What have you done to your MSP today?

Man I haven't been on here in ages. Ended up buying another MSP yesterday lol. Its a titanium, which makes it my third. Has an FS-ZE swapped into it, and I am pretty sure the turbo is shot. It needs a LOT of work. Interior is pretty bad, although the seats are clean aside from some sun fading. The motor is a mess and the mounts are all shot. Cylinder 2 has low compression, PO says the intake valve is stuck. Swapped the crank pulley from the JDM pulley to the US pulley, replaced the engine 10 amp fuse and got it to fire up, but it smokes like mad because of the turbo puking oil.

I have another turbo and wastegate to install, but the motor needs to be pulled to install the correct MBSP.

Got the car for $800 but it doesn't have a title, need to see what the build number is. The kicker is the car only has 79k miles, which is the main reason why I wanted it.

#1345 is still sitting in the garage, been down for over a year now. The crank is as the machine shop being turned, the rods were sent to Pauter to get a replacement and then I can work on getting it put back together once I have all my parts back.
 
I got mine out of the garage after a long winter and got it cleaned up.

MSP2019.jpg
 
Just dropped off the car at a shop for compression and leak-down testing. Lots of smoke on cold startup after sitting for a couple of days (does this regularly). I'm thinking it may be valve seals, but they're concerned it might be the turbo. Either way, this probably won't be cheap.
 
Man I haven't been on here in ages. Ended up buying another MSP yesterday lol. Its a titanium, which makes it my third. Has an FS-ZE swapped into it, and I am pretty sure the turbo is shot. It needs a LOT of work. Interior is pretty bad, although the seats are clean aside from some sun fading. The motor is a mess and the mounts are all shot. Cylinder 2 has low compression, PO says the intake valve is stuck. Swapped the crank pulley from the JDM pulley to the US pulley, replaced the engine 10 amp fuse and got it to fire up, but it smokes like mad because of the turbo puking oil.

I have another turbo and wastegate to install, but the motor needs to be pulled to install the correct MBSP.

Got the car for $800 but it doesn't have a title, need to see what the build number is. The kicker is the car only has 79k miles, which is the main reason why I wanted it.

#1345 is still sitting in the garage, been down for over a year now. The crank is as the machine shop being turned, the rods were sent to Pauter to get a replacement and then I can work on getting it put back together once I have all my parts back.

Glad you got your hands in this again. Do you have a msp support plate? I have one if you need
 
Haven't been on here in what feels like years, but my MSP is parked due to a nasty noise, from what I'm assuming is a water pump bearing going out. Haven't torn into it yet to confirm.
 
Ordered a new OEM slave cylinder to replace the factory installed September 2002 part that finally went yesterday while out driving. Damn near 17 years and over 150,000 miles is not to shabby for part longevity.
 
Well, it wasn't my water pump bearing...

sX5V0EB.jpg


Looks like the timing tensioner bolt failed or backed out. Luckily I was able to chase the threads in the block, hoping it's a solid fix. Replacement bolt will get Loctite for good measure.
 
Looks like its time for a new clutch line as well. After putting on the new release cylinder and attempting to bleed it, I noticed a fresh trail of leaking fluid coming from the original clutch line. I'll pick up one from the parts store tomorrow and fix it then.
 
Had no luck getting one from parts store or Mazda as both were closed last week on my only day off so I ordered a Centric hose from Amazon. Picked up a flare wrench set and installed it today. Car shifts like it always has again. Gave it a bath and of course its going to rain now.
 
Discovered a missing center cap screw M4x10 7pitch metric and replaced. Also learned why the car has felt stronger than its normal 6.9 psi of boost. My OEM WGA has finally died after all of these years. Reminds me when I used to fill it up with Sunoco GT 100 and utilize my dual stage boost controller. I'll get around to installing an ATP WGA one day and drive accordingly until then.
 
There's a guy local to me selling a MSP 'for parts' he says it's complete but has no compression- he claims a likely blown HG but I recall the 2.0L's liked to throw rods. A Black Mica with 170K and a clean title/no accidents.
I had an 00 ES and always wanted one of these cars; are they becoming hard to rebuild/maintain with parts availability? Do the major vendors still make aftermarket parts for them?
 
Last edited:
Like any limited production model some parts are discontinued. But that said there are still many parts available to keep your FS running.
People made their rods/lsd etc break imo back when the cars first came on the scene. Aftermarket has been limited for awhile. Still shouldn't be hard to find enough key parts to enhance the performance and have a reliable car.
 
Like any limited production model some parts are discontinued. But that said there are still many parts available to keep your FS running.
People made their rods/lsd etc break imo back when the cars first came on the scene. Aftermarket has been limited for awhile. Still shouldn't be hard to find enough key parts to enhance the performance and have a reliable car.

thanks for your insight! I'm driving 2.5 hours to see a yellow 03.5 tomorrow, really hoping it's got good bones; the only other one up for sale is 7+ hours away or a Black Mica 03 with a busted engine.
 
Good luck. When you find one hopefully it already has things like hardpipes, upgraded intercooler, exhaust etc. I would stay away from ones with blown engines/transaxles unless you like projects. To me those things scream abuse.
 
Good luck. When you find one hopefully it already has things like hardpipes, upgraded intercooler, exhaust etc. I would stay away from ones with blown engines/transaxles unless you like projects. To me those things scream abuse.

Tragically, the Yellow has catastrophic rust in the rear. I'm tempting to buy it for the parts though; he's telling me it has forged rods/pistons, a stage 1 clutch, replaced rear shocks/struts/springs, it had a BOV, a mixed hard/soft tubing, a piggyback of some kind, a pope header and 3" back exhaust.
Pretty sure I can talk him down to $2100 but it will either need a complete unibody replacement or will be a parts car.

67969896_2798025296893516_7985065478596853760_n.jpg67952025_2798025340226845_4843629594034569216_o.jpg68612819_2798025463560166_3627667323961212928_n.jpg68656029_2798025406893505_6838142600193507328_n.jpg67969896_2798025296893516_7985065478596853760_n.jpg67952025_2798025340226845_4843629594034569216_o.jpg68612819_2798025463560166_3627667323961212928_n.jpg68656029_2798025406893505_6838142600193507328_n.jpg, the Yellow has catastrophic rust in the rear.
 
Just changed the coolant and I really did nothing to her other than take a pic as my odometer rolled over to 54k miles.
 
not an active thread anymore, damn.


anyone ever take out their ABS completely? I'm wondering how to remove COMPLETELY so there's no lights or anything.
 
Back