Welcome back mate, don't stress - we're all a little strapped at the moment. Come pass us by now and then and join in on the conversations where you can. Really miss the updates on this project but you know the old saying... good things come to those who wait.

You're project is inspirational for myself personally and been a great wealth of resource so far! Keep it up!

Onto the pet project. WOW! Very neat idea and something I've been wanting to do myself for ages. If you need help on the funding side i'm prepared to R&D with you. This is a cool idea!

If anything else that is an AWESOME design decision!. After reading through the system I don't see any obvious short comings - this is definitely something I'm interested in doing myself. I'll try the design out as soon as the time is right.

Onto the digidash. I'm fully aware of the costs :-) Thankfully I have a dealer account at one of our largest electronic suppliers in South Africa, so who knows, some of those things I could get cheaper than the normal retail pricing.

Cases are always a problem, that and PCB's!! have to buy in bulk to save there. Kerri I'm keen and very interested in helping you get the product out, let me know when you have a free moment and we can co-ordinate an online meeting about it.

Take care mate and all the best!

EDIT: I forgot to mention the old skool pencil drawing rocks!!

Cross flow will aid cooling a bit, the radiator fill idea is cool - just a bit confused as to what the bottle should be made out of to handle the pressure. Perhaps metal is the best but unsure of level indicator issues. One can't exactly have a viewport out of plastic but perhaps a thick perspex would do the trick.

The main thing is the pressure being held, not sure if that would be a problem going this design, ultimately improving or reducing the boiling point.

Ah ha! Now that bad boy can work! I like, the only thing is - is the red cap a radiator cap in disguise? Or would one need to chop it and weld / design the top part of the tank to accommodate OEM style caps.

Still think that tank looks awesome.

I think it is perspex. There should be caps with and without pressure relief valves available for that. There are similar looking power steering reservoirs too, one could have a neat looking engine bay with those

Alright, back to the scheduled program, it's been a while! The garage was a complete mess, because due to circumstances I had to store a lot of stuff there from elsewhere. Anyway, I managed to get decent work space again and took on coiling the exhaust stud bores. I've had my share of problems with exhaust studs stripping and I want none of that in this build.

So, here goes:


The point of no return... Don't worry about the non-protected deck, I taped it up with duct tape soon enough after the first drill.


That's it, too late to think it over. The remains of the original thread are still visible in the bore walls, which is good.


There, all drilled. The amount of swarf was incredible, I brushed it off with a soft brush, flying all that garbage around with compressed air seems like a bad idea. There's now duct tape on the deck to protect from contamination and scratches. I need to clean the head anyway, there's dust settled on it, so any smaller shaving finding their way into oil channels or water jacket is not a great problem really.


I sort of suck getting the tap to go straight in the bore. so I mounted the tap on the bench drill chuck and turned the chuck by hand. Aluminium is soft enough to do it without extra leverage.


After tapping with #1 tap I went straight to #3 tap and bottomed the threads just to make sure the coil won't taper in at the bottom (that would suck bigtime). Since there was a good start I didn't need to do it with the chuck anymore and went with the traditional T-handle.


Again, the amount of swarf was incredible and this time it was a bit tough to remove. I used brake cleaner spray, that flushed out the shavings pretty efficiently but didn't fly it around the garage. I tried to get the threads as clean as possible before threading in the coils since jamming a coil half way in or having it taper at some chip left into the thread would cause serious problems!



Coiled thread on applicator, ready for installation! The brand I used is ReCoil, pretty much just like helicoil, except for the name. Australian brand btw.



The first coil going in! All of them threaded in pretty smoothly in fact. The collet is a good indicator when the coil is far enough in the thread.



One in! I made sure all the coils are deep enough to be supported on every side so the coil can't unwind.


..and they're all in! Shiny and good.


The stubs were cut off with a punch. Removing the stubs wasn't an issue, few swabs by a magnet on a screw driver turned the tool into a Msgical Coild Stub Removal Tool. So they're not stainless... sort of hoped they were but that's not a big issue. There's going to be a lot of assembly paste here anyway.



I finished the work by tightening a bolt into the threads, making sure the coils were sitting tightly on their grooves. All the holes tightened to roughly the same depth and with similar torque, so it does look good. Those 10.9 grade bolts will make the final studs, the original 10x1.5mm thread will be cut to the length of 15mm and a 10x1.25 thread will be cut on the shank.

However, since I've got the dirtiest job done, I think the next step won't be making of the stubs, but instead assembling the valve train! It'll be the first time to see the setup with new, reground cams and adjustable cam gears.

Ah dammit!!! Sorry for that, hope int ain't too bad. I'll hold thumbs for you.

Alright, here's what's up: The long streak wasn't too much of concern, however there was another nick at the flame ring area elsewhere that did need machining. Planing the deck wasn't too expensive, so I went for it and asked to plane the exhaust flange too while at it; the whole deal is about 55 USD, so it's not terrible. HOPEFULLY I could get to assemble the head this week, no more than ummmm 18 months later than I expected at first.

Well, it has around 5k USD put into it, so one scratch (or two) is definitely not going to put me off

Unfortunately, once I have the head assembled and put on the block, there's nothing left to do with the engine until I get my job back... or another job.

Alright, I got the head back. Due to circumstances I had to change the machine shop, and sure enough, the machinist took the job immediately in, I got it in a day, and with deck and exhaust flange machining it cost about 40 euros. However, as the adage goes, cheap, fast and good; pick any two. The surface roughness is not nearly what it was (though still better than stock) and there was swarf everywhere even though we agreed on cleaning the head.

Anyway, brake cleaner and compressed air will take care of the shavings, but for the surface, it seems I just have to go for hylomar and hope for the best. On the other hand, I did get the exhaust flange planed too, which might help getting full seal on the exhaust; this was always somewhat of a problem with my old engine.

Installing valves proved to be harder than I thought, mostly due to really bad spring compressor. The tubular jaw is over a centimeter short of even contacting the valve retainer, let alone pushing it far enough down to actually expose the valve stem enough. I wonder which sort of clown designed the thing... I can't imagine it working properly on any DOHC head, which is what it was made for. An angle grinder and a welder will take care of that problem, tomorrow.

Don't worry, it'll be just the tool I'm taking angle grinder to, not the engine

That didn't come out too badly actually (Spring compressor hack)!

I hear you on the time consuming part. I have "fumbly" hands - so smaller items like those are a real pain to work with. How much (if you don't mind me asking) difference in costs are there between the Mazda locks vs. Toyota? material differences?

So you're using the old HLA's then - cleaned them out same way the post on MX6 goes? Minus the sanding of course ;-) How much did you take off more or less? Shouldn't have been too much.

Also wondering why you didn't decide to go solid lifter, can't recall your goal rpm either? Wasn't it over 8k though? Can see the coating on the cams, the lobes - what scratched some of them? or is it just the shot.

Excited to read more! Glad you're still sticking to plans :-)

Ah okay :-) It's the light then! Cool, if you're staying away from 9k, especially at that angle hehe, then the buckets are fine. I really wanted to stay away from solids too - but the kind of lift and ramp I'm after won't allow it.

I finally got around to designing what is in my mind the perfect camshaft for what I wanted to achieve - only to get a bit of a blow with the paintshop costs. So my personal build will take a back seat while saving up further.

Thanks for the info on the locks! I agree, no need spending extra like that, Mazda have always been expensive though - not good. That's an extra ZAR65 EACH! for us (at time of posting)