Hey guys, I've poked around a lot on the internet but can't seem to find an answer to this question so I'm just going to ask here.

Wife drives a '06 2.3L Mazda 3 w/manual tranny, and it made it to 140k miles before a rod left a hole in my engine block. The junkyards I've called say I can put an engine from an '08 Mazda 3 or Mazda 5 in my car, but I need to specifically know if can I drop a 2.0L engine from an '08 Mazda 3 (the engine I'm specifically thinking of has an automatic tranny, fyi)? I'm not interested in less power, but right now finances dictate the cheapest repair possible and 2.3L engines are not cheap. I'm not super familiar with this car, as most my experience in repairs has been on older Mazdas and VW's (and lately, BMW). Thanks!

 

I have done one engine swap in an air cooled beetle. I went from the 1.5 L engine to the 1.3 liter engine. The problem was that the transmission for the larger engine had longer gears than the one for the smaller engine.

Your project could run in the same problem. Also I don't know if the PCM's would match or not. Back then we did not have PCM's.

 

Thanks for the response tanprotege. It looks like I'm gonna put a 2.3L from a Ford Fusion in it instead.

 

Make sure you use all the external parts of yourMazda engine. Eg, sensors, manifolds wiring etc.