intake problems

[s5number2]

I have an 03 LX and i installed an AEM Short ram intake
everything was fine for about 5,000m and then one day i was only running on three cylinders. something had got in thru the filter and into the #4 cylinder it bent the electrode on the spark plug and rendered that clyinder cooked.
i took it in to the dealer and they changed the plug and looked inside and found nothing.
it ran fine after that for 8000m and it happened again i changed the plug and it worked fine
now it has happened again and it sucks
Mazda says i let something in past ther filter all three times but i know there was nothing
please help me any info will be great

[Shane5425]

wierd.. unless you have hole in ur filter or piping, nothin can do that to the sparkplug,, the filter should stop all of the things that would do that.. plus the cylender wall would be Fucked up if something got in ur cylinder..
do you have an auto or manual tranny... i have heard of people havin problems with auto trannys and different intakes..

[DiS]

shit, are you getting CEL?? Is it P0304 by any chance? I get same shit, every now and then and I got Injen CAI. Weird shit. Also I started experiencing this after I installed J-spec intake camshaft (btw, I installed Injen CAI one week before getting camshaft) so, Im not even sure wtf is causing that CEL to go off. Changed my spark plugs at 16k and they were black as hell! My RPM is also bouncing back and forth at idle between 700 and 500 rpm. Weird shit, I dunno wtf is wrong.

[Shane5425]

clean our maf .. and check ur o2 sensors... soulds like it is dumping to much fuel and it is fouling out the plugs ...

[Shane5425]

i am waiting for my injen style cai to come in , this week prolly .. ill see if i get the same problems..

[DiS]

i am waiting for my injen style cai to come in , this week prolly .. ill see if i get the same problems..

Man, after I installed Injen cai, everything was fine. Untill I installed camshaft, dunno maybe my timing is fucked up.

[sam1]

even if something got in your cylinder, it wouldnt just bend the electrode, it would fuck hella stuff up, mainly your cylinder walls and probably your piston too. sounds like maybe you have the wrong size plug maybe??? i dont know, cause you probably had stock plugs when it happened the first time, huh? thats just weird. are you sure the electrode was actually bent, or just fouled out? if it was just fouled out, then id do what shane said, and clean your maf and maybe try running a different octane of gas, too.

[s5number2]

i have only ever used factory plugs
the CEL that iam getting is a missfire in the #1 or #4 clyinder i am not sure of the code
could it be possible thet my piston was hitting the plug when i bring it close to redline?

[DiS]

no its IMPOSSIBLE for the piston to hit the plug or the valves. Our engines are non-interfearance engines, meaning if the timing will get fucked up by some reason, the piston wont reach anything up top. Unless you have aftermarket pistons like Kooldino has, he experienced something really bad when his timing belt skipped. Shit, Im still trying to find a solution. Maybe its the dirty throttle body but it shouldnt be.

[Shane5425]

dis--- not sure if the cam buckets are adjustable, but you might want to get the head shimed for that cam .. a good mazda tech can do it, you might not be letting the valves open enough or close enough..

[DiS]

dis--- not sure if the cam buckets are adjustable, but you might want to get the head shimed for that cam .. a good mazda tech can do it, you might not be letting the valves open enough or close enough..

I dont wanna do that adjustment at the dealer because they will void my warranty, since this is a J-spec camshaft. Since I opened it up and swapped out by myself I will void the warranty. Also I doubt that valves are not closing or opening enough since this camshaft is stock on J spec Protege.

[Shane5425]

yeah, but the shims are gonna be differant for clearance reasons.. any good local tech can do this , all they need is shims and a tool to measure clearance.. if you were around here, i could do it for you.. but.... thats a long drive..

[DiS]

yeah, but the shims are gonna be differant for clearance reasons.. any good local tech can do this , all they need is shims and a tool to measure clearance.. if you were around here, i could do it for you.. but.... thats a long drive..

shims are the same length, I already measured them on J-spec and stock camshafts during the install. Its just stock ones are more pointier, thats all that is.

I know that you are trying to help bro and I really appreciate you taking your time to suggest something, but so far Ive been unlucky in pinpointing the problem.

[Shane5425]

hmm... k.. we will find the problem sooner or later...
dis- could it be a coil or wire breakin down.. car seems to new for that though, but it can always be a defect part.


as for the cams and warrenty, how are they gonna know that they are jspec cams.. unless they have a part number on the cam itself and the tech is lookin really carefull for it they should even notice that..

[DiS]

hmm... k.. we will find the problem sooner or later...
dis- could it be a coil or wire breakin down.. car seems to new for that though, but it can always be a defect part.


as for the cams and warrenty, how are they gonna know that they are jspec cams.. unless they have a part number on the cam itself and the tech is lookin really carefull for it they should even notice that..

Camshafts have part numbers on them. I just ordered a set of Magnecor wires today and hopefully it will fix the problem. Also when I changed my spark plugs (because of the damn CEL) my rpm stopped bouncing back and forth at idle between 700 and 500 rpm for a week or so, then started again. I hope its not the coils but I could be wrong. Well I should get the wires by this weekend or in the middle of next week the latest. If wires wont help, Im going to swap coil and if I will get P0301 instead of P0304 then its the damn faulty coil, if not, then I will keep looking for a problem.

[Shane5425]

sounds like a plan to me, if none of that works . i noticed u said for the first week it ran ok with new plugs, what did the pllugs look like when they started doing that again..

[DiS]

sounds like a plan to me, if none of that works . i noticed u said for the first week it ran ok with new plugs, what did the pllugs look like when they started doing that again..

well after I put in the new plugs (NGK irridiums from Pepboys where mechanic checked computer and said that those are stock replacements) I never pulled them out again, but stock ones where pretty damn black when I pulled those out.

[sjimmy]

[QUOTE=s5number2]I have an 03 LX and i installed an AEM Short ram intake
everything was fine for about 5,000m and then one day i was only running on three cylinders. something had got in thru the filter and into the #4 cylinder it bent the electrode on the spark plug and rendered that clyinder cooked.
i took it in to the dealer and they changed the plug and looked inside and found nothing."


the same thing happened to me comin home from san fran, check engine light and one cylinder was down. i didn't have an aem intake. what turned out to be the problem was the actual intake manifold was letting screws loose into the top of the engine, which will end up in a cylinder, which once it bounces around will fuck up your sparkplug, which is exactly what it did to my car. i live in modesto cali and one mroe car ehre had the exact same problem. the fix i got was a new intake manifold that isn't suppose to drop screws. there's no way the intake u put let somethin in, unless you have a hole in the intake or in the filter. i live in modesto cali. and so far one mroe car has had the same problem at my dealership. it's probably something worth talkin to them about. also it happened to me twice. the first time they just gave me a new engine, cause they didn't know how anything got in there, they use the same actual intake manifold and sure enough after 90 miles the car ran like shit again. and this is when i find out they needed to get a different manifold to actually fix the problem. tell your dealership to check the intake manifold, i believe where the butterflies are located. i'm pretty sure that's where the screws come out.

[MAZDAKINDAGUY03]

here is what i get from all this just from hearing everyone talking, by the way i have a ingen intake and my car hops around at idle but i have never droped a cylinder. anyway when you put the intake on the engine is getting a shit load more air than it was befor and i think the problem might be that the ECM can only compensat so far by putting more fuel into the engine. maybe it cant adjust enought to get the proper a/f ratio and you are getting a lean misfire. or your o2's might be reading the increased o2 in the exhaust and the ECM is dumping to much fuel in and you are getting a rich misfire and fouling the plugs. do you have a a/f ratio guage? if so your reading needs to be around 14.7 parts of fuel to one pound of air. another thing to try is to ohm out your plug wires and check against stock spec, you could run a voltage drop on the coil pack but i hightly dout that is the problem! just my .02 cents...

[Lord_Zath]

Crazy thought but have you reset your ECU? I have heard that you're supposed to do that when installing mods that change any aspect of performance on the engine from air intake to air discharge to fuel to water to whatever. Maybe that's the problem?

LZ

[MAZDAKINDAGUY03]

im not sure that would make too much of a difference becouse your ECM or ECU wahtever you want to call it pretty much resets itself ( for those reading anyway) every time you shut the car down because it has to calibrate air and fuel in relationship to barometric pressure and other readings that are taken every time you start the car, but i could be wrong it has been known to happen from time to time, but it couldnt hurt to disconnect the battery for a bit a give it a shot...