Project O-Ren - Now road worthy!

[tripleMX-3chicMS]

Hey girl... welcome.... I have many MX-3's here at the house...
we have all the parts we need to fix that car of yours...including body parts.
( : De

[SuperK]

Do you remember where you bought the car? Was it local or out of state?

I have a friend who has/had a KF pretty local, but I haven't heard from him in a bit

[Beccabob593]

I got it Robertsdale, AL. The guy that I got it from wasn't the person who put the engine in. Whoever did didn't do a great job. They must have had a few beers when installing it because all the bolts are loose. The replacement of the head gasket is coming along. It took us forever to get the timing belt covers off.

[Inodoro Pereyra]

So, finally, what engine did you have? Was it a KF?

Glad to know you're moving forward...

[Beccabob593]

I still havent gotten the heads off yet. Right now I'm just about to take the head bolts off. I only get to work on it during the weekends so thats why it is going so slowly. For sure I will know this weekend.

[Ryan]

You can re-use the headbolts as long as they are below a certain length, which can be found in the online manuals.

A KF has the same stroke as a K8, and 3mm more bore. You can find out right away when you pop a head off.

But having K8 heads, I believe its a K8.... You can't mix and match heads from motors with different bores.

[Beccabob593]

That is so awesome to hear. I doubt that they even put in the bolts right. We are going to take the engine out and clean it and retorque everything. It sucks that I have to wait till the weekend to work on it. My boyfriend is probably going to go ahead and remove the heads sometime this week. Also the people picked the ugliest racing seats ever.

[Beccabob593]

Update: This was not a great weekend. I didn't get to work on the mx at all. My boyfriend hit a deer on the way home and his whole front of his car is ruined. So we have to get that fixed before we work on the Mazda again.

[Inodoro Pereyra]

Wow...! Is he alright?

[Beccabob593]

Yes he is fine thank goodness. Hopefully it is just the body of the car that is wrecked. At least the parts for his car are easier to find than mine.

[Beccabob593]

We got the head gaskets off finally. I hate timing belt covers. It seems to me that it is a k8 because the new head gaskets fit (hazah!). Everything seems fine when it comes to the pistons and whatnot. I will put pictures up soon.

[Inodoro Pereyra]

Hmmm...I don't know how I missed your post. Good to know your BF is OK.

Yeah, if the K8 head gaskets fit, it's a K8. The KF has a bigger bore.
Finally, there's one thing you need to know about this forum: pictures are always appreciated.

[SuperK]

Finally, there's one thing you need to know about this forum: pictures are always appreciated.

watch out, he's not talking about the car!

[Beccabob593]

So here are some photos of my pita.



That looks delish! It tasted like lemonade.



We are going to clean everything next weekend. Here is what the gaskets looked like.



Also I have crappy eyesight and my boyfriend compared the new gasket with the old one and the new one is a tad smaller. I celebrated too early.

[Inodoro Pereyra]

The KF has a 3mm (almost 1/8") bigger bore than the K8. Believe me: you could be blind as a post, and you'd still see it.

Once you put everything back together, I'd recommend you do a radiator flush. That engine looks like it's been ran on straight water for a long time.