General questions about my mx-3 (most potential?)

[iRobsta]

I'm not sure if there is a thread already open about this, so excuse me if there is and I will be more than happy to close this thread and continue digging but as it stands I didn't find an exact answer for my questions. There is a quit a bit of questions some may be stupid, so I do apologize in advance.

General background:
Here is what I currently have;

viewtopic.php?t=79718

It's a project thread I opened when I got the car about a year ago. So far I've done a sound system upgrade, a new alternator change, new stock exhaust again (should have put a higher performance one but I was tight on money and my old one was rotted out) and that's basically it other than general maintenance.
The car it self runs near peechy perfect other than a few problems.
On a side note, I am currently in school for a automotive technician and I do have access to fully loaded shops as well as a welding shop.

The questions: Whats the future-worthy work I can be done to my car (maximum potential out of my mx3)
By this I mean the fastest 1/4 mile run the car can run, the best ride and comfort the car can achieve.
The first basic and most effective upgrade would be the engine.
Would swapping in a KLZE then turbo'ing it bring out the most potential power my car can achieve? or would a turbo BPT be a better route?
Best exhaust (pipe size, sound etc. )
Changing the tranny to an AWD (if it's even possible, I feel like this car would be incredible with a KLZE AWD set up)?


The problems with the car... (is it worth the work, or find a new mx3?)
I've dumped some money into this car already but not much at all;
new brakes/rotors (came with saftey one year ago, brakes I did, cost wasn't much)
new sway bar kit (came with saftey one year ago)
new tires (winter and summer) (400 - 700$)
new sound system (~500+)
new alternator (190$)
new stock to stock replacement of exhaust (200$)

Car was purchased at 2000$ at 166k km's, now at 185k km's.

The problems that still appear in my car...
Firstly, this car is rusted to s---. I went to my body work guy though and I've been given a quote to fix ALL the rust in the car for roughly 600$. This includes a welding job and a new paint job.
Also, when turning my wheel to the left at higher speeds (sometimes without turning) there is a "clunk clunk clunk" sound. To me, it sounds like my bearing are going on my front right or left wheel, or my tire rod/bar is deteriorating.



What's your opinion guys? If you need more deets let me know. Thanks
hope to hear from you soon.

[kulluminati777]

If your dedicated enough browse and search through the forums. You have questions answered that you didnt even have to begin with and WOW 600usd for rust repaired and a fresh paint job? Let me get the name of your guy.

I know one thing that i will say is you wont have definitive answer about what powerplant you get the most power from or which is better or more reliable ect ect. It depends on what YOU want and what you thought was cool from searching and browsing the forums. Some like a DE with a turbo some like a BPT and you could and might get pages of what each individual thinks is the greatest engine for the EC chassis. My opinion based on my research is the BP-T set up some are running out here with. I was a V6 man when I had a K8 but the KLZE i got was a dud and has left a sour taste in my mouth( at least the motor I have). My next swap will be a BP hands down

[crazycanadian]

As mentioned everyone is going to have a different opinion on this matter...

I don't have an mx3 but I have its not to far off cousin a 323.... Might be styled different but it can be built to handle and perform all the same... Have a look at my build thread if you want to get an idea of what you can do in terms of building a VERY capable autocross car..

I still prefer a V6 over a BP but that happens to be a matter of preference, not something based on what one is better then another.. I like the torque of the V6.. You don't have to rev it out when driving it on the street to feel like you are going fast... It has the same potential for power as a BP as well..

comfort is all a matter of opinion.. My car is set up for autocross racing.. I have sacraficed comfort for performance, but I still daily drive the car and enjoy how it feels on the road.. Once again this is all going to be a matter of opinion..

[RobMinhas]

As both Kull and Crazy have mentioned, there are tons of different opinions on which way to go(NA KL, F/I KL, F/I BP, FE3 etc).

What you need to do is narrow down what you want. Do you want a car that makes good 1/4 mile times? Do you want a car that is a lot of fun around a track? Do you want a car with accessible N/A torque? What kind of powerband do you want? How important is having extra room in your engine bay? How willing and able are you to do custom fabrication? How much power do you want?(and don't say as much as possible). What is your budget? Long term and short term. There are so many different things you could want from a car and if you can narrow it down to what you want we could help guide you.


Personally, I was aiming for 200ish HP and I wanted an easy-ish swap as well as room to grow in the future and having room in my engine bay was something I preferred. I wasn't too picky about when the power would be delivered and my budget is fairly large(although still untapped) so a BPT was teh best solution to me.

Give us some more insight in what you want and we can weigh the pros and cons, squabble a bit, then you can figure out what is the best for you.

[iRobsta]

Thanks a lot for the information guys.
To answer your question Rob (my name is Robert as well ahaha) I'm not even 100% sure what I want.
What I THINK I want is a car that does a good 1/4 mile time, a sleeper to a tee. Someone that can lay down power quick and thats very fun to drive and handles like a dream. Consider I go to a automotive school, I'm surround by nothing but tuner cars as this is what seems to be happening to my generation. No more big v8, tons of 4 banger turbos, old supra's, swap b20 acruas. I want to be able to compete as we have a strip that we drag down as well one in a while. Swapping in an engine would be a very fun project for me, but I'm just in love with turbo's and one day I would love to tackle that project on my car.

So I know the BPT is a 4 cylinder vs the v6 but wouldn't the v6 in the end make more power turbo'd? It's what confuses me. I saw 1/4 mile times and the BPT seems to do better than the v6, I'm not sure how it compares in the 0 - 60 though. HP wise I'd love to hit somewhere between 200 - 250 HP. Engine bay room would be ideal but it's not a deal breaker.

I have a k8 now, its fun and its got a nice feedback but it's hella slow.

The budget isn't to massive, its going to be all done between now and next summer as being a student is difficult to save aha. Also why the turbo'ing of the engine will be a later project.

[RobMinhas]

Since you want to go boost that pretty much discounts the KL-ZE. You can toss in a KL-DE or KLG4 and boost that, which is generally the road taken in the v6 turbo mx3 world. Some guys like to swap in different components from each one(ZE heads, G4 solid lifters and crankshaft, DE block, KLG4 intake manifold, etc) and then they'll use MIllenia S rods(stronger then KL ones). The benefit to doing this is you can set up your entire turbo system on your K8 first to make sure it works how you like, then with the K8 dies you can swap in the KL engine. Everything will fit between them such as exhaust manifolds, wiring harness, engine mounts, intercooler plumbing, vacuum line setups, etc.

Downside is it will cost a decent amount and all Mazda K series engines like to have distys s--- out and have automatic timing tensioners die, as well as this one of the main bearings can sometimes go under boost. The disty problem can be avoided if you go with coil packs(which the KL-G4 engine comes with) and the tensioner can be replaced with an aftermarket King6 one or making a custom one yourself that won't fail. You will need to purchase some kind of engine management system as there is no OEM variant that will work wit the boost, you can buy Megasquirt PlugNPlay systems for 500 or so bucks.

This sort of build can cost a decent amount and you will eventually chew through transmissions which luckily are pretty available in your area.

A benefit of this is that if you run any KL engine N/A with supporting mods(lightened flywheel, reground cams, proper exhaust system, etc) you'll be making some decent low end torque so you can have a quick car before even going boost. You'll be making more torque then your buddy's honda so you can keep up there although pretty much anything with boost will be quicker then you. You'll be getting cose to 170hp/160tq NA and can go up to 250WHP with like 12 lbs boost, a properly sized turbo and a good tune.

OR

You can go BPT. The swap won't be as basic, you'll need an engien harness, engine, trans, axles, shift linkage and a few other odds and ends. Pretty much a donor car would be pretty helpful. YOu can just grab a factory BP and boost it to 8 lbs and make 200ish hp reliably for a while, there are guys who take factory BPs and run them to 12+lbs and have them not blow up for a long time. You can just put in some better rods and boost fairly high with no trouble. Bps aren't quite as common as KLs but you can usually grab a complete BP26 engine(plus AWD trans) from an importer for 1200-1500. Get a bp26 ecu and FWD transmission and you're good to go.

Genereally speaking a 250whp build would be cheaper in a bpt but if you do it right the costs can be closer to a KL build.

An N/A bp is about as fast as a K8, so nothing really impressive there but it can be made really quick on a budget if you boost it, theres available aftermarket support for the engine thanks to Miatas sharing the BP and there are a lot of BPT folks over at clubprotege.com. Another benifet is you can can use all OEM parts to build it due to the BP coming boosted, meaning that if you don't want to use a standalone or ebay turbo manifolds you can just use OEM ones. Bps are also pretty damn simple to work on and give you heaps of engien space to work with.

OR

YOu can swap in an FE3 motor. IT's a 2.0L engine that was made by Mazda for Kia but is difficult to find. It can be mated to Mazdas H series transmission which is pretty much Mazdas strongest transmission ever and comes in MX-6s, 626s and Probes with f series engines(f2, f2t). There is only one fe3 I know of thats in an MX-3 and that's Scott AKA Pile_of_rd1 and he's running and FE3 head with an f2t block. Would give you some decent N/A power and torque before the turbo kicks as it already makes DE ish power N/A. Would need to do custom work, would be tougher because of how rare the engine is.

[Daninski]

Jesus, must be nice to have the time to write down such a long winded reply Rob as good as it was tho.

If you want dependability stick with stock ie stock KLZE, KLDE, G$ er I mean 4, lol These cars are like 20 years old, things have changed and newer car engines produce more power now and the cars are usually lighter. A good stock ZE (DE retainers) can really move the car along. I find my car fun to drive and it's acceleration is respectable with the ZE but I also know there's cars out there that are a lot faster, like my WRX so. Why not build the car with dependability and fun in mine? My 5 cents.

[Josh]

YOu can swap in an FE3 motor. IT's a 2.0L engine that was made by Mazda for Kia but is difficult to find. It can be mated to Mazdas H series transmission which is pretty much Mazdas strongest transmission ever and comes in MX-6s, 626s and Probes with f series engines(f2, f2t). There is only one fe3 I know of thats in an MX-3 and that's Scott AKA Pile_of_rd1 and he's running and FE3 head with an f2t block. Would give you some decent N/A power and torque before the turbo kicks as it already makes DE ish power N/A. Would need to do custom work, would be tougher because of how rare the engine is.

IMO: if I were to do it all over again, from scratch, with either my GS or AWD RS I would go with an FE. When you start to look into them there are several variants. The one you want is known as the FEDOHC or FE3. The J-spec Aus spec of this motor produced KLDE power 160-170 ish crank hp. This engine will mate up to a KL trans. So, in turn, you would have minimal fabrication and or swapping to do minus really the passenger mount. For us US/America guys the only car that this engine came in is the Kia Sportage and is RWD, but it can be made FWD. The only downside to the Kia motor is the huge cast crank Kia used vs the forged crank Mazda used. It also has more bolts on the flywheel. Many will swap the crank rods and pistons for the F2T bottom end. This creates a 2.2L stroker. There have been several MX-3's over the years with this swap or variants of it. The FEdohc is known for being able to boost it on factory internals up to almost 700hp.

I think Rob is being a little light on the BP limitations. I know several over the years who have boosted factory internals to that of the mid 300's, but for a nice daily 220 to 250 is easily attainable. with under 14psi of boost. I ran 14psi on DD n/a block for years, very few issues ever. If I were to go this route, I would find a Kia Sophea to pull the engine and trans from, that way you can keep your k8 axles. And a 92-93 mx3 engine bay harness is all you will need to plug and play an ECU.

[RobMinhas]

Dan, I may or may not have homework I was avoiding doing...

And Josh just going off if what is the general talk, there are so many stories of guys running 12 lbs all day and night for 200,000+kms with no issues and there are guys pushing 300+hp on stock transmissions and blocks with no trouble. Just seems like everyone aims lower when talking about BP capabilities.

[Josh]

Dan, I may or may not have homework I was avoiding doing...

And Josh just going off if what is the general talk, there are so many stories of guys running 12 lbs all day and night for 200,000+kms with no issues and there are guys pushing 300+hp on stock transmissions and blocks with no trouble. Just seems like everyone aims lower when talking about BP capabilities.

That sir is true.