$400 mazda B2000..the mazdeath.

So, randomly scouring the local craigslist and see this fine example of how not to look after a humble work truck, for the princely sum of $400. Ive been looking for a project for a while, I'd planned for something bigger and better but this seemed like a nice random, cheap and cheerful base for shenanigans: RWD, stick shift, relatively light and basic.

The delightful 'minimalistic' interior...

And after some vacuum action, and a seat rebuild/retrim using cable ties, cardboard, duct tape, and 2 $4 harbor freight moving blankets...

If youre not interested in the first few days of wrenching, and want to skip straight to the fun stuff which I've schemed up for the near future, skip to the end, otherwise, pull up a chair and get comfortable.

So I got it towed to a friends shop about 40 minutes away. It had a brand new carb, what looked like a brand new clutch master cylinder, but the clutch was non existent. It was missing a battery and a few pieces of trim, aswell as the busted ignition barrel and wiring loom. The guy I bought it from had a host of paperwork including the lien papers from the auction it was bought at. I'm guessing the barrel was busted at the tow yard or auction house to be able to move the thing. The dipstick was also showing the oil level was about 3/4 of an inch past the maximum.

Saturday rolls round and me and my brother in law, who is somewhat of a mechanical newbie, I'm guiding through the joys of wrenching, we go armed with a new battery, new ignition barrel and loom, 5qts of oil, new distributor cap, rotor arm and leads, and set about making this thing run. He switches the ignition barrel while I do the engine stuff, and then I get under it to drain the oil....turns out that 3/4 inch on the dipstick was the oil being propped up by a couple of qts of water! The oil seemed cleanish though and there was no mayo anywhere so onward we pressed.

With the new bits and pieces on, we turned the brand new ignition key in the brand new ignition barrel and....nadda. A bit of voltage checking here and there and I decided to whip off the starter for a bit of a bench test, and sure enough, it was dead. $41 later and we had a new one, along with a new clutch slave cylinder to replace what I thought was the culprit of the none existent clutch.

We bled and bled and bled the clutch, trying several different methods, but still nothing at the pedal. We gave up on that for the day and tried to get the thing started before we had to leave. Some colorful language and some brake cleaner down the carb and sure enough it did fire up. Ran pretty nicely, no smoke, no rattles, no missfires, good result.

Yesterday I had my day open up so decided to head back and do some more. We bled the clutch a few times again to no avail, and then Justin, my brother in law noticed that the fluid level in the reservoir was rising and falling a lot when I depressed the clutch...turns out the new master cylinder was goosed! Got a new one of those puppies for a little over $20 and shortly after, we had a clutch!

We try and fire the thing up for the 2nd time, and it was not playing ball - no spark. A little wiggling here and there of wires and it coughed into life, albeit sounding way rougher that the first start on Saturday. Nevertheless, I hoped in and took it down the ally way beside the shop and it goes, stops, and turns as well as a 30 year old, $400 heap of turd could be expected. There was a definite missfire which I'm putting down to the very temperamental coil wiring. So that's one of the next jobs. The test drive also highlighted a monsterous fuel leak at the tank, which I'm guessing is the return line, and also a split radiator hose. Jobs for next time.

So, the mildly interesting part. I did a little bit of research on these things before I went to check it out. I know very little about Mazdas other than the Miata (helped a friend strip, build and turbocharge a couple a few years back)and knew utterly nothing about the B2000s. Anyways, turns out, back in the day, Mazda fitted a turbo to this engine, aswell as fuel injection, and at 7psi with no intercooler they made 130+bhp. Much better than the 80 or so that this thing had once upon a time.

So the plan is, get it running and driving properly..... Then take it appart.

Do the necessary modifications to the carb to allow it to take boost. I've found, but not yest purchased one of the original turbo exhaust manifolds from the boosed version of this engine, and plan to fit either a chinese ebay special or a junkyard/swap meet turbo onto it. Front mount intercooler, side exit exhaust, wideband AFR sensor, bleed valve, several spare jets for the carb, some colder plugs, see how much boost it can swallow before it dets, then run about 1psi less than that and a touch less ignition. I have faith that the bottom end will be reasonably strong, and at 8.6:1 compression running a conservative amount of ignition advance and feeding it premium fuel, itll be just fine at 15psi, hopefully closer to 20. I'd love to break 200bhp and have a bit of fun with it.

I suspect the weakest link in the chain will be the clutch, but will cross that bridge when it starts slipping.

I may weld the diff.

It needs new rear springs which are around $150, but I've found a full Miata rear subframe assembly for $350 so I may just end up grafting that onto it.

If anyone has any of the parts such a turbo, bleed valve/manual boost controller, rising rate fuel pressure regulator, electric fuel pump etc etc etc then please let me know and we can do a deal.

Before you go turbo, I'll just leave this here....

Although you've probably already found it if you did some googling on the B2000. Rather than turbo, might be easier to find another B-Series engine for more power.

In high school, they were the most popular truck. Probably because the local dealers would sell them stripped, even removing the bumpers to make them cheaper. Always liked that bodystyle.

Looks like fun!

-Rob

That's a nice colour for that truck. They were pretty popular around my high school as well, always wanted one.

Based on the state of disrepair I wonder if it was owned by a meth addict before.

I believe you need to talk to Swank Force One.

https://grassrootsmotorsports.com/reader-rides/2463/

Yeah, the move here...and I forget the exact formula but it's something like f2t+fc t2 bellhouaing and b2000 trans. The f2t should be a drop in.

Not quite a drop in. You need a Mazda Bongo distributor set up on your F2T otherwise the distributor wants to be inside the firewall.

JamesMcD wrote: Not quite a drop in. You need a Mazda Bongo distributor set up on your F2T otherwise the distributor wants to be inside the firewall.

I felt like I was missing something. It was early. Yeah...that's my excuse.

In reply to rob_lewis:

That's pretty amazing how simple the swap is! I actually thought about a ford v8 swap but never realised it'd be so easy. I figured I could get a late 90s complete donor and transfer everything over, and then hopefully be able to smog it as a mustang and keep it fully legit and legal. Food for thought!

I'm not too into the idea of other mazdas engine swaps just yet. As it stands the v8 would be my first choice of engine, but I guess we'll see what happens as time goes by. I'm sure I can coax enough power out of the stock motor to have some fun and get myself into trouble anyways.

Anyone know what the engine in the Mazda 6 is? As in, is it the same motor as mine or some kind of hybrid motor? It sounded like it only has one cam so I suspect it's an 8v and similar to my motor? I didn't see a boost figure on their either.

In reply to Stumc: Which Mazda 6? The first gen mazda 6 had a 2.3liter 4 cylinder OR a 3.0 Liter V6. Not sure about the second gen. The 3rd gen has a 2.5L skyactive sumthin or other.

Unless, you mean the Mazdaspeed 6, which was a 2.3L turbo. I believe it is mostly the same engine found in the Mazdaspeed 3 as well.

wvumtnbkr wrote: In reply to Stumc: Unless, you mean the Mazdaspeed 6, which was a 2.3L turbo. I believe it is mostly the same engine found in the Mazdaspeed 3 as well.

Virtually identical. Same one in the cx7 too, save a slightly different k04.

Keep in mind the "special" class at the GRM Challenge next year is trucks. Keep it under $2017 and bring it to FL to play.

The F2T should be the bolt in swap we are all talking about here right? Find a First Gen Probe GT or the Mazda 626 GT or Turbo or MX6 GT (or whatever) and turn up the wick. Apparently the short block can handle a ton of boost.

RossD wrote: The F2T should be the bolt in swap we are all talking about here right? Find a First Gen Probe GT or the Mazda 626 GT or Turbo or MX6 GT (or whatever) and turn up the wick. Apparently the short block can handle a ton of boost.

Other than needing to fiddle with the bell on the trans, and the distro think james Mcd said, more or less. I've been dreaming of this swap for a while.

The original engine in the B2000 is based on the same block as the F2T, isn't it? The distributor is good point, but what needs to be done with the bellhousing? Is it just to get the stronger T2 gearbox with the right bellhousing?

I think the ultimate mix of parts on an F2T swap is an F2T from the usual sources, a bellhousing from a B2600 (the kind with a Mazda engine, not the earlier Mitsubishi 2.6) and the transmission from a turbo FC RX-7. I don't know if there are other "easy" transmission options; Turbo II's didn't exactly grow on trees and I wonder how easy those transmissions are to source at this point. There's also the trans out of an FD but I don't know for fact if that'll swap.

It's easy for me to put this out there, because I've not done it, but if I was doing an F2T swap I would look long and hard at dumping the distributor entirely and running EDIS. Hotter spark, more accurate ignition timing, and no distributor trying to occupy the same space as the defroster. It's been suggested that better valve springs, like new replacement B2000 springs, are a good idea for the F2T. I also think an adjustable cam gear would be smart with some dyno time to get right as the stock cam is the same as the NA item and probably not really optimal for the application.

pres589 wrote: I think the ultimate mix of parts on an F2T swap is an F2T from the usual sources, a bellhousing from a B2600 (the kind with a Mazda engine, not the earlier Mitsubishi 2.6) and the transmission from a turbo FC RX-7.

From some primitive internet research: the b2600 mazda trans is the "model R" which is the same transmission as the turbo 2 with a different bellhousing and tailshaft. I'm not sure if the input and output shaft differ as well, but the trans should be similar with different gear ratios. There is also mention of use of this trans in mazda "vans," but I'm not sure where to find.

http://projectzerog.com/rx7transmissions.shtml

daytonaer wrote:

pres589 wrote: I think the ultimate mix of parts on an F2T swap is an F2T from the usual sources, a bellhousing from a B2600 (the kind with a Mazda engine, not the earlier Mitsubishi 2.6) and the transmission from a turbo FC RX-7.

From some primitive internet research: the b2600 mazda trans is the "model R" which is the same transmission as the turbo 2 with a different bellhousing and tailshaft. I'm not sure if the input and output shaft differ as well, but the trans should be similar with different gear ratios. There is also mention of use of this trans in mazda "vans," but I'm not sure where to find. http://projectzerog.com/rx7transmissions.shtml

Thats exactly what I was thinking of.

Rotary?

In reply to pimpm3:

A rotary B-truck is something I have always wanted to see someone do and actually document. I've heard rumblings and seen videos but they always seem like horrible butcher jobs done by people who didn't mind the details.

Sorry for the confusion from my last post, I meant to put the mx6 not Mazda 6, as I was referring to the car in the link that RossD posted.

All this talk of f2ts is beyond me. I'm guessing that's just a later engine, 16v? I read that there are some 16v heads that will mate up to my bottom end, which presumably flow better. Is there any hard evidence of what my bottom end can withstand that anyone knows about?

At the minute I'm not really all that bothered about the engine swap thing. I've never used a carb on turbo'd engine before so that's definitely something I'd like to screw around with.

I believe the engine you have in the B2000 is the FE version of Mazda's F engine and the F2T is the turbocharged, fuel injected, 12 valve version of the engine that shares the same block architecture. There are/were at least two guys on here that were all about the F2T.

Ah yes ok, I remember reading about the 12v heads. So the FET and F2T would be similar bottom end, but 8v vs 12v head.

?

Rotory motors, cool but not my thing I don't think...

The F2 and F2t are a longer stroke flavor of the FE. I believe the block is physically taller. The blocks are pretty similar and swaps are easy at the block side of things. Where it gets funny is things like the 12 valve head on the F2 and F2t.

The F2t has a of upgrades applied to the factory to make it a reliable turbocharged engine. From the factory it comes with a small turbo that really doesn't seem to be that well loved by the fan base this engine has. They make good torque out of the box but the factory turbo isn't going to safely support much more boost than stock, which is somewhere around 11psi (memory is fuzzy).

A better exhaust manifold with a more common turbo flange seems to be a key ingredient to making serious power with these. I don't know if there is a carb intake for the F2 that could be used on the F2t; honestly, if you don't want to mess with fuel injection tuning, this is probably a dead end. That said, a 200hp 2 liter turbo engine with a carb on it sounds like an "interesting challenge".

When I get home from work I'm going to post a picture in here that may help you.

The f2t has stronger internals from what I know, vs the fe. As in no one really knows what they can take, being derived from the f8 diesel. Guys are lifting heads and going lean at 40psi. The exhaust side of the 12v head flows like E36 M3 iirc, but the trade is they can take absolutely obnoxious amounts of boost. I kmow swank force ones car was hovering something like 30psi out of a ct26 on a completely lunched head gasket and was still scary as E36 M3 to drive. He actually has my car as well, and, im afraid of the thing.