This isn't a question, so relax. I just thought everyone who is planning on using a 12A front cover for their 13BT swap should know... the 13B water pump must be ground down. It physically wont fit until you take it to a bench grinder and make it fit. I suppose you could use the 12A pump(you'll have to check on that) but mine was shot to ****, so i just decided to take the bench grinder and the dremmel to the 13b one. It wasn't that big of a deal, I was just caught off guard by it. It hadnt turned up in any of the research I had done on the swap.

So this goes out to all non -SE swap debaters, there is an extra step out there, so have a bench grinder and a dremmel handy and dont get caught off guard like I did!

Hmmm, I guess I lied, I do have a question, has anyone else that has done this swap had this problem? If so, did u take care of it the same way I did?

 

I recently put a 12A front cover on a 20B for an NA swap into an older car. I'm also using a 13B waterpump and will most likely have some time to fit it tomorrow. So far from test fitting it, I have not seen any reason to need to grind anything on it.

Wait, were you talking about the waterpump itself? Or the whole thing with aluminum housing and all? My whole thing is from an '87 6 port engine (NA). I could have used a TII unit, but I think the difference is small enough to ignore; especially on an NA setup.

 

Yeah I ran into the same problem. I have the 89 water pump and housing, and a 12a front cover. I ended up having to gring some off of the water pump housing and a little off of the front cover. Works like a charm though!

 

I'll look at clearances between the two very carefully tomorrow. Thanks for the heads up!

 

Jeff-
Yea, the housing, not the actual water pump, i should have cleared that up.

 

Mainly its because of the extra bolt the 13b water pump has. And believe me you have to grind off BOTH the front cover and the water pump housing.

 

I got mine to fit just fine just grinding the water pump...

 

well, that answers a few questions... I figured the 12a front cover would work. BTW- I put a 12a water pump on my 13b. works just fine.

 

I just think it is kind of weird that this has never been mentioned before, it would have been nice to know about it before i put gasket sealent on...

 

the s5 water pump needs the s5 front cover, ive run into this too

mike

 

If you use the front cover from an 85 13b from a gslse do you still need to grind it? Does anyone have any pics of what needs to be grinded?

thanks

 

I am using 12a frontcover on S5 engine with S5 waterpump housing. I had to grind a little on the housing.

 

Anytime I have ever swapped front covers to a different series engine, the waterpump has always had to accompany it. Damn you Mazda! Use the same shapes!

 

Seriouslly, they want to make it as hard as posisble for us, just to **** us off

 

S5's wouldnt be such a pain in the *** if the damn electric OMP didnt stick out so far that the lower pipe on the water pump housing had to be bent differently.

 

Premix is a beautiful thing!

 

12A front cover is the same essentially as the -SE 13B cover. On a S5 engine you will have to grind one or both to get it to fit. Check out the big 13BT swap sticky, it was discussed not too long ago.

 

Yea, i saw that after i posted this, doh! better luck next time i guess

 

My S4 waterpump went on just fine.

 

Yeah but you cant get rid of the OMP on a S5 unless you get an aftermarket ECU. If you do the stock ecu throws the car into "limp mode" I put some premix in there anyway, just to be on the safe side.

 

Correction, Premix & Microtech are beautiful things!

 

I have an S4T & 12a cover no problems here.

 

Yep, its been narrowed down to only the s5 pump gives you a problem, especially if you dont remove the omp

 

Here's a pic of a test-fitting of the S4 pump with an S3 front cover.

 

hey, that is not fair.. why did you get an extra rotor with yours.. i want one