Surely it can’t be this easy.”Ī Cobb intercooler was fitted rather than cutting a hole in the 5’s hood. Was the swap going to be this simple? We kept a logbook, and there was an entry around this time that reads, somewhat prophetically, “Going smoothly. The fire walls of the two cars are so similar that all the lines from the Speed 3 matched right up. Franco wisely suggested that the class simply mount the engine and make sure all the plumbing-A/C, water, fuel, and power-steering lines-would work.Īnd, happily, everything fit. After some eight hours of labor, the turbocharged, direct-injection 2.3-liter inline-four was mocked up in the 5’s engine bay. With the experience of dismantling the 5, stripping the Speed 3 was easy for the WCC troops. When it appeared in Ann Arbor, the crumpled and totaled hatchback looked sadder than leftover ham, but the engine ran fine. It had been on a transporter in Texas, headed to a new-car dealership, when the truck flipped in an ice storm. The Speed 3 that eventually arrived on June 24, 2008, had just seven miles on the odometer. It was stuck in Texas, surrounded by Mazda’s attorneys, who apparently questioned the idea of handing over to some loonies a car already assigned to the crusher. Work then took a four-week hiatus because the donor Mazdaspeed 3 had yet to arrive. It took about 12 hours for Franco’s class to clear the 5’s engine bay. Franco, a retired Chrysler engineer, had experience doing engine swaps, and his knowledge paid dividends that saved countless hours. Instructor Glenn Franco supervised as his class took care of the heavy lifting-swapping the engine, subframes, brakes, and suspension-twice a week, four hours at a stretch. We had the van towed to nearby Washtenaw Community College to enlist a little help from the WCC Vehicle Performance class, which was just beginning a new semester. We refrained from making a warranty claim because we were about to yank the engine anyway, and besides, Mazda sent us the car and we didn’t get a bill with it. The culprit was a bad variable-valve-timing solenoid that crinkled a pair of valves in the No. A mere eight days later, the 5 was at the local Mazda dealer with a crippled engine. Mazda found us a 5 Touring in Crystal White Pearl Mica paint and delivered it to Ann Arbor on April 8, 2008. So what had started as harmless lunch conversation turned into reality quicker than the Detroit Three could sell their private jets. It’s probably a good thing we pitched the minivan project before the ill-fated race took place.īarnes told us it would be a pretty easy swap and that the Mazdaspeed 3 engine would be a simple bolt-in. This would be the same Jeremy Barnes-a club racer and thoroughgoing enthusiast-who supported our Nelson Ledges 24-hour effort with an MX-5 Miata. Thanks to a recent relocation, our new Ann Arbor offices include a garage-but not real adult supervision.Īt the 2008 Detroit auto show, we approached Jeremy Barnes, Mazda’s director of product and corporate communications, with the idea of this powertrain swap. In the past, our Boss Wagons were built by professionals in very large garages under the supervision of real adults. Instructor Glenn Franco is second from the left. The Washtenaw Community College Vehicle Performance class poses with the Boss Wagon. The result, a one-of-a-kind “Mazdaspeed 5,” would be perhaps the coolest project car yet in our Boss Wagon series. Guys swap out engines at racetracks in a matter of a couple hours. Since the 5 shares its underpinnings with the 3, we could just acquire a turbocharged Mazdaspeed 3 powertrain and swap it for the stock unit, which would instantly add 110 horsepower. Imagine, we mused, the astonished faces when such an innocent-looking mommymobile lights up its front tires and disappears in a cloud of smoke!Įven more appealing, the solution seemed simple. And before you could say, “You guys are smoking banana peels,” we were thinking of ways to add some real hustle to the little Mazda’s repertoire. With that thought in mind, the conversation started getting surreal. Even though the Mazda 5 weighs 3358 pounds-that’s pretty mini as far as vans go-its 153-hp, 2.3-liter four doesn’t produce acceleration blisters when asked to propel that much mass. However, driving excitement is hard to appreciate when it’s tempered by an anemic power-to-weight ratio. Maybe it was a slow news day, but the topic came up because the Mazda 5 is an appealing small van-a minivan in the purest sense-and more fun to drive than pretty much anything else with sliding side doors. Take the subject at hand, a hot-rod minivan. Sometimes conversations in our office can get bizarre.
0 kommentar(er)
