Erudus' 2008 MS3 build

[erudus]

We just finished a full engine build and power upgrades on my MazdaSpeed 3. My 16 year old son and I did all of the work except the machine shop work, and we learned a lot along the way. I've been a shade-tree mechanic most of my life but have never done a full engine tear-down and build. I'll try to add as many posts as I can about the process more or less in chronological order, and will put up plenty of pictures. I'm also working on a very detailed post about how we did the timing which I hope to get posted soon.

I've also got a blog that I am updating with content which you can view here:
https://mazdaspeedbuild.wordpress.com

Meanwhile, I've attached a couple of pics from along the way!

[whatsabrooklyn]

very cool man! keep us posted

[eroler1]

hey man, nice build thread pretty informative.

But for the headstuds, are you using ARP2000? the black headstuds. the one that costs $180+ ?

those have a 99% failure rate as they arent made to withstand the pressure in the cylinder for Forced induction car.
AFAIR it was made for the N/A 2.3

not sure if you want to change it but its suggested to replace it with a better stud
like L19 (edgeauto sells it) or freektune custom headstuds and lastly SP63 CA 625+ (speedperformance)

those are the only 3 headstuds that works well with this platform.

[erudus]

Originally Posted by eroler1 hey man, nice build thread pretty informative. But for the headstuds, are you using ARP2000? the black headstuds. the one that costs $180+ ?

That's a bit scary! I got these from Edge - hopefully they are the right ones...at least on the Edge site it says for Mazdaspeed?

[Jeff23spl]

Those bolts fit there but some older thread talk about the oem bolts that could hold better than arp2000 if you go high boost. Peoples going high boost are using larger stud from ARP but the thread needs to be machine worked....
https://edgeautosport.com/arp-l19-he...-st-2013-2017/

I never personally used ARP2000 but ran new oem bolt up to 27psi without any problems using a perfectly machined head and block face....
If i remember right, the stories behind lifted heads with arp2000 doesn't specify if both surface have been machined before install and there was something about using factory torque spec instead of ARP specs....

Documented list of all head lifting failures
Lets Talk About Head Studs

[erudus]

We're "only" running 20 psi so a relatively mild tune but still putting out about 320wtq/320whp, so all I can do now is hope the ARP studs will hold. We did get the block and head surface machined so hopefully that will help also. We used the ARP torque spec, not the OEM one. Those L19 studs are crazy expensive!

Attached is the dyno graph from Alan at Edge Autosport. One note is that when we took it down to Edge for the tune we realized that we still had 4 month old gas in the car from May when we started the build. Alan was getting some knock so he had to pull a degree of timing to keep the knock under control. We should be getting a 340whp but I'll need to bring it back down for a tweak if we want to get that. Once I filled it up with a fresh tank of gas the knock retard almost totally went away.

[Jeff23spl]

anyway, it's too late to change anything about the bolts. even just the torque would need cams removal and the pita timing job and front cover sealant replacement....