Engine naming rant

Now, to preface, i normally have no problems with "Engine Alphabet Soup." SR20DET, SR20VE, 2jzgte, 1jzgte, 7mgte, 1uzfe, 2grfse, 3sgte, B18C5, blah blah blah.

But Mazda has REALLY made my head hurt with their KL-series motors. And it's not necessarily because of the nomenclature. There's a KLDE, a KLZE, and a revised KLDE usually called the KLG4.

But here's where it gets friggin' annoying, and it's both Mazda's fault, and these stupid jdm tyte y0 engine importers. Pretty much anything shipped over here from overseas is now called a "KLZE." When, in actually, i'd say maybe only half of them are. That's the importers' fault.

But which part is Mazda's fault, you ask?

The fact that there's AT LEAST 30 billion different KLZEs known. There's the curved neck, and the straight neck. There's 10:1 pistons, and 9.5:1 pistons. There's KL31 cams, and KL01 cams.

If you believe the internet, (and this might be one of the things they're right on) the damn engine could make anywhere from 164-210hp. I don't want the 164, or the 170, or the 185.6828734hp version. I want the 200hp version. Of which, it seems there are two:

1) Curved neck intake manifold w/ 10:1 pistons, KL31 101/1a1 heads, and KL01 cams. Peak power at lower RPMS

2) Straight neck intake manifold w/ 10:1 pistons, KL31 101/1a1 heads, and KL31 cams. Powerband in higher rpm range.

I need a curved neck motor to fit in the Escort.

To make it worse, the "KLG4s" have curved neck manifolds. Basically, there's no way to tell what the berkeley you're looking at unless you tear the entire damn motor apart. The fact that Mazda threw engines together at the end of the KL time period with whatever parts they had lying around isn't helping things either. You should SEE some of the berkeleyed up combinations that people have pulled out of factory stock running cars overseas.

Does YOUR head hurt yet? Mine does!

I never thought that it would have been MAZDA that would make Toyota engine identification look friggin' EASY.

/rant.

Stop messing around with Mazda?

ansonivan wrote: Stop messing around with Mazda?

Heh. (rimshot)

We figured it out. It's a 200hp "curved neck" KLZE. Exactly what the doctor ordered.

MINE.

It seems to only be the KL-series, though. The BP family is easy to deal with (besides trying to figure out if the importers have a GTR or GTX motor from pictures and description.) The FE3/F2/F2T family is cake.

That's why I like the ease of Hyundai's engine naming... greek Letters. Alpha, Beta, Tau, Theta, Nu,....

... says the guy still calling himself "lord failbox" with some other words in the way.

pres589 wrote: ... says the guy still calling himself "lord failbox" with some other words in the way.

Heh, i guess it's more of a local joke that Bobzilla would understand. I will change back to something a little less "pretentious," since it IS annoying seeing a string of words as a username.

Bobzilla wrote: That's why I like the ease of Hyundai's engine naming... greek Letters. Alpha, Beta, Tau, Theta, Nu,....

The "naming" isn't really the problem here... it's the fact that there's so many "parts-bin specials" within the name. Point FOR Hyundai i suppose, minus one from Mazda. You win this round, Boob. THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE.

I get so ticked at GM sometimes with their recycling of RPOs. The noobs on hotrodders.com/forums are always confused about LS1 (the muscle car 454) versus the LS1 (98-later aluminum gen 3 small block).

There are plenty of examples like that. Don't get me started on the "Vortec" name

Bobzilla wrote: That's why I like the ease of Hyundai's engine naming... greek Letters. Alpha, Beta, Tau, Theta, Nu,....

Which is all good, provided that all Alphas are equal and disparate from Betas, Taus, Theatas, etc.

If there should ever be two different versions of the Alpha, you're right in the same boat that Wishes-he-had-an-alltrac finds himself.

While I'm not a huge Nissan fan, that's one thing I will give them - the clearest naming scheme I'm aware of.

I think you could stick with Halftrac Failbox. Simple, and it gets the point across.

ReverendDexter wrote:

Bobzilla wrote: That's why I like the ease of Hyundai's engine naming... greek Letters. Alpha, Beta, Tau, Theta, Nu,....

Which is all good, provided that all Alphas are equal and disparate from Betas, Taus, Theatas, etc. If there should ever be two different versions of the Alpha, you're right in the same boat that Wishes-he-had-an-alltrac finds himself. While I'm not a huge Nissan fan, that's one thing I will give them - the clearest naming scheme I'm aware of.

welp, hyundai's out too: there are numerous beta engines; beta 1 beta 2 both two or three different sizes, beta 2 with cvvt it gets annoying, not as bad as mazda and toyota but nissan does win overall, with honda to follow

'ello, chaps.

But it's all good now for the most part. The motor is mine, it's what i needed. Now i just have to hope that there isn't any nasty surprises when it comes time for maintainence.

"Oh, THIS ONE takes THIS kind of distributor. AWESOME."

corytate wrote: it gets annoying, not as bad as mazda and toyota but nissan does win overall, with honda to follow

I don't find Toyota that annoying, their scheme is basically the same as Nissan's, other than instead of displacement, the number is the revision of that block. So, you have to know that the R block is an I4 and that the 22nd revision was a 2.4L, but elsewise you know exactly what a 22R, 22RE, and 22RTE are and what's different between them.

Now Honda's, I understand it's [Block][dL], so I know a B16 is a 1.6L B-series and a K20 is a 2.0L K-series, but everything after the displacement is greek to me.

And as a ford guy... ugh. "4.6L modular". What's that, at least 7 different possible motors? "5.0"... well, there's at least 5 different motors you could be talking about. "351"... there's 3 V8s and a prototype V10...

I'm lost on most foreign cars. I understand domestics mostly.

BMW was always so much easier

mad_machine wrote: BMW was always so much easier

How so?

If I ever have a car company, I'm naming my engines common men's first names.

"Yeah, I got an old DexMoCo I found for cheap... it's got a Jim in it right now, but I've got a Dave sitting in my garage waiting to get dropped in..."

ReverendDexter wrote: If I ever have a car company, I'm naming my engines common men's first names. "Yeah, I got an old DexMoCo I found for cheap... it's got a Jim in it right now, but I've got a Dave sitting in my garage waiting to get dropped in..."

I got to take Jim out and get my hands in him. His lubricating system needs to be checked.

My Jim has a broken dipstick...

Usually, Mazda uses the ZE suffix to designate the high performance version. But they do get a bit random. Between that and eBay sellers being a bit optimistic with what they have, I usually pay far more attention to the source of the lump.

I like the Hemi that has a pent-roof combustion chamber myself.

You can always put a curved neck manifold on your straight-necked KLZE?

Yeah, I hear ya... all the back & forth bantering on the forums on how not to get ripped off when buying a KLZE made my head hurt... so I ordered one from a JDM importer with a good reputation. My mechanic's doing the swap, he pulled the manifold to have a look and, yup, it's a good 'un. Mine's curved-neck BTW.