Ive owned 2 speed6 in the last 5 years, 07 silver metallic (flooded in parking lot, 2015 flood Houston) and now 06 black mica. Been a casual lurker on mazdaspeedforums and others since owning speeds. 06 has 120k miles, replaced timing chain (dealer) and all front end suspension parts (self). The car was ok for the first year and half of ownership but eventually developed an oil leak/burn in 2019. It got so bad that now it needs a quart of oil every week. I took it to the dealer to have the turbo checked and compression test done to make sure the engine is ok. Well... turns out compression failed 200-180-140-110. Alsoneeds new turbo, transfer case is leaking and rear diff needs mounts. With all that said dealer quoted me $19k for everything. immediately laughed. Now that I need a new engine I’m looking at my options. Obviously no dealer, but I’m looking into rebuilt MZRs on eBay. the car is my DD and completely stock and I’m looking to keep it that way minus maybe a few minor bolt ons in the future. Any suggestions to get me running decent again at reasonable cost? Anybody know of any decent Houston shops? Looking to spend in the $5k range, Thanks.
Welcome man and glad you decided to join and not stay as only a “lurker” lol First off how many miles on the car? If having a “brand new engine” isn’t necessary your concern I would say to look at a pick-a-part for a lower mileage cx-7 motor. Then it will be a pull and swap, done.... If wanting a new motor, it honestly would still be the cheapest probably to get a higher mileage cx-7 motor and have new pistons, rods, and bearings installed along with your “newish” timing components. Best of luck man I just built my speed 6 motor and know all about it now haha
Thanks for the reply. I’m wondering what would be a reasonable labor cost to have a shop do the swap for me. I don’t have a hoist or means of doing the swap myself, let alone feel comfortable doing such a job. Mazda quoted me almost 5k in labor. Wondering if I could get it done at half that price.
Yeah I would expect a shop to charge about $1,500 to pull and reinstall the motor and anything between is just added cost such as any motor work done to the engine etc. I’m in southern Indiana though and cost of stuff may be a bit cheaper here I would say. I would cut whatever the dealership says in half for any decent/reputable shops around to do the same thing most likely.
Waiting to hear back from Kozmic Motorsorts in Houston. I messaged them and told them my problems and what Mazda quoted, and they said it wouldn’t be much cheaper, 10k + For new parts. Now I’m waiting to hear back, I asked what they would charge for a used engine swap, or a rebuild, and my options in general. I can’t spend anymore than $7k, if I could get away in the $5k range that wouldn’t be as painful.
Dang man that’s crazy.... I did get some of my parts from a member but even still my motor only costed about $4,000.. That is with me installing it I understand but that is a fully built motor too not a used engine tossed in. Sounds like they are ripping people off to me. A motor swap shouldn’t cost more than $2k and a used motor being around that amount less honestly. Seems super high to me. What labor wage are they charging and how many hours are they saying it would take? $200/ hour for 40 hours? Lol
I put a motor in for my first time by myself in a gravel driveway working 60 hours at work and it still probably only took me a total of 10 hours (which is slow as crap).
I’m really considering buying a hoist and doing it myself. Found an engine with 65k on it for $1900 on eBay. I’ve managed to fix a lot of things on this car anyway. Might as well learn to swap an engine
I say go for it man! Just make sure to invest in good ziplock baggies and sharpies and label everything very thoroughly and you’ll be fine im sure! It’s not too bad honestly just depends on if you have a garage and tools. I had barely enough tools and my car was in a gravel driveway lol To top it off I was working 60 hours a week at work. I still managed to pull it after several days of late evenings haha You’ve got this man just go into it headstrong and be thorough with your work. If you have questions feel free to ask and I will help all I can!
When you say hoist i presume you mean anean hoist? As long as you have one of those pulling the engine out on jackstands is very doable (from personal experience). When you do it yourself just label all the connections on the harness, put the bolts in bags labeled for each part, if the bolts are different sizes make note of that. The transmission bolts are different sizes so sticking them in a piece of cardboard in a circle where they would go in the trans works really well to remember what goes where. Really the same advice @StreetSpeed6 gave you. I'd also clean up the injectors a little with gad and order a new set of orings for them. If you're planning on adding something other than another OEM Turbo I'd pick up a set of injector seals from overspeed on Facebook. When stock IM gasket should be replaced with a fresh one and nothing wrong with putting a fresh EM and DP gasket on either. If your clutch is on its way out also perfect time to replace that. Install DP and turbo on the engine before you put it in, makes life much easier but that'll probably require 1-2 extra sets of hands to align the new engine when putting it on, or I'm just really bad at it which could be it too lol
