Been a while... My 94 Protege/Familia

[EGTT91]

Recently sold my MX6 and bought my buddys Protege with a bunch of rare JDM/EDM Goodies...

Its a 94 Pro LX... No sunroof. Lets start with what the car already has...

Exterior::
GTX 3-hole front bumper
Infini Corners
Familia Grille
Familia Tails
Familia Rear Garnish with Rear fogs
90 Protege tail lights to match the garnish
EDM Glass headlights
8k HIDs
Rain Guards
2000 Protege ES wheels (Dont think Im too fond of them.. they may grow on me)
Blue Blox Extended lug nuts
Mud Flaps

Interior::
JDM Familia seats Front and rear
Mazda Floor mats
MX3 Steering wheel w/ leather wrap
MX3 Tall armrest center console w/rear cupholders
Black Headliner

Exhaust::
Mazdaspeed Protege RacingBeat Muffler

Suspension/Brakes::
Mazdaspeed front strut bar
H&R Springs
KYB GR2s
Cross Drilled Rotors

On to the pics!!::

Rear Fog Garnish lit up::

The car::

Mazdaspeed Muffler::

Infini Corners, 3 Hole, EDM glass headlights, Familia Grille::

Interior:: (Added a Short Throw and Integra GSR Shift knob.. (I love how those knobs feel)

Rear Garnish:

I added Blox Extended Lug nuts that I had laying around

Engine bay, Dirty but clean, Mazdaspeed Strut bar::

Rainguards::

 

[EGTT91]

Threw in a Clarion Headunit, MD Audio Equalizer, and Infinity Reference speakers all around.

Also a Kicker Comp 12 on a Rockford Fosgate T3002 amp, and a DHD Power Cruiser 600w amp for the Highs.

More to come, maybe some BPT in the future

 

[EGTT91]

Well apparently everyone got BJs and BKs and forgot about the BG!(nobody)

 

[323]

super nice BG! where'd you find those seats and how much did you pay for them?

 

[EGTT91]

Thanks, My buddy that I got the car from got them off a guy in Ohio, who got them from a guy in Canada, and probably came from an JDM Imported car up there lol

 

[THE Phen]

Looks good man! I <3 1st gens.

What part of Ohio did it come from?

 

[Scorch03]

Sweet looking car man, wish mine was in that kind of shape.

 

[EGTT91]

Car came from New York City, the Seats came from Ohio i wanna say it was Maineville

 

[ajkulish]

any plans to boost?

 

[EGTT91]

Up in the air.. mostly because of the cold but I have a BP26 Manifold and a blown VJ20 as well as the BP26 Injectors. All I'd need is a rebuild on the turbo, BOV, FMIC, 4wire TPS and BP26 ECU to do a factory setup. We'll see. I may use the BP26 manifold and get a T25 or T3 flange welded to it and do something custom and run MS again.

Here was the last setup in my EGT: I may even do the Kia VC again too lmao

 

[ajkulish]

i think thatd be a good call...... minus the vc

 

[THE Phen]

The Kia VC makes me giggle a little bit. BP's ftw.

 

[EGTT91]

I only did it to screw with pples heads... I always told pple it was a POS Kia engine

 

[AzteCypher]

Subbin... I like the lowered/slammed boxy look. Looking forward to seeing what else you do with it.

 

[323]

lol at the kia vc. just like how ppl stuff bpt's in ford festivas

 

[EGTT91]

Ive always wanted to do that.. hell even an N/A BP with Bolt ons would be damn quick in a Festiva

 

[AzteCypher]

I see you've made some updates but haven't posted any of them here.

 

[EGTT91]

Okay so I've seriously fallen behind on this worklog... where to start....

Backtrack 6 weeks ago::

Engine went on me. After some good diag time, narrowed it down to piston slap, and once I had the head off I confirmed my diagnosis. I narrowed the knock down to cylinder 2, and could see the ring on one side of the piston, whereas the other side was nice and snug to the wall.

Heres a picture of the head, look how black and gunked up it is. At 165k with obviously minimal maintenance I cant be upset that it failed

So being that $$ was tight I didnt get an engine for it until about a week later. In the mean time I painted the valve cover, a damn close match to the color of the MazdaSpeed Strut bar.

Found a new engine, 97k mi out of an AUTOMATIC Mercury Tracer LTS. $220 with tax from a local yard. Clean as could be inside.

Needed the car back on the road so I made a one night event out of it, as usual working alone

The 165k Original clutch was spent, replaced it with an Exedy OE Replacement for KL, with a spare flywheel I had resurfaced earlier that day.

The obligatory empty bay shot lol

 

[EGTT91]

As I said in the 1st post of this thread, I wasnt all that fond of the 2000 Protege ES Wheels I had on it. After the car was running and I had 1000+ miles on the new engine, I said screw it and put them on craigslist for $200.

Some guy calls me from Waterbury (20-25min away) said he had some 17s he would give me even trade. His needed 2 tires, as did mine.

I didnt want to go with 17s, I would have preferred 15 or 16s, but they were all straight, not cracked or repaired, and they looked pretty decent on the car.

So here are the cars after the trade

So obviously the next thing that needed to be attacked was that horrid wheel gap.
My good friend Andre who owns an 03 Civic SI (EP3) was gonna throw out his Raceland 1pc coilovers because one damper blew and he was a year past warranty.

I remembered him telling me the springs were 410lb/in F and 310 lb/in R, so the wheels started turning in my head and I grabbed em.
The car was already on KYB GR2s and H&R Springs.
I Picked up some no name ebay coilovers locally for $30,threw those springs in the trash, and used those sleeves with the Raceland springs.

The Newly aquired drop, still hadn't settled

After some driving, the alignment was way out, So I took it to a friends shop that lets me use w/e I need, and I aligned it myself.

Quick cellphone pic my buddy took

Just for comparison of how low it really is, Heres a pic of my car on 17" wheels, next to my brother in laws DX protege on 14" steelies with stock suspension.

Replaced the 2 needed tires with Falken FK-452s

Some mudflap scrapeage

And of course some Tripod action coming into the driveway which really isnt that steep as you can see lol

 

[EGTT91]

Once all of that was out of the way, and I really dialed in the ride height I wanted, I started paying a bit more attention to the exterior. The paint is in damn good condition for being 18yrs old, but I'd been planning to wax/buff it out for some time.

So after a wash, Meguiars Cleaner wax, and a buff:

Also added some stickers just for laughs

LED City lights:

Put some brighter bulbs in the rear fogs too