How-To: VTCS Removal and Porting

now from what i can tell this will help the car breathe a lot better.....

my only questions are, how are the gains from it? noticable?

do you loose low end power in doing this?
 
Once you hit 4k, the difference is amazing... I didn't feel any loss in low end power, myself; In fact, I found myself slipping the tires a little more often when I put the new manifold on, as I had to adjust to the more rapid throttle response.

I may be offering this as a service, if anyone doesn't want to spend the time doing it on their own; Since it's just me, though, turnaround will probably be a week, but would include getting the part cleaned before and afterward.
 
Wow....this must be a mod destined for me to do....i was just looking for this yesterday and poof it pops up today........any how to on removing the manifold yet?
 
Nice write up... maybe I can find a cheap manifold in a junkyard and play with it. Seems like the hardest/teadiest part would be getting all those connectors and vacuum lines off the intake manifold and remembering where to put them back on.
 
or number things...

when i'm working on the car i usually have a few icecream containers etc and i split nuts and bolts etc up into their own containers

also gives me an excuse to have more icecream :D hehe
 
I like Andrew's idea, what with the icecream and all. =) I used parts containers, and a peice of plywood, and separated all the parts I needed so I remembered where they went. There are three or four electrical connectors to remove, the throttle body itself, which includes four bolts, two coolant hoses, and one electrical plug, as well as the throttle cable.

There's seven bolts holding the intake manifold to the head, then two underneath for the support brace that you'll have to remove, and a handfull more to remove the fuel rail, and all the connector supports on the manifold. It's just a matter of taking your time, and working steadily. Oh, and a word of advice; Don't start the project at three in the morning like I did, if you don't have a garage. It's VERY difficult to see what you're doing at three in the morning. =) Trust me.

I get to do this again once I put the manifold on Bill's Mazdaspeed Protege, so I'll take pictures and write up an adjoining how-to on that, and throw it up on the site once I'm done. =)
 
Good idea with the ice cream. I have used milk jugs before to hold pushrods and valves. (just use an ice pick and poke some holes in the side of the milk jug). But since we don't have pushrods I guess that its only job now would be to hold valves. But (hopefully) that won't be anytime soon.
I usually have a roll of masking tape and a sharpie and number all the connections and vacuum lines, but that gets old really quick. But I've found that the slower you take it apart the faster you can put it back together :) (You can use that on the website) lol
 
how much are you thinking of charging for a port job?.....I might be up for this over the winter, seeing as my 03 will be garaged
 
Not sure. I was thinking $100~. Given that it takes 8ish hours of work, that's pretty darn cheap, I'm pretty sure, but it would be a good way to make a little money on the side. *nods*
 
I just received my spare manifold today! I needed it so I can work on it, and still have my car in commission. I'm going to be going slow with this over the next few days. Once I'm done, I'll swap them out and probably sell my original.

So did you try to match it exactly to the head also? I'm not sure if I can easily do this, without leaving my car in shambles for a long period of time. That is not an option for me.
Also, is it really necessary to thoroughly clean it before beginning, did you hot-tub it or whatever the hell they call it?
 
I tried to match it as closely as I could; The head comes up to about 1/16th of an inch from the edge of the gasket, so I started with the gasket, and worked outward 'till I had about that left. Mostly just from eyeballing it, really. You don't HAVE to clean it before hand, but you do have to clean it afterward, to get all of those metal shavings free. Boiling it is good, if you have a machine shop that can do that to parts nearby, or you can do it on your own if you have a big enough pot to put water and the part in. Hehe.

I did a chemical dip on mine afterward; Or more accuratly, I poured two gallons of Castrol Super Clean in a bucket with the manifold, and let it sit overnight, then flushed it out very thoroughly with a high-pressure hose afterward. The part was super clean after that, I can assure you!
 
now after you removed all of this and put it back togather....

CEL?

anything you had to adjust?
 
Nope! My car doesn't know what VTCS is. =) Because I have an MP3 ECU! But as long as you don't unplug the solenoid, it's fine. Just leave the plug for the solenoid, and plug up all of the vacuum ports on the solenoid with little caps. Just the one for VTCS, though.

No adjustments otherwise.
 
Removing the solenoid will always trip a CEL if the car was originally equipped with VTCS. So yes, on an MSP, it will. It's a very simple matter to leave it plugged in, and just block the passages, though. =)
 
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