Hi everyone. I'm Cody. I've wanted an MSP for as long as I can remember. I needed a new daily while I repaint my BMW e30 so I figured it was time to finally get one. Even though these cars are affordable, they certainly are not easy to find in good condition. I live in the Atlanta area and I searched for 2 months to find one. I found a lot of junk and rust buckets. I finally came upon this car on the Tampa, FL craigslist and had to have it. It was a great car for the money. The craigslist ad said it was a one owner car with a freshly swapped in, 60k engine. The car was clean inside and out and had brand new struts and rear springs. It even came with a spare interior and boxes and boxes of spare parts. I talked to the owner on the phone. There was one thing that bothered me- he only had driven the car 25 miles since the engine swap. 25 miles!! And I was going to drive this from Tampa to Atlanta. If you think that was a crazy idea, you are right. I had no idea what was about to happen...
So, I get to Tampa and the car was everything I had hoped for. The owner was really nice and clearly had a passion for this car. I paid for it, loaded up the spare parts in the protege and in my dads car and we set off for Atlanta. The car made it all the way to Macon, GA where it suddenly stopped running. Sadly, I had it towed to the local Mazda dealer. They found some wiring issues and I was back on the road. The fun didn't last long... it died again about an hour later. I finally had it towed home and discovered that the o2 sensor wiring was burning on the exhaust, shorting the wire, and blowing the fuse. After fixing that issue (new extender harness and o2 sensor), it was back on the road.
I've done a lot of maintenance on the car in the past few weeks and have really been enjoying it. I even got a new aluminum SMIC and pipes for it put on today.
On to the pics:
So, I get to Tampa and the car was everything I had hoped for. The owner was really nice and clearly had a passion for this car. I paid for it, loaded up the spare parts in the protege and in my dads car and we set off for Atlanta. The car made it all the way to Macon, GA where it suddenly stopped running. Sadly, I had it towed to the local Mazda dealer. They found some wiring issues and I was back on the road. The fun didn't last long... it died again about an hour later. I finally had it towed home and discovered that the o2 sensor wiring was burning on the exhaust, shorting the wire, and blowing the fuse. After fixing that issue (new extender harness and o2 sensor), it was back on the road.
I've done a lot of maintenance on the car in the past few weeks and have really been enjoying it. I even got a new aluminum SMIC and pipes for it put on today.
On to the pics:
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