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Hobbawobba wrote:Whoops I forgot to reply to this. Why use the 12a alternator on the 13b man? Chuck on that series 5 alternator I gave you. Once I get mine sussed I'll be able to wire it easy as

Balls I meant 12A dizzee. I'll chuck the S5 alt on for sure

Ahhh gotcha. That had me confused as

I pulled my front struts apart, didn't take any pictures. I took some measurements of the strut and gave a fag packet sketch to a machinist to make me some collars. I'll get the collars welded to struts then I can build my coilovers.

For some reason I thought the standard damper was a cartridge/insert which is a sealed unit that can be replaced. I didn't look at my manual first I just cracked open the gland nut and yanked the damper innards out of the strut. Oil everywhere. The damper wasn't leaking before and the seals look fine to me, so I'll just get some shock fluid and put it back together. I've got no idea what viscosity fluid these cars use, but I'll probably get some motorbike fork oil and guess on the viscosity.

If the stock dampers with maybe a heavier fluif don't cut it with 350ib springs then I'll have to get some koni yellows. I'm not looking to make this car handle amazingly right now, I just want dampers that aren't bendy and get it low.

Right, my collars have been machined and the friendly welder man has chopped the old perches away and tig welded on the new ones. The sleeves are nicely located at the bottom by them.





I need to now prep and paint them. I have ordered some motul fork oil to rebuild my dampers with, will be interesting to see how it works.

Might need to give that guy our coilovers to weld up when they arrive haha. Unless my mate can tig as good as he makes out

Unfortunately when I tried to re-assemble the struts, I found the thread in the top of the struts has been buggered up by the guys that welded the collar on. the gland nut will not thread because of the damage. I'm pretty pissed about this, they had no reason to touch the threads. luckily the machinist who made the perches was able to fix the threads for me.

In the mean time I have stripped the inlet exhaust, rats nest and water pump off my 13B and gave it a bit of a clean up with wire brush. I need to swap the front cover for my spare 12A cover, I've heard some horror stories of Torrington bearings being misaligned so I have put the engine on the flywheel in preparation. Whilst I have the cover off I may also shim the regulators to increase oil pressure.

I wouldnt just rely on sitting it on the fly, before you refit the front cover strip the front stack to make sure the bearings are still where they should be. The rear reg handles most of the oil pressure, crush it slightly while the sumps off to raise the oil pressure.

I've loosened off the front pulley nut so should be able to do the front cover swap this weekend.

Whilst I am doing that I am going to fit a thermal bypass pellet plug in place of the stock thermostat in the front of the E shaft.

I am also going to try and increase the oil pressure slightly. I don't want to raise it a lot as it's not a race engine or anything. I'm going to use an RX8 80psi rear regulator and shim the front bypass valve in the front cover with some washers.

Can anyone tell me if the S3 12A and S4 13b NA have the same bypass valve in the front cover?

Inspired by Ian, I drilled some holes in some chipboard I had, sat the engine on the flywheel, put the flywheel dowels into them and rolled the wheel of my car onto the board to brace it. This made undoing the front nut much easier. Lots of heat needed to overcome the Loctite.



I then took the sump off, fitted the 12A oil pickup Ian kindly donated. I have fitted an RX8 oil pressure regulator that was tested and cracked at 80psi. To fit this involved attacking a nice britool spanner with the grinder I then shimmed the front valve in the 12A front cover with these two washers, which measured 3mm. Cheers to Essex rotary for the racing beat plug and the oil pressure regulator



Next the front cover came off. With the pulley nut off I removed the old thermal pellet and put a racing beat plug in. Note nice new front main seal.



Now for the front cover swap, interestingly my early front Iron ('86) actually has the later 89-92 style casting. I can't explain this, unless the engine has actually been rebuilt with a new front iron at some point, but with only 46k miles I find this unlikely.



Because I had expected to have an early style casting I was not going to use the front cover gasket according to the advice from mazdatrix website. This meant I hadn't ordered a gasket so reused the old one. Luckily it was not damaged. But it’s not advised to leave the gasket out when using the newer style casting.

Old O ring had swelled up



Nice new O ring



O ring, Teflon ring and gasket ready



12A cover in place


I then carefully torqued the front cover bolts, then installed the pulley driver and torqued the front E shaft nut to spec. I didn’t use Loctite.

I then installed the GSL-SE sump and oil level sender.



Then slapped the water pump on.



Popped the dizzy back in. I couldn’t wait to try my carb set up on



My Manifold all the way from Australia courtesy of jon newman’s wife



my genuine Italian 48IDA

Oh I forgot to update the situation on Tweety. I got the coilovers all finished up, got it MOTd taxd and insured and have put a few miles it. Drives well, few bits and pieces still to do. Will be bringing that one out to a few shows this year

Will do a write up of my budget coilovers in the tech section.