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What makes the 2.0L Duratec so tunable?

83K views 86 replies 23 participants last post by  JoeMini 
#1 ·
Reading some of the posts in the forums, it seems a lot of folks are against trying to turbo the 2.0L MZR engine in our cars. My question is, isn't the 2.0L Duratec from Ford essentially the same engine? Companies like FSWerks are selling turbo kits for the 2.0 Focus putting out 200+ horsepower. What makes our engines so much different as to not allow that kind of tuning? Is there a huge difference in the ECU perhaps? Just seems weird that they can lay down those numbers on stock internals, yet folks here seem to think that the engine will implode if we put so much as an E-turbo on our engines. Thougts? Comments? Ideas?
 
#2 ·
Some people on here think the car will implode immediately because of a certain past forum member who went about it in a stupid way. The real way of looking at is yes, sure you can easily slap a turbo kit on this car and tune it to about 8psi or more (depending on size of turbo, Im going off Tri-Point kit) and be safe. Is it safe? No no turbo car is ever safe. Is it reliable? Depends on build quality/tune. These cars can be tuned just like any other car it is just not many have tried so most have no idea about it.

For example flying miata turbo puts down 250-260whp with stock engine and is usually reliable and most cars dont have an issue if done professionally. Now this applies to our cars through the new miata which is the same 2.0 in our car just different cams and a few other small engine parts no internal difference.

No these 2.0s aren't bulletproof but can take some more boost/abuse than the 2.5 because shorter internals in the 2.0 are less prone to snap but still it isn't the safest option. As we have seen it blown and the cost associated with a turbo build might as well bought a different car. That's all in my opinion
 
#3 ·
I agree. For the price it cost to safely add a turbo system to a stock car you might as well have bought the MS3 even if it's a Gen1. Used cars are cheaper and will give you the power you want. The whole idea behind smaller engines sold as N/A is fuel economy and trying to keep some "Zoom-Zoom" (I'm not buying into that salesman's slogan)

You'd probably have to change the cam shafts and beef up a few items in the engine's internals to safely use an added turbo. In the end...parts, labor...might as well have bought an MS3.
 
#5 · (Edited)
The 2.0 duratec is a very very near square setup which is optimal for a forced induction setup. Whereas the 2.3 (and 2.5 which is even worse), is out of square, because it's a "stroker" version of the 2.0 liter, meaning the rods have to be longer, which simultaneously give those engines more power and more torque... at the cost of a weaker rod and crank setup.

Boosting a 2.0 liter engine in our cars has always been next to impossible 100% because no one does it, rather.. not enough people in the community were willing to give back if they did do it. No one properly made tunes for the car, and a tune is KEY for a good turbo setup, not for the sake of power, but for the sake of actually being able to trust the engine.

It was indeed ECU related troubles that just made it a bit more difficult to talk to the car vs the well cracked 2.3L

But again it does indeed go back to the fact that so few people did it. My local that blew up his 2.0 liter turbo a few years ago never had a proper tune and could never get any help (a shop could've done it, but he just needed something safe, not trying to put down a lot of power with stock internals, especially when at only I think 6psi). So seriously it is more of the community at blame than anything else.


At this point typically the "well you should've bought a MS3" comes into play. While this may work for the 2.3L hatchback owners, it does not work for those with sedans that love sedans, and it also doesn't work as well with the 2.0L guys, because the base model 3 costs so much less than a MS3, you can fully properly low PSI boost a 2.0L and have it tuned for less than the cost of a Speed3, and likely have less issues that the Speed3 has (did you know that OUR timing chains are stronger than the MS3's? Seems a bit weird, but I recently discovered through a MZR tech that the MS3 timing chain is often taken off and replaced with ours).

So in the end.. point your finger at all of us (rather.. all 2.0L sedan owners), and blame them, because they are the ones why we don't know as much about the engine, because not enough people did it.
Where we had upwards of 100 2.3L owners turboing their cars at the same time and continuing to learn, there were less than 20 2.0L guys learning at the same time, with everything being for the most part very different, so they couldn't exactly keep in touch with the 2.3L guys because it was so different.



Edit - keep in mind my response is from the old 2.0L duratec. NOT the Skyactiv 2.0L, which is very different. The internals cannot handle the boost, that's why no one has done it.
 
#6 ·
@XCNuse and this is why I want to eventually boost mine when I actually have the money as a project. The thing is that it isn't the 2.0 guys don't want to do it it is the fact that most who bought a sedan 2.0 didn't have the money (for the most part) to get another model so no way they have enough to boost it.

Our engines are basically the same things as the Miata engine (newest gen) which has been turbod successfully on stock internals for awhile now. Also, another problem to note is that most companies won't give us the support needed to do FI the 2.0 anyways which is the big issue.
 
#11 ·
Also, I'm talking about the non-sky 2.0...
:thumbup1 1: okay, it gets confusing with the 10+ guys to what engine they're referring to so I wasn't sure lol
At either rate though, if you are 100% serious about doing it you better have at least $5k ready to go to start and $5k behind that in case it goes south, because you WILL be out of a car.

No one will jump off the edge and do because there is no history to go off of. And we know tuning for the 2.0 is very very limited. A tune is vital to setup a turbo. No good tuners equals no turbo. As you said you buddy blew his up because of the lack of a good tune. So the point your making that no one will do it, is crap. There ain't no good tuning available which is a must have.
And I believe if I read your post right you claim a good tune on a turbo 2.0 will be more reliable than the speed. All because of the timing chain. I'm going to say that there is no way. The speed engine is pretty reliable. The only issues with the motors has been because of people not upgrading the fuel pump. If you mod it correctly and take care if it the speed will last.
I'm not sure if you're confused or agreeing...

The point I'm making is there is not enough history of people doing it, and not a solid base of what to do for it, meaning exactly what I said is true because I've physically been through it and dealt with my friend who did it, and watched it all happen.

I never said no one will do it, but you also don't see anyone doing it which.. pretty much makes that no one.

The speed engine is barely reliable, for a stock boosted car sure it can be, but it isn't. For a 2.0L that is not turbo charged and to charge it PROPERLY (properly being hugely key here), it's pretty fucking reliable because it's a square motor, unlike the DISI MZR motor.

Trust me, I know far more about this than I think you seem to, I'm not trying to sound aggressive, but I also don't see the point in going down the entire list of what separates the engines as that information is pretty much everywhere.

If you're confused, head over to M3F and you can read to your hearts galore what all the 2.3L guys did and what the ... under 5 2.0L guys tried to do.

I'm not saying it's impossible, I'm just saying it's rare, and has yet to be reliable BECAUSE no one wants to spend the proper amount of money on it.

Besides, the timing chain thing is a fluke that a MZR tech noticed, it has nothing to do with reliability of a boosted non DISI engine. You were just confused on the point I was trying to make.
 
#12 ·
:thumbup1 1: okay, it gets confusing with the 10+ guys to what engine they're referring to so I wasn't sure lol
At either rate though, if you are 100% serious about doing it you better have at least $5k ready to go to start and $5k behind that in case it goes south, because you WILL be out of a car.
I know that's why I haven't done it, don't have the $5k extra in reserve
 
#7 ·
That isn't true at all, the 2.0 guys didn't want to do it because no one was brave enough to pave the way like we had with the 2.3 guys, money wasn't the problem at all.

To prove that, my best friend's 2.0 was turboed for several years, but it had no real tuning solution, and once it damaged the engine that was the end of it, I guarantee it isn't a money issue, it's a no one wants to jump off the edge.

The skyactiv 2.0 is very very very far away from the Miata engines. A lot of people think this, but that's like saying my engine is the same as yalls.. which.. sure. The block is.. barely.
Everyone seems to forget that the Miata engine is NOT a high compression engine. It's the same compression as the Speed3, which is exactly why it's easy to turbo and make a lot of power from it because it's a mid compression square motor.


Whoever turbocharges a Skyactiv first and it lasts a month, they will deserve a cookie. I just don't see it happening.

I also don't see why anyone would take their daily car, put it off the road for over a month to turbocharge it, and then expect it to work perfectly every time (but that's just me).
 
#8 ·
No one will jump off the edge and do because there is no history to go off of. And we know tuning for the 2.0 is very very limited. A tune is vital to setup a turbo. No good tuners equals no turbo. As you said you buddy blew his up because of the lack of a good tune. So the point your making that no one will do it, is crap. There ain't no good tuning available which is a must have.
And I believe if I read your post right you claim a good tune on a turbo 2.0 will be more reliable than the speed. All because of the timing chain. I'm going to say that there is no way. The speed engine is pretty reliable. The only issues with the motors has been because of people not upgrading the fuel pump. If you mod it correctly and take care if it the speed will last.
 
#13 · (Edited)
@XCNuse
Don't be an ass. :D I was agreeing to a point. And I never claimed to know more than you. Square motor, round motors whatever the speed is well capable of 100k plus miles without major issues. It's been proven. How many people with a 2.0 that's put a turbo on it have crossed 100k miles. I doubt any yet. Plus the guy you knew finally had problems with his. So I wouldn't say it was reliable. But again and as you have said with a proper tune it would be more reliable. All performance turbo cars will need work as they age. The turbo seals will go among other things. You can turbo any engine you want if you got the cash and the money to do so. Problem is people come on here and think they can buy a turbo and intercooler and slap it on and gain 100 horsepower.

You took what I said way out of context. I simply said there isn't enough history or enough aftermarket tuning readily available.
 
#14 ·
I was reading some more about the Sky-G prototype, given all the detonation it can handle without a sweat maybe it WILL survive boost (4-5psi). I have my doubts about the engine's longevity (even stock) but having looked through the major parts and cutaways I actually don't think it's retarded.

One day. :)
 
#15 ·
Oversquare or stroker doesnt matter if you do it right. One is more ideal than the other but even then that comes down to what characteristics you want out of your motor. In my car I want a high revving oversquare motor. In my truck I want a stroker with lots of low end torque. Personal preference
Theres tons of stroker 4g63t's out there making plenty of power so the whole strokers cant handle boost idea is invalid. Not to mention all the stroker V8s with huge blowers out at the track on any given weekend

Theres a right way to do everything. The important thing is doing it right lol
 
#16 ·
lol just making sure! I wasn't sure if we were crossing wires or not hahah

Square can handle more power no matter how you see it (check out F1 engines and their ridiculously short strokes, but as you said it does come down to what you're doing with the car) Yes trucks are boosted but again it's a different type of boost, I'm not saying strokers CAN'T handle the boost, I'm saying you can't do as much with a stroker as you can with a square.

To kind of set the playing field a bit more level everything I'm talking about is with STOCK internals ONLY!. As that's where the other 50% of the problem comes into play. Internals are as much if not almost as much of a problem as the tune is, without either your turbo setup will not last as long, that's all I'm saying.

Skyactiv running boost I personally will never see it (again.. in reference to stock internals), even with a few PSI, the engine at that compression would probably blow something out the side of it (joking), but I guarantee you it won't work very well / worth the effort without rebuilding the engine from the ground up to handle it... at which point it would be interesting to see a "stock" (ei stock in appearance, not crazy tuned) Skyactiv on the road.
 
#17 ·
I agree with you that boosting the Slyactiv will probably reduce its lifespan, but with low boost I think you'll see the gains before causing problems. Is it worth the $4k to get there? Maybe not. Is it cool as hell? Yes.

Square may make more high-end power but the bore and stroke have little to do with surviving huge boost. There are 900hp 4G63's and 4B11's running about reliably, it's more in the quality of components than the original dimensions.
 
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#18 ·
Square may make more high-end power but the bore and stroke have little to do with surviving huge boost. There are 900hp 4G63's and 4B11's running about reliably, it's more in the quality of components than the original dimensions.
I typed out something like this earlier but my phone decided to not work so I gave up lol

But yes I agree with boost the engine dimensions dont really matter as long as you do it right

Making N/A power is a whole other animal though. Engine dimensions matter very much there
 
#19 ·
A lot of good debate in here, but I want to get into the nitty gritty of things. I only meant to use turbocharing the 2.0L MZR as an example of adding more power. It seems like ECU tuning is also way behind in R&D for our cars as well. I mean if I were a company, I feel like I'd put more effort into producing ECU flashes for the vehicle that is far more available like the 3 vs the MS3. I mean yes I understand the motives behind getting flashes out for the already performance oriented MS3, but think of the bucket loads of cash to be made developing a stable ECU flash with decent gains for the 3 as well. Is there an actual barrier to flashing the ECU such as encryption or the like? Can you not wring any more performance out of our engines because it's already engineered so well? It just seems weird that there's boat loads of parts available for Miatas, Focuses, and other vehicles which share the platform but sorely lacking for the 3.

I'd love to play around with programs such as MazdaEdit or ECUFlash, but I know very little about fuel and timing maps etc. I have a friend who tunes MegaSquirt EMS who I could probably learn some basics from but that still doesn't give me the wherewithal to edit hex, test maps, tune on a dyno etc.
 
#20 ·
Yeah its not as easy as one may think. In order to tune/flash factory computers these guys/companies have to break through all the encryptions so they basically have to reverse engineer the whole thing

Also, not much is to be had from changing the tune on a stock n/a vehicle. Even those handheld programmers are a waste of money. I used to see those make cars LOSE power on the dyno all the time. All they really do is advance the timing which doesnt do much except potentially harm the engine. Now if you make bolt on changes to a car then you can benefit from a tune but still its not a lot. N/A power is all made in the head so unless you do something there like a port or cams youll have minimal gains
 
#21 ·
handheld tuners suck, I had a hypertech and once I sold it immediately posted my dyno sheet after testing what it did to my car (AFRs included)

-5 hp, whoop de doo!

Dynotrics tune however is showing to be quite proven though.

I personally would like the see the supercharger come back to our cars; we already have a "stock" turbo car. Besides.. a S/C 3 is cool.. probably because only like 2 exist(ed)..
 
#22 · (Edited)
just dont tune the skyactive engines. Why bother, really, we bought the econo car for tuning purpose? Its ok we all do one time or another afterward thinking we could put more zoom in it, but the car in stock form is pretty good.

All skyactivs are stroker-like in nature, slow spinning relatively. Engineers complement it with either gear ratio or bigger overall wheel size(+tire).


and its not that the 2.0 is soo tunable. Its more of it produces the result more favorable, as in HP. One can FI the 2.5, and Torque is what they'll get cuz most of the force went into piston velocity instead of turning the crank. (layman's term)

lookup "stroker" in relation to "mean piston speed" on google.


edit: mzr2.0 is oversquare btw, its hp happy when its tuned and modded right.
 
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#27 ·
I have read a lot of posts on here and a few of the other forums about this. I had a 2008 Mz3 2.0l and was incredibly happy with that car, but did very little to mod it since it had the slush-box. When i wrecked it i went out looking for another 2.0l sedan and got the 2011 to dodge the skyactiv's and will be putting a turbo in there once i have it paid off in about 3 years (don't want to do anything overzealous until I have the title from the bank).

I hate the mentality that it will be easier to just go buy a MS3, I don't want a hatchback and since Mazda doesn't offer a MS3 sedan then here I sit.

I would love to see more productive discussions supporting the people who are willing to spend the money on properly boosting the 2.0's instead of discouraging everyone who owns one.
 
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