John writes:
What do we know about the 1.8L V6 used in the 1990s’ Mazda MX-3 sport coupe? Why such a small engine and where did Mazda get it from/how did they design it and market it in the MX-3?
Sajeev answers:
Piston Slap is not merely a mechanical question/answer series, because any automotive question you’d see on a car forum is fair game. And with that, Mazda’s MX-3: a 2+2 coupe based on sedan chassis, a trick rear suspension, ABS brakes and an 1.8L V6 as an option. The MX-3 offered a more refined style and powertrain goodness to the basic theme of the 1980’s hot hatchbacks: think about the latest BMW 5-series GT crossover versus the relatively crude X5 brother, circa 1999.
I drove one of Mazda’s micro-sized V6’s and it certainly was a sweetheart: a Grand Tourer in the microcar tradition, perhaps? The MX-3 was a good car, but it’ll never get the recognition of its hot-hatch forefathers and sport compact contemporaries. And that shows how car makers over-extend an engine family just like a chassis (GM’s W-body) or a brand (Lincoln Zephyr or Acura RL). And that’s a deadly sin worthy of Paul Niedermeyer’s consideration.
More to the point, the MX-3’s wee-little V6 motor is based on Mazda’s K engine family which offered surprising refinement and impressive torque for a low cost vehicle, especially considering the soft-on-the-bottom four cylinders from other Japanese manufacturers. An enlarged version (2.5L) found its way into the midsized Mazda MX-6 and Ford Probe sport coupes while the supercharged, Miller Cycle V6 in the Mazda Millenia aimed at the near luxury market. Too bad the pricey Millenia was no BMW, and the MX-3 couldn’t go nearly as fast and furious as the Integra.
It’s a shame that this motor didn’t fare better in sales and performance, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Ford’s Duratec V6 adopted many of its design hallmarks. Partly because Ford refused to learn from Mazda’s mistakes: the 3.0L Jaguar X-type was a half-assed tribute to the force-fed Millenia, and the 2.5L Mercury Cougar hatchback took everything right with the MX-3 and still failed miserably. So yes, even greasy bits underhood are designed with corporate-level branding problems in mind, and sometimes pay the price for their ignorance.
(Send your queries to mehta@ttac.com)
When I was looking for a light use car last summer, I got to drive an MX-3. Loved it, was sorely tempted, was only turned off my 135k on the clock and what looked like some potential problems with the sunroof. Next day while I was mulling it over, I drove a 924S.
End of mulling, bought the Porsche.
Grasping at greatness. The automotive landscape is littered with designs abandoned before their time. I’ve often wondered what advantages/disadvantages that unusual engine designs had. Example: Really small V6s like the 1.8 under consideration. Really large displacement V6s like the 4.3 ltr GM or really small V8s like the 3.9 in the Lincoln LS. I always felt like the 2.5ltr Iron Duke was big for a 4cyl but I’m sure there are bigger ones I’m not even aware of.
I also still think the MX-3 is sexy even today.
Forgive my ramblings but sometimes I have too much time on my hands.
The biggest modern era 4 cylinder that I can think of was the 3.0L in the Porsche 944/968.
I always understood that the GM 4.3 V6 was a Chevy 5.7 V8 minus two cylinders. Crude but effective.
If you want a really big 4, go back to Henry Ford’s racer from around 1903-04, the 999. It had an inline 4 of nearly 19 litres (yes, that’s over 1100 cubic inches). It cracked 90 mph. I can’t find EPA city or highway figures, though.
I agree with this, I always wondered. I drove my father-in-law’s 1990 F-150 with the 4.9L Inline 6 for about a year and it may have been slow, but man could it tow. And the gas mileage really was pretty good. In fact, the Inline 6 had better torque than the 5.0 V8 that was optional. I know Tacomas used to have 2.7L 4 bangers, not sure if there is bigger than that, but there probably has been. There have been a lot of 2.5L 4 cylinders. I just wish there were more inline 6’s being designed.
The Mitsu 2.6L 4 banger ended up in a lot of K-cars.
They are pushing into those sizes again with 4 cylinder engines, Mazda has a 2.5L out and I am sure there are others as well. The Porsche 944 took big 4’s to a whole new level though at 3.0l. A lot of trucks have pushed their 4 cylinder engines close to that size as well (the Toyota Tacoma base engine is a 2.7l 4) but truck owners are much more forgiving of rough engines and they don’t need to rev as high where it becomes a real problem.
I think the rule of thumb is ~600 cc’s per cylinder before the engine starts to suffer, not counting other balance issues the engines might have. IMHO a V6 shouldn’t grow much past 3.0L.
A 1.8L V6 is just strange, nothing wrong with a 4 banger that small.
For a really really big 4 see the ca. 1912 FIAT S-76 at 28 liters:
http://www.shorey.net/Auto/Italian/Fiat/1912%20fiat%20s76%2028-litre%204-cyl,%20'the%20beast%20of%20turin‘.jpg
For extremes in 6’s you can get a TB48DE in the Nissan Patrol/Safari, 4.8l straight six (not sure for how much longer though) a good engine for the application, unstressed and unhurried. We also see quite a few (JDM) Mistubishi Lancers down here in NZ with the 6A10 (1600cc V6), apparently the smallest ever production V6.
You see a 3.9L V-8 as small? Allow me to introduce you to Otto:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiat_8V
>2L. Now THAT’s a small V-8.
No, this is a small V8:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moto_Guzzi_V8
Wasn’t the 1.8 V6 the smallest production V6 ever made?
I don’t know if this was/is the smallest production V6 ever made but I’ve always been blown away by the fact that the first Ferrari V12 was 1.5 litres.
Before the war, the Wolseley Hornet sedan had an 1100cc straight-6; the motor was used in a number of contemporary MGs, including the supercharged K3 raced by Nuvolari among others.
And 92golf, if you’re impressed by that Ferrari V12, check out this video of the first BRM GP car, with a 1.5L V16 (turn up sound!):
http://www.stirlingmoss.com/video/cars-brm-v16-15-litre
smokescreen that’s pretty cool. That’s the kind of sound that sends a little shiver up my back. Thanks!
The thing about the Ferrari (and the BRM) that makes me smile is the thought of all those little teeny-tiny pistons whizzing up and down at a great rate.
Yes, it was the smallest production V6. I owned two MX-3 V6s and they were great fun. Maintenance was never terrible and I even tackled relatively complex jobs myself, including replacing the leaking valve cover gaskets. If I still had one I would definitely be looking for a donor 2.5L since they are externally the same size and provide a good horsepower bump (especially if you source a JDM unit.)
It may have been the smallest at the time, but the Mistubishi 6A10 is smaller at 1597cc
I’ve often fancied buying an MX3. It looks far more practical than an MX5, however I’ve just been put off by some of the Mazda blogs which warn of the excessive cost of keeping an old 1.8 V6 MX3 on the road compared to an old MX5.
That big DOHC motor looks like they need a shoehorn to get it in there, so to speak. I’d expect labor to reach anything below the upper intake manifold would be quite painful. Just like the Contour/Cougar with the Duratec V6.
Speaking of small engines. My 94 5 Series is a 530I. People looked at me funny when I said I had a 3 liter V8.
The British Daimler had a 2.5 liter V-8:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daimler_2.5_%26_4.5_litre
There was also the 60 hp Ford flathead V8 from around 1937 which displaced 136 inches or 2.2 liters.
Given the Detroit traditionalist’s attachment to V8s, I don’t think they have any alternative to shrinking displacement while keeping the cylinder count.
I’m guessing we’ll see a sub-4 liter V8, perhaps closer to 3 liters, from Ford, GM, or Chrysler in this decade.
Piston powered airplanes have huge displacement four cylinder engines. My airplane has a 320 cu in (5.2 liters) four cylinder, another one on the line at my club has a 360 cu in (5.9 liter) four cylinder. Both are relatively common aircraft engines made by Lycoming. They are horizontally opposed direct drive engines, and mine is carbureted, magneto driven (so the engine can keep going if there is an electrical failure). There’s a reason the cylinders are called “jugs”, they are huge. The main design points in these engines are light weight and ability to run flat out for long periods of time (you probably don’t drive your car engine at 75% power for hours at a time).
Back to cars my parents had a Ford Econoline with the 300 cu in straight six. What a piece of crap. The performance of a 6 cylinder with the gas mileage of an 8 cylinder!
Sorry, but unless yours was built by Fairbanks Morse, it is not an opposed piston engine.Check their web site.
@ williams442:
xyzzy is completely correct. Lycomings are horizontally opposed engines, like a Porsche or Subaru. Nowadays known as boxers.
Nowhere did xyzzy say opposed piston. The Fairbanks Morse diesel engines were licensed from Junkers before WW2 and powered many a US WW2 sub and were an opposed piston engine.
Reread. Still see the word opposed. They also powered several LSTs, (USS DeSoto County LST 1171 amoung others, and many railroad engines. The combustion chamber is created between the pistons. “Opposed”
william442: there are two types of “opposed” engines and the word opposed by itself does not inherently signify either of them.
Opposed piston engines are as you describe, creating a chamber between two pistons compressing charge between them.
Opposed cylinder engines are what Lycomings, boxers, Porsches, and Subarus are: central crank with banks of cylinders 180º apart.
“Horizontally opposed” from the OP means opposed cylinder.
Needed another 20-30 horsepower to get people’s attention. Can’t say I ever drove one, and found the styling around the rear hatch odd.
Soooo… can a 2.5 lts V6 be swapped on that sucker?
Turbo?
Here in Venezuela most MX-3 (independently imported all of them) have the V6
I never understood the idea of using a V6 for the job a good 1.6 or 1.8 4cyl could perfectly do.
Yes, the 2.5 bolts right in, either the US version from the MX-6 or the JDM sourced one. Of course, you need a new ECU to go with it, and it ain’t cheap to do unless you can do it yourself. (I know form experience!)
I have owned an MX-3 since 2002, waited paitently for the 1.8 V6 to die (at 179k!!) then swapped in the 2.5. I have spend well more than $10k on repairs/upgrades over the last 8 years – well beyond the point of sanity at this point. Car still looks like a rust bucket, but it goes like stink!
For some reason I still love the car.
OK, there’s been some criticism of the 1.8L V6 but from looking at it this is a fairly rustic design of a V6. Not even EFI or coil pack ignition. That’s why only 130Hp. With 75mm pistons and all the modern stuff you should expect at least 160Hp. Granted a 4-cyl 1.8L Corolla today makes 130Hp but we are talking 15 yrs difference in engine design. Though I can see why an engine swap for the 2.4L 200Hp KLDE from the MX-6 might be made !!
It’s a trend that I’ve been noticing that in a bid to cut costs manufacturers are trying to bring ever larger I4’s into what was once V6 territory. Losing two cylinders and associated timing gear saves a heck of a lot of extra handling and machining and when you stop and think, a V6 with its two cylinder heads is almost two engines in one.
I like the I6 but we won’t see I6’s popular again either because of the fuel inefficiency of the longitudinally mounted engine when it has to drive into a RWD transaxle. While for an I6 in FWD there’s the space problem in a transverse mount.
In gasoline propulsion I would like to see bold simplicity in the form of parallel twin turbocharged engines like the Aria concept that FIAT introduced in SEP 2007 for the PANDA.
Fairly rustic design? Not only is it fuel injected, it has variable intake runner lengths…sort of like a baby Taurus SHO.
(not the new SHO, the one that was cutting edge when this car was new)
For small engines, long ago the Western Washington University FormulaSAE team built a ~554cc V8.
http://dot.etec.wwu.edu/fsae/viking30.htm
That baby V6 was also used in certain markets in the Eunos 500 saloon
(the Millenia was a Eunos 800 ) which was sold in Europe with a 2-litre V6 , badged as a Xedos 6. Mazda UK tried racing the Xedos 6 , and later when Ford started racing the Mondeo they used the 2-litre ‘K’ series V6 in preference to a Ford engine.
“when Ford started racing the Mondeo they used the 2-litre ‘K’ series V6 in preference to a Ford engine.”
Exactly! You beat me to it. I’ve never liked that moany Cosworth DOHC V6 that Ford used to perfect the Cosworth aluminum casting method, but at least it has chain driven cams instead of belts. The Mazda 1.8 V6 is a lovely engine to drive. Smooooth.
One more nugget of information. In the mid to late 1980’s manufacturers were trying to figure out how to put V6’s into FWD, traverse mounted 4-cylinder engine spaces. Volkswagen and Mazda engineering teams were competing to be first to market. Mazda cracked the code first in 1991 by reducing displacement of the engine. Volkswagen’s 2.8L VR6 followed later in 1991 and was developed by staggering the cylinders but keeping displacement.
Speaking of brand extensions, Mazda had a stillborn Amati brand that was supposed to go up against Lexus/Infiniti/Acura but was nixed due to the recession of the early 1990’s. The Mazda Millenia/Xedos 9 was to have been the Amati 500. The never-released RWD Amati 1000 was supposed to have had a 4.0L V12, probably two of these MX-3 V6’s welded together, and not unlike Aston’s V12 made from Ford Duratec blocks.
Years ago, AutoWeek had a spy shot of the Amati 1000 which wasn’t terribly memorable.
I like the flat powerband on my 2.5L V-6. Although granted, same can be accomplished with a turbo.
Back in the late 1980s or early 1990s I was a paid participant in a marketing clinic for a new car whose identity was then unknown to the participants, and which turned out to be the Mazda MX-3. At the time I owned a first-gen Honda Civic CRX and the MX-3 was compared to the second-gen Honda CRX, the second-gen Nissan Pulsar NX, and the front-wheel drive Toyota Corolla Sport Coupe which were also present at the clinic. I should have been able to figure it out because the other participants, in addition to CRX, Pulsar NX, and Corolla Sport owners, there were a large number of front-wheel drive Mazda GLC and/or 323 Coupe owners present.
The prototype MX-3 had a much more sensuous grill opening above the bumper, but otherwise was pretty-much like the production car. We were informed that the car would be available with a 6-cylinder engine and most of us were impressed by that and thought that it would probably have more torque than the 4-cylinder cars it was compared to. At the time I think I rated the MX-3 below the CRX, but above the Corolla Sport and Pulsar NX in terms of desirability based on what information was presented to us.
When the production MX-3 was finally available for sale, I was mildly disappointed with the changes. It was O.K., a solid base hit, but no home run.
I had the pleasure of driving many V6 powered MX3’s at the various Mazda dealers where I worked throughout the 1990’s. Other four cylinders may have had as many or nearly as many horsepower as the little V6 but none of them sounded as good. They were cars that encouraged a driver to stay in one gear lower than he ought to be in just so he could hear the sweetest engine sound this side of an Alfa V6. The styling was a little offbeat but not outright wierd or unattractive and though the interior wasn’t as nice a place to be as a Honda the whole package was enjoyable to drive. By 1995 the price to value equation got out of whack when a new V6 with air and a sunroof had a sticker of over $18,000. They were always much better sellers as used cars when they could be bought for $10k or less.
My recollection is people used to yank the v6 out and put in turbo 4 from Mazda 323 turbo, to go fast in it.
I drove an auto mx3 v6 once, nice back roads, it was nice, but real noisy, prob normal for the time, bing a hatch with plastic interior, but had noticeably little torque at low rpms.
Honda raced a 250cc aircooled six in the 1960s timeframe. Think Mike Hailwood and Isle of Man. Also a 5 cyl 125. Their Honda 360 car was a 4 banger.
Daewoo had System Porsche develop an inline six in 2.0 and 2.5 litres for transverse front wheel drive applications in about 2002, and this engine was actually sold in a US market Suzuki badged vehicle for awhile, as well as Canadian market Chevrolet Epica cars, I believe they were badged. GMDaewoo never referred to the engine as having been developed by System Porsche, either there must have been some alterations to it before production or GM simply didn’t wish to publicize another company’s name.
Back in the 1980’s, System Porsche (not related to the Porsche auto company, but an engineering consulting company) also developed the Heron head inline four cylinder engines and manual transaxles for the SEAT Malaga and Ibiza ranges, which were based upon altered FIAT bodyshells at the time. Then VW bought SEAT and broomed out the “consultant engineered” engines in lieu of VW types.
Think you’ll find that the Porsche Engineering consultancy is indeed closely related to the company that makes the 911.
The issue with MX-3 was tough competition in its price range.
Though they never seemed to rule spec sheet wars in the US, the K series engines are great engines. Sure other engines made more power but those motors were smooth and sounded awesome. Most of my experience was with the 2.5 in the ProbeGT.
I could have gone faster in , but those K motors are the kind of engines where you turn the radio off and find a tunnel to drive through.
The 2.5 – 3.0 duratecs are horrid in comparison to the k series in terms of refinement. Running the K’s up to redline was smooth and rewarding. Duratecs….not so much.