MazdaSpeed3 - SURE TIG Installation (includes Intake Manifold removal)

Courtesy:mazdaspeed-3.com
Link: http://www.mazdaspeed-3.com/2011/06/review-of-sure-motorsports-tig/

For the installation of the SURE Motorsports’ TIGs you will need about 2-4 hours, depending on how savvy you are around an engine. While the entire installation can be done without lifting your car there are many bolts and clasps that need to be removed or pinched and this can take a while. Also, you will want to make sure that the engine has time to cool down since it gets very hot in there!
Where is it:

To access the intake manifold and throttle body you will enter the engine from the top.
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Tools Needed:

• Socket wrench with extensions (long and short extensions)
• 7mm-12mm deep sockets
• 22mm open wrench
• Needle-nose pliers
• Flat head screw driver
• Universal joint extension (bending extension).
• Magnet in case you drop a bolt!
• Gloves (not pictured)
• Anti-freeze to top off what you may loose when pulling hoses.
• lock-tight
• Sea Foam to clean up some carbon if you want to!

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What to do:

(1) Open up the engine as pictured above and remove the cover and top mounted inter cooler (1). To remove the inter cooler remove the three bolts, 2 in front and one in back, as well as loosen the hose clamps and bypass valve attached to the inter cooler (2-4). Once this is done lift the inter cooler off and place carefully to the side.
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(1) Now remove the vacuum regulator, black box, from on top of the intake manifold. There are 4 screws. Now we start disconnecting some sensors. (2-4) The sensor in the front with a blue clip is a little tricky. Using a flathead or needle nose pliers push out the clasp in the back of the sensor. They separate outward. once they are started you can use your tools to pull back on it to slide it off. Once the clasp is removed you will pull up on the hose to remove it. (5) Squeeze and pull up on the big grey sensor on the left hand side of the intake manifold to detach it. (6) now detach and remove the sensor next to the intake manifold valve pump. This is located to the top right of the intake manifold. (7) To remove the sensor connected to the throttle body, slide back the red tab to loosen the clasp. There is also a MAP sensor attached to the left side of the intake manifold. Sorry, I forgot the picture but is is behind the big Grey Sensor and bracket. This requires a single 7mm socket. Once the bolt is removed, carefully wiggle out the sensor from the intake manifold.
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Now lets tackle the throttle body. (1-3) Remove coolant lines. MAKE SURE ENGINE HAS COOLED DOWN. Coolant will spill during this process and can burn you. Pinch the clamps and move them back on the hose then using needle nose pliers, twist the hose to loosen. Then pull to remove them. (4) Now remove the inter cooler throttle body pipe from the throttle body. If you were as fortunate as me, and Mazda installed the clamp bolt under the hose, use a deep socket 10mm and feel your way around until the socket is snug over the bolt, then loosen. When you reinstall this later move the bolt so it is easier to access in the future. (5) Remove 4 bolts that secure the throttle body to the intake manifold as seen in image 4. (6) Then remove metal gasket and maybe spray it down with some Sea Foam to clean it up. As you can see the MS3 is prone to crazy amounts of carbon buildup and oil overflow (but that is a whole other post!).
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Removing the intake manifold is the fun part! (not really!). (1) First we start with loosening the ERG tube. This requires a 22mm 0pen wrench. (2-3) Next we will remove the sensor mount from the intake manifold on the front left, the one the big gray sensor is attached to. There are 2 bolts. While you are here you can find the bolt where the dipstick tube mounts to the intake manifold and remove that as well (not pictured, you have to feel around for it).
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Finally, we get to the intake manifold itself. (1-3) Loosen the 5 top bolts. Do not completely remove yet. This is so you do not cause any unnecessary strain on the intake manifold. We will count bolts clockwise. Bolt one is pictured in image 2, Bolts 2-4 are easily accessible from the front-top of the intake manifold and bolt 5 is highlighted in image 3. (4) Remove bolt 6 which attaches the fuel rail cover. Bolt 7 is the tricky one. (5-6) This you will need your universal joint extension to get to and it is located at the bottom of the fuel rail cover. (7) Remove the 8th and final bolt. This is located under the throttle body inlet.
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1st Generation MS3:

You must loosen your steering pump. 2nd Genneration MS3s do not need to do this. (1) Completely loosen top 2 bolts and only loosen bottom bolt to swivel the steering pump out of the way to access the first bolt.
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Now remove all bolts and we should be able to lift out the intake manifold. Forcefully pull the ERG tube out of the way, out and down. (1) However, because there is still a hose attached, which you can remove if you want to, but don’t have to, it will not come out completely. You can see this hose clearly when it is removed. You do not need to completely remove the intake manifold to install the TIGs. But if you want to spray it down with some Sea Foam, you should completely remove it for better access. I detached the Spark plug sensors to move wires out of the way so you can see the hose better. (2) Get the intake manifold gasket ready to go. Also be sure to take warning off and grab the TIG washer for use on the lower mount point. (3) Remove the metal gasket and replace it with the SURE TIG. With the SURE engraved tab facing towards you and on the top left, slide the TIG into place.
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(1) Getting the bottom TIG washer in is a bit difficult. Gravity and the ERG tube like to fight you and make you wish you had 3 hands. (2-3) You can try an light adhesive or lock-tight to pre-mount the washer or finesse it in while you slide the intake manifold back into place. BE CAREFUL, because it can easily fall behind the starter and disappear! Do not worry though. If it is too difficult, just leave it off and DO NOT use the bottom bolt (8th) when you reinstall. Yes, I lost mine behind the starter and did not end up using it. Everything is fine!
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To get the intake manifold back on you will need to finesse it in. Slide it down carefully as to not break the studs, all the while, holding back the ERG tube. (1) Once that is done and you did not loose the washer , hand screw in bolt 8 and 3 with plenty of slack. (2) We need to tighten the ERG tube first. If you do not do this first the threads will not sync properly. Once the ERG tube is fully tightened proceed with install bolts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 8. DO NOT install bolts 6 and 7 and bolt 8 is optional ( Do not install bolt 8 if you do not use the TIG Washer). Also, “Walk” the tightening process of the bolts. I went back over each bolt 3-4 times until they all were nice and flush. This allows you to evenly distribute the pressure as you tighten the intake manifold.
DISCLAIMER: You can easily crack the manifold if you over tighten bolts. I recommends no more than 18lbs of torque. To be safe I used some lock-tight to make sure the bolts stayed and I tighten them firmly by hand and I will check on them a little later to make sure they stayed tight. I hand tightened mine so it was snug but did not use leverage to tighten. Nothing cracked!

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Once your manifold has been securely bolted up it is now time to mount the throttle body TIG. (1) Place the TIG on the throttle body so that the SURE logo engraved tab is to the top left. Use a bolt to help it stay in place. (2) This tab is not only for design but allows you to easily position the gasket for the second bolt. (3) Then securely fasten the throttle body to manifold. DO NOT OVER TORQUE. If you would like to do the Coolant Bypass of the throttle body, now is the time. Go to the Coolant Bypass DIY now or skip to the final stages of putting you engine back together below.
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The hard part is over! Now we just wipe down any liquids that do not belong and start putting everything back into its place. (1) Replace the throttle body pipe and coolant lines. (Picture below shows throttle body pipe reinstalled with Coolant Bypass.). Also notice I made the clamp bolt easier to access for the future. Now start attaching all brackets and sensors as well as the oil dipstick tube back to their respective places. Because the second bolt of the Grey Sensor bracket was such a pain in the ass, I did not use the bolt. (2) If you did not use the bottom bolt of the intake manifold or the bottom bolt to the Grey Sensor bracket then you should have 4 Bolts remaining when done. (3) If you did the Coolant Bypass like me, your leftover hardware will look like image 3.
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Finally, be sure to top off your coolant if needed and start her up! If all your sensors are correctly plugged in and everything is securely fastened you should not get a CEL. If you do then you missed something!

 

Review of SURE Motorsports’ TIG


First of, I did some stat logging from my COBB AP Tuner. I watched my boost temperatures for about 2 days. Here is what I logged:
Pre Installation:

Day 1:

Morning: 68 degrees. At 65mph+ I stayed between 85 and 92 degrees. At idle I was around 115 degrees. This was a 20 minute drive with no traffic on 95 south. I data logged a third gear pull and went from 100 degrees at 3500 rpm to 87.8 at 6077 rpm back to 96.8 at 6700 rpms.
Afternoon: 80 degrees. Did a couple 3rd gear pulls as I was fine tuning my COBB AccessPort. My Boost Air Temp was at 129 degrees at idle and down to 114.8 degrees under boost.
Day 2:
Morning: 70 degrees. At highway speeds it was reading a steady 91 degrees. At Idle it was reading at 120 degrees. I did a 3rd gear datalog again and temps ranged from 96 to 102 during the pull from 3000 to 6700 RPMs.
Afternoon: 82 degrees. Did a couple 3rd gear pulls while monitoring with the COBB AccessPort. My Boost Air Temp was at 131 degrees at idle and down to 116 degrees under boost on average.
Post Installation:

After the install of the SURE Motorsports’ TIG I did notice a drop in boost temperatures. It was not drastic but it did drop a bit. The TIG installation I did was the single intake manifold TIG and Throttle Body TIG, as well as, the coolant bypass on the throttle body.
Day 1:
Morning: 72 degrees. This morning I drove the car normal with my typical commute to work. Under normal throttle, barely entering closed loop or going Wide-Open-Throttle (WOT). My temperatures stayed around 85-90 degrees. At idle my temperatures stayed at about 106 degrees.
Afternoon: 86 degrees. I logged a couple pulls in 2nd and 3rd gear. Both times the temperatures stayed between 98 and 104 degrees.
Day 2:
Believe it or not the temperatures were exactly the same and with my logs and watching my COBB AccessPort, the readings were the same within a degree or 2 of variation.
Conclusion:

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So after about 2 weeks of watching my boost temperatures, before and after installation, I have confirmed that the SURE Motorsport TIGs do, in fact, help lower boost temperatures. By separating the intake manifold from the block and separating the throttle body from the intake manifold the SURE TIGs dissipate heat transfers throughout the engine. While I had the front of my engine opened up I also routed the coolant lines away from the throttle body. See the SURE TIG installation article and the Coolant Bypass DIY . Since coolant temperatures get to 180-220 degrees and Mazda runs coolant through the top of the throttle body, I did this. Because ever little bit will help! This modification has lowered my boost temperatures by about 15 degrees at Idle and 10 degrees under normal driving conditions and about 5 degrees at WOT. It also reduced Knocking in my engine from 3000-4000 RPMs without adjusting my tune. You may be asking, “Why so little at WOT”? Think about how fast the air is moving through your engine at this point. The only way to lower temperatures drastically at WOT is via an upgraded Top-Mounted Inter Cooler (TMIC) or Front-Mount Inter Cooler (FMIC). However, the TIGs will help keep the air cooler throughout it’s travels!
Rating:

5 of 5
Even though the temperature didn’t significantly reduce in WOT I still give this product a 5 of 5 because of 2 things. First, The quality is top notch. The SURE TIGs are virgin grade PTFE -400°F up to 500°F and is a reusable gasket. Re-usability is a bonus! Second, Temperatures did reduce. It did exactly what it was suppose to do and if I were to add the second gasket to the intake manifold it would be even more significant. Also, you do not need a lift to do the installation. If you are mechanically inclined this installation should take no more than 2-3 hours max. If you don’t include engine cool down time!