With the engine block shims in place, and one of the mounting brackets modified, we can finally test that the engine block will fit to the top and bottom plates, air intake and exhaust manifolds. We’ll do this by keeping the block mounted to the fuel cell (RE12), which will also let us check the fitting of some mounting links and pipework that connect RE12 to various parts of the block.
And these photos show the result. Yes, there are a few gaps here and there, but I expect these to close up when I glue the parts together.
In the photo at left, the right hand side of the engine. You can see the air intake and exhaust headers now fit. The colant pipe from the top of the engine fits correctly to the block and to the fuel cell/firewall. In the right hand photo, the other (left) side of the engine. Here it’s easier to see the mounting link (M115 on this side, M114 on the right) runing from RE12 all the way to the back of the block, and the coolant pipe running from RE12 to the water pump atop the front of the engine.
Everything seems to fit well enough at this stage. This probably means I can proceed to paint some engine parts for Section 6, and clean up parts for the next stage of the engine (Section 7, where we fix the top and bottom and add various engine accessories).
Jason's Mazda 787B Build 