Autocross Budget Beater

I just picked up this little skittle on Saturday.

The plan is to daily/autocross it and stay on a super tight budget.

It's a 2011 mazda 2 with 150,000km's on it. It's got some issues. It needs an outer tie-rod, windshield & windshield washer fluid tank and pump. It's also got some body damage. The previous owner put it through a farmers fence so the bumper is cracked and it's got some scratches up over the cab where the fencing went over it. I picked it up for $2500.





I replaced the tie-rod tonight.


Picking up the windshield washer tank and pump tomorrow. So I got the bumper off and old broken tank out.


I've got it scheduled for an out-of-province inspection for Wednesday and a new windshield that morning as well. Going to keep track of all my receipts and see if I can build this car up for less then 5k to where I want it.

The plan is wheels/tires, rear sway bar and potentially some coilovers if I can find the right deal. Maybe some weight reduction, back seat, exhaust. Looking forward to getting it out on the course sooner then later.

As of now my total expense is

$2500 - car
$81 - tie rod
$6 - battery for key fob
_________________
$2587

Good work, keep the updates coming

Nice, my skittle cost me $8500 last year, same colour, same manufacture year... But just under 50k on it...

Sent from my Nexus 6P using Tapatalk

Thanks for the good words guys.

Went and picked up the tank for it tonight. What a pain in the nuts.



The new tank comes with absolutely nothing on it. To disassemble the old tank and not break the sensors or rubber grommets is not an easy job.


I ended up getting pissed off and just cut the old tank in half and then down the seam to the low fluid sensor to get it out.


The last thing that was a pain was the previous owners mechanic tucked the hoses for the front and rear window back into the fender. Had to remove the headlight just to get my hand in there. Anyway all back together, new windshield and a motor vehicle inspection in the morning. Hope it goes well.



$76 for the tank and pump
________________
$2663

Good job! Glad to see another BC Mazda2 onboard!

Kelowna has a bunch of active autox / motorsports folks, and I hope you'd join them some time for some good ol' motorsports fun!

Thanks Traum, I was looking at the schedule this afternoon. Looks like the next event is in a couple weeks. May just run up to vernon if they have one sooner. Can't wait to lift the back tire with this little car.

Also meant to add, I got the windshield installed Wednesday and the out of province inspection done as well. It passed! So stoked on that.
Need to repair the drivers inner fender and get a new serp belt but aside from that it's on the road and legal now. Time to find some rims and sticky tires.


Inspection $117
Windshield $265
______________

$3045 - CAD or $2322 USD

Andrew_S said:

Thanks Traum, I was looking at the schedule this afternoon. Looks like the next event is in a couple weeks. May just run up to vernon if they have one sooner. Can't wait to lift the back tire with this little car.

Click to expand...

If you are interested, a few of those hardcore Kelowna folks regularly make the trek from Kelowna to Pitt Meadows (near Metro Vancouver) to join the local Vancouver clubs (VCMC and UBCSCC) for some autox action on a giant pad. IIRC, one of the groups share a CSP Miata as well as an E36 BMW. Another guy drives a very fast 3rd gen Miata, and a newer person used to drive a Mazda3, but has recently succumbed to the Miata fever as well.

Trust me -- especially on a nice day, the big pad in Pitt Meadows is fun!

Hope to see you around one day.

its easier to take the headlights off and the fender cover off to replace the windshield reservoir

any idea on which coilovers you are aiming for?

Thanks for the suggestion Traum, a local guy was just telling me almost the exact same thing. I'll have to find a free weekend.

Rotary, thanks for the heads up about pulling the light & fender. The bumper was super easy to remove as half of the hardware is missing/broken already lol. I'll keep that in mind in the future though. As for suspension, no idea yet. Going to do a few events and then prioritize from there.

I've been dinking around with it a little bit lately.

Gave the engine bay a bit of a wipe down. It was cover in dust and debris, sorry no before pic.



just quickly spray bombed the steelies, got tired of looking at the rust through the hubcaps, super lazy didn't even take them off.



cleaned them up a lot for no effort at all,


am I missing a trim pieces on the back hatch?


also hacked together an inner fender so I don't destroy my new pump/bottle,



a couple self tapping bolts later, again hackery



The next project is take the entire interior apart and wet vac it all and deodorize it. The woman I got it from was a smoker and the car reeeeeeks on a hot day. I wiped down all the hard surfaces on the inside with armorall this afternoon.

Took it camping/offroading this weekend,







gave it a good pressure wash and cleaning when we got home.



on the lookout for a cheap set of stickies and better rims.

pulled the entire interior this aft minus the dash,



Everytime I got in the car the smoke and dog smell was so overwhelming I had to do something about it. Instead of half assing it which I had been doing. I decided to just strip it out. Really impressed with how easily these cars comes apart. Everything was super intuitive and easy. I think a 13mm, philips and slotted screw driver is all you need for 90% of the job.


Needless to say there was a ton of dog hair and dog food everywhere, as well as the occasional cigarette butt.







I pressure washed every plastic interior piece. Totally the way to go, instantly cleaned all of the dust and grime off of them. It really cleaned up the lighter coloured pieces super easily. I also pressure washed the carpet and floor mats.



Then went down the street to the car wash and sucked up all the rocks and crap with their free vacuums.



Then went to deep homo and rented a carpet cleaner for $25, I was pretty impressed with how much of a difference the weight of the interior makes on performance. The deuce had a noticeable amount of more get up and go without all that weight.






Used it on the headliner and was really impressed with how much it cleaned up. There was so many dirty hand stains and coffee stains and just nastiness. All but gone now.
Will get some better pics of the rest of the seats tomorrow.






The entire interior was completely covered in dust. The deuce has definitely seen some dirt roads. Quick video of what my entire day was like.


another one tomorrow

(boom07)(boom07)(boom07)

OMG holy crap... That looks so nasty that I dun even know what to say...

But now I know that if I ever need help with cleaning the interior, a trip to Kelowna and a 6 pack... OK, maybe a 12 pack, is all I need.

Traum said:

(boom07)(boom07)(boom07)

OMG holy crap... That looks so nasty that I dun even know what to say...

But now I know that if I ever need help with cleaning the interior, a trip to Kelowna and a 6 pack... OK, maybe a 12 pack, is all I need.

Click to expand...

Heh, we should set up a caravan run and clean up all our cars at the same time there... Make an event of it.

Sent from my Nexus 6P using Tapatalk

I only put about 8 hours into it. So if you had 3 guys that would go real quick! lol

So I found some damage after pulling the carpets. There was a series of small holes in the spare tire well. The tire well is also crumpled nicely,




and one bigger on back passenger floor. Presumably from the accident involving the fence?



I broke off the bolt and excess steel and shoe-goo'd the hole. I needed some for my workboots and it just happened to do the job nicely. If I had my welder here I would have definitely patched them up properly.







I gave the entire cab another vacuum with a soft bristle brush and then wiped it all down with a soapy rag. Before/after






So nice to work in a clean space now.


Then spent about 2 hours tirelessly vacuuming the seats again and literally pulling out dog hairs one at a time,





also used some home made lint rollers,




back of the headliner before/after, friggin thing just reeked






Then finally started putting it back together,






took about 1.5 hours to reinstall everything. I can't stand those black twist clips in the A & C pillars. They are such a pain. Terrible design.





tidied up the back end a little bit





almost forgot I picked up some deodorizers at crappy tire while I was out. I sprayed everything that I reinstalled with the frebreeze. Back of the head liners, plastics, bottom of the carpet etc etc etc. Lastly I put that cup of pet deodorizer in the car and (knocks on wood) it seems to be doing the trick. Not even the slightest hint of cigarettes or animals. I'm curious to see how long it lasts and what it's like on the hot days with the windows closed.




Lastly I tried recharging my a/c only to find it was fully charged. I'm getting no cold air at all though. The compressor is making a clicking noise at idle, as soon as I feed it some rpms it goes away. Any thoughts?

small collection of stuff I found. I gather she was a smoking, fishing, diet coke drinking woman with a dog.



oh yes and to update my budget,



$30 - wet vac
$8 - car soap
$17 - deodorizers
_______
$3100

Ugh... sucks to see the hidden trunk and rear passenger floor damage, but at least they don't seem critical.

Andrew_S said:

Lastly I tried recharging my a/c only to find it was fully charged. I'm getting no cold air at all though. The compressor is making a clicking noise at idle, as soon as I feed it some rpms it goes away. Any thoughts?

Click to expand...

Is it the compressor clicking or the purge solenoid valve? Watch the compressor while running, you can physically see if the clutch is engaging or not. The center portion stays stationary, it's off, if it spins with the pulley, it's on.


If it truly is the compressor then sounds like it's overcharged. You really need to have a set of manifold gauges to diagnose anything. Even then I've seen pressures appear close to normal, still no A/C, vacuum the system down only to find it was filled mostly with air. This happens when there's a small slow leak on the low side. The compressor pulls air in as refrigerant leaks out.

I'm a master tech myself(and we're not allowed to work on our own stuff at work... grrr) and even I don't screw around with those cans. You need to be able to vacuum the system down before charging. Not to mention you don't know how much oil is in the system. I will check stuff with gauges, but I'll just pay the $60 or whatever for having it charged by a real machine that is infinitely more accurate. Exception will be if I'm just looking for a leak, I'll use those dumb cans just to charge and use a refrigerant sniffer or UV dye to determine a leak.

I've seen so much stuff screwed up by people charging with those cans. Favorite being a discharge hose was leaking near the compressor. Customer added a lb every 3-4mo. Well he's not adding any oil. Compressor destroyed itself, send metal shards throughout the whole system. Had to replace compressor, condenser(full of metal, the receiver-drier(because failure of dessicant bag), and expansion valve. Got lucky not needing the evaporator core, the TXV caught the last of the crap. Still... An unnecessary $800+ spent over the cost of a $0.05 o-ring and $70 system charge.

Damage doesnt seem too bad there

Just a quick one, Any issues with the airbags when you pulled of the pillar interior trims and hood lining?