How To: Mazda FS-DE Camshaft Installation

[twilightprotege]

Precautions
- Make sure the engine is cold (good idea to leave it sitting overnight)
- Give yourself a day to do the work
- Trust yourself. It is a relatively easy but very time consuming for the beginner and can become a little frustrating at times.
- This is just a guide. Do not blame me is you stuff up and your engine goes boom.

What you need
- Torque wrench
- Metric sockets (10mm, 12mm, 14mm, 17mm, 21mm)
- Impact wrench
- Engine oil
- Marker pen
- Friend
- Patience
- 1 Day to work on your car

1. Disconnect the negative battery terminal. This is just a safety step.
2. This step is just for those who have the plastic engine cover on their engine (me). Unbolt the nuts on your plastic cover. You’ll need a 10mm socket for this. See picture below

3. Remove the ignition coils. Unclip the wires from it then you’ll once again need a 10mm socket to take off the coils. Naturally, also remove the spark leads at the same time. See picture below. I recommend leaving the spark leads attached to the coil so you are putting the car back together exactly the same as it was before. Also remove the spark plugs.

4. Unclip the wiring harness from the points in the picture below. There are actually two connectors at the bottom point and also a little zip-tie like thing to the right of it. Once that wiring harness is not connected to anything, put it out of the way on top of the intake manifold.

5. In the middle of the head cover there is a little pipe that needs to be pulled out. Once you have that out, your engine bay should look like the picture below.

6. Now we start to really get into business. Remove the bolts on the head cover in the order numbered in the picture below. You’ll need a 10mm socket for this. Remove each bolt a few turns at a time. At point 7, remove the bolt you can’t quite see in the picture. The one you can see (one top of the engine cover does nothing. It’s only there for the spark leads.

7. Once you have all the bolts out. Remove the head cover. The below picture is what you should see.

8. Remove the top timing belt cover. I didn’t take a picture of this, but there are 4 bolts you need to take out, 2 on each side. 10mm socket is required here. Once you have undone the bolts and have them out, just remove the plastic cover.
9. Remove the number 3 engine mount. Don’t worry, the other 3 engine mounts are enough to hold the engine just fine – just don’t leave your car like this for months. The nuts on the engine are 17mm and the nuts and bolts on the car are 14mm. See picture below. The circle with only pipes underneath it – there is a bolt under the pipes, you just can’t see it from the angle I took the picture at.

10. Now the pain in the arse jobs begin. You need to remove the 2 drive belts. The outer one does the power steering oil pump and the air conditioning compressor. You remove this one first. In the below picture you loosen the no 1 bolt out about 5mm. That is a 12mm bolt. Next there are two bolts you need to loosen hidden under number 2. They are both 10mm bolts. If you are looking from this direction, you loosen 1 bolt on your right, 1 bolt right in front of you. These bolts are used for adjusting the tension of the drive belt. Once you have loosened these bolts enough, the drive belt should be able to come off.

11. The inner belt is the alternator and water pump drive belt. It’s too cluttered down there so I didn’t take a picture, but it’s pretty much the same, but upside down as the power steering bolts. If you can imagine the above picture upside down, the places of the bolts are in the same place. And to make your life much easier to get to the adjusting bolts, now is a good time to put the car up on jacks, that’s what I did.
12. While you have your car up on jacks, turn the steering all the way to the right. That just allows easier access to the crankshaft pulley for later and allows you to take off the underneath plastic cover. There are 5 bolts I think, all 10mm, and 1 clip to the left of the driveshaft as you look at it from the side of the car.
13. In preparation for the next step, rotate the crank (I just used a socket and bar) so that the engine is a top dead centre. You may need a friend to help you align this otherwise you’ll be moving it 2mm then jumping up and checking the mark and so on. If you look down on top of the engine where the engine mount was, you can see the crankshaft pulley. On the engine side of the pulley you’ll see a little plastic marking thing showing out of it. It will have a 10 and a T plus a lot of straight up and down lines. This is the timing marks. To find top dead centre you rotate the crank around (clockwise) so that the yellow mark on the crank pulley is in line with the T. Once that is in line, check the cam pulleys. There is a mark on the intake cam sprocket, “I”, and this needs to be pointing towards the “E” mark on the exhaust cam sprocket. If they are not, rotate the crank pulley a further 360 degrees.
14. Next we need to remove the crankshaft pulley. The crankshaft pulley is right at the bottom of the engine and you can see the big bolt connecting it to the crank from the side of the car. I recommend hiring an impact wrench for the day as it’s so much easier and safer. The bolt is 21mm. Get a person to put the car into a gear and get them to apply the brakes. This will stop the engine moving when you use the wrench. With the wrench in place, get that sucker off. It may take a while, it may take a second, but bolt will eventually undo. This now allows you to remove the pulley. Before removing the pulley, make sure that the timing marks are still aligned. I found the pulley a little difficult to remove but if you put your hands behind it at either side and sort of wiggle it off it will eventually come off for you.
15. From here we need to remove the water pump pulley. An easy way to do this once again requires a friend. Using a clamp, connect that to the centre part of the water pump pulley. Get your friend to hold this. Get underneath the car and by using a 10mm socket, remove the 4 bolts holding it in place. Now take the pulley off.
16. Now we remove the lower plastic timing belt cover. Similar to the top one, 3 10mm bolts this time. It’s a little bit fiddly to take out, but it gets there.
17. This is just a safety step, it is not required. With a marker place a mark on both the timing belt and the cam sprocket, once again on the crank timing pulley and timing belt. This will just make sure that everything lines up when you go to reinstall the timing belt later on. And yes, the timing is very important.

18. Now finally down to business. We need to remove the cam sprocket. I found this easiest to remove with the timing belt still in place. The bolt on the sprocket marked in the picture below is 14mm. Obviously you only do this one cam at a time. With a holding a spanner in place where I circled on the cam, loosen the cam sprocket bolt. At this stage do not remove the belt or the sprocket just yet. Next loosen the other cam sprocket bolt following the same procedure. Now we can remove the bolts and the timing belt and cam sprockets.
19. Now for the take your time part, removing the cams. Loosen the cam bolts a few turns at a time in the order marked on the picture below. These are 10mm bolts. Be very careful that the cam doesn’t apply too much pressure to one cam cap over the rest, so after the first few turns you can start to remove the bolts out of order to try and keep the cam straight. What I mean by that is if a bolt is loose, just leave that one be for a little while. You need to loosen the bolts that have a bit of pressure on them more. If you have set up the camshaft sprockets like I said earlier, number 3 cylinder (third from the cam sprocket) on the intake cam (closest the firewall) should be the one applying pressure via the valves. Number 2 cylinder (second from the cap sprocket) on the exhaust (closest the front of the car) should be the applying the pressure via the valves.

20. Once you have undone the bolts, I suggest placing them somewhere intact and in order (ie bolts are still in the cam cap). This will ensure you are placing the engine back together as best as close as possible to before.
21. Remove the cams. Take off and clean the oil seal (black plastic ring) from each cam. Once again, make sure you know which one is for the intake and exhaust cam.

[twilightprotege]

Now we get into the fun part, putting your new cams back in.

22. First of all, using engine oil, thoroughly coat your new cams. Make sure every bit is covered, yes get your hands nice and dirty. Do the same to the cam oil seals (from step 21).
23. Line up your new cams along side the original ones and make sure you know which is going in the intake side and which is going in the exhaust side. This is most easily done by comparing the pins at the end.
24. Put the cam oil seal on each respective cam and place the intake cam on the intake side of the engine and the exhaust cam on the exhaust side of the engine. If you have followed my advise from above about timing, you need to place the lobe of the intake cam on the number 1 cylinder (closest the cam sprocket end) pointing away from the front of the car and the exhaust cam lobe on the number 1 cylinder points towards the front of the car. This should make the pins on both cams on top of the cam.

25. Replace the cam caps and bolts and hand tighten them all up. Now tighten them all in the order shown a few turns at a time in the picture below. Before they bolts are too tight, make sure the cam oil seal is in place. They should be lining up with the edge of the cylinder head or just inside the cylinder head. These bolts then need to be tightened to 100-125 inch pounds of force (1.15-1.45 kg metre of force, 8.33-10.42 feet pounds of force). Just make sure you continue tightening the bolts in order.
26. Place the cam sprockets back into place. Make sure the intake cam sprocket points the “I” towards the exhaust cam and the exhaust cam sprocket points the “E” towards the intake cam, same as in step 13.
27. Put the respective bolt and washer in the cam to connect the sprocket, opposite to step 18. These bolts need to be tightened to 444-528 inch pounds of force (5.0-6.2 kg metre of force, 37 – 44 feet pounds of force).
28. Replace the timing belt. If you took my advice and marked on the cam sprocket and timing belt, line those marks up. Do the same to the crank timing belt pulley, but this is where it getting a little awkward. If you look from the top of the engine bay down, straight under the intake cam sprocket there is a little shiny pulley. This is what keeps the tightness in the timing belt. Just above the bolt that holds it in place there is an Allen key hole. Put the Allen key in and rotate the tensioner towards the rear of the car. This should then give you enough room to put the timing belt back into place. If the marks on the timing belts and the cam sprockets and crank timing pulley line up, let the tensioner go. Just to make sure, feel that the timing belt has no movement (a little is ok).
29. Rotate the engine around 720 degrees in a clockwise direction. I recommend doing this very slowly for the first time. This is to ensure the valves aren’t hitting the pistons and the lift on your cams isn’t too much. I found this easiest by placing the crank pulley bolt back in and using a socket to rotate the engine. If there was no problems, rotate the engine and align the cam sprockets up (I and E remember?).
30. Replace the lower timing belt plastic cover (opposite step 16).
31. Replace the crank pulley (opposite step 14). Hand tighten the bolt at first and check the timing marks again, same as in step 13. Once you are happy with the timing you can attack the bolt. This bolt needs to be on bloody tight – 1392-1464 inch pounds of force (16.0-17.0 kg metre of force, 116-122 feet pounds of force). If you’re lucky enough to have a torque wrench that goes that high in force use that. Otherwise do what I did, use the impact wrench and do the same as in step 14 except tighten the bold this time.
32. Replace the water pump pulley. Follow along the same lines as in step 15. Just make sure the bolts are nice and firm. There is no need to torque these bolts unless you really want to (most torque wrenches don’t go that low of force). The reason you do this after the crank pulley is because if you need to take off the plastic cover because the timing isn’t right, it’s not as much hassle.
33. Put the alternator and power steering drive belts back in, along the lines of steps 10 and 11.
34. While the car is still off the ground, replace the underneath plastic cover, along the lines of step12.
35. Put the number 3 engine mount back in, along the lines of step 9. The bolts connecting to the engine need to be torqued to 660-927 inch pounds of force (7.6-10.7 kg metre of force, 55-77.3 feet pound of force). The other 3 bolts and 1 nut need to be torqued to 528-708 inch pounds of force (6.0-8.2 kg metre of force, 44-59 feet pounds of force).
36. Replace the top timing belt plastic cover, along the lines of step 8.
37. Replace the head cover and hand tighten all the bolts for the cover. Tighten the bolts from there a few turns at a time. These bolts just need to be nice and firm.
38. Replace all the electrical wires, along the lines of step 4.
39. Replace the spark plugs then ignition coils and spark leads, along the lines of step 3.
40. If you have the plastic engine cover, replace this, along the lines of step 2
41. Reconnect the negative battery terminal.

Get in the car and turn the key to the run setting, but don’t turn the engine over just yet. Wait for the car to check the wires are all connected and happy. If there are no unusual warning lights (ie battery, oil pressure) then turn the engine over a bit at a time. DO NOT START THE CAR. This is just to turn the engine over to once again make sure everything is happy.

If you are satisfied with your work, start the car.

Mods, please move this to the how to section.
For those who have done this mod, please double check that I have explained this well enough.
Also, if anyone would like me to update this by adding more pictures etc, let me know because I'll be attempting to install my cams next weekend (long story as to why they arent in now)

[Matthew]

this is what im wondering...every mechanic that i have ever talked to said when you replace cams you should ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS replace the cam bearings since the old ones will be worn to the old cams...why is that not done here

[FrigginGLI]

Yikes , this is not a job for rookies.

[Matthew]

thats what i was thinkin

[kidkorrupt]

holy crap, what an exhaustive how-to.

quick, somone move this into the how-to section before it gets pusehd down to the bottom in the performance section.

i need to read it later as i'm on dialup now and its killing me =P

[Matthew]

i think im still as lost as i was prior to this how-to...it seems to be very good, but im just too tech stupid.

[ahb11m]

as andrew said first off, ya have to trust yourself with it... and take ya time, the moment you start rushing anything, is when stuff goes wrong!! (just ask my petrol gauge it'll agree) the trick is to not get excited that your done and do something silly

[ahb11m]

probably best to print instead of try to remember!!1

[twilightprotege]

matthew - our car does not have cam bearings.

yes this is definately not a rookie job....but having said that - this is the first time i have ever change and internal part of any engine. it wasnt overly difficult to be honest, but it was just time consuming.

but please, if anyone has any questions about this just ask me.

[zmepro]

how much power did ya feel with your new cams?

[twilightprotege]

wasnt able to put them in. the cam pins i had were two small and also the cam pin on the exhaust side is 180degrees opposite the intake cam....i was sent both blank intake cams from mitch @ protege5online.com.

so at the moment it looks as if i wont be installing the cams until the weekend of 18-19 october....and that'll be head at the same time (i'm taking my head to get ported in the week starting 6 october). i just dont have time to put the cams in before i get the head work done so i figured i might as well wait.

[TheMAN]

I wouldn't trust the engine sitting itself on just the 3 engine mounts... since the front and rear ones are offset to be at the other side of the engine, near the tranny... rather you should have placed a block of wood over the floor jack and jack up the oil pan to keep the engine level... and since you have removed the #3 engine mount already, you might as well remove the timing belt to keep it clean from oil splashes, etc

and you forgot to put rtv in the cam bearings closest to the cam pulleys... you also forgot to mention that in order to reinstall the cam pulleys, you must use a wrench to hold the cam in place via the hex-shaped spot on the cam

btw... does your stock intake cam have a "FSD7", "FS1G" or "FSH9" casted on it?

[Matthew]

yes i do remember that section in the manual about the rtv.

edwin how about i buy the intake camshaft and you help me put it in after the next meet

[TheMAN]

send in the air force chopper to pick me up then
all expenses paid plus food