Project Six Flip

[JacksonMS30]

Well guys it has been a while but I am finally back in a Speed.

For those of you that don't know, I sold my MS3 on April 22nd 2013. I did it for financial reasons and because an offer was made that I couldn't refuse. I was very sad to part with it but for me at that time it was for the best.

I didn't intend for it to work out the way it did, but oddly enough, on April 23rd 2014 I picked up this 2006 BCM MS6 GT. The car may look familiar to some of you as it used to belong to @Stealth01;.

The purpose of this thread is a "just because thread". I just wanted a place to document everything and figured this would be a good place to do it. I know there are lots of guys pulling motors out of these cars every weekend and the info is certainly out there for how to do it. But its been a while since I've posted anything with this account so I figured I'd show you guys what I'm up too.

Bringing it Home:





The good:

The car is in overall pretty good shape. A few dings and scratches but for an 8 yr old car not too bad at all. And it has 80k miles which decent considering the age of the car.

The bad:

I'm sure some of you have seen Stealth's thread about his motor. I don't know exactly what the problem is that caused the failure but I do know that bearings are gone and crank is likely toast and I have a box full of rod caps in the trunk that means the car doesn't run at all.

The plan:

Since my need for speed is being quenched these days by this little guy;



And because I don't want to poke a lot of money into it, I decided to make this car a nice daily driver. So I ordered a Remanufactured long block (This one to be exact). It has a good warranty and came with a complete head. Since oil starvation was a possible cause for the problems with the motor that was in the Six, I decided I couldn't trust the head anyways and it would be worth replacing.

The new engine showed up sooner than I expected and so part one of my build began Friday the 9th at 7pm when I started tearing down the front end to get the old motor out.






One of the things I noticed is that there is quite a lot of oil in the compressor inlet of the turbo.



Started with bumper, then removed intercooler/intake/battery. After that I started uncliping the harness and pulling it off to the side to get it out of the way. I then pulled the headlights and crash bar and drained the coolant.






I figured that was enough for friday night (10pm) and left to pick back up saturday morning at 9am.

Saturday morning I began by pulling the core support then draining the transmission and transfer case.



This is one of the more difficult steps as it involves pulling those stupid little wire clips without breaking them if you want the wires to go back where they belong and be held out of the way. Somehow I managed not to break any. And I consider that to be a great success!




I found that if you partially remove the core support and separate the radiator fans from it, you can access those wires much more easily and not break the clips.



The next step involved pulling the axles. This was by far the hardest step in my imagination. Then they came out like it was nothing... I've heard a lot of different methods for getting them out and they all kind of ran together, but what I ended up doing was dropping the upper control arm and that gave me enough room to move the hub and pull the axle free. If you need to get the axle out all the way you will need to do a bit more work but I just needed to get them out of the way.





Next I pulled out the testpipe and the cross brace so I could access the drive shaft. Nothing difficult here. I just left it in gear and broke loose the bolts I could reach, then put it in neutral to rotate the shaft so I could reach the top two.



Now that everything is disconnected (don't forget the heater core lines or the power steering), its time to chain up the engine to the hoist and get ready to drop the mounts.

Note: You can take the power steering pump off the engine and prop it over to the side and not have to disconnect it if you don't want but I wanted to put new fluid in when I'm done anyways so I just drained and left it attached.

I pulled the motor mounts out completely and then slowly worked the engine up, out, and over the wires that run along the front of the engine bay. I ended up pulling off the alternator to reach the clip that holds the part of the wire harness between the tensioner and the transfer case. I had to loosen the tensioner to get to it as it was squished up behind it. It was super easy to get to once the motor was pulled forward a bit. I also pulled the AC compressory off to give myself a little more clearance to get over the wires and frame rail. It is a really good idea to have a friend there to help with getting the motor out. It can be done by yourself but I don't recommend it!






Since the car is going to be hanging around without an engine for a bit I went ahead and put the front end back together to keep from cluttering up the shop. I also put the axles back in the hubs so that I can roll the car out if I need to. The axles hold the wheel bearings in place and I didn't want to put any stress on them rolling it in and out of the shop.




Working 3 hours on friday night and finishing up at about 4:30 on saturday with two 1 hour breaks during the day, my total working time for pulling the motor was about 8.5 hrs. I'm a little scared at how compliant the car was coming apart. Despite a little scare with the O2 sensor, I didn't have to fight anything and nothing broke. Also, I didn't lose any blood. I normally go home about a pint low after working on a mazdaspeed, so that means the pain will probably come when I'm putting everything back in...



Stay tuned for episode two as I switch everything over from the bad engine to the new long block!

[JacksonMS30]

Reserved for Episode Two

[Snyeed]

Very nice!

[senor blanco ms3]

nice alan...i didn't know you sold the 3. glad you're back in a speed!

[6erforlife]

Thanks for the step-by-step process. I'm not looking forward to pulling the motor when I eventually get built but you definitely simplified it for us dummies

[econman]

Awesome thread - I will be following your progress

[TiGraySpeed6]

Good luck with your swap!
What are you doing with the clutch?
Are you going to send off the injectors for cleaning? Which injector seals are you going with?

[Dizzy Turbo]

Wanna trade 6s? All the other ones I've worked on draw blood

Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk

[aaron88]

Looks like you're making good progress on the 6. Keep it up!

If you don't mind me asking, what wheels are on those on the white gen1?

[JacksonMS30]

Originally Posted by TiGraySpeed6 Good luck with your swap! What are you doing with the clutch? Are you going to send off the injectors for cleaning? Which injector seals are you going with?

It has an ACT 6 Puck clutch on it with very low miles so I'll be keeping that.

Originally Posted by Dizzy Turbo Wanna trade 6s? All the other ones I've worked on draw blood Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk

Well I haven't put the engine back in yet so there is still plenty of blood to be bled. lol!

Originally Posted by aaron88 Looks like you're making good progress on the 6. Keep it up! If you don't mind me asking, what wheels are on those on the white gen1?

The white gen1 has 18x8.5 +48 Enkei PFO1's.

[faeker]

Did you determine which pistons are used in this engine?

[Stealth01]

I MISS MY BABYYYYY!!!!

You might want to check the control arm bushings. I think they might have been creakingr a bit before things went to hell.

Hope it works out for you, Alan. I missed the HELL out of that car when a chump in a Gaylude revved at me the other day.

[JacksonMS30]

Originally Posted by faeker Did you determine which pistons are used in this engine?

Pistons appear to be gen 1 style pistons from what I can see through the spark plug holes with my little flashlight.

Got a few updates to post here soon. There was nothing left of the ACT clutch when I pulled it off so I had to order a new disc and went ahead and got a new pressure plate, tob, and pilot bearing as well and have been waiting on those. The pressure plate finally got here and the downpipe should be here today so now I should have everything to put it back together and get the new engine in the car. I hope to have it running this weekend.

[Mazdazilla6]

And another one joins the dark side muhahahaa

Good luck with build. Seems to be going rather smoothly for you.

[faeker]

Originally Posted by JacksonMS30 Pistons appear to be gen 1 style pistons from what I can see through the spark plug holes with my little flashlight.

well shit. thanks for looking.

[JacksonMS30]

Installing the trans on the engine tonight. Like an idiot I forgot to stick the bolts in a box or something in the order that they came out so now I gotta figure out where they go again...

[aviator79]

I would have gone with an LUK OEM clutch especially with ACT shot. Think of having do this again soon because ACT dies in 30k. Having a clutch that will last, easy to drive as you are staying stock seems like a better idea IMO...

[JacksonMS30]

Well it's not exactly staying stock anymore... Lol!

[JacksonMS30]

[Krystorr]

So...still in the shop then?

[Pu Manchu]

these are the kinda thread bumps this site needs.