So, I love my Green FC to death... 470whp..pure animal. Street ported S4, Quick spool, V-mount... its great... I'd drive it every day.... until it comes to fuel... 10mpg doesnt work with a 40+ mile commute. And with 260,000 miles on my work beater, its time to let it go.

Being a nerd watching youtube vids drinking beer and feeling nostalgic, I decided to watch some videos of what started me into cars when I was 16... ford probes...hahaahahah. In true youtube succession, it went from my old 2nd gen turbo 2.0 probe se to my buddys FE3 1st gen that i built, to FE3 Swapped Miatas, and i got an idea...aaand this is where it all goes down hill.

Fuel Economy (sort of), 350whp~ish, in a FC? I'm in... so I started researching, and doing the usual "what if" internet searching.... its funny how many old threads you can stumble upon that you commented on, or wrote that are almost 10yrs old... I'm getting fuggin old! Then I came up with a gameplan.

1- Source a car.... I put out a WTB in the FS section and found up a lightly modded (coilovers, cat-back, some gauges, ect) 88 TurboII with 69k on it for $1600 (without a Motor/WireHarness/ECU) Still had the Trans though.

(the primered car next to it is a VQ35 swapped Datsun 260z in progress)

2-I remember back in the day reading about a Bakkie truck doing like 8's in the 1/4 or something nuts, and remembering he used a Mazda trans.... The hunt began... Found a Trans from an old JDM Currier truck that was a 5speed on the column, had an FE3 in it, and was the correct R style (TII style)! Cheap as hell too $145!.... So in one day I drove from the northern tip of NJ to the southern tip of NJ to get the car and the trans. Me and my GF made a day of it... Stopped at Rutt's Hutt for some world famous deep fried Hot dogs... holy **** they were awesome.


3-Went to a local Junk "U-Pull-It" junk yard one Saturday moring... all Hung over, and had to walk about 3 miles through rows of delapidated piles **** searching for some 5speed Kia Sportages (RWD variant of the FE3) that I had seen a couple weeks before... the Junkyard must go through cars like underwear, because there were 4 one week, and only 1 when i came to claim one.... Spun it over by hand, felt good, pulled the timing cover, timing marks were ligned up.. Good to go... I was going to pull it myself, but I felt like total ***, so I paid the extra $30 and had them pull it. $200 Pulled, in the back of the truck and on my way. It came with 90% of the factory wiring too since the Redneck Hill-Jack Butchers that pulled the motor only know how to use a torch, Bolt cutters and a Hammer. It works for me! the car is gets a Haltech PS1000 anyway.
(no pic... looked like every other shitty junkyard motor)

4-Sell my Crotch Rocket and Make a List of Toys to buy! This is the fun part... 2 weeks of straight Christmas hahaha. Parts came in and got piled in the trunk of the car.


Now the Building starts.... Tore the motor down, Cleaned, Honed, Lapped, Re-Sealed.





Cometic Copper and ARP studs.


I have a ton more progress already, but need more time to post.... going to work on the car now...

 

good job buddy been thinking about this for ages, a Mazda B2200 Trans will bolt up to the FE3 But it shares all its components with the N/a Rx7 trans

I feel the same way about gas mileage And I can bear to give up my car because of it, I have half a mind to do an FE3 swap but parts are scarce (aftermarket stuff) and there isnt enough of a knowledge base of this particular motor for me to do it.

For me I'm picking up A Honda K24 from an Accord but would prefer a TSX motor, Ill make my 260 whp n/a get an awesome flat torque curve and 30 mpg, the motors are a dime a dozen and enough parts out there to build it on the cheap

 

MAKING THE TRANS WORK... I could bolt the Bell for the FE3 directly to the RX7 trans, but there are a couple of differences.... first, there are 3 extra bolts holding the FE bell to the gear box...no biggie, you could leave them out and not have any sealing issues... the major issue is the Input shaft length. A quick rough measurement shows the Currier Pickup trans that came with the FE3 has an input shaft is about half an inch (20mm) longer than the TurboII trans. The bell is also deeper. If you just flip-flop the Bell Housings, you'll only get about half the splines grabbing the Friction Disc...and according to a Miata guy who has an FE swap, only 2mm of the shaft would ride the Pilot Bearing.

To remedy this, I'm going to pull both boxes apart and put the Input shaft from the Currier into the TurboII tranny and keep all the TII gears/synchros. Haven't done that yet, so we will come back to it.


Currier Trans Input shaft length


T2 FC Input shaft


Pickup trans top, FC trans Bottom


FE3 vs 13B bell


THEN there was the intake manifold.... the FE3 out of a Sportage comes over the valve cover and is real tall with this odd dual butterfly TB.... It wont clear the RX7 hood by any means. So we gets to cuttin'.


Chopped Sportage Intake manifold


some 4inch half round extrusion... a 1-3/4 hole saw, some math and.....


I'm using a Ford GT40 60mm TB with a Ford IAC
Just need to Take it to get it TIG'd when I can get off of work early enough.


Finish fitted the pieces with a Medium Half round file. It only took about 40mins of jerking around to get it snug.

 

Oh, got the timing stuff in the motor too... and put some color on the valve cover (the Sportages were raw aluminum)

I still have to shoot the clear on the VC



The blue doesn't pop till you put the clear on it... ill have to get some pics once I clear it.

 

Thanks man..

I saw a K24 in one of the Meagan AE86 Corrolas at Formula D.... it was a kick *** car, then he bit the wall.

That will Def. be a fun car.

 

looks like you got a good start on your car! pretty kick *** did you throw some pistons in there? I know the awd 626 fe3 some of them came with forged cranks but im not sure about the sportage?

I ve seen a K24 in an S2000 lol he had the shitty accord head with pistons, cams and a tune and made more torque than the original s2 motor and way more hp, S2000 swaps in Ae86s are getting pretty common up here in my area pretty sweet

 

this is a cool little project you've got going here. i particularly like the work you're doing with swapping the transmission parts, but i think the work of art so far is the intake manifold. you make it look easy!

i eagerly wait to see it all finished.

 

Got a bunch done in the past week.... mainly fighting the JDM trans apart....

I tried Pullers, Clamshells, presses, Hammers and wood... and for the life of me could not get the Inputshaft and front Countershaft Bearings off the Shafts... a total nightmare and I was full of Frustration.... I was literally about to throw the trans through the windshield of the car and scrap it... then, in a stroke of genius...or just a lack of anger for a moment, my buddy suggested an Air Hammer.... Why the hell didnt I think of that before??? After 3 days of Fail, the Air Hammer knocked the bearings off the shafts in literally 10 seconds...and the rest of the trans was apart about 30 seconds after that.... heh

Made the Wiring harness for the Haltech... No pics of that, just looks like a loom of wires..the wiring is one of my favorite parts of a build.

Then the Exhaust manifold. This is another favorite of mine. Cutting and welding..Hellz yeah.
I went with a Log style manifold because well, it was cheap, simple, and gets the job done. Plus the short runners will spool quicker, and with making ~350hp and being a daily driver, I could really care less about any gains of a tube mani vs. a log.








Finished

 

Cool stuff man! Digging the mix of fab and junk work, it's looking snazzy and definitely unique.

 

This is a pretty cool build. Nice work.

 

Dude that's awesme great motor and your making it seem effortless

 

Well, I pulled the trans that was in the Black FC apart... It definitely wasn't the Unit the car came with. By the looks of the Shift forks and blocker rings, if it were the original one with 69k on it, the dude who drove it would have had to be flat shifting and holding his hand on the shifter pulling on the gears all the time. The shift forks had, no lie, at leas .75mm of wear on them making a razor sharp edge at the top that sliced me. and the selector pedals on the ends of the shift rods have grooves worn in them bad. The slop in the gear set was amazing too. So I had to order a rebuild kit. That trans looks like it has more like 269k on it. I'll have to get some pictures of that. Also, looks like the gear set from the JDM trans is going to have to be used. The Input shaft has 1 tooth less on the drive gear, and the countershaft has 2 more on the 1st driven, so it wont mesh right. I did some Calculations and cam up with this...

1st gear ratio 3.622
2nd gear ratio 2.186
3rd gear ratio 1.419
4th gear ratio 1
5th gear ratio 0.807
Rear gear ratio 3.493

So a smidge shorter 1st, a little shorter second with a closer 1-2 shift, and a steeper 3rd with a little separation in the 2-3, 3-4 shift...but minimal. I'm going to use the S4 TII 5th and reverse leaving me with a good highway gear. I actually did some hunting on Mazdatrix and found that these gear ratios are exactly the same ratios as the 84-85 12a/13b rx7s.. should make for a fun car off the line! Its a shame that they dont use the R style trans though.

Did some wiring on the car...and some more planning.

I wired in the coil wiring and the Ignitor wiring. I'm using the Stock Kia FE Coils. They are a waste spark setup with a COP coil directly on Cyls # 2 and #4 with short plug wires to Cyls #1 and #3. For an Ignitor, I am using a 1st gen DSM/Hyundai 7pin Power Transistor Module. Why? because it was free, and it has a powered Tach Driver the same way a MSD box does. Plus its only half the size of my Iphone and a factory product that I've seen last well over 100k miles.

I'm trying to save as much of the factory wiring as possible since its in real good condition. So with that in mind, I wired the Ignitor into the Harness where the RX7's trailing coils sit. Using 2 of the wires for the Ignition Drivers, I'll control the Ignitor,the two Power wires will power the PTM and the coils, and where the Leading Coils sit, I will be using their power and signal wires to work my Boost control Solenoid...AND power steering. Yup I'm gonna keep the PS... No AC though (for now).

I'm going to have to control the power steering because I'm going to be using a toyota MR2 electric P/S pump with a relay to turn off the pump over 25mph. I'm going to use the speed sensor in the Cluster that normally goes the factory P/S unit and auto trans (if it had one), wired into the Haltech and just use an extra DPO to work the relay.

Pretty Much the Driver side harness that runs through the entire car will be kept, wires re-pinned and reused to perform other tasks. The engine harness is completely new wires/connectors to the ECU.

Once i get this trans figured out/repaired and put back together, I can mate the Trans to the Engine plop it in and Fab the mounts.

 

any progress on this?
i have been gathering all the parts to do this to my FD and now i just need to finish the intake mani buy the Megasquirt, put the engine back together, and fit the engine in the chassis.
cant wait to see this thing done!
good job, keep up the good work.

 

this is something you do not see everyday
, but as a teaser, my 300 rwhp turbo FC is cheaper to operate than my 8 valve f2 2.2L courier ute
the courier takes 91 RON unleaded
,, the daily user FC turbo takes 104 RON LPG gas ( which in aus is at half the cost of the ULP )

clean, cheap, powerful, reliable, rotary
choose all five

 

i want updates!!!

 

+1 on Updates...

 

Still waiting

 

waiting as well.

 

This is awesome! It makes me want to do this. Would a 2.2 SOHC 4cyl out of a 90 626 bolt to a 87 n/a s4 trans???

 

long story short yes, basically the F2 (2.2) out of a 626 is the same as the FE3 (2.0) the major differences are the head and internals (F2 not forged/FE3 forged from factory). they share the same engine mounts and bell housing too.

i know this because after my 2nd rotary washed on me i am going with the FE3 in my 94 FD until i can fully re-build a street ported 13b. since i have the FE3 already laying around i figured why not.

 

he parted it out. he sold most of everything on mx6.com like a month ago.

 

Well that is sad, I had high hopes for this build...

 

Finally, It took me forever to get enough posts.

My build is about the same as this one because I have an f2t from a mx6/626.

I was hoping to see what others had done as mine is at a stand still for now. if anyone is interested here is my build thread on mx6.com

MX-7 build Reborn! - Mazda MX6 Forums: MX6 Forum

There are many who have attempted this build but very few who have completed it and none that i know of that are documented, mainly rumors.

best of luck I wish i could talk to the OP

 

Dark,
Cant wait to see your project completed (or at least updates.)
Just thought id help with some motivation