How-To Install the Essential Speed Stage 1&2 for your MSP

[adm]

Okay, after about four weeks of my life being very busy (plus I've got that medical condition that keeps me from gettin off my lazy ass, honest, I have a note from the doctor, I can prove it) here's my install of the Essential Speed Stage 1&2 Kits.

First, some quick notes:
When installing the kits I did not have instructions from Essential Speed (lost the email, or something along those lines) so what I did may vary slightly from what ES tells you to do. You're a big kid, I trust you to make decisions when you come to install your kit. All in all it took my friend and I about six or seven hours to do the full install. We made a couple mistakes which probably cost thirty minutes or so each, and I'm pretty damn confident that should I do the install again it would take no more than four hours.

Overall I'm very happy with the kits. The car sounds beefier (and we all like beef, right?), has a bit more power, and, most important to me, drives MUCH smoother. The engine seems to run cooler, as it should, although it's kind of hard to judge. The power gain doesn't seem huge, but it's enough that you can feel it when driving. The only negative I've experienced so far is that the car stalls differently now, which requires some re-learning to drive it. Mostly it likes to stall when it gets gas then suddenly has the clutch thrown in. I've had it stall when driving around parking lots, balancing the gas and the clutch in second gear. Once or twice it stalled when a car in front of me decided to make a quick turn into a driveway, and once when I was pulling up to make a left at a light while waiting for an oncoming car to pass by. Essential Speed is aware of this problem and is looking into it. Again, so far it hasn't been anything which concerns me.


In the next several posts I'll go over everything we did (which I can still remember) during the install. I have a bunch of pix and, if you're really blind, I can provide higher res versions upon request. There are some additional photos not shown here which really aren't necessary for this how-to as well.

In a nutshell, we plan to transform your car from the wimpy little evo/sti-wanna-be into a giant beast of the big screen...



...and this will aid you to metamorphize from a weakly-little-intarweb-geek into that ladies man you've always dreamed of becoming.



Special thanks goes out to Kevin and Karen at Essential Speed for creating some kickass products, Toole for being available for questions (I only really had to call him two, three, maybe nine times, tops), BlkZoomZoom for photocopying the shop manual, Eric for helpin with the install and all the cutting, LinuxRacr for being too good to resist (in that brotherly, manly, good-natured, oiled muscles kinda way), and all the women out there for completely ignoring me and ensuring that I have money to spend on toys like this instead of dinners, and movies, and lingerie, and weddings. Sigh.

[adm]

Step One: Remove the Bumper
This can be more complicated than necessary but hopefully I can help you out some here. First of all, you're looking to remove the FRONT bumper. The one with the headlights. You may find this guide from mazda to be slightly useful, although it doesn't quite provide you with all the steps you need.

Start by removing all of the plastic screw thingies in front of the wheels, there will be three on each side of the car. On a side note, in case you haven't dug through your Protege much yet you will find that this miracle of engineering consists of some seats, four wheels, and an engine up front somewhere, all of which is held together by exactly 3,983,409 of these tiny little plastic screws. "Why plastic?" you may find yourself asking. Well, I'll tell you why: plastic is lighter than metal. When you have as many of these in the car as we do we end up saving at least half a pound or so. This all adds up to more power to the wheels. These things also break quite easily. I need to head to the dealership sometime soon and pick up a grab bag to replace the ones I've broken or lost so far. In fact, I'm thinking of handing them out come Halloween to all the trick-or-treating ricers. Perhaps they will find the extra HP as useful as I have.



Underneath the car you'll find several screws to pull out as well. These ones, however, are metal, and will stand up to your harsh words. Try a ratchet.



Go back to the wheel well and you'll find a couple bolts holding the bumper in, which are pretty tricky to get to without some tough love.





Now pull out the bolts up top.



Before we get to pulling the bumper off completely, you'll probably need to double check under the car. There were two screws or so which we had missed (and don't seem to be mentioned in Mazda's documentation) underneath and a bit far back. If you try to pull the bumper off and it doesn't want to budge, check for these.

You're almost there. By the headlights there are little hook tabs holding the bumper in. What you need to do is pull a bit and press in with a flathead screwdriver. Also, see the Mazda documentation mentioned above for more sassy details.





Now you can pull the entire bumper off the front of the car, it's sort of snapped in place so just give it a yank. While someone supports the bumper (or you can set it on the ground if you don't have any friends) unplug the fog lights from the passenger side of the car. You can see the connection below.



And the cable leading from the bumper.



The final product.



And the rest of the car, to prove I didn't just photoshop it out.

[adm]

Step Two: Remove all the Stock Stuff
This part is pretty straight forward. Just yank out all the piping. If it's black, plastic, and in the engine bay it's gotta go. Once the pipes are out be sure to plug the any openings on the turbo with some rags, you don't want any squirrels jumping in there while you're not watching.





To get the stock intercooler out you'll have to disconnect the driver's side fan from the car. Any screws and bolts you can get to you'll probably want to take out for the time being. This will make removing the intercooler go much smoother.



Keep working at the intercooler until you can get it clear of the frame and just pull it out. This process took us maybe twenty minutes. Basically just get it as free as you can, find what's blocking it, deal with that, then free it further. Rinse and repeat. If memory serves, there was a hook on the bottom of the intercooler that you should be aware of when removing it as it holds the intercooler in place.





Once it's out put the fans back in place and fasten the top down with the bracket provided by Essential Speed. They really do think of everything.

[adm]

Step Three: Reposition the Doohickey
Up front you'll find a U-shaped coil which is part of the radiator or something. It helps cool things down. If someone wants to jump in and let me know what exactly this is that'd be great because right now I feel like an idiot. Anyway, it's currently mounted in front of this vertical brace running down the front of the car. That's going to get in the way of our new intercooler, so we'd really like it to be behind the brace. Disconnect it from the brace and loosen up the screws up top. This will allow you to swing the brace to the side, temporarily, while we push the doohickey further into the car. In a minute we'll just swing the brace back down in front.



Before dropping the brace you may notice a sharp hook on the coil itself which had been used to partially hold it onto the brace. This could do some damage if we're not careful. If you happen to be big and burly, go ahead and get chop that hook off. I just bent it out of the way, which is perfectly suitable for someone of my stature. Now we can swing that brace back into position, this time in front of the coil. Screw it into place and you're golden. There's no need to attach the coil to the brace this time around as the pressure of the brace will keep the coil from clanking around.





Now would be an excellent time to take a break and grab some food, which is what we did while working on the install.

[adm]

Step Four: Cutting
We (okay, okay. Eric, technically) did all of the cutting using a Dremel. I recommend using a Dremel if you have one. If you don't have a Dremel I recommend you either give up now and let your Protege become a permanent lawn ornament, or you go find one. You can use a hacksaw or jigsaw (I know Toole did) but it is my belief that a gentleman's arm muscles are better used for other activities. Plus, the name "Dremel" just rolls off your tongue, it feels good. Essential Speed supplies guides for cutting, but it's pretty straightforward and you might not even need them.

We are cutting three sections. Two of these make room for the pipes while the third is to provide more air to the intake, and is completely optional.



Over on the driver's side you want to cut a rounded section out of the metal sheet in front of the air intake.



Where your old intercooler sat you want to cut the metal on the driver's side as well as to cut the corner off of the radiator fan, to make room for your pipe.



That's it for cutting (for now). Easy, huh?

[adm]

Step Five: Mounting the Intercooler
I like helping people. I'm not sure why, it's just the way I'm built. This being said, I'm going to pass out some solid advice my mother gave me when I was but a child: "Always check your pipes before you blow them." You see, Essential Speed packs these kits in these great big boxes, filled with packing peanuts, newspaper, and bubblewrap. Essential Speed is watching out for you too, they are also into helping others which is probably why I like them so much. Now this does present one problem, being that all those nifty little packing peanuts get into the darndest places. Unless you want your car to sound something like Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (for all of the forty seconds which it will run) PLEASE check all of your pipes for packing peanuts BEFORE mounting them in the car.



In the picture above (featuring most, but not all, of the items the kit comes with) you will see two heavy metal rods with a bolt at one end, cleverly marked as "deadly weapons". These are important. You use these to hang your intercooler. These items are also the bane of my existence as it took me somewhere between an hour and a half to slightly less than a week to figure out what the hell purpose they serve. Once I got it I became instantly aware of Essential Speed's pure genius. I think the elation had such an impact on me I actually wet myself. So the idea is, you slide one of these into each of the openings on either side of the actual bumper on the car frame. The intercooler hangs from two holes on the back of the bumper (the side facing the engine bay). These holes actually hold on some wind guards I think, which you need to removed. You'll know the two holes right away because they are the two holes the intercooler lines up with. Once you get to this point you'll say "How the hell do I reach into there to get a bolt in place?" At this point, get ready for this, you will remember the "deadly weapons" and you will see that their length is perfect for reaching into the bumper to the hole. (This is the part where you wet yourself, so make sure you're prepared.) Go ahead and unscrew the bolt, stick one of those bad boys into the bumper -- don't worry, she likes it -- and thread the bolt through the intercooler mount, the hole in the bumper, and into your "deadly weapon" of choice. Also, it matters which way the intercooler is mounted. Mine had a side marked "right" with went to the driver's side. It should be pretty obvious because it's built to fit.







Note: If you see Toole's pix you'll notice his intercooler is bigger and hangs differently than mine. His mounts further up while the standard intercooler I have hangs from the back. Enough talk about Toole's tool.

[adm]

Step Six: Put Them Pipes In
This is all mostly straightforward so I won't give you much direction. My advice is to lay out all your pipes before hand and figure out how they all hook up to one another. Also, start from the bottom and work your way up. A couple quick notes, however...

You'll want to mount the BOV before putting the pipe into place. This thing is a real pain in the ass to get on. If you don't have the proper tool I suggest you go find one. We ended up making one out of some old bicycle clamp or something Eric had lying around. All in all it took BOTH us about five or ten minutes. I'm not sure one person could do it alone. If you are like Toole and don't have the proper equipment you could lose two or three hours just trying to get the BOV mounted. *snicker* Also, try to mount it right-side up or you'll need to wrap it in a rag and use some pretty big hardware to get it turned around right.

Additionally, you'll find that one of the hoses used to connect the pipes is longer than the others. This needs to be mounted up top. If you place it in the wrong place you will end up wasting at least half an hour pulling pipes back out, unfastening hose clamps, and then putting it all back together. *Toole snickers*

As always, be sure to thread the hose clamps onto the pipes before mounting them.

Hooking up the vacuum tubes is pretty straightforward as well. If you need further help with these I'll take some specific pix of their locations. Be sure to read the instructions which come with the BOV so the air filter ends up facing the proper direction.

[adm]

Step Seven: Put the Bumper Back On
Just scroll up and follow the instructions for removing the bumper, but in reverse. If you like you can print out those instructions and hold them upside down.



We ran into one snag when mounting the bumper. There are several points where the bumper is attached under the car which did not reach due to the new intercooler. We just cut some space out of the bumper to make room. The plastic rock guard still attaches by two screws and does a fine job protecting the intercooler.





I didn't actually ever put the boost controller in, I'll be putting in something more electronic later on (I feel more comfortable/safe going that way), so I won't be helping you out with that part of the install, but I believe it gets duct taped to the exterior of the front passenger's side door. ;)
Here's some final pix of the completed install:

[TooleBox]

looks great man! glad i could help... your little set-backs were probably my fault... each time you called i was a bit more drunk... by the last few calls i dont relly remember talkin to ya! HAHAH

glad you're enjoyin the kit!

[garretts77]

I don't even have an MSP, but I sure enjoyed reading that... nice work!

[Paul]

can we get the pic's back?

[Rism]

red X!

[adm]

doh! sorry, i was cleanin up my server over the last month or so and must have deleted them. i'll throw em back up this week. incidentally, my essential speed setup is for sale if anyone's interested, i'm askin $1200 (was $2200 new). i don't have an msp anymore.

[JBreed]

Whats a stage 1 & 2 ?

[Brian MP5T]

" Up front you'll find a U-shaped coil which is part of the radiator or something. It helps cool things down."

POWER STEERING COOLER