Ok so here is a pic of the fuel pump I ordered off of Ebay (On the bottom). You can see that its inlet pipe on the right side is bigger in diameter than the Mazda pump (On the top). The outlet fittings on the left also have totally different threads. Both of these issues make the Ebay pump incompatible with my car without a lot of extra work to adapt it.
I have no idea how they can say that pump is a direct replacement for the Mazda pump... but that's what their add said. They even listed the Mazda pump part number. Regardless, I noticed the Ebay pump leaks around the seam where the casing is crimped around the cap making it totally useless. Good thing it was cheap so I didn't get ripped off too badly.
However it is not all bad news. I found this in the inlet hose from the fuel tank to the pump this evening. As you can see it is a tiny inline mesh fuel filter. It looks partially clogged in this pic, but it was worse when I removed it. I think this little guy might have been the problem all along?!
I won't know for sure until a couple days go buy without any starting issues. But after I put the original pump back in and adapted a brand new FC fuel filter in place of the old FB fuel filter it fired right up.
