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Hey Everyone,

Well I've got my KLZE installed. Can't get it running though. Cranking but not starting. Getting lots of fuel in the cylinders and the spark plugs are sparking but it's just not catching. I think the Spark might be a little weak and I may have to do my MSD conversion sooner than I would like. The race is on for me to get this thing working before the Kelowna trip. Here's a picture of the engine bay for everyone's viewing pleasure.

Have you double checked your timing? Making sure that when #1 cylinder is at TDC that the rotor in your distributor is pointing at #1 plug wire tower? Fast easy check.. PM me if you have any questions man.. looking sweet

Tunes67

Well I checked the timing belt settings a few times before putting the valve covers back on when rebuilding. Didn't get around to checking the ignition timing yet but this problem sounds worse than a small ignition timing problem. I was dredding having to check it again but I never thought about checking the rotor at TDC on cyl #1. I'll try to have a look at that tomorrow. I managed to get it running in the main time (like a toilet mind you). It was flooding the cylinders quite a lot, so I unplugged the fuel pump and managed to start it, then reved it up a little while quickly plugging the fuel pump back it. It seems like it's not firing right and the idle is frantically jumping up and down. Gotta do some digging in the shop manual. I've never seen something like this before. Maybe because I never owned a KLZE

That's if I can get it running correctly. I better! I've been looking forward to this trip for quite some time.

Hey man

Hey man your problem seems similar to David coleman's. Maybe something in this thread may help u. Goodluck.

http://www.mx-3.com/phpbb2/viewtopic.ph ... light=klze

Thanks but I followed the shop manual exactly, so I didn't screw up the timing belt alignment like he did. Lined up the Cam Pulleys to their corresponding marks and the Crankshaft half circle notch to the arrow on the block just like the book showed in the diagram. I will play with the distributor timing tonight after work and see how that goes. If things are still screwy, I'll have to recheck the belt to make sure it didn't slip a couple teath.

sounds like the problem i had with mine, there was a major vaccum leak in the block, it was missing a small bolt that has a passage connected to the intake manifold. it is about in the middle of the block on the drivers side 2-3 inches down from center, i will try to get a pic later, did not think a vaccum leak would make the motor run like it was.

Are you refering to the location of where the EGR goes on the stock K8 motor? I obviously don't have ERG hooked up but there is still a place to mount it. There shouldn't be anything leaking from there if that is what you're refering to. A pic would be the best for clearing that up. You could be also talking about the hole on the back/bottom of the Millenia Intake Manifold. I put a small plate on the back and screwed a bolt into the bottom hold. I could try sealing that up better.

maybe you put the cam shaft pully backwards ?
the right one actually goes to the left when looking on the timing belt side..and make sure the pulley you installed on the left is written R on it.
You do know that each cam pulley has a L on one side and R on the other side.

good luck

No, I'm pretty sure I did that part correctly. I followed these instruction from the Mazda Shop Manual.
Shop Manual B2-104

Double check that your Spark plug wires are ging to the right cylinder and are plugged into the right spot on the disty.

That is a common mistake that even the best MX-3 mechanics can say "oops" about. (The MOCA guys recently made this mistake when doing a ZE swap... we all had a good laugh about it afterwards!)

Mis-guided plug wires will cause the symptom you are describing everytime.

Just a thought.

No worries. I checked that a billion times.

From Rear Left:
1-3-5
2-4-6

Disty is marked on the cap on which socket is which. Even my cables are labelled 1 to 6.

Wooo Hoo! I got ECU codes. I know it's a weird thing to get happy about but that means I can finally get some feedback from the car.

ECU Error Codes
--------------------------
10 - Intake Air Temp Sensor (have no idea why I got this. I'll clear it and see if it re-appears again.

17 - LH02S inversion error (might from the rich running engine, or the oil in the combustion chamber clearing out)

24 - RH02S inversion error (probably the same reason as code 17.

I'm going to adjust the timing later and see if it still throws codes. Just keeping you updated...

ahh crap.... I still can't get anywhere. This thing is only running (if you want to call it that) on 3 cylinders. I do have tones of fuel in all the cylinders and I do have spark but I think it's not a good enough spark. It usually should be a nice bright blue spark but I have a somewhat dim orange spark. I think I'm going to have to find some way to get $$$ to pay for getting the MSD ignition. There's no point wasting money on another distributor when it will probably fail again a few months from now. Why can't this be easy???