New here please school me on this stuff.

I'm an american muscle type of guy but I have a 16 year old son who prefers imports. Recently a friend of mine approached me about a Jeep CJ7 project sitting in my backyard and he wanted to trade his little project. We now have a 2002 Protege5 with a 35,000 mile FS-ZE engine and auto trans swap for my son. Previous owner spent a lot of time trying to make everything work and got the running part figured out before we traded. I did some code scanning and replaced the gear range switch on the trans with the old American one and now we have a driveable car. I understand we are still not reaching full potential with the American ECU. I have the JDM ECU but my research leads me to believe it's not compatible with OBD2. Can we get a custom chip for this ECU or reprogramming? The overdrive seems to work just fine but the switch on the shifter doesn't do anything, maybe just a bad switch? The car itself has 182,000 on it and the struts are worn out. I've just ordered new KYB struts (on sale), strut mounts, and tie rod ends to bring steering and suspension back up to par. We'll be getting a cold air intake for it soon also and it already has a stock header. Tell me what other basic maintenance and upgrades I need to perform so it's a reliable daily driver. I've been wrenching for over 20 years so I can handle pretty much everything I dig into. Here it is.

make sure the vics screws are tight, check for coil pack problems (common on this motor) but cheap to buy $25ea at autozone with a lifetime warranty for me in my locality. check the sunroof for seal damage and proper lubrication and function (just precaution as its an aging car) check the window motors to be sure they sound good and function at a decent speed. check the radiator cap is holding correct pressure (mine recently has been having issues with this, new cap remedied it). get a headlight restoration kit (mothers or meguiars are best) and clean the light assemblies up. other than that there really is not much except if it has been sitting a long time flush and fill all the fluids.

Check your engine mounts, they always rip on these cars and can damage other components.

As has been mentioned, the intake had a recall. Make sure you pull it off and check the VICS screws, they come loose and go through the engine.

Mazda claimed my car wasn't under the recall but when I pulled apart my intake, 3 of the screws were missing and are now in the catalytic. While you are in there, you can get rid of the emissions system.

This VICS system was a problem on the ZE also? Will check motor mounts too, thanks.

JetSkiGuy said:

This VICS system was a problem on the ZE also? Will check motor mounts too, thanks.

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The ze has a better butterfly design then the fp-de, does your motor have a black plastic vacuum chamber on the top of the intake manifold?

Yes, it has the resonator, stock 4-2 header looking exhaust mani with twin downpipe, and it had a different crank trigger wheel that wouldn't work with the American ECU. A friend of mine did the swap after blowing the original engine and not being able to find a good deal on a used one.

Stock engine is FS-DE not FP.

JetSkiGuy said:

Yes, it has the resonator, stock 4-2 header looking exhaust mani with twin downpipe, and it had a different crank trigger wheel that wouldn't work with the American ECU. A friend of mine did the swap after blowing the original engine and not being able to find a good deal on a used one.

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You might be right that there might have not been a recall on the FS-ZEs but there is not as much info on the web about them, so its up to you to chance it.

Out of curiosity, whats the timing pattern on the ZEs?

If you're talking about the tabs on the crank pulley, the ZE version looks just like the 96-97 2.0 version......maybe because it's OBD1??

I meant the timing pattern, as in, FSDE has a 36-1 pattern (IIRC)

The_big_dill said:

Stock engine is FS-DE not FP.

Out of curiosity, whats the timing pattern on the ZEs?

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That's what I meant to type,
The crank trigger on a Fs-ze is a 4 point item, the butterfly's on the manifold go through the shaft just like the 1.8 fp-de.

The_big_dill said:

I meant the timing pattern, as in, FSDE has a 36-1 pattern (IIRC)

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I have no idea what that means. I'm used to talking about american v8's.....8* static advance and 36* all-in by 3800rpm with an additional 12* at cruise brought in by vacuum.