Jono's KLZE Project - Turbo Build Begins
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Even more stuff arrived today :D
Some shiny new Wiseco 9.1 CR pistons to allow safer boost + higher boost 8)
Should be able to start rebuilding the block now…
All I'm waiting on now are the valves + springs etc, hopefully that wont be long.
Jono
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great - stock bore?
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Yep I decided to keep the stock bore, this means I don't have to make any changes to the vehicle registration (Given it was changed when I dropped in the ZE originally).
I did however get lower compression ratio pistons, will now be running 9:1 which is safer for boost and with the built internals I should be able to get some decent power out of it :D
Just waiting on the final few parts, should hopefully have some machine work on the block next week then I can start rebuilding from the bottom up!
Jono
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You need to be sure you have right block (with right dimension on every cylinder) and correct crankshaft.
Install the KLDE springs and retainers if you have everything disassembled.
Best luck!
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Yep, I measured the cylinders before ordering the pistons, also the block and pistons are going to my machine shop this weekend and they will double check all the measurements, the worst case is that I spend a bit more and have the block re-sleeved - but shouldn't be necessary.
Springs and retainers is a little more complicated, I had new valves, springs, retainers etc on order but they still haven't turned up. So I'm going to keep the stock for now and will replace them in the future. I do however have the springs from the KL-101 block which I understand are better.
Jono
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Just thought I would post a quick update on the re-build progress.
So the engine has been out for about 8 months now!
This week I finally collected the block + crank, pistons etc from the machine shop… very exciting stuff :) as this means I now have everything to start rebuilding it!!
So, why so long you ask... well the new pistons I ordered (which took ages to arrive) would have been fine, however the machine shop noticed the clearances on the cylinders were a little bigger than expected. Thus a rehone would actually have put them outside the tolerance I need. We looked into a re-sleeve, it turned out that there was already sleeves in the block (I'm unsure if this is factory or perhaps re-sleeved in a previous life), the guys found it hard to find the exact matches, the ones in there were flanged - this was a problem apparently. After a large amount of research and thinking we eventually decided to over bore and buy replacement pistons to the new size. Again this took a number of weeks to deliver from Wiseco. Once they arrived the guys over bored the block then re-balanced everything (Unfortunately they had already balanced the old ones so I had to pay double for the balance work :().
Now that all the machine work is done I can finally start to get this thing back together, a couple of rogue bits still to find/buy:
- Megasquirt Unit (+Harness - If I go for the MS3)
- Up-rated fuel pump
- Up-rated injectors
- Power Steering Pump bracket + tensioner
- Head bolts (These have been on order from fordprobestore.com but I have had 2 lots go 'missing in the post', Mark used to be pretty good but I am starting to have doubts)
I also have a spare set of 84.5mm 9:1 CR Wiseco Pistons, they have been balanced so have been drilled but if anyone is interested then let me know. Will advertise them at some point.
Jono
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Any updates Jono? Sorry to hear about having to oversize :(
Shaping up to be an epic build though.
Yea FPS was pretty disappointing last time I used them.
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Yeah sorry for the delay, various things have got in the way recently.
Oversize wasn't great, ironically I would have saved myself some money if I had just got the machine shop to order them in, oh well, lessons learned now.
Anyway, the build is finally progressing, the new pistons/con rod assembly's are installed, bottom end is back together, the heads are back on and the cam's back in.
A couple of little things that have been a pain:
Unfortunately I am missing a water pipe gasket from my kit so that's going to have to be ordered this week, hopefully I can get one quickly.
The machine shop damaged one of the head locating pins when they removed it to skim the head, this took a few weeks to get from Mazda.
I've had to get a fair few non shelf parts from Mazda - my local main dealer has been pretty damn good at getting all these parts which has me pretty impressed, even if a few of them have had to come from Japan!
I decided to get a new oil pump & water pump, given the effort/cost already in this I thought its better to start with fresh new pumps.
I managed to find a full set of red top high flow injectors on ebay, I need to test them but I'm hopeful this will have saved me about 600+ for a new set.
The cam covers are going off this week to get sandblasted then painted - I have something special coming on that front :)
All going well the engine should be fully assembled by the end of August with the aim of getting it installed early September (my Mrs is desperate for the conservatory back which is currently a surrogate workshop lol)
There is still loads of work to do but I'm happy things are finally moving!!
Also, I have a megasquirt unit and I'm going wasted spark, I have ford gen 2 coilpacks, unfortunately our leads are the wrong type for these so I'm probably going to have some made up.
I will post some pics soon.
Jono
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Sounds like you're doing everything right! Conservatories make the best workshops, so much light :)
Same coilpack I used pretty much. you can force the leads on by pushing hard. It's not ideal, but it did survive my turbo antics! Let me know who you use for the leads, I really should do the same.
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As promised, here are are a few pics from the rebuild so far :)
Fresh Heads (Port & Polished)
Block and internals back from machine shop
Crank back in
Con rods and pistons
Performance head gaskets
Heads going back on
Pretty lol
Freshly airbrushed cam covers
Firstly, can I just give credit to Foz's Airbrush Projects for doing the art work on the cam covers, I am really happy with it, designed to be distressed iron man like with an arc reactor :)
Check out his work: https://www.facebook.com/FozAirbrushProjects/
And thats where I am so far, hopefully I will have the belts back on in a week or two.
Jono
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Latest update:
After getting myself confused regarding the cam belt I got it back on today
Spun the crank 4 times and everything lined up both cycles which is great :)
Something that has made me happy is the fact there was hardly any noise when turning it over by hand, nothing hitting anything and no metal on metal sounds, looking like this might actually work at some point :) touches some wood!!
Jono
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Latest update:
The rebuilt motor is back in, and it runs!! :bowdown:
Phase 2 is to mock up the turbo exhaust pipes then get the cross member modified, after that everything should start to bolt on nicely!
Not long now….
Jono
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So thought I would give an update on progress:
The car is very very nearly ready for an MOT to get it back on the road!
Here is the bay at present: (not much change from before)
Couple of things that have been done include temporarily sealing up the inlet accordion pipe which has cracked and split to hell, thank god that thing is going soon!
A new bracket has been made to hold the relocated oil filter (which is moving again soon)
Measurements have been made for new Magnecor HT leads, once I get the quote they will be on order, hopefully getting here before the end of March.
I broke a couple of bolts on the bumper when removing that, the new ones need to go in and its all good :)
Something un-expected is the power steering oil resevoir, it seems to be leaking from were the two halves of the bottle join in the middle, I have a spare one so hopefully that will work when I swap it over, at the same time I have a brand new from Mazda PS cooler pipe, that will be going in to replace the really badly rusted one.
General plan is to get the car back on the road this month, then I can start the turbo additions… finally... YAY!
On another note, I'm really keen to upgrade the brakes, starting with the fronts, however as you all know getting stuff for these cars is hard as hell now, any suggestions for big brake upgrades? K-Sport may be an option but I would like to keep the costs down if possible!
Jono
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So the turbo build has actually, really, really started... after so many many years!
Pictures to be uploaded at some point, once there is something worth looking at :)
At present I'm building a new support bracket to replace the front to back cross-member, this is essentially a bar that runs across the front of the engine bay, which has a bracket that the front mount connects to - hopefully this will work fine.. we will see!
It's all mocked up and just needs welding together which should happen this week.The rear gearbox support is still in the design phase, but I have an idea for that. And once the exhaust pipes are in, I will be adding additional front to back supports.
After the cross-member is replaced, I can get the exhaust pipework in and maybe even the turbo itself!! - I'm so crazy excited to get this in (can you tell?)!
I'm not sure if the exhaust tubes require much modification, time will tell.
Once that's in there are a whole load of other things that need doing. I will try to take as many pictures and document as much as I can!
Jono
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Turbo build update - #1
The new front support bracket is built and installed, seems to be working fine but time will tell if it can handle things under load, I need to build something similar for the rear mount but I'm not in a rush to do that.
Hot pipes from the headers are installed - that was more difficult then I was expecting, they are slightly off alignment with the headers, luckily I use 10mm spacers between the flanges - without this I don't think they would clear the gearbox!
The gearbox is probably going to need some grinding to let it fit perfect, and so I can fit some heatwrap there.I have been waiting on a couple gaskets, spacers, studs and bolts to get the turbo fitted for good. Only a couple bits left to arrive this week hopefully.
The exhaust downpipe is shorter then my old pipes so some exhaust fabrication will be needed when I get to that bit, I will probably make a crappy spacer for now to fill the gap, then get the exhaust shop to do the rest of the system when were allowed out!
Clearance on the turbo is extremely tight, the air inlet pretty much sits aligned to the bodywork, I might just be able to get a flexible silicone pipe to fit, bit I might need to 'adjust with a hammer', that bit of body.
I trial fitted the intercooler just in front of the radiator, it won't properly fit there, so I'm going to need to fabricate some mounting brackets so it can sit behind the bumper.
That's all for now.
Jono
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Sounding good fella! I'm also waiting on gaskets now so I feel your pain as this seems to be the major hold up at the moment. Do you still have the wiseco pistons or did you sell them eventually?
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@mazdax3 I do still have the pistons, are you interested in them?
Turbo build update - #2 (Mini update)
I have been back and forth with the hot pipes, they just wasn't right, after many different combinations of old and new manifolds I eventually found a fitment that was much better. This still hits the gearbox, so I have now ground this back and the fitment is perfect!
Still waiting on a load of parts, seem's that royal mail have slowed right down, hopefully they will arrive any day now!
On a positive note, using a silicone hose I can connect up to the turbo inlet so no need to bash the bodywork there :D
I will try to get some pictures up soon, will probably still use photobucket but they are putting an annoying watermark over the pictures now.
Jono
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@jono definitely want to see some pictures.
I am interested in the pistons but obviously depends how much you want for them, I did look a while ago on their site and nearly fell over when I see the prices 🤣
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Turbo Build update - #3
As ever, I'm still waiting on parts, partly because I messed up and ordered the wrong size gaskets for the manifolds to turbo up pipe, so I'm still waiting. I also have some heat wrap on route, so all going well that bit of the turbo pipes will actually get completed this weekend.
I have now managed to get some pictures up, so here they are:
Here is the new front engine mount support, my welding needs work lol but I think it will hold:
Close up of the mount and it's mounting bracket, there is just enough room around the tube to get a socket to fit/remove the nuts so it's all easy to install and remove:
Because I am using some existing mounting holes for the support, I needed some longer bolts, and I came across a titanium alternative, which are crazy light but should be much stronger, here they are freshly delivered lol, and a size comparision:
While I have been waiting for parts, I got the oil pan off and fitted the turbo oil return bung, I went with a compression fitting for now, I will see how it goes, I might need to weld this on in the future (sorry about the dirtyness of the pan!):
And it fitted:
Also, as my progress with the hot pipes has been delayed a bit, I started getting the coilpack installed, this needed a custom bracket, so I made that from a bit of spare sheet steel I had laying about:
Detailed design plan and super accurate measurements haha:
Cut and bent:
Finished up and painted:
With the coilpack on it:
Now that the coilpack is in place, I thought I would dry fit the custom HT leads I had made, not a bad fit considering I had them made 3 years ago!
And that's it for now, once I get the hot pipes installed I will drop another update.
Jono
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It's been a while since I last updated.. a lot of work has happened on the car.
As of yesterday, it started for the first time as a 2.5L V6 Turbo :D
A couple of things that need dealing with:
- I have a major ground issue, I'm not sure why this has changed, but somehow I have a poor ground now :(
- Megasquirt needs tuning, I've made a few changes to get the car running with the Wideband etc, but its rough and needs some serious time spent with it - i'm new to this side of it, so reading and watching lots of youtube haha
- Something is wrong with my clutch, I think the spring has failed, and I'm a little concerned about the clearance to the downpipe.. more investigation needed here.
- I think it might be missing on one or more cylinders, so I need to check the coilpack feeds and sparkplugs.
But I'm super happy that it all actually works! I can't tell you how relieved I was when it actually started...
Now time to do more megasquirt research :)
Jono
