How many of you have revved over 7K in a ZE

[Steeb]

not every ze is destined to drop a valve. i as well as many have been over 7k rpmore times than i can count.

a few cases of people breaking retainers and dropping valves doesnt mean that if you get a ze, it is destiny that your ze will do the same.

most cases of people breaking retainers is during regular easy driving.

[Tunes67]

No offense Steeb.. but why would anyone want to take a chance on that? Serious.. After all the money, time & work spent onto swapping in a new engine.. why would anyone in their right mind knowingly ignore that their ZE MIGHT drop a valve without preventive maintenance? Seems like russian roulette to me.. just with an engine rather than a gun. Doesnt matter if revving it or driving it normally causes the valve to drop.. the fact is.. they can and DO drop. Look at what happened to BlueBullets car.. spent all that time and cash and effort on his car.. the one thing he didnt do was replace the valve keepers.. and boom.. he'd had it with the car and is parting it out. One of the nicest MX-3's around and its being dismantled because his engine wasnt destined to drop a valve. Most of the ZE engines were mated to ATX transmissions in the Japanese Market. So it was very rare for those engines to ever see their red line or rev limiter before the tranny would shift. And those that did.. probably never made it over here to the USDM.

Iam not saying dont buy a ZE.. I am saying if you are buying a ZE.. spend the time & cash to make it reliable. And for you ZE owners that are going to scoff at this.. you may not want to do so publically.. cause that would only invite fate to b*tch slap you and drop a valve sooner rather than later LOL

Tunes67

[Steeb]

im not ignoring the fact that they dropping valves does happen. i want people to realize that there are only a tiny number of people who have had this happen as opposed to the number of people who have ze's.

anyone like me who is more concerned with performance than dropping a valve will get a ze over a de and take the chance cuz probably 99.99% chance it will be fine even with me driving to 7k rpm on a daily basis. there are people on mx-3.com, pt, mx6.com and others who have done custom swaps and dont forget every kl powered car in japan. we have heard of maybe 30 people (estimating very high) who we have heard from that dropped a valve. seriously tho i think the number of lost ze's due to dropped valves is closer to 15-20. there are hundreds if not thousands of people with ze's and only a handful of dropped valves. its really not a big issue.

ze paired with an atx is not the issue. like i said, most people with dropped valves in ze's didnt happen under spirited driving. it doesnt need to get to redline to break a retainer. most likely if you have a ze with a bad retainer, it will drop that valve fairly shortly after u put the motor in. claim the warranty and 99.99% chance it probably wont happen again.

ill take my chances as most people have. im on my 3rd ze and the previous 2 were flawless when i sold them and they are still running great in their new boosted homes.

ze's are about as cheap as de's, if u drop a valve u can part it out or sell it and pretty much pay another ze for a hair more. it pays for itself broken or not.

[Tunes67]

You might want to hit up Bling Bling on the for sale forum then.. he has been trying to sell a set of ZE pistons for quite some time now

I admit that the chance is small. I guess I am just more anal than most and will always correct a known defect rather than let it bite me in the a-- down the road. To each their own I suppose.

Tunes67

[hgallegos915]

There is no way in hell im taking that chance... I think im going to use the k8 retainers. So what specifically needs to be changed? The spring like looking things? hlas? anyone have pics? I dont think i would be able to do it myself. Im having the timing belt replaced so i might as well invest in changing to de / k8 retainers. Anyone had a shop do this and how much did they charge?


are the retainers those "locks" thing on top of the spring?

[wagZE]

"Don't be gay Keep it under 7k!"

Yea tunes your right lol don't be like me.

I have revved & driven over 7k rpm probly around 50 times & my ze has lasted about 15-20k miles

But apparently not much further than that eh? At least from the sound of the thread below.. sounds like you wont be going much further on that ZE.


http://www.mx-3.com/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?t=54921


Tunes67

[lavaman]

ok i recently bought a 1995 ford probe gt... which to my understanding is a "kl" series engine... would this have the same weak valves as the klze??? and if so can i just change the valve springs to make it take higher revs??? well anyways any imput would be great... oh yeah how much would it cost to replace the valve springs?

[mx3autozam]

ok i recently bought a 1995 ford probe gt... which to my understanding is a "kl" series engine... would this have the same weak valves as the klze??? and if so can i just change the valve springs to make it take higher revs??? well anyways any imput would be great... oh yeah how much would it cost to replace the valve springs?

the klde and klze have different valvetrains an dthe ze is the weaker one. Yes you can swap it over. Thats what i did

If you do swap over taht doesn't eman you shift at 7500rpm or 8k. your engine doesn't make power up there with stock cams. But its a good idea incase you miss a shift or accidentally do a downshift to 4th gear but instead hit 2nd..lol i've done that once.

[Ray]

My KLZE lost a valve in cylinder 6, apparently this is the cylinder where the retainer fails first, due to harmonic distortion that comes over the 7K.

Yes I've been over the 7K some times with a 75hk shot of NOS - that is bound to happen.

The fault on the KLZE is because of the design, bigger intakevalves & springs that is only on 20 pounds - where KLDE springs are on 25 pounds with another retainer design, the reason for the KLZE design is bound in noisereduktion.

My "new" KLZE that I'm picking up tomorrow have had changed retainers/springs etc to KLDEparts

There several company's that sell upgraded retainers/springs Interprep is one with a set for 175$.
They say it is good for 8k rev.

BTW with a fairly "modded" KLZE setup you don't loose power in the high rev, you just dont get more hp, it keeps it up around the 200 hp.

My performance set up is:
KLDE (TEMP) / KLZE (comming up)
Quaife LSD
Probe 5 speed tranny
SSAuto headers
RaceCat 400c
3" custom stainless exhaust
Leightned flywheel 6,9 kg
6 pad racing clutch
CAI
255 walbro fuelpump
Shortshifter

[XxantwawnxX]

I reved over 7k MANNNY times in my ZE while it was NA, and even a few while i was boosting 5-10psi. Neve rhad a problem yet..WOOO bulltet proof ZE!

[hgallegos915]

from my last post to this... i drag and shift at 7 most of the time. I been good SO FAR. I heard its more to the kl31 zes. Who has blown their kl01 cammed ze? I wish I had the money for the valve retainers.. well I will in incometax BUT.. they charge around 500 dllrs to do it locally.. engine costs anywhere from 700 to 1000... i rather get the whole engine and when out replace for my k8 retainers.

[kiwi_MX3]

97lbs on the nose seat pressure.
CR retainers
Stock locks

10,000 rpm draggin

[Steeb]

My KLZE lost a valve in cylinder 6, apparently this is the cylinder where the retainer fails first, due to harmonic distortion that comes over the 7K.

Yes I've been over the 7K some times with a 75hk shot of NOS - that is bound to happen.

The fault on the KLZE is because of the design, bigger intakevalves & springs that is only on 20 pounds - where KLDE springs are on 25 pounds with another retainer design, the reason for the KLZE design is bound in noisereduktion.

My "new" KLZE that I'm picking up tomorrow have had changed retainers/springs etc to KLDEparts

There several company's that sell upgraded retainers/springs Interprep is one with a set for 175$.
They say it is good for 8k rev.

BTW with a fairly "modded" KLZE setup you don't loose power in the high rev, you just dont get more hp, it keeps it up around the 200 hp.

My performance set up is:
KLDE (TEMP) / KLZE (comming up)
Quaife LSD
Probe 5 speed tranny
SSAuto headers
RaceCat 400c
3" custom stainless exhaust
Leightned flywheel 6,9 kg
6 pad racing clutch
CAI
255 walbro fuelpump
Shortshifter

this is hardly a harmonic distortion issue. iirc, the intake and exhaust valves are the same on the de and the ze. it is the hla's that are different size on one side. i dont remember if it was intake or exhaust. if the valve springs were higher spring rate on the ze's was stiff enough to eliminate valve float i am about 99% sure that ze's wouldnt be breaking retainers and dropping valves from broken retainers. its the overly soft spring rate cannot control valve float resulting in broken retainers. should mazda have made stronger retainers? yes but even with the soft valve spring rate stronger retainers will still eventually fail. a few people have broken custom retainers that cyborgzero had made. i dont remember if these were titanium or chromemoly but either way they are stronger than oem and still broke.

from my last post to this... i drag and shift at 7 most of the time. I been good SO FAR. I heard its more to the kl31 zes. Who has blown their kl01 cammed ze? I wish I had the money for the valve retainers.. well I will in incometax BUT.. they charge around 500 dllrs to do it locally.. engine costs anywhere from 700 to 1000... i rather get the whole engine and when out replace for my k8 retainers.

hla equipped kl01 and kl31 ze's both use the same retainers and springs so i am willing to bet that its the same for both. on a side note, i wish there was a way to pinpoint the years that the ze's with dropped valves were built so we can see if maybe it was a mfg defect that was never fixed by mazda due to the length of time it took for failure to occur.

[PWRD_BY_HKS]

I just wanna see how many of you have actually revved your ZE's over 7000 without messing anything up
i've revved her over 7000 atleast a 100 times she still purrs like a kitten
hgallegos915 had a friend once ....and his ZE dropped a valve from over revving .....who know how high it was over revved but that must mean all of them are like that one

thats crazy please all over the world knows about my first ze blowing out like that huh..... well it went to hell for reving it up to 7.500 rpms ...it was cool at first then ..smoke ...all kinds of colors you name it i blew it out the back....till finally one day BOOOOMMMMM...but it wassent a valve what happened to mine it was a hole ....A HOLE on cylinder number 6...i stringly believe it was that, but my former sponser said i was full of s*it and the motor shouldnt have blown ... they said i just never changed the HEAD GASKET .... which is true but, over reving is still not worth it on these motors because like it has been said many times, the valves are have a tendency to fail ...and theres really no point in going up that high...really check 1/4 mile times shifting at 7500 and like at 6800 and more than likely you will run faster on the run you shifted at 6800 ...but if you feel you get more power ...then cheers buddy

[Steeb]

the best way to make n/a power is with rpms.

for example: 180 wtq at 4000rpm is not the same as 180wtq @ 9000 rpm