Mazdaspeed 3 VVT/Timing Chain/etc DIY Repair - Day 2 & 3: Rebuild
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 2 ต.ค. 2024
- Watch in 1080p! In case you missed the 1st part (tear-down), watch it here: • Mazdaspeed 3 VVT/Timin...
My 2007 (1st gen) Mazdaspeed 3 suffered the dreaded VVT (variable valve timing) failure that continues to plague MZR 2.3L DISI engines (both turbo and naturally aspirated) across the world. Mazda issued a warranty extension program to fix this issue for free but I just barely missed the window of opportunity so I fixed it myself over a long weekend (and I mean loooooong).
Video details (Day 2 & 3: Rebuild):
- Music: "Break Loose" & "Defying Gravity" by Gramatik
- Camera took a photo every 30 seconds (on a tripod leaning over the raised hood)
- Video plays 5 frames/sec
- Every 4 seconds in the video = 10 minutes in real life (so 24 seconds = 1 hour)
- I cut out several sections of nothing happening but this video covers a span of ~20 hours spread over 2 days. Somewhere between 50-75% of that was actual work time.
Acronyms & terms:
- VVT: Variable valve timing (intake camshaft sprocket)
- TDC: Top dead center (crankshaft position in cylinder 1)
- Cams: Camshafts
- CAP: Cam alignment plate
- Crank: Crankshaft
- BCS: Boost control solenoid
- OCV: Oil control valve (controls oil into the VVT)
- RTV: Room-temperature vulcanization (silicone sealant)
- PMM: Passenger motor mount
- P/S: Power steering
- HPFP: High-pressure fuel pump
- BPV: Bypass valve
- TMIC: Top-mount intercooler
Costs:
- Quoted parts & labor repair cost from the dealership: $1300-1400 (over $900 in labor)
- What I paid in tools & parts to DIY: $500 ($300 parts + $200 tools) + 3 days of my life
- I spend a borderline absurd amount of time preparing for this job all to save less than $1k but you can't really put a price tag on how much I learned about this engine and cars in general. I also feel much better about spending my time and accomplishing something of this magnitude than just throwing $900 in the garbage and learning nothing.
I extend a HUGE thank you to the MazdaspeedForums.org community for providing troves of information, lending me tools, and even helping me wrench for 12+ hours (IOU1 Patty-Wack). I absolutely could not have done this without the phenomenal resources that MSF provided.
Check out my write-up notes on this procedure in the giant "How-To VVT" thread on MSF:
www.mazdaspeedf...
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If anybody has made it this far into the description, here are some tips if you're looking to do this yourself:
- Get the Factory Service Manual and USE it. Follow the methods and torque specs in there and most of this procedure is quite straight-forward. The initial tear down is most of what you have to make up yourself (i.e. there's no how-to for detaching the wiring harness).
- Get a pneumatic impact gun. I only used this to get the crankshaft bolt off (having my friend put the car in 6th and stand on the brake pedal) but I returned it afterwards to Harbor Freight for a full refund.
- Get the REAL SST's for the cam alignment plate and the TDC pin. I also had a set of knock-offs and they set a bad TDC and the CAP was bent (it was just a waterjetted plate instead of machined SS).
- Get a 10mm 6-point box wrench (NOT a 12-point) to get off the idler & water pump pulley bolts. My 12-pt started to round the idler pulley bolt and there wasn't enough room to get a socket wrench on it until we removed the PMM and jacked up the engine (but even then only one specific socket wrench fit, a 1/4"-drive Husky).
- Remove the HPFP & housing as one unit to avoid having to deal with the weird E8 inverted torx bolts on the fuel pump, itself.
- Loosen BOTH the VVT & exhaust cam sprockets when setting the chain tension so that it will even itself out as you spin it through a few cycles. Also push the left chain guide towards the chain to make sure the tensioner is fully clicked out (mine clicked out another notch after I had tightened the cam sprockets, creating uneven tension in the timing chain, so I had to loosen the sprockets and do it again).
- Get a universal pulley holder ($60 from Amazon, which I also returned) to hold the crank pulley when you're torquing the crank bolt to avoid bending the TDC pin or shearing the M6 bolt holding the pulley to the timing cover. I had the handle wedged up against the upper control arm bolt with a 2x4 between them.
- Get some ARP Ultra Torque thread lube and smear that on the crank bolt threads and head when installing the new bolt. This bolt eats up almost 300 ft-lbs WITH lube and who knows how much without it.
- Organize bolts from each part into ziplocs and label them for ease of reassembly.
- Convince somebody to help you for both mechanical and emotional support. This job takes a long, long, long time and makes you go a bit crazy. - ยานยนต์และพาหนะ
doig this for the first time i have done hundreds of belts so far so good working a day 4 disassembly is all done the pulleys i used a chain vise-grip on them to hold them in place and was able to jack up the engine 8 inches and put a 10 mm 6 point ratchet on the bolts to get them off and got all the parts from rockauto.com and u can google rockauto discount codes and 5% off from them as well www.newmazdaparts.com use promo code (zoomzoom) and 5% off i got the washers from them in 2 days they are out of Arizona and i am in Indiana totale cost around 200.00 and thats with over night shipping 2007 mazda cx-7 with 100,859 miles timing chain,oil pump ,turbo being change out on this sorry on video made on this
Thanks for sharing, especially for the detailed brakedown of resources and the write up on the forum - it is amazing. I really appreciate it and I enjoyed the reading. Now I am sure that I do not want to mess with that and will get it done in a shop. Btw. how did your car sounded before the job? was it anything similar to this? th-cam.com/video/xfkQoxbM5mc/w-d-xo.html Thanks
Martin Kulhanek Holy shit, that sounds horrible. Mine didn't sound anything like that, it was more of a dull ticking sound. Yours sounds like serious metal to metal contact, like you have a bent rod or something. If that is the timing chain hitting the valve cover/timing cover then it must be extremely loose. I would take your car to a mechanic pronto to get that diagnosed before you blow your engine up.
Great video.
Wow. Truly amazing that you accomplished those repairs. And your quoted price for parts & labour seems about right.
For me, it was about NZ$1485, including a brand new courtesy vehicle provided for me during the repair on Feb 2015.
Hey thank you! Honestly turning the key to start it up after all this was nerve-wracking... there were so many things I could have messed up but it started the first try. Even with the exchange rate about 0.8:1 NZD:USD that's still a lot of money but for most people this level of work just does not make sense to attempt yourself. Even I felt like I was in over my head a few times and I will definitely attribute some level of luck to my success.
I have done timing on my mazda 6, 4 cyl dohc with vvt. and it cost me a whole head. I got new everything except the vvt, I know nothing about it, I loosened shaft sprockets and set the tensioner with guide bar in place, then tightened shaft bolts, but I never touched the vvt, I started up and broke more valves, not sure where I went wrong I followed chilton manuel, it said nothing about changing vvt.
From your description it's hard to tell what went wrong... you say you loosened the shaft sprockets but never touched the VVT; well the VVT is one of the shaft sprockets (the forward one). Resetting the timing is a complicated multi-step that is outlined in the MazdaspeedForums link I put in the description. Sorry to hear it got damaged more than it was to begin with... Good luck with the new head.
not a dyi teach kinda pointless for the rest of us to watch
If you open the video description you'll see a link to the in-depth forum post about how to actually do this. These two videos were to give a visual overview of the process and the long list of steps involved much more so than to actually teach each step in detail (as the forum post does).
OK man. Got the official manual for a 2008 CX-7 (my car is a 2007, what could be different right? lol) I've read and reread the 60+ pages regarding Engine Mechanical. I got the SST to stop the crank at TDC, understand the temp bolt to be placed on the pulley while holding and tightening down that crank bolt, I understand how to use the cam plate up top...BUT there is NOTHING on how to install the timing chain!! lol I mean NOTHING! I'm ASSUMING you simply put it on (with cams locked using plate and crank locked at TDC using SST bolt). Did I miss something? Could it really be THAT easy? Ofc I will cycle the engine a few times before calling the timing good.
Chain is the easy part, put the crank sprocket in the chain, let it hang down from the top, slide it into the crankshaft, slip it over the 2 cam sprockets and then release tension on the chain tensioner (assuming you have a new one).
Now, getting the chain TENSION uniform is hard, watch my other videos about that. You have to cycle the chain with the cam sprockets loose and all the sst's locking the crank and cams in place, so the sprockets just spin on their shafts. Do this after releasing the chain tensioner but before you tighten everything down. You need to read more on the forums if you have not come across this. Also, I do not know how different the '08 CX-7 is from the 07 or the speed 3's.
+Govanification I have all new parts...including those washers made of gold! lol (4 washers for $50 wholesale is crazy).
+Govanification so BOTH SSTs holding the shafts still? Seems simple enough. I'm surprised there is nothing about counting links and stuff.
+AFHero66 The chain should be straight across the top, but otherwise the relative location of the sprockets should be set by the chain tensioner pushing on the guide rails with all 3 sprockets loose. And yes, both SST's should be in. Make sure you push your chain rail next to the tensioner out with your hand, it should click another notch or 2, while everything is loose.