, sand and ant-nests that had accumulated at the sill near the bottom of the wheel arch. Unbelievable how much crap was in there! Thankfully there wasn't any rust, and I coated the surfaces with a bit of grease to try and give it some more protection. Must get myself some fish oil for this purpose in future.

6) Noticed that the pinch bolt on the crank angle sensor was missing :shock: ! Hence the subject of this thread ... the sensor body was free to swing wherever it wanted. It also seems to have been the source of an oil leak. Amazing that this hasn't caused me more issues considering I've done two track days with the car in this condition. I bought an M8 x 30mm bolt from Autobahn and that fixed the problem. Set the timing to 14deg BTDC using my new xenon timing light.
crank_sensor.jpg

7) Used a couple more of those M8 x 30mm bolts to attach the air box. Prior to this, the airbox was attached with only one of the original bolts. Seems that my car has been attacked by a bolt robber!
airbox1.jpg
airbox2.jpg

A good day's work!
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Standard 2006 NC - YouTube
WP 1:11.89 | SMP-S 1:05.90 GP 1:54.93 N 1:18.09 L 2:22.49 | PW 1:02.52
PI 2:00.55 | W-S 1:12.44 W-L 1:43.36 | SR 1:33.25

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daffyflyer
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Constantly variable ignition timing - oops!

Postby daffyflyer » Wed Apr 22, 2009 10:22 am

You are lucky there, I once had the timing bolt fall out and the timing go full retard, thus stopping the car, and stranding me because I had no idea what had stopped it! :P
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Juffa
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Constantly variable ignition timing - oops!

Postby Juffa » Wed Apr 22, 2009 11:36 am

Guran wrote:
6) Noticed that the pinch bolt on the crank angle sensor was missing :shock: ! Hence the subject of this thread ... the sensor body was free to swing wherever it wanted. It also seems to have been the source of an oil leak. Amazing that this hasn't caused me more issues considering I've done two track days with the car in this condition. I bought an M8 x 30mm bolt from Autobahn and that fixed the problem. Set the timing to 14deg BTDC using my new xenon timing light.
crank_sensor.jpg



Well done. With regards to the oil leak. There is a small rubber seal where the CAS attaches to the cam shaft. This seal likes to start leaking if the CAS is rotated. The seal should be replaced as the leaking oil is dripping on a small rubber plug at the back of the block. If that plug lets go you will start to lose coolant.

More info on the CAS seal replacement can be found here;

http://www.miata.net/garage/garageengine.html

J
Former owner of Mailbu Stacey, Smurfette and Tweety.

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Locutus
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Constantly variable ignition timing - oops!

Postby Locutus » Wed Apr 22, 2009 12:18 pm

i found a rather large bolt (~14mm?) rolling around under my passenger headlamp assembly a few months back. had markings on it which i believe indicate that it's a high strength bolt.

also found another bolt (~12mm?) rolling around in the driver's foot well a couple of weeks later.

not sure what's worse - finding that a bolt is missing, or discovering a random bolts just lying around! had a good look around both times and nothing seems to be missing... and nothing's fallen off... yet... haha.

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Guran
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Constantly variable ignition timing - oops!

Postby Guran » Wed Apr 22, 2009 5:54 pm

Juffa wrote:Well done. With regards to the oil leak. There is a small rubber seal where the CAS attaches to the cam shaft. This seal likes to start leaking if the CAS is rotated. The seal should be replaced as the leaking oil is dripping on a small rubber plug at the back of the block. If that plug lets go you will start to lose coolant.

More info on the CAS seal replacement can be found here;

http://www.miata.net/garage/garageengine.html

J

Thanks for the tip. Cool! Another job for my next fettling day! An easy one too.
Standard 2006 NC - YouTube
WP 1:11.89 | SMP-S 1:05.90 GP 1:54.93 N 1:18.09 L 2:22.49 | PW 1:02.52
PI 2:00.55 | W-S 1:12.44 W-L 1:43.36 | SR 1:33.25

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Guran
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Constantly variable ignition timing - oops!

Postby Guran » Fri Apr 24, 2009 10:55 pm

Holy $@#%! I visited Dwyers Mazda to pick up a replacement rubber seal for the crank angle sensor. $9.20 for a bloody O-ring! Probably could have bought a hundred of them from Bunnings for the same price. Oh well, I guess if a wrong O-ring can bring down a Space Shuttle, then I might as well go for the genuine item. :?
Standard 2006 NC - YouTube
WP 1:11.89 | SMP-S 1:05.90 GP 1:54.93 N 1:18.09 L 2:22.49 | PW 1:02.52
PI 2:00.55 | W-S 1:12.44 W-L 1:43.36 | SR 1:33.25


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