Solomiata Interchange FE3 motor. By Randy Stocker. NOTE. This page is mostly just a stream of consciousness and copied text from the flood of emails I get. The 1. 98. 8 1. 99. Mazda 6. 26i 1. 6V used a 1. V DOHC version of the venerable 2. FE SOHC motor called the FE3. It was only offered in Europe and Japan and never came to the States. It was also offered in AWD. I first learned of the FE3 from Mazda Master Tech Alan Johnson. Back in 1. 99. 6 he made an innocuous and in passing comment to me while I was getting my Miata serviced by him you need to look at the Sportage engine, as if he was telling me the guarded secret to eternal life. I pondered this statement for 4 years until one day I was at a local Mazda salvage yard and spotted what I thought was the elusive grey market FE3 engine. The rest is history. The FE3 engine is actually called the FE DOHC within Mazda but the part number nomenclature begins with FE3. N so most people just refer to it as the FE3. The FE3 is an interesting engine. By the early 8. 0s Mazda had already developed a diesel engine variant from the FE family. The only major change to the FE design for use in the diesel was to change the block casting to add more oil return passages says a lot about the duty strenth of the F engine family and to go to an 8 bolt flywheel flange onthe crankshaft. By the time the mid 8. DOHC heads on engines so Mazda basically raided the parts bin and used a slighly updated version of the RF diesel block and added an aluminum DOHC head of very similar design to the existing B series DOHC head. Since the FE3 motor was never imported into the States in any Mazda vehicle the only source, other than importing, is the 9. Kia Sportage. The 9. Kia. version is the same except it is detuned with less compression ratio, ECU tuning and manifolds designed for torque. The DOHC head is the real centerpiece of this motor. Its design is almost identical to the DOHC B heads except for everthing being larger. The ports are much larger than 1. The stock FE3 head flows 2. The factory redline is 7. Miata. Documented flow rates as you can see the combusiton chamber is identical to a B DOHC. The valves are larger than a 1. The crank and block are substantially beefier with larger journals, rods 2. Click to enlarge. As you can see the FE3 FWD intake manifold gasket is nearly identical to the F2 1. V gasket. It looks like a port blend using a massive gasket match and a few mounting holes drilled in the flange will do it. Note how much larger the FE3 ports are. V DOHC intake manifold flange. FE3 exhaust manifold. Actually a nice design. Too bad it is heavy cast iron. Different shots of the 1. Adobe Dreamweaver For Mac Crack Software. V DOHC VICS intake manifold. The FE3 block is the same design as the vernerable FE 2. F2 2. 2 as found in the 8. MX6 and the 8. 8 9. Probe. This block has 1. The primary difference that makes the FE3 and FEF2 blocks non interchangable is the oil return passages. FE3 top, FEF2 bottom. As you can see from the pic the FEF2 have basically one large center oil return passage separated by a divider while the FE3 has three separate oil return passages. If one were to attempt to put a FE3 head on a FEF2 block you would have to block two of the oil return holes in the head which may lead to oil pooling and possible leaking past the valve seals. Note, the 2. 0 diesel, RF is based on the FE design but has nearly the same block as the FE3 and possibly a forged crank although an 8 bolt flywheel flange. Also be aware the 2. S2 is an entirely different engine design and its crank will not fit the FEF2 family of blocks BTDT got the t shirt. The FE and F2 SOHC heads use a closed combusion chamber. The pictons are correspondingly dished. The FE3 DOHC used an open combusiotn chamber and the pistons are classically domed. The DOHC would not be easy to adapt o the SOHC block. Two of the three oil passgages dont align and since the SOHC uses a closed chamber head with dished pistons then using the open chamber DOHC head will lower your CR a lot something like 3 pts. Custom pistons are likely to be part of the recipe. The head gasket is the 1. B6. P material. Left is a 8. V 2. 2 F2 NA. Huge dish. Four valve reliefs because the piston can be reversed. Middle is 1. 2V 2. F2 NA. Not as deep of a dish but still too much for DOHC head. Right is obviously the 2. V with a slight dome. The 2. 2 F2 block is 1. FE block. This height difference is made from the 8mm additional stroke 8. The crank journal and main diameters are identical. The cam belt from the FE3 will not fit a 2. You would have to source your own from some other application. A 2. 2 crank will fit in a 2. There is only 7mm from the top ring groove to the top of the piston, even leaving say 3mm for integrity leaves only 4mm from shaving the top of the piston. You would have to find an additional 4mm which leaves custom pistons with wrist pin height relocated oil control ring groove height to accomidate as the only source. A DOHC Toyata Supra belt can be used to make up the taller enngine height. Other pistons I will look at are the 3. V6 from the 9. 29 and MPV that came with the same 8. FE 2. 0, and it was DOHC from 9. DOHC pistons the SOHC are heavily dished. Havent seen the rod length or journal diameter yet so that is next to read. The new 2. 4 Quad 4 and Honda H2. H2. 3 pistons look promising too. The Kia FE3 also uses the 8 flywheel flange pattern of the RF diesel. If I kept the engine at 2. I would either have to use the Sportage flywheel or install a genuine Mazda flywheel with the standard 6 bolt flywheel. There does not seem to be any 2. Every 2. 2 I opened up for had pictured taken of had a cast crank. Im not too particularly worried about it as Im not aware of anyone ever having crankshaft problems with a 2. The 2. 0 does seem to have rare forged cranks identifed in the classic manner of a thick mold line vs a thin casting line. They came on either the 9. FE3s non cat, 1. CR, aluminum oil pan or the RF diesel. The diesel has an 8 bolt flywheel and the later high output FE3 is rare. I have only seen three forged 2. The FE3 engine I located is going to get a stroke and bore job to 2. Miata using a B2. B2. 20. 0 transmission bellhousing case. Below is the log of the project started in the summer of 2. UPDATE 1. 050. 0Purchased a 1. Mazda FE3 from a local salvage yard. It was from a AWD so it has the aluminum pan and forged crank. I just finished pouring over the 9. Kia Sportage shop manuals I just acquired. Looks like the remaining parts I need can be had from the Kia FE3 motor primarily coolant plumbing like the intake pipesmanifolds, thermostate housing and the corresponding cam sprocket cover. The genuine Mazda FE3 does not have this front thermostat housing so the Sportage items need to be transfered. Interestingly, the Kia version uses coil on plugs and not a separate coil assembly. The cam angle senor drive on the exhasut camshaft is different so I might have to use a crank trigger style wheel or swap to a genuine Mazda FE3 exhgaust cam. With the real Mazda FE3 enigne you could use a good ol fashion CAS. The Kia exhaust cam also a round dowl pin style drive so it will be incompatable with a Miata CAS. A Genuine Mazda FE3 exhaust cam will need to be sourced to Drive the Miata CAS. Also, I noted the cams specs in the Sportage manual are the same as the 9. Mazda FE3. BTDC 1. ABDC 5. 5, BBDC 5. ATDC 1. 0, 4. 5. 0. I can only assume then that the 1. Kia is only held back primarily by the exhaust manifolddownpipe and the ECU tuning.