2003 Protege5 Build Thread

Ward83

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:
2003 Protege5
I decided to start a build thread since I'm making a project out of my P5. First, I'll start with where the car is now, and what I've done to it so far.

I bought the car in April of 2012 as I was in need of something better on gas than my truck. I gave $3800 for it, with 127k miles on it. It was in decent shape, but did need a little work. Here's how it looked the day I brought it home:
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Notice the mismatched wheels, and I think it had 3 different sizes of tires on it. All of the wheels had massive curb rash - whoever had this car before needs to practice parallel parking. The biggest issue was the front left wheel bearing, it was shot and needed replacement. I bought a 12 ton press from Harbor Freight, and replaced it myself in a weekend. It was a huge amount of work, the hardest part is finding a way to support the spindle while you press the bearing out. I also replaced the driver side CV axle while I had it apart.

I picked up some 2010 Mazda3 17" wheels, which helped out the look of the car dramatically:
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I also did some general improvement stuff, like putting new wiper blades on, air filter, tinting the sunroof, getting an alignment, and replacing the non-functional OEM cd changer with a single CD head unit out of a 626. I found out the hard way that 626's had green back lighting, but at least it worked.

Last year I found a wrecked P5 in a junkyard that had a full original leather interior which was mostly in good shape. The door panels and rear seats were perfect, but the front driver seat had side bolster wear, and the front passenger side had the built-in airbag deployed. I decided to try and fix them, and paid $300 for everything. I have minimal upholstery experience, but I figured this would be good practice. I bought a small walking foot sewing machine (a must-have for leather upholstery), some black leather upholstery, and some black vinyl to practice with first. The first task was to disassemble the front seats, and remove the damaged seat covers. Here's what the passenger side seat back looked like, notice the split seam and deployed airbag, The two outside panels were damaged, but the rest of the cover was fine.
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Next, using a seam ripper, I carefully removed the stitches holding the damaged panels, and used them as a pattern for the new leather. I then cut out the new leather panels, and spray glued headliner foam to the backsides of them for padding. Having a foam backing is needed in order for the panel to have no wrinkles or bumps when installed. I removed the airbag modules from both seats, since my car is not equipped with seat airbags, and has no plugs for them. I filled the spaces left by the airbag modules with blocks of seat foam cut to size.

Then it was just a matter of sewing the replacement panels to the old seat covers, and reinstalling. Here's the passenger side seat back after replacing the panels:
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And here are both seats reassembled, and liberally coated with Lexol. Although I used upholstery leather, it is not quite a perfect match to the OE leather. However, it's close enough that you wouldn't notice it unless it was pointed out.
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Then it was a simple matter of swapping the seats and door panels into my car. I don't have any pictures of them installed, but I will get some soon.

I managed to break my tail pipe loose from the muffler by bottoming out while parking in a field, so I decided to upgrade to the Mazdaspeed axle-back system. I like the looks better, and it's not much louder than stock:
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I stumbled across an awesome deal on a replacement 6-CD head unit, only $65 shipped! So I finally replaced my green 626 head unit with the correct one that came in the car originally:
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I found a good deal on a set of MX-5 wheels, which were in near perfect shape, and I also like better than the MZ3 wheels. I spent a few hours cleaning them thoroughly while they were off the car, then I had my tires mounted on them, and installed. The tires are Yokohama 205-45ZR17. I may add spacers to get them a little closer out to the fenderwell, but I'm waiting to see how much clearance there is after I get my lowering springs installed. You may have also noticed that I ditched my roof rack. I never used it, and the plastic trim pieces on it were all cracked and falling apart.
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My current plans for the car are to replace/upgrade the clunking front and rear suspension, and do some body work. The car has a big dent in the right rear door and quarter, as well as lots of scrapes and scratches in the bumpers. I managed to find another black P5 rear door, but it also has a small dent that needs fixing before I put it on. I'll have to have a shop fix the quarter panel, since I don't have the tools or skill to replace quarters. I'll keep this thread updated as I make progress.
 
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Very nice! Mx-5 wheels look a lot better than the MZ3 ones! By the way where did you get your MSP axle back?
 
Very nice! Mx-5 wheels look a lot better than the MZ3 ones! By the way where did you get your MSP axle back?

Thanks, I like the MX-5 wheels much better. I don't think the exhaust is the same as the MSP exhaust, but rather the optional "Mazdaspeed" exhaust that would have been sold at dealers. I got it from mazdagear.com: http://mazdagear.com/sport-exhaust---protege-5.aspx

I currently have the same axle-back (which will be coming off and going up for sale shortly). It's pretty much the same of the Racing Beat made for the MSP, but is MADE to fit the P5. Most P5 owners buy the MP3/MSP axle-back and chop and weld the tip, no need when going this route.
 
I currently have the same axle-back (which will be coming off and going up for sale shortly). It's pretty much the same of the Racing Beat made for the MSP, but is MADE to fit the P5. Most P5 owners buy the MP3/MSP axle-back and chop and weld the tip, no need when going this route.

Ahh thanks!
 
Did some cleaning under the hood today, and installed a short ram intake I picked up for cheap off eBay. I'll be replacing the cheapo filter with a K&N soon. I need to do some re-fitting on the intake though, after a test drive I found that it's rubbing against the brake master cylinder. The intake came with a couple of generic brackets, one of which I was able to bend to secure the MAF against the battery tray. I didn't want the intake flopping around, and making all sorts of vibrating noises when driving.



 
Started my suspension overhaul today. It took all damn day, and was a beating, but I got the front done. Here's what I did:

- Megan racing lowering springs
- KYB Excel-G Struts
- KYB upper strut mounts
- Ford escape endlinks
- New right outer tie rod
- Prothane greasable poly sway bar bushings
- Poly lower ball joint boots

The good news is that my front suspension clunks are completely gone now. The sway bar bushings were shot, as well as the right outer tie rod. My LCA ball joints and bushings were in good shape, but the ball joint boots were both torn. I had some poly ones laying around leftover from my old Trans Am, and they were a perfect fit. The hardest part of it all was getting the stock sway bar brackets loose, they're very hard to get a wrench on. I did buy a cordless impact gun from Harbor Freight, which was a huge time saver. The only thing I didn't touch were the brakes, those are being upgraded to Mazda 6 brakes soon. Rear springs, struts, and sway bar bushings are going on tomorrow, and AWR endlink brackets are going on whenever they show up.

Greasable bushings - I switched to right angle grease fittings on these, so I can actually get a grease gun on them. These bastards were a huge pain to replace.


Back together


Another shot back together


Poly ball joint boot
 
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Got the rear suspension done today. Here's what I did:

- Megan Racing lowering springs
- Monroe struts (argh); The KYB struts I ordered online turned out to be the wrong ones, so I had to go with a pair of Monroes from O'Reilly for now. I'll probably swap them for KYBs at some point, but they're at least working for now.
- Megan Racing trailing arms; my original bushings were shot, and I decided to just go ahead and replace the trailing arms. For about $100 with bushings pre-installed, it made for an easy upgrade. I painted them red, since I didn't like the blue metallic they came in.
- Prothane 16MM greasable sway bar bushings; to make these work, I had to bend the prothane brackets to fit. To bend them, I heated up the stock bends with a propane torch, then hammered them down until they were at about a 45 degree angle. I'm not 100% happy with the fit, so I may tweak these later on.
- Rear brake pads; Upon inspection, the rear pads were down to about 1/8", so I decided to go ahead and replace them while I had them apart.

I didn't get many pics since I was in a hurry to finish before dark, but I'll get some exterior pics showing the drop soon. Here are a couple pics showing the trailing arms installed:





 
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I got my Mazda6 front brakes installed today, the difference in braking is amazing. The rotors are Powerstop drilled/slotted. The calipers are OEM reman units from Rockauto, which I painted red and added Mazdaspeed decals to. I got the decals off eBay for a few bucks. I'm running BrakeBest ceramic pads as well.



 
I fixed the ebay intake rubbing against the MBC by cutting off the excess old metal bracket that used to hold on the stock intake (the one that also holds the coolant reservoir). When you do that you can angle the first pipe segment more downward if you buy a smaller K&N filter (I used one with a 40 degree angle from the inlet for more clearance). Takes in colder air this way too (probably, don't quote me on it.)
 
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looks pretty clean man...im supper jelly about the leather seats but overall looks good. im gonna have to start a build thread soon
 
looking good man , im looking into doing that brake upgrade! how do you like the axleback exhaust? any sound clips?
 
I got my Mazda6 front brakes installed today, the difference in braking is amazing. The rotors are Powerstop drilled/slotted. The calipers are OEM reman units from Rockauto



Looks great ! I am planning to do the break upgrade which year and sub model / trim are they for ?

What wheels are you using ? Will your brakes fit the OEM P5 rims ?
 

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