2001 bmw 330ci Opps Miata

Today's Lil Stampie's birthday. Here's some of his haul. 
 

Thank you thatsnowinnebago for the sun visors and stickers. He immediately grabbed the FM stickers and exclaimed "I have Flyin Miata stickers!"

I'm envious of his hair. I used to have hair like that. 

I like those wheels

i got bored when i got home again so i decided to take a look at the cat and surrounding area for heat damage and when i got under and looks at the cat it was held on by one bolt and the back was already halfway off

i got the cat off and took the heatsheild off and didnt see much damage under there other than a slightly melted exhaust hanger. then i looked inside the car and discovered it was a homemade free flow cat

then dad got home and i got the new cat, some bilsteins, sunvisors and stickers 

In reply to Stampie :

Awesome, glad they went over well!

This is a great thread. Go Lil Stampie!

I started this thread thinking BMW and now we are on to Miata.

I still have a bethania/harddog hitch for a Miata sitting in my garage that I used when I towed my race wheels on a camp trailer. Will let go for cheap + shipping. Though it seems there will be some time before you can use it.

In reply to Harvey :

You know for some reason I wanted a hitch for my NA a bit back.  Can't remember why now.  I'm pretty sure Lil Stampie won't need/want a hitch but I'll send you a PM and just see if it's something I want to get because.

we ran the codes and nothing came up other than airbag codes and some solenoid thta i dont think was related to the car not starting so i dont know why its not starting but hopefully ill find something soon

In reply to Lil_Stampie :

Can I tell everyone how you want to work on it for like 10 minutes and then give up?  We can keep that between ourselves if you want.

Stampie said:

In reply to Lil_Stampie :

Can I tell everyone how you want to work on it for like 10 minutes and then give up?  We can keep that between ourselves if you want.

Set a goal of 30 minutes a stint.  That's enough to get one shock out.  Then the next day you can swap the spring to the new one.  Then the next put it back in.  Same with the bad cat: Old one out one day new one in the next etc.  Set small 30 minute goals you can accomplish.  

Listening to the Miata crank I kept having flashbacks to the never should have been flipped Explorer. The little demons in my head were screaming "compression issues" so after dropping Lil Stampie at school this morning I went and bought a compression tester at the hammer store. After school we started testing.

#1 0psi

#2 0psi

At this point I thought maybe I'm a crackhead and forgot how to operate a compression tester so we moved over to my Miata and #1 was 120psi.  Nope not a crackhead this time at least. Moved back over to his.

#3 0psi

#4 10psi woohoo we have compression 

So timing belt way off?  Head gasket?  Guess we can check the timing on the way to a head gasket since that's got to come out anyway. 

Gratuitous picture of nasty sparkplugs. 

In reply to Stampie :

Try pouring some oil down the cylinders of Lil Stamp's Miata.  If it's been sitting a LONG time, dry piston  rings could cause low/no compression.  Probably not, but worth a quick try.

Put some oil in each cylinder and retest? But those are too low. 

  I think the way you get 0 PSI compression, is a damaged valve.  Bad rings should still provide at least a little compression, but a bad valve creates a hole hence 0 compression.  Bent valves from incorrect timing?

In reply to TED_fiestaHP :

These aren't interference engines so shouldn't bend a valve from that.

Ellis juan

In reply to Dusterbd13-michael :

Oh trust me Lil Stampie is already angling for a 1.8 swap at least.

Subbed, cause shenanigans.

I want to be clear that the PO bought the car in this condition and was just passing what they were told onto us.  I don't hold anything against them.  In fact Lil Stampie and talked before making the trade and said worse case is a Miata engine is cheaper and easier to replace than a BMW engine.

So here's some clues we've noticed. 

The cat definitely ran hot.  Like real hot.  There's an exhaust hanger about a foot downstream that's almost melted all the way through.

No compression as noted above.

We noticed that you can't see any coolant in the radiator.

I for one am looking forward to the picture of the four melted pistons.  Pull that head and let's check it out.

In reply to TVR Scott :

Why you hating on a poor kid's pistons?  Damn do you steal candy from babies also?

Stampie said:

In reply to TVR Scott :

Damn do you steal candy from babies also?

Not if it's gross candy.  Like Dots.

This morning was the Radwood/Concourse de Lemons/ Cars and Community at Amelia Island. After walking what seemed like 5 miles around it we were beat. Being the mean Dad I am I made Lil Stampie go out and work on the Miata. 

First we put some ATF down the spark plug holes. We used ATF mainly because I couldn't find any oil around. 

And our numbers are:

#1 0 psi

#2 0 psi

#3 0 psi

#4 15 psi

So at least #4 improved by 50%!

Ok so next we pulled the valve cover. Really helped when I found the bolt Lil Stampie missed.  Here's Lil Stampie looking for the mythical holes in his pistons. 

Cranked it over and everything moves. All the valves included. Not a great test but nothing jumped out as wow look at that.

So let's check timing. First we rotated the engine so that the TDC mark on the pulley lined up with the timing tab.

Then looking at the cams they are way out of where they should be. 

That's not good. Then trust but verify stepped in and after putting a 1/4 inch extension down #1 we found actual TDC was about 5 o'clock on the crank pulley mark. 

Once there the cams lined up like they should. 

So I think next step is pull the head. 

On the miata dont the cam sprocket marks have to line with each other?

Most likely I am wrong but have some faint memory of that. Probably best to ignore me.