Front sway bar mount

There is not much room in front of the V8 in the engine bay once the accessories and radiator have been installed. The factory mounting location for the front sway bar places it right into the crankshaft pulley on the engine. It has to be moved forward or find a custom sway bar that would clear. I chose to move the bar forward. Using a set of reinforced mounts from FlyinMiata, I moved the mounts forward enough for the bar to clear the engine accessories. The mounts were then welded and bolted into place.

Driver side mount in position:



Mount installed (I know, ugly welds but it works)

Remote oil filter

Next up was finding a home for the remote oil filter. Decided on placing it in front of the radiator behind the front bumper. As long as I don't hit anything really hard it should be ok. (If I hit something hard enough to damage the mount/lines, I think an oil leak would be the least of my worries!)

Some pics (note you can also see the power steering cooler also in the head on picture):

Headers...uh oh

Something is wrong here...can you see it? Yep the "custom fit" headers hit the steering column. After speaking with the header builder it was decided the best solution would be to dimple the header since they would need the car to design a new header. They are not local so I couldn't supply the car. I was worried about damaging the ceramic coating but was told it should hold up and after heating with a torch and a few hits with a hammer & impact socket, it seems to have done the trick. We shall see.

Well it’s been awhile since the last update, sorry I’ve been a slacker!

We now have the engine/transmission officially mounted and installed in the car. First attempt needed some slight mods to the firewall but nothing a couple of hits from a BFH couldn’t handle.

So now I need to start connecting all of the accessories, wiring, and plumbing to the engine. For the wire harness I enlarged one of the existing holes in the firewall that was used by the AC unit (since am not keeping AC) and ran the engine harness for the ECU through. The ECU will be mounted where the original Mazda unit was located, on the passenger side footwell area. I made a mount for the ECU out of aluminum and some aluminum diamond plate for a cover for a passenger’s feet to sit.

Heater core lines

Up next was connecting the heater hoses to the heater core. The Mazda heater core in/out is located on the driver side while the in/out on the engine is on the passenger side. The “easy” solution to this is just run heater hoses under the hood to the factory Mazda location on the driver side and work fine. However I did not want rubber hoses draped across the top of the engine and the location on the driver side of the firewall is pretty tight to connect to. The alternative solution that was used is to run new copper hard lines from the heater core on the driver side to the passenger side under the dash which gives a straight connection to the engine. It took a few tries to get the angles right but it came out ok. I had the copper line pressure tested as well. They held 80psi of air for awhile so I should be alright...I hope!

Interior:



Driver side heater core in/out:



Passenger side:



Under hood:

Engine accessories

Installed the accessories. I used a GM kit that is made for a 2005 CTS-V from Pace Performance. This accessory drive is tight against the front of the engine for the needed space to the radiator.

New Gauges

Gauges are also needed for this beast. The factory Mazda gauges could have used except for the speedometer which is cable driven. Adaptors are made for cable speedometers but I have read mixed reviews and wanted to have a new aftermarket set anyway. I purchased a set of Speed Hut gauges including a new 3 3/8”speedometer, 4”tachometer, fuel, water, oil and voltage. Since I had new gauges why not a new cluster to house them? So I designed and built a new cluster to mount the tach, speedo, fuel, and water in the main housing along with warning lights and turn signals. The oil pressure and voltage gauges will be mounted in a separate enclosure in the center console, to be built soon. After lots of sanding and painting, the new cluster came out nice.

Original versus new cluster:



Primed:



Painted:



Placed in dash for a trial fit with new gauges (still need to mount indicators):