Berkley of the Day

Yes, KL03 I believe it was. I was going to swap it into my Protege and put a KLZE in it later, but that never happened.

Let us know what you find with the old motor. I've got the same problem with my 4G63. The rods bearings are in good shape but it could be a wrist pin that's gone bad in my case. It's reassembled and I have to put the trans on to check to see if the noise was loose flywheel bolts.

Curmudgeon wrote: Man, sorry to hear that. I second the suggestion of chunking something through Tiger JDM's window. But before condemning the engine, check this: see if it has a hydraulic timing belt tensioner. It's like a little oil filled motorcycle shock, has a spring and a valve in it. If so, those have been known to leak the oil out and it sounds almost exactly like a rod knock. EDIT: Turns out it has exactly that. Looks like this:

Bonus points: That thing is one of the 3 major achilles heels of this motor. It's not IF they fail, it's WHEN.

Lesley, if it IS the tensioner, get this to replace it, don't even bother with another OEM one.

http://www.king6fab.com/tensioner.html

Hell for that matter, if you can swing it, get it anyways. I bought one before i even got my motor.

kl-de=kl-03 is the low output verion of the klze. lower compression different heads and cams. afaik the crank and rods do interchange tho.

Crank and rods do interchange, though the crank itself is actually a pound or so lighter, and the KLG4 crank about 2lbs lighter.

ya but its cast then again for na who cares.... altho solid lifters from the klg4 might be worth converting too.

The cranks are forged. Solid lifters from KLG4 are a good idea, though. I HATE HLAs.

hmmm ive ever heard is the klg4 was cast. no one likes hla's.

KATYB wrote: hmmm ive ever heard is the klg4 was cast. no one likes hla's.

Nope, all Mazda Ks have forged cranks, most even have forged rods. (But they're thin and tend to crap the bed much over 400hp)

On the subject of HLAs... wish i had done my research ahead of time. Can't put KLG4 SLAs in KLZE heads. Gotta have DE heads.

yep but u can open up de heads.... and no its a cast iron crank.... wikipedia and this guy says so... http://www.xtremethings.com/KLG4_Modification.htm http://forums.probetalk.com/showthread.php?t=1701265147

^Ah good call, my bad. I won't bother looking for a G4 crank, then.

I think i'll just be using ported G4 heads for my 9000+rpms goal.

good luck.. god i need money i really wanna take my aj to that level but lots of money cause oh ya no cams and engine management.... im not going standalone and losing other features.

Do you guys really see that much of an issue with these cranks? In V8 land, a lot has to be done before a non OEM crank is warranted. Super Stock guys are out there pushing 800 hp and 9500+ RPMs on stockish cranks...

tuna55 wrote: Do you guys really see that much of an issue with these cranks? In V8 land, a lot has to be done before a non OEM crank is warranted. Super Stock guys are out there pushing 800 hp and 9500+ RPMs on stockish cranks...

Nah, the crank, whether it's the forged from the DE/ZE or the cast from the G4 is PLENTY strong for anything any halfway sane person will ever do. I've never heard of crank failure out of these, and there's been a few 600whp builds over the years.

The DE/ZE crank will withstand a nuclear blast, the G4 motor has been proven to make about 400whp unopened.

Curmudgeon wrote: Man, sorry to hear that. I second the suggestion of chunking something through Tiger JDM's window. But before condemning the engine, check this: see if it has a hydraulic timing belt tensioner. It's like a little oil filled motorcycle shock, has a spring and a valve in it. If so, those have been known to leak the oil out and it sounds almost exactly like a rod knock. EDIT: Turns out it has exactly that. Looks like this:

That is exactly what I was about to post. When I bought my '96 PGT it had a failed tensioner strut which allowed the tensioner to bang against the block and it sounded just like a con-rod trying to escape. easy to check using a short piece of garden hose for a stethoscope with the engine running. and figure if it is a rod bearing, the engine's already hurt, so running it for 30 seconds to scope around isn't going to make it any worse.

Curmudgeon wrote:

Lesley wrote:

DILYSI Dave wrote: I figured that Lesley had finally crossed paths with Mike Rowe @ a Ford event.

Hooooboy, steering well clear of any reference to blown rods, shafts or bore and stroke on that topic!

Yeah, you and Miz Suddard could wind up in a death cage match.

with jello or oil?

tuna55 wrote: Do you guys really see that much of an issue with these cranks? In V8 land, a lot has to be done before a non OEM crank is warranted. Super Stock guys are out there pushing 800 hp and 9500+ RPMs on stockish cranks...

Everybody thinks they need a forged crank, but the reality is, it's just not important for 95% of the applications. It's carryover from the small block Chev days when a forged crank was a big deal, but still mostly unnecessary. As for forged rods, can somebody show me a cast one?

AngryCorvair wrote:

Curmudgeon wrote:

Lesley wrote:

DILYSI Dave wrote: I figured that Lesley had finally crossed paths with Mike Rowe @ a Ford event.

Hooooboy, steering well clear of any reference to blown rods, shafts or bore and stroke on that topic!

Yeah, you and Miz Suddard could wind up in a death cage match.

with jello or oil?

Either's fine by me.

Yes, it is possible to put a KLZE in a Mazda 323... it just take a little... ingenuity.

Can you guys believe this score? The entire engine plus an extra set of heads... for $75. His dad wanted it OUT of the garage. Because of the tsunami, the lowest price I could get from a distributor was $800.

Good looking score to me. You'll have it running by next weekend, right?

Uh... maybe just a little longer.

Glad you're home safe. I was thinking 323 + lots o'metal parts + 401 + Friday afternoon morons = sudden stops are bad.

And that DOES look like the Score of the Year for 75 bucks. It seems your Mazda engine karma may be rebalancing a bit.

please have your mechanic check for the timing belt tensioner prior to pulling the oil pan off.

Will do!

thanks Stealthercel