6G Celicas Forums

Lumen maintenance, they're not quite as bright as they used to be.

I need to replace the 9012 already, not so much lots of night driving but I drive with the headlights on when it's overcast to increase my visibility.

I think it's just Miatas.

Yup, even HID are only good for 2,000 hours or so at most and by then they're at least half as bright as they were new.

See, wasn't that hard.

It's ok to admit I'm funny.

GOTTA GO FAST

Hmm... Just put Swarovski crystals all over it eh...

Haha, good ole Crystal White peeling off in sheets. I wonder if it'll just pressure wash off all the way then can just hit it with paint.

Fiancée's new-to-her car, sold the MX-3 to get it yesterday. It's a '90 A-package with 126K miles, only paid $2K for it. It needs love here and there, but it is solid and rust free. The biggest thing is it needs tires and a top, but I'm going to patch the top up tomorrow to hold her over. Looking for tires now, but seems to be another shortage.

So, this happened:

Was immediately after the oil change, so will switch back to synthetic since that helped tremendously.

Sure!

20W-50 conventional burns a lot more than 10W-30 synthetic, who'd have thought it. I know synthetic has a higher vaporization point, but still it's ridiculous. I wanted to run a thicker synthetic, but apparently 10W-30 is as thick as it gets(from Wal-Mart) unless you order online or maybe pay through the nose at a parts house. I think I saw Rotella T6 there, but not sure if it was 5W-40 or 15W-40. It didn't register in my mind at the time anyway for whatever reason.

That's ok, thanks though!

I found headers for the F series, but their gasket is different than the B series. Though it looks like maybe 6 of the bolt holes might line up, hard to say without having the gaskets in front of me.

I did find where early 49-state Sephia and Protégé with the B series have a tubular manifold with no pre-cat, like the Miata, but apparently they're hard to come by. Why the MX-3 gets saddled with a log and pre-cat is beyond me, as it's an early 49-state car too.

Side note, why da fuq does no one make a FWD Mazda B series header? Figured might as well replace the pre-cat and log manifold while dropping the exhaust to clean the main cat, as scrap on the other would cover the header cost. But noooo.

As I imagine the cats are pretty fouled by this point and could be causing the car to run out of steam around 90-95 mph.

It's a stepping stone, just to get her to work and back until she can afford something better. I'm not too overly concerned about ****ing with it any more aside from changing the oil and topping it off as needed from here on out. Maybe one last piston soak before changing the oil, but that'd be it.

Valve stem seals was definitely the majority of it though, I'd say 80% for sure. Stuck rings the rest, but it's down to like 5% of the smoke before the seals and soaks. Before it was a huge ass James Bond style smokescreen until it warmed up and whenever you got on it, now it's very small puffs that dissipate quickly.

We don't have a compression checker, and not like we're in a position to do anything about it. Figure at worst keep it full of oil until she can buy something else, then sell it and get most of her money back out of it.

Well, turns out the rings are/were slightly stuck too as it'd do a small smoke show when cold and under hard acceleration(I thought was residual oil at first). Replaced a cracked PCV line which helped then did a piston soak on a hot engine with Marvel and some CRC GDI, then two more hot soaks with Berryman and CRC GDI.

Now it's just small puffs that dissipate quickly when cold and under hard acceleration past 5K. Changed out the thermostat as it was stuck open slightly, so that should help too, and used the rest of the CRC GDI through the intake as intended.

Going to change the oil and filter tomorrow since most all of the Berryman's ended up in the crankcase, so will use what's left of the Supertech 10W-30 synthetic and some Supertech 20W-50 conventional for the rest to make our own synthetic blend. If the consumption goes down to a quart every 500-1K miles I'll be happy.

I'm proud of Toyota for finally making a cool car on their own since the early 00s, GR Yaris aside I wish we got.

IT'S ALIVE!!! Also no more smoke!!!

ECU reset which had the distributor too far advanced, as someone advanced it prior, so that was a nice 30 minute panic attack double checking everything. Thankfully I remembered that, so pulled the distributor back and wa laaa starts and runs beautifully.

They lost the timing covers when replacing the timing assembly...

Don't you just love mechanics that aren't good at their job?

From what I can see the pistons are ok, a twinge of carbon here and there.

After the first cylinder didn't work out with air we only used the rope method. I think the issue was a combination of an old 5 gallon compressor from Wal-Mart and the valve keeper tool was the kind that pushes against the valve as you thwack it with a hammer to get the retainer and keepers back in place. So it couldn't keep up with the air demands, as it literally took 5 minutes or more to hit 100 psi.

The car ran strong, oil burn when cold aside. No issues starting up either, or any other drivability issues.

Oh yeah, get this ****. Turns out someone replaced the valve stems before with cheapo **** off eBay that used the same seal on exhaust and intake. The B6D and BP engines have a different seal for exhaust and intake, so I found a seal kit for the KIA 1.8 version from Korea for a fraction of the cost of new Mazda seals.

It was leaking past the valves, just not enough ass to keep the cylinder pressurized. I could push the valve in with my dainty lady finger if that says anything. No real issues with the rope method. Finished and reassembling now. Will do a flush and change after it's all back together.

Oh yeah, that GDI cleaner is great so will probably do it too before changing plugs.

Yeah, I was thinking 5 gal would be enough for a small engine but nooope. Went from 100 psi to 40 psi by the time I got the retainers back in place. So to the rope method it was.

It never ceases to amaze me how so many people let their cars go like that.

5 gallon air compressor wasn't enough volume to get more than one valve done at a time, so swapped to the rope method. Have cylinder 1 done at least, 2 is ready to go.