KL-DE swap questions...

mx32nerDOTcom · Post by **mx32nerDOTcom** » October 5th, 2005, 11:44 pm

Does anyone have any tips or any helpful information on doing a 2.5L KLDE swap? Any wiring have to be lengthened or anything like that, motor comes in tomorrow, and I'll have pics of everything I do on mx32ner.com, click garage, then click 2.5L swap...

babyblueMX3 · Post by **babyblueMX3** » October 6th, 2005, 9:17 am

http://www.mx-3.com/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?t=34783
http://www.mx-3.com/swap/

mx32nerDOTcom · Post by **mx32nerDOTcom** » October 6th, 2005, 10:00 am

thanks again babyblue, you're my inspiration in the first place lol...im swapping the 2.5 97 626 motor in my GS, and building the turbo from hell ZE for my SE...I appreciate all of your help...Thanks again

Macen · Post by **Macen** » October 6th, 2005, 10:42 am

Check this one also:
http://www.mx-3.com/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?t=26194

mx32nerDOTcom · Post by **mx32nerDOTcom** » October 6th, 2005, 10:58 am

thanks a lot, very helpful post!

Reaver19 · Post by **Reaver19** » October 6th, 2005, 11:45 am

I did this engine swap to my 93' Mazda Mx-3 GS, literally less than 5 days ago, and I'm fine tuning the engine and everything right now. The only thing I have as far as tips go...Get a booklet that has stickers that are small numbers, label EVERYTHING, hold onto the old engine and keep it very close, reference it and your other paper (write detailed descriptions and locations) as often as you can. Get a peice of paper, wright down all of the numbers with the stickers on them and describe what the part is and where it is physically located on the engine, where it needs to plug into etc. That way, when it comes time to put the new engine in, you have everything labeled and it makes it easier. If possible, get a long table, and as you take things off, put them on the table in the same order you took them off, left to right. Then you just go the opposite way when it comes back to putting it back together. There was one wire that needed to be on the oppostie side of the engine, I forget what it was though. I ended up taking a clothes hanger and straightening it out and pushing it through, under the manifold to the other side where the wire was and pulling the wire back through, which worked, but I ended up taking the manifold off later anyways because I had oil down in where the spark plugs were and needed to change the gasket and get the oil out of there. I'm just saying, before you physically put the engine up, take a look at some wires, and where they need to be, and make sure they are already on the right side of the engine, before you put the engine in. Make sure you have enough space all around the car to work, get the hood and everything out of there. If the exhaust doesn't fit right up to the engine, heat it up in key areas, and bend it, not too much, just enough to get it to fit onto the gasket (should have 3 holes with the bolts in the front one and I forget about the back one) line the back one up first and then line the one up that's close to the grill second. I highly suggest replacing the timing belt while you have the new engine there and out of the car!! You do NOT want to replace this with the engine in, if you could even do it with the engine in i don't know... Safety first always, get the battery out of there, and dispose of all liquids properly and legally. Oh yeah, replace the water pump too. For my engine swap, I replaced all spark plugs(make sure there isn't any oil sitting down in there where the spark plugs are), water pump, timing belt, oil filter, changed the oil, some rubber gasket, can't think of what it's called, valve cover gasket maybe? and a few wires along with 2 other belts. The last thing you want to do is install this engine and have something fail on you a month or two down the road because you didn't spend a few extra $ to get it done right. I will say that after it was all said and done there is 1 small wire that I cannot find where it goes, I have it labeled but there is just no place on the new engine that I can hook it up to. Make sure you get the car jacked up pretty high (our cars are extremely low to the ground, if you hadn't already noticed) and always have some sort of safety set up so that should the jack give out it will land on some wooden blocks or something preventing you or anyone from getting hurt. Make sure when you go to take the engine out your positive you have everything disconnected, especially wires, you do not want to rip anything when taking the engine out. One other thing I did to help, was take quite a few pictures of the old engine still in the car from different angles, and reference when you need to. Get yourself a few pans and put all your nuts and bolts in them, possibly label the pans and put different bolts in different pans. I'm not sure if you can do the swap without taking the halfshafts off or not, but I know that I did for mine, and it seemed to work pretty well, bit of a pain in the arse to get them all hooked back up again, but I suppose it would be better to do that than to try and get it hooked up any other way.

One other thing, is the 2.5" diameter rubber hose that is right where the throttle is on the engine, and it hooks into the new VAF and air filter...on the KLDE it's straight where it comes out of there on our K8, it curves down, go to the junkyard and get a rubber hose, and modify it, i actually found one out of an mx-3 at a junkyard, which was suprisingly the right thing, I still had to modify it a little, but it was easily done. Aside from that, it's pretty straight forward, take your time, and do it one step at a time, check off each thing on your list as you hook it up to the new engine.

Some of this is no brainer stuff you probably already know, but I just figured I'd throw it out there, use it if you want.
As of right now, I still have the K8 ECU in the car, but I do have the KL02 (that's the code that should be on it, even though the engine itself is a KL03) VAF hooked in, just take the old VAF off, and hook it up to your own air filter, right where the old VAF was, easily done. I got my VAF off of probetalk.com for 35$ shipped. Even though I didn't change the ECU, I'm liking how it's running right now, I think I will get the right ECU for it and see if it actually runs any better, but as of right now it seems to be running awesome. Your gonna love how much harder the car pulls

mx32nerDOTcom · Post by **mx32nerDOTcom** » October 6th, 2005, 12:54 pm

Cool info, thanks alot, I'll let you know how it turns out, I already have the ECU, and MAF with the car, paid $400 for everything, motor has 80,000 Miles on it, out of a 97 Mazda 626

mxmaz · Post by **mxmaz** » October 6th, 2005, 1:29 pm

mx32nerDOTcom wrote:Cool info, thanks alot, I'll let you know how it turns out, I already have the ECU, and MAF with the car, paid $400 for everything, motor has 80,000 Miles on it, out of a 97 Mazda 626

The ecu and maf is not from the 97 626 is it?

mx32nerDOTcom · Post by **mx32nerDOTcom** » October 6th, 2005, 2:02 pm

yeah, why not?

mxmaz · Post by **mxmaz** » October 6th, 2005, 2:08 pm

cause your car is obd1 and the 97 is obd2. You need an ecu from a 93 or 94 probe gt, 626 or mx6. The vaf you need will say kl02 on it. When you do the swap, you need to swap all the obd1 sensors from your 1.8 to the 2.5

lakersfan1 · Post by **lakersfan1** » October 6th, 2005, 2:29 pm

mxmaz wrote: you need to swap all the obd1 sensors from your 1.8 to the 2.5

What OBD sensors? All the sensors should be plug'n'play with any 92-97 K series engine.

mx32nerDOTcom · Post by **mx32nerDOTcom** » October 6th, 2005, 2:31 pm

So there's no way to use the ECU from the 97 Mazda 626, with the motor and vaf from the SAME EXACT Car? Im confused...I bought everything from the same car

mxmaz · Post by **mxmaz** » October 6th, 2005, 3:33 pm

lakersfan1 wrote:
mxmaz wrote: you need to swap all the obd1 sensors from your 1.8 to the 2.5
What OBD sensors? All the sensors should be plug'n'play with any 92-97 K series engine.

I realize all sensors are plug and play with any k series engine, but since his set up is obd1 i am pretty sure some of the sensors are different. If all the sensors are the same, then whats the difference between obd1 and obd2? The vaf is one sensor that is surely different.

mxmaz · Post by **mxmaz** » October 6th, 2005, 3:35 pm

mx32nerDOTcom wrote:So there's no way to use the ECU from the 97 Mazda 626, with the motor and vaf from the SAME EXACT Car? Im confused...I bought everything from the same car

Yes but the engine is now going in a different car. You can pick up the ecu and vaf for pretty cheap so dont worry about it. Then sell the maf and ecu you have.

babyblueMX3 · Post by **babyblueMX3** » October 6th, 2005, 3:53 pm

you could keep all the stuff yuo got but you would have to get the obd2 wiring harness., if not get the obd1 ecu.