Mazda f2 8v, some guidance and info please.

Depends on the definition of good price. Figure $300-$500 used. Or there's china knockoffs for under $300 new on Ebay.

Used looks to be basically non existent in Australia.. Even new knock offs are pretty slim pickings. To4e and gt35 seem to be pretty readily available. I can also get r33 skyline turbos quite cheap, t3 flange and similar size to a t28.

I have an Ebay (seller CXRacing) T3/T4 .60 A/R on my F2/F2T Hybrid. When it was on the F2T it started really pulling from 5psi ~3200 up. I hacked up a Honda B-Series 2.5" Downpipe with a V-Band and it was pretty easy to do. Haven't got to try it on the Hybrid F2T with F2 Pistons, Slightly bumped compression should lower the lag... After the $2015 Challenge I'll look into a real Garrett T3/Holset.

I'll personally vouch for SWO's CT-26 car being ridiculously fast (especially considering the problems that popped up at the $2012 Challenge). Inspired me to get my MX-3 lined out as he blew me away on the drags!

"Ridiculous" was probably the best description for the car at that point. Knowing what I know now, that thing had no business being 50 miles away from home, let alone 1000 miles on its own power.

Should come back another 100-150whp stronger this time.

Low boost, blown turbo, blown headgasket, huge exhaust leaks. 8 seconds 30-100.

http://youtu.be/i8Pgea50SsE

Lol My car had numerous issues (Mainly Choking out at 4500rpm) Should be a major improvement over the previous showing!

Nice looking setup Dan, I'm certainly considering China spec, I'll just have to do my homework and make sure I find a decent one.

That said, the Nissan skyline turbos could be a good option with a couple of small mods, namely a new turbine wheel witch in STD form is ceramic which seems to self distruct above 12-14 psi.

I'm just glad these motors seem to take suxh abuse so well, it should make building a reliable daily driver engine much easier.

The Skyline turbos are quite small.... how much power were you looking for?

R33 gtst turbos from the rb25det aren't that small. They have a t3 exhaust housing ar50 and an ar60 compressor pretty similar in size to dans t3/t4. Theyre Good for about 300hp in stock form. Also apparently a ball bearing core, which is a nice feature...

Personally, I'm not looking for massive numbers, I don't see it being practical for a DD. I'm looking at around 200-230 rwhp but ultimately it'll come down to how it drives as to whether I'll look for more or less. Remember its a truck this motor will be in, even its stock 84hp can be a hand full in the wet so 400 HP would be silly.... Albeit probably more fun than one man should ever have.

Ideally though, if I can, I'll run it with a DD tune at lower psi and more conservative timing, fuel etc and have a fun tune with more boost and more aggressive tuning for those times that I want to drive the ass off it.

You'll spool that turbo at like... idle. It'll do 200-230rwhp, but i can't say it'll be a very smooth 200-230rwhp with a turbo that small.

Fair enough, I'm still looking at what turbo to get, it was just one that seemed like it might do the trick and is readily and cheaply available. Id like to start spooling at 18-2200 and be on full boost by 28-3400. I'll be happy if I can hit peak power by 5200-5800 and could care less if the turbo runs out of huff by 62-6300 can't say I've got any desire to rev this particular engine to anything past 6500 and realistically it'll rarely be going past 6.

Oh. Well... that turbo should do full boost before 2500rpm. So... that sound good?

I can build 30psi by just after 3000rpms on my ct26. It's... brutal.

My train of thought is it makes good power in the range I'm looking for on a slightly larger engine. Being t3 flanged means changing it out for something different won't be to much trauma if I decide it's not doing what I want. I figure I can start with that at 8psi and see how it drives and what kind of power it makes and progress from there. Kinda hard to argue with a sub 200 dollar price tag including warranty.

30psi! Man, making this engine into a solid daily should be a snap.

daeman wrote: And that's the main reason for wanting to use the fet head, no hla's, and alleged sodium filled exhaust valves... Plus who else has done it? So why not me.

Audi 10v guys ditch the factory sodium valves because they come apart at high EGTs. Plus they are huge and kill flow.

They may be just fine at low power levels, but one guy noted that at a certain level of boost there was a five degree window of ignition timing between engine-wrecking detonation and valve-wrecking EGT.

I don't think i've ever seen anyone kill a valve due to EGTs on an F2. That said, nobody really makes the sort of power that the Audi 5 banger dudes do.

The 10v guys seem to crap out at 220hp or so. Put EFI on it and you can get up to 250 por so HP.

I mentioned to my employer that I was shooting for the highest horsepower 10v in North America. He thought that was a silly idea and that chasing power goals is an exercise in hemhorraging money and time. (We should know, it's rather the thing that keeps our lights on ) I had to carefully explain that this was trying to be a moderately sized fish in a very small pond. The current record is something silly low like 360whp and that was with very questionable tuning choices.

When the price of getting rid of the distributor (a major power block once you get into decent cylinder pressures - crossfire is a bitch and standalones that do 5cyl COP are not common) costs more than buying a 20 valve engine that will easily make more power than the 10v ever will, it's easy to see why 10V is power is such a small pond.

That and the really, really, really crappy options for exhaust manifolding.

Thanks for the head up knurled. I did say alleged, as I'm yet to find any concrete proof of them being sodium filled. I'll be looking at the valves from an na f2 in comparison to the fet to see if there's any difference in size, shape or otherwise... Hopefully there's casting numbers or something on them.

That said, surely you shouldn't see excessive egt's with the right sized turbine and exhaust coupled with A good tune.?

Also, why not look at getting a flange cut to suit the 5 cyl and make a better manifold? If the factory one is so limiting.

On that topic, has anyone found the upper limits of what the get/f2t turbo manifold can do/withstand?

Oh, and while I'm spitballing ideas. Has anyone done much exploration as to what the g6 Mazda engine can do? I only ask because buying a complete b2600 may be the cheapest and easiest way to get a suitable gearbox, tail shaft and diff. Meaning I'd have a spare g6 engine to sell or possibly build up.

I know g6 head/head gasket failure is pretty common, so I'm guessing thatll be the major limiter in any g6 build up.

In reply to daeman:

The EGT issue is because the chamber design is not so good. It's more detonation-prone and slower burning than the 4v chamber, so the ignition timing leaves much to be desired. Moving air is all well and good but you have to do something with it once it's in the engine.

Manifold situation sucks because of space. Counterflow engine, mounted offset and leaned to one side so the radiator can sit next to it, and the manifolding is on the side that is nudging the strut tower. There's simply no room over there to fit a manifold and downpipe between the cylinder head, strut tower, engine mount, and intake manifold. (Which is another point in favor of the 20vs... no intake manifold in the way)

I know this is OT but these are also limitations that you may not need concern yourself with if you can avoid them.

daeman wrote: Thanks for the head up knurled. I did say alleged, as I'm yet to find any concrete proof of them being sodium filled. I'll be looking at the valves from an na f2 in comparison to the fet to see if there's any difference in size, shape or otherwise... Hopefully there's casting numbers or something on them. That said, surely you shouldn't see excessive egt's with the right sized turbine and exhaust coupled with A good tune.? Also, why not look at getting a flange cut to suit the 5 cyl and make a better manifold? If the factory one is so limiting. On that topic, has anyone found the upper limits of what the get/f2t turbo manifold can do/withstand?

The stock F2T turbo manifold has been north of 400whp. I wouldn't expect anything to do with the motor or manifolds to hamper your goal.

Thanks knurled, I just learnt a lot about an engine I was totally unfamiliar with, certainly explains why its a small pond your dealing with.

I'd say those issues shouldn't come into play to much with the fe/f2 8 valve. The 8 valve head actually has larger exhaust valves than the 12 valve and given that get doesn't seem to be a major issue for the 12v guys, I'd expect the 8 valve will make it even less of an issue. I'll still be checking between two turbo and non turbo head and valves to see what I find. Info on the 8v engines is a lot scarcer than the 12v

SFO, glad to hear the stock cast manifold can go so far. I'll be studding the head, bracing the turbo and adapter and possibly look at improving how the adapter fastens to the manifold outlet as I've heard of a few cases of bolts stripping out from there... Though I suspect in those cases it was probably due to a large turbo not being correctly braced and as such putting excessive load on threads.

I'm really glad I stumbled onto this forum, it seems a lot of folks here are happy to think outside of the box and also happy to share their knowledge with others for benefit of the rest if the community. I really appreciate anyone who's taken time to contribute to this thread. It's taken an idea that I thought may have been a pipe dream and shown me that not only should it be possible, but that I'm probably being rather conservative with my aims.

Well... yes, improper bracing and yes, the stock studs are probably undersized. I haven't broken one, though. I drilled and tapped mndsm's head for M10x1.5 studs, however. Just to be bulletproof.

I don't see any reason why a G6 wouldn't be reliable at 200-250whp either.

Weird, i thought for some reason the 8v f engines were counterflow.

Boost that melon farmer!

G6 is more a passing thought than something i really want to do.

Knurled, even the Fe's predecessor the ma from the late 70's early 80s is crossflow.

Now the holiday season is done with I'm hoping to get some time to start getting into tearing my engines apart. Happy newyear

Disregarding lift and duration here...Some interesting tidbits:

F2 has 9% more intake valve total circumference vs. the FE.

FE has 12% more exhaust valve total circumference vs. the 12v F2.

2200 (12v F2) / 2000(FE) is 1.10

So if you look at the sum of all intake valve circumference vs. displacement, the 12v F2's additional valves are not enough to keep that relationship as "good" as the FE's was with its measly 8 valves.

The story is worse when you look at the exhaust side. The relationship of total exhaust valve circumference to displacement on the 12v F2 is 19% worse than what the FE has.

I wonder how the ports compare...Perhaps the FE has greater porting potential than the F2 12v head. Maybe the FE has been the hot ticket all along.

Great info James, certainly seems the 8v head has a bit going for it. The only thing I'm not liking is the combustion chamber shape, its very kidney like and shrouds the exhaust from the inlet a little. I'm pretty sure that I can probably smooth that back a bit.

Port wise, the exhaust ports will be very similar to the 12v. Inlet is somewhat of an unknown to me for the time being.

There's some pics of a sectioned 12v head over on mx6.com, it gives a bit of insight into the fe head construction, though I wouldn't mind sectioning an 8v head if I get an opportunity.