Well this took a back seat over the holidays with being away, and also with waiting on a new head gasket.
When i ordered a HG for this originally they sent a 01-05 VVT BP gasket, in the 94-00 gasket slip. I didnt notice until i went to put it on the engine and found that it blocks off half of the water galleries to the head:
[img]http://images.plebeians.net/i.php?/upload/2019/07/28/20190728230412-8e0b0bfc-xl.jpg[/img]
This is especially bad as Mazda changed the water gallery arrangement on the VVT heads as well which means that if you use this gasket with the BP4W head it blocks off almost all of the water going into the head… fail.
In the end it took almost 6 weeks to get a new HG in, courtesy of the supplier sending me VVT gaskets twice more and being away for holidays.
Anyway, in the interest of not letting the arachnids fornicate too much longer i started doing other things.
First on the agenda was to get rid of the insanely long fuel lines into the engine bay and their associated bulb flare ends. A couple of 6AN hardline adapters took care of that:
[img]http://images.plebeians.net/i.php?/upload/2019/07/28/20190728230407-56ceca3c-xl.jpg[/img]
Also, a label maker and heatshrink makes life a lot easier in the long run, especially as both feed and return are the same size. (Also see red ziptie).
Next was this pair of replacement swaybar mounts, given the stock ones are relatively notorious for cracking. Its probably overkill, but I had credit at a supplier to use up.
[img]http://images.plebeians.net/i.php?/upload/2019/07/28/20190728230353-795d2be5-xl.jpg[/img]
[img]http://images.plebeians.net/i.php?/upload/2019/07/28/20190728230345-7345afa3-xl.jpg[/img]
The new HG arrived today, along with some other parts, so it is time to get back into it.