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SuperK wrote:Did you use the lantis gear shifting assembly? That's pretty neat they fixed the dropping shifter issue like that

I wont be using it Kris. I will go with the Eunos Presso one. There is just a slightly different angle difference (on the stabiliser link) between the two. Depends how much time I have when I put the bits in...I might experiment to see what the fit is like.

I have spent a lot of time looking for OEM clear indicator lamps (stanley 041-0687L and Stanley 041-0687R) for the Presso.

I landed a used set ex a Mazda 30X from Oz for A$40 plus P&P.

Another good source is

http://en.bildelsbasen.se/?link=item&se ... d=10570629



starting at about $US 17.50 plus P and P.

Might be of interest to an MX-3er.

Nice update.

Did you decided to drive the red one instead of the bordeaux?

WhiteFinish wrote:Nice update.

Did you decided to drive the red one instead of the bordeaux?

The red one is not road legal at the minute. The next step is the engine and gearbox upgrade. The engine is back from the engine builder....and I am recovering from price shock!!!

When finished it will be used as a track day car. Its only travelled 127K kms, the panels are all straight but the paintwork is dead. Its just a project and very much a work in progress.

The Rose mica one has 107K kms and is in mint condition, fully road legal and "driven" in the weekends LOL, Its lurking in the garage behind the red one in the photos. The parts car is parked outside on the grass.

projectB10 wrote: The red one is not road legal at the minute. The next step is the engine and gearbox upgrade. The engine is back from the engine builder....and I am recovering from price shock!!!

The cause of the distressed wallet

That engine looks delicious! Hope the everything goes well getting it re-installed.

beautiful motor, i hope all the internals are well. I would highly recommend a manual TBt though unless thats a new oem mazda tensioner.

Sleeper6 wrote:beautiful motor, i hope all the internals are well. I would highly recommend a manual TBt though unless thats a new oem mazda tensioner.

Yes its an OEM tensioner.

The short block is new and never used. It has been modified in this build up; KJ-ZEM rods and WISECO 11.5 pistons and the whole short block assembly (crank pulley to FIDANZA flywheel/clutch assembly) fully balanced. That balancing exercise produced some interesting measured results...the lesson in my opinion is that changes of that sort mean that the entire rotating assembly must always be rebalanced if non OEM or different OEM parts are introduced....even the clutch cover was modified (small amount of weight removed at one point on the cover) as part of the process. Its an added expense and you need to be careful that the shop involved has the equipment and expertise to do the job properly.

The ZE cylinder heads have been rebuilt, refaced (with reconditioned HLAs etc) with KL-DE keepers and retainers using INTERPREP valve springs and using NA "Triflow" reground cams.

Everything else is new; oil pump, water pump etc.

Ohh yes ..the baffles within powder coated cam covers had to be disassembled and cleaned/bead blasted internally as the builder found that they were full of used blasting media and other crap that potentially held the risk that that material would be dislodged and carried over into the engine lubrication system over time.

projectB10 wrote:

projectB10 wrote: The red one is not road legal at the minute. The next step is the engine and gearbox upgrade. The engine is back from the engine builder....and I am recovering from price shock!!!

The cause of the distressed wallet

Wow....holy s***. That looks awesome! This whole thread has me jealous Great job on all the builds, can't wait to see what's in the future!

Finally found some time to get back into the shed. A quiet Sunday afternoon.

Also thinking about all people killed and injured in Paris yesterday. Prayers and best wishes for the family and loved ones involved. We were there on holiday in July. Loved the place.

I fitted a MX-3 PRM CAI kit along time ago to the Passion Rose car. I would guess it was at least 12 years ago. It was lightly hacked around when the ZE conversion (using the Eunos 800 IM) was done and again when the MSPNP was fitted and the airflow meter deleted. The Eunos 800 IM has the same general form of the K8-ZE IM but is about 25mm longer (closer to the radiator) at the point the TB attaches to the OEM air tube.

I was never really happy with the set up and made up my mind to remove and return the OEM air intake tube and air box and all the associated bits and pieces to the rightful place. I also wanted to retain the "velocity stack" shaped portion of the old airflow meter (the first section that inserts into the air box), install a K&N filter and at the same time fit an air/oil separator (aka catch tank) from Conceptual Polymer (http://www.conceptualpolymer.com).

I cut the front section off the airflow meter at the OEM assembly joint (glue??) line





Then attached it (contact adhesive) to the PVC over which I had slipped a PVC socket to provide a wide enough face to both match the air meter part and give the contact adhesive plently of contact face. I then overlap bound the join with rescue tape (fabulous stuff) to a short length on 90mm diameter PVC pipe. The internal and external dimensions/diameter of the 90mm PVC matches the size of the OEM air meter piece perfectly and the internal size is huge compared to usual 70/75mm pipe dimensions common in aftermarket CAI setups.

The intention was to start with an overall length for the hybrid (inlet section and PVC pipe) equal to the end to end length of the OEM air meter. I knew that would be too long but it gave a safe start point. I overlap wrapped it in 3M Aluminium tape to hopefully provide some temporary reflective protection against radiant heat soak as the PVC tube has a wall thickness of only about 2mm.







to be continued....

The alignment in the original mounting points of the combination of Eunos 800 IM, K8-ZE air tube, my air meter delete piece and the air box was a no go.

The Eunos 800 IM size difference slightly changes the angle at which the airtube etc matches to the airbox. My solution was to removed 15mm from my guestimate of an overall length for my air meter delete piece. When all the pieces are assembled in the factory locations there is still a small separation angle but there is still enough contact between the rubber seal on the nose of the air meter piece to provide air filtration security.

You can see that the separation of the mounting face in this picture.



Mounted the air temperature sensor for the MSPNP in the top of the filtered air part of the airbox. I used a 5/8in internal diameter grommet to match the diameter of the sensor and the grommet is mounted in a 25mm hole in the back face of the top part of the airbox.



And a top view here



I used a K&N OEM sized cotton filter



To be continued.....

This part is out of sequence ...

Dave Sulli, the owner of Conceptual Polymer makes some very nice products and his on line service is excellent.

I have always run a air/oil separator on the car. It was one of the cheap knock offs with no filtration and no internal baffling of any kind...nasty really. Even so it did a very good job and I was always surprised at the volume of oil crap that I dumped out of that thing.

I wanted one that I could mount down on the chassis rail out of the way and just run good quality automotive hosing between the PCV valve to the separator and then onto vacuum source nipple on the IM. I know that means that I have to access it from under the car but it has a nice screw top (O ringed) and is easy to empty. I scavenged a round bracket from my spares car that holds the OEM air con condenser bottle and also mounts down on the chassis rail near the radiator.

The Conceptual Polymer separator is almost the same diameter as the mount. I used a little packing to insulate it from vibration and size the diameter to match the OEM bracket. Almost perfect.







I finished it up and took it for a run. It goes as hard, but without all the acoustic sounds provided by the PRM..which I prefer.

The throttle roll in response from idle is much superior in my opinion. That is surprising to me as the inlet air set up obviously was never sized by Mazda for the ZE. The OEM stuff has balance/resonance tubes for Africa, a small one on the inlet tract pre air box, one of about a litre size on the unfiltered side of the airbox and a resonance tube on the air tube itself. I really like that crisp roll in throttle response from idle rpm. I guess Mazda put a little thought into the design of all of that.

finally a few pictures as it sat out in the rain as I cleaned up my mess in the shed.

Very tidy! I do the miss the sound of six!