Does the 2.0 have a forged crank?

 

According to Mazda Motorsports, the 1.8L FP and 2.0L FS engines in the 3rd gen Proteges do have forged cranks.

 

Is that a good thing? If so then why?
Sorry if I sound stupid but I really don't know much about the internals of an engine. Or types of metal.

 

It is a good thing. Forged metal is stronger than cast metal. The short explanation is cast metal is heated to liquid form and poured into a mold of the desired shape. Forged metal is forced into shape in its solid form with pressure. This creates stronger, denser metal than casting. Now we need to have someone dive into the block and check out the connecting rods, pistons, crankshaft main bearing caps, cylinder walls, and block itself. Our block is iron, so I assume it's sand cast with a closed deck and strong cylinder walls. With the forged crank, it looks like a very promising bottom end. Better than most Honda engines. Depends on the rods and pistons.

 

Pistons and Rods are easily replacable if you are going NA you can always get the Mazdaspeed High Compression Pistons, which I would *think* are forged considering Mazdaspeed offers a quality product.

 

They are easily replacable for some engines. I doubt ours is one of those at the moment. Besides, if the stock ones are good, that will save most of us the trouble and expense of tearing into the bottom end. If our engines are close to as strong as the stock bottom end of the Nissan SR20DE engine, I'll be happy. I was also told by Mazda Motorsports that MazdaSpeed produces some of there own parts, and selects some stock pieces that will work in other applications and calls them MazdaSpeed parts. Most of the less expensive MazdaSpeed parts are sourced from stock parts for other applications. Look at the price of the MazdaSpeed Protege headers at Corksport compared to the MazdaSpeed pistons. The MazdaSpeed pistons are cheaper than the 'stock' FS-ZE pistons! I'm not saying they aren't good quality, or forged. I don't know. I'm just wanted to point out what Mazda Motorsports told me. It's a good bet the FS-ZE or MazdaSpeed pistons are good quality, forged or not. There are some disadvantages to forged pistons also. IMHO, the con rods, con rod bolts, crank, and crank main bearing caps and bolts are even more important for forced induction. The pistons are likely to be OK unless you encounter considerable detonation, which you should be trying to avoid at all costs anyway.

 

However, though many of the Honda engines might not have the bottom end durability of the s20de their bottom ends have proven to be quite tough, with the right fuel and air variables and only moderate boost, at least. When it comes to engines I would have to say that Mazda still has quite a bit to prove in terms of smoothness, sound, vibration, and the eagerness to rev. At least with the usdm 2.0. Also having an engine with an open deck is not that bad unless you are planning on running crazy boost levels.

No flames please...it's just that the H22a in my old prelude was so smooth.

 

Don't get me wrong, Honda does make great engines. For that matter, most Japanese import engines are quite strong. Honda is especially good at producing excellent heads, which are most responsible for normally aspirated HP production. There are advantages and disadvantages to both sand cast closed deck blocks and die cast open deck blocks. I think it's pretty fair to say that open decks blocks will require more bottom end attention than equivalent strength closed deck blocks when it comes to producing big power gains though. Don't tell anyone, but one of the projects I've always wanted to try is transplanting an H22A into a ..., shhh, Civic body.

 

hehe, well I emailed corksport w/ a few questions. Maybe some of you knew this info already. I was looking into NA tuning my car, BUT... we shall see now...

(email in quotes)
"Date: Sat, 03 Nov 2001 11:08:22 -0800
To: "Tony Rex" <trexpro5@protege5online.com>
From: Derrick <ambrose@corksport.com>
Subject: Re: questions...

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

At 12:25 AM 11/3/01 -0800, you wrote:
> I drive a '02 Mazda Protege5 with the 2.0l engine. I was curious about a
> few things.
>
> FS-ZE exhaust cam:
> What kind of billet is it made out of (grade etc)?
> What is the Duration?
> What is the lift?

Sme as stock. The lift and duration is different but Mazda will not
release th specs. We should have them shortly though through our own research.

> Mazdaspeed exhaust cam:
> What kind of billet is it made out of?
> What is the duration?
> What is the lift?

Same as stock. A different duration is the difference.

> FS-ZE High Compression Pistons:
> Does it raise compression to 10.5:1?
> Are the Pistons Forged?

The pistons are cast. The are made from the same supplier as the OEM FS
piston. They use the stock Mazda rings.

> Mazdaspeed High Compression Pistons:
> What will the compression be raised to?
> Are the Pistions Forged?

Same as the FS-ZE stockpistons, just a higher compression ratio.

> FS-ZE Intake Manifold:
> Does it have VISC? (what is VISC(sp?), something about variable intake
timing?)
> What is the diffrence between the Intake Manifold in the 2.0l engine and
> this one?

It is the same manifold as the MP3 and Sport 20 models. It uses a double
runner setup for better low end and top end power.

> Valve Springs:
> Will I want to upgrade my valve springs once I make my engine higher
> compression?

No need. The stock pieces are good.

> ECU:
> Would a stand-alone be best for higher compression?
> Can I reprogram some of my settings on my current ECU?
> If so what settings would need to be changed w/ the Intake and Exhaust cam
> mods?

We are working on a plug in module for the 99-02 Protege cars.

> Sorry for the crudeness of this email. I just have a lot of questions and I
> thought this would be the best way to lay them out. Please Please Please!!
> let me know of any further advancements in upgrading this engine.
>

We are also building a turbo kit for the cars.

Thanks
Derrick"

I dunno what to think now . there is some decent info in there. Anyway that turbo kit sure does smell good!!

Later on,
Tony Rex

 

concerning Honda engines. Speaking of head design, how well designed are the heads on the 1.8 and 2.0. I have a feeling they are really restrictive due to the lack of top end my car has. Or maybe a set of more agressive cams might help. I actually have a friend who did drop a h22a into a 5th gen civic and though it hauled a$$ in a straight line there was too much understeer in it for my tastes. I would love to drop a sr20de into an old Datsun 510.

 

Ahhh....working on a turbo kit. Thats pretty good news. Although i'm sure its going to be very pricey.

 

Turbo kit is worth the money. I will be waiting for it, because if it gives just extra 40 hp, getting same power gain with NA tuning will be no less expensive.
It is probably possible to bring engine up to FS-ZE specs, but taking engine apart to change pistons is labour intensive and will cost $, unless it's done at home(I wouldn't do that!)Turbo engine will have lots more torgue per same 170 hp as NA FS-ZE. And with basic hardware in place sky is the limit with hp figures.
It will all come down to quality of kit-no way I am spending anything on crude looking thing from Knight Engineering. I also want to keep all emission things intact.
By the time kit comes out -could be 1 year -it should be possible to save $2500-$3000. I just have to cut on beer, hookers and fast-food
Alex

 

You wouldnt want to put the higher compression pistons if your going to put a turbo on anyway. Turbo are better with a lower CR.

 

I'm not sure about the heads on the Mazda FP & FS engines. Our US spec engines don't seem to make a lot of stock HP, particularly high RPM power. The J spec FS-ZE engine does pretty well though and it's supposed to have the same heads as the US engines. The FS-ZE intake cam is supposed to be good for 8 to 10 peak wheel HP and moves the power curve up 400 to 500 RPM.

 

The key to a turbo kit for many 3rd gen Protege owners will be emissions legality. Will it maintain the primary cat right below the exhaust manifold. Also fuel and ignition tuning. Mazdas ECU's don't seem to be as easy to tune as some other manufacturers, and haven't had as much R&D done by tuners. It's nice to see some development being done by someone though.