94 Mazda MX-3 Precedia - Questions

[SiliconSoul]

Im looking at a car right now with 162k. My understanding is the 1.6 Dohc engine is somewhat desireable, and I could swap a 1.8bp into it somewhat easier than the V6 model?

I was going to pick it up last night but the car had no spark. He had jumped it due to a dead battery from sitting and claimed it started for 10 seconds then died. We checked the fuses and all the basics, then I went to check the ignition wires and found out the coil is IN the distributor!?

He said this happened once before and the distributor was the issue. Does anyone know how common of a failure this is and if there happens to be an easy way of using a different distributor with an external coil? The car is in good shape (too good to scrap!) and gets decent gas mileage. And long term I might swap the 107hp 1.6 into a festiva and use the 1.8 I have in this car...

Unfortunately I think the transmission is only a F-series, but they appear to be geared high at least.

[SiliconSoul]

Anybody? Not having much luck scouring the net...

[nonamekid]

Yes, a BP swap would be easier than the V6.

Yes, the tranny is an F-series tranny.

Sounds plausible that the distributor is bad.

[SiliconSoul]

Thanks Man!

The distributor part is the one that really has me stumped. I thought that since Miata's have the same engine that possibly you could take the distributor from that and the external ignition coil and make it work, but doesn't appear that it is that easy.

[nonamekid]

not sure how similar the mx-3 system is to the miata. The miata system doesn't have a distributor, so if you could swap it over, it probably wouldn't be an upgrade. The 94-95 MX-3 had an odd B6D, which is quite a bit different than what is in the capri.

[Icedawg]

I had a V6 MX3 and the distributor failed one day while driving. It just coasted to a stop. Expensive item to replace. THese cars do show up in the junkyard though. Any change in the distributor/coil arrangement will probably give you some wiring trouble with the ecu. Only the V6 came with the g-series tranny, and the bell housing on that will not match the 4 cylinder. And yes, a BP should go in, and be easier than a V6 swap, which requires a different subframe among other things. The 94 , 95 was a better 4-cyl than the earlier one, with a better flowing head.

[jdobbs86]

If you're not sure what to do with the b6d, you could always just sell the exhaust cam to me lol.

[SiliconSoul]

Awesome - Thank you all for the help.

I see the Mazda Miata is a CAS (Cam Angle Sensor) that fires a Coil Pack. Going to have to dig deeper into this. It sure would be very cool if it was just a matter of swapping things over. I am pretty sure it wouldn't be that easy though.

Just worried about this engine due to this quirky distributor. I could see this being a very big PIA in the future for getting replacement parts due to the short production years.