Those emblems turned out really nice!

_________________
-Cam
1988 Mazda RX7
1980 Toyota Celica
a bunch of cool other cars I'm not allowed to list

1. Although I like coupes, I've always liked the capella sedan shape.
2. I like this project! I love that light blue colour too. Pity we never got it here in Australia.
3. You should join Ausrotary and chat to a guy called Bumpstart. He has an imported "Seth African" Capella and he found that it had a few differences from Aussie models sold here (in terms of suspension stuff etc)
4. Myself and another user on here, Aaron Hogan, have often wondered how a Capella would go with the later MA 2 litre engine and a 5spd box out of a 626. A friend of ours had this setup in a 808 sedan and it was a screamer! It surprised a lot of other drivers and unlike a rotary, literally used no fuel. It was great!

Good luck with the project, I'm looking forward to more updates.

love your work, body is coming up nicely.

Got me a little stumped on those two piece's. I've owned nearly 60 Capella's through the years and haven't seen them. I'll try and dig up some of my manuals and see if I can find an answer. Some of the very early NA's had 2 piece lock plates near the front of the camshaft but they look different to what I've seen.

Ewok they go great with the MA. Done many a conversion. I worked a MA and turbo'ed it, rocket ship, ran 12 flat. A good friend just finished a Turbo MA running on straight LPG. We just trying to sort the four speed auto out, hammered with the three speed.

Not sure about ausrotary though with the moron factor on there!! We don't want to put him through the pain!!

_________________
Too many Mazda's in the collection. 4 Mitsubishi's, 6 Toyota's and now 3 Datsun's as well.
Putting together a Mazda/Japanese motor museum. New bigger venue for the museum has been bought, watch this space!

The car is coming along nicely and the motor looks very good!

When will it be running? Hopefully soon!



My guess would be either inside the timing cover behind the crank pully or somewhere around the cam.

Hopefully it will be running soon!

The body is almost done, then i can start building the car again.

Got the cylinder head back today. Reconditioned and ported a little bit. The final compression ratio after block and head was skimmed came out to 10:1 witch is a nice improvement from the 8.3:1 it was standard.

I send the cam in today to have it re-profiled for a longer duration.

Here's some pics of the cylinder head.

A little advice from a Mazda piston man!! I would recommend welding the two casting ports in the top of the cylinder head - these are those two round cylinder shapes in line with the second and forth cam journals. They have a bad habit of leaking water and with a little extra compression might bring it on sooner.

Easy job for your reco shop, just need a solid weld on the top. I can take a photo of one I'm doing at the moment if your like. Just make sure it's not too high otherwise it might hit the camshaft.

_________________
Too many Mazda's in the collection. 4 Mitsubishi's, 6 Toyota's and now 3 Datsun's as well.
Putting together a Mazda/Japanese motor museum. New bigger venue for the museum has been bought, watch this space!

Thanks, I have heard those plugs can have a problem with leaking. I will have look at maybe welding them as a precaution.

I started assembling the car this weekend.

Here's some pics.

That's a great job you are doing there.

One thing that concerns me is that radically machined flywheel. I few mates of mine used machined cast iron flywheels and with reasonably heavy use a few suffered stress cracks and one exploded and basically cut the car in half.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dR90pDzWu2A
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8YYDGBK2Snc

For anything used in competition it's much safer to use a proper steel flywheel.

I hope you don't take this as criticism, it's just from experience I'd hate to see your lovely Capella ruined.

This build is progressing amazingly fast! Good work!

_________________
-Cam
1988 Mazda RX7
1980 Toyota Celica
a bunch of cool other cars I'm not allowed to list

That engine bay is gorgeous. Immaculate.

Hi BlueRocket, (ek gaan dit engles hou vir die res van ons lesers)

Very nice build, makes me proud to be a mazda fan.

I must admit, at first I thought that you must've gone the rotary route, but damn, this build is so nice, I'm glad you stuck to the original idea. I just makes a person apreciate the car more.

I see you got Wellington registration, are you from there?

Keep up the good work.

_________________
1998 mazda 323 200e, 2.0l 8V
1979 mazda 323 glc, 13B Bridge

Thanks.

I would still really like a rotary, but the only rotarys available these days in SA are the 13B turbo. And to do that mod plus management can become pretty expensive! Plus i have to race in a different class with very few entrants.

I bought the car in Wellington. I live in the northern subburbs of Cape Town.

Blue Rocket,

Yes the only rotary engines that are for sale in SA are the 13b Turbo engine. I use a 13B Turbo engine, but the turbo is removed in favor of a 51mm IDA carb. Unfortunately, these import engines needs to be refreshed. Yes, it will start without the engine being refreeshed, but it won't last very long. When the engine builder opened the engine, one of the apex seals were broken and the the rotors were rusted.

Regards

_________________
1998 mazda 323 200e, 2.0l 8V
1979 mazda 323 glc, 13B Bridge

So this weekend i finished assembling the engine.



I had aluminium plate lasercut and welded it to the old inlet manifold after i machined off the original flange. This is to fit the Weber carburettor. I think it turned out quite well

With everything assembled, we checked for oil pressure before putting the plugs in and connecting the ignition wires. The oil pressure picked up nicely when turning over the engine.

We connected the ignition, and with the first turn, not even a full revolution the engine fired up.

The Carburettor still needs to be jetted correctly, and i have just fitted the old exhaust to start the car, so there is a terrible leak at the downpipe flange.

Overall the engine sounds really good for a first start without any fine tuning.

Only problem is a oil leak somewhere on the sump gasket. Hopefully i can sort this out without to much of a hassle...

Here's a video clip:

That intake turned out really well.

Hope you can sort that oil leak without too much trouble.

Engine sounds really good except for that leaking exhaust flange.
Glad it started up without too much hassle.

PS: Please don't drive off with my oil pressure gauge still tied to the garage ceiling.

Here's a few pictures of the car in action for you...

hmmmm

I think you need a bit of suspension tuning.
I like that last photo with the tyre and rim seperating!

_________________
occasional blog: http://ewokracing.tumblr.com

Brought to you by me as I browse Geocities webpages using Netscape Navigator while listening to Jam & Spoon.