when I did my BP I never got freeze plugs. Had to go get some from a machine shop around here, but my kit had the throttle body, and injector O-rings. It didn't have new oil squirters but I think it came with the seals.

Thoughts?

I'm in the process of the crisco trick, so the Mazda is a little messy.

I'm debating painting the spark plug channel silver to tie it into the manifold. The heads are the same colour as the manifold, so are the hoist hooks, etc.

A note for the rest of you... baking engine enamel STINKS. your house will smell. Your oven will smell. Do it when the person who cares will be gone for a soild 8 hours.

Looking good...



What's the crisco trick?



You used VHT, didn't you?

It was a duplicolour product, IIRC. Either way, stinky.

the crisco trick is a way of painting embossed letters with spray paint. Layer the area in crisco, and wipe it off the embossed area, and then paint. The paint will hit the crisco and wipe off after its dry, except the high spots where you wiped it off.

Also, that engine enamel stuff is hard as hell, angle grinder had issues taking it off.

Yes, duplicolor VHT (Very High Temperature). It's a heat cured enamel, initially released to paint exhaust headers with. It does stink, big time.
I never used it, but it's not surprising it's so hard, being that you basically have a hybrid between paint and powdercoat.

Thanks for explaining the crisco thing. Sounds like something I CAN'T do...

To bake your engine paint simply start the engine, let it run for say,,,,,15-20 mins. Ta Da, enamal is baked, couple of reefers and so is your brain,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,opps sorry, wrong post for that.
I use to mask off my engine and paint then start the engine and let it warm up. Once it was hot I'd shut it off. Not only would the paint dry harder but during the warm up it would flow to a high gloss. Neat
Paint your spark plug channels silver Ryan.

Paint recommended a 2 hour bake time. I only did an hour, I needed the rest of the time to light an a-- load of candles.

I think I will do the channel silver. The black looks.... idk. Not right.

I vote for silver as well.

How did the crisco turn out?

Any way to get an better coloured oil cap? are they fairly universal? I have never looked into them... but I will now.

Also, the crisco tricked worked alright. Not perfect results, but good enough.

Oil caps are engine specific. Sorry...

I don't know if all Mazda engines share the same oil cap though...Maybe you could find a cap for another engine that would work...

Mazdaspeed caps work, the real ones that are on ebay from the MS3, MSP and MSM

Yeah... I'm not dropping $50 on an oil cap.

I just picked up another MS oil cap so I would be willing to donate my old one (very similar to the one in Inodoro's link) for your project... it's been used and has some wear and tear but would probably look better than the stock one... let me know in PM!

Mooneggs has PM, and Inodoro forgets shipping quadruples as soon as the 49th parallel comes into play.

Crybaby...