Senti_Mentel
Member
- :
- Pure White Mp5
Snowflake can be a masculine name
Hey guys, I just bought a p5 a little over a month ago(her name is snowflake), and I've always liked giving my cars a little personal touch and do as much of their maintenance myself as I can(I'm no master mechanic). So I figured it would be fun to get some input and advice from other members, as well as Keep a log of everything I do, and what better way to do so then to start a build thread.
Here she is on the lot.
So here we go.
I bought the car in August off a lot for a pretty good price, and aside from some asthetic issues she seemed fine. Since then I've noticed a few things.
The biggest issue is that she needs new valve stem seals, shoots a nice big blue smoke cloud on startup(I'm assuming the dealer was warming it up since it never did this while I was looking at the car). But it still has compression, no blow-by, and after a few she runs fine.
So in about a week I'll be taking her to a friend of mine to have those replaced, and so long as he doesn't find anything else majorly wrong I'll get her back right as rain.
So while I've been waiting for that i decided to get to work on a couple things:
First...the audio.
So Snowflake came with the factory head unit, but I had a spare higher end off brand Soundstream double-din(with gps) head unit from one of my last projects as well as two 10in subs in a box with an amp. Pull the OEM head unit out with some spare ford/mazda keys i had and pick up a harness to make things easy, and start wiring things up. I ran the 0/1 gauge power wire from the battery through a pre existing cutout in the firewall just above the interior fuse box and made a fitting gasket to keep the
wire from rubbing and shorting out on the fire wall, ran power and remote on though the driver side door panels to the back behind the seat and through the pop out section with a notch for the huge 1/0 gauge wire to fit through to the amp. Then ran the ground to the chassis (-) through the opposite cutout on the passenger side.
Then I ran 3 sets of rca outs(1 for sub, 2 more for an upcoming 4 channel amp and some new comp speakers for the doors) as well as a back up camera video cable to the back through the passenger side door frames. Ran a mic and cable up the drivers A pillar to just left of the visor, and ran the gps antennae to the passenger side strut column which gets held in place by a nice strong magnet... And viola, mad beats we drop. The subs and head unit are in. With GPS to boot.
Photos of this install to come.
Second... the wheels.
A few of you might have already seen this part, but I'm adding it here for posterity.
I debated on just getting after markets, but i honestly like the OEM protege wheels. So instead... Lets refinish them.
I started with this...
View attachment 217432
each wheel was pretty bad but this one was the worst.
I started with a chemical stripper which mostly just loosened the paint up enough to actually be removed with the wire wheel in a grinder.The grinder works quickly but can't hit the tight corners so i also went to town with my dremmel and a flap disk. After that i used a metal reinforced body filler to fill any major curb rash or pitting. Sand it all up to 600 grit nice and smooth, then cleaned it again and used a self etching primer. Two coats of primer, knock it back with steel wool, clean again, and then the color goes on. Its a black wheel paint by duplicolor. Just 2 coats of color to get a nice dark black, let it dry, and then the matte clear coat. 3 coats all within the same 4 hours to get a nice protective coat and i leave it to dry over night.
Next day i ended up with this:
1 wheel every Saturday for a month, catching up on my youtube and researching more while i wait between coats.
Here she is with her new kicks:
So what do you guys think...
More to come.
--------------------------------
What I've done so far
--------------------------------
-New Head unit and Subs installed(Soundstream HU)
-OEM wheels refinished to back the match back accents.
Hey guys, I just bought a p5 a little over a month ago(her name is snowflake), and I've always liked giving my cars a little personal touch and do as much of their maintenance myself as I can(I'm no master mechanic). So I figured it would be fun to get some input and advice from other members, as well as Keep a log of everything I do, and what better way to do so then to start a build thread.
Here she is on the lot.
So here we go.
I bought the car in August off a lot for a pretty good price, and aside from some asthetic issues she seemed fine. Since then I've noticed a few things.
The biggest issue is that she needs new valve stem seals, shoots a nice big blue smoke cloud on startup(I'm assuming the dealer was warming it up since it never did this while I was looking at the car). But it still has compression, no blow-by, and after a few she runs fine.
So in about a week I'll be taking her to a friend of mine to have those replaced, and so long as he doesn't find anything else majorly wrong I'll get her back right as rain.
So while I've been waiting for that i decided to get to work on a couple things:
First...the audio.
So Snowflake came with the factory head unit, but I had a spare higher end off brand Soundstream double-din(with gps) head unit from one of my last projects as well as two 10in subs in a box with an amp. Pull the OEM head unit out with some spare ford/mazda keys i had and pick up a harness to make things easy, and start wiring things up. I ran the 0/1 gauge power wire from the battery through a pre existing cutout in the firewall just above the interior fuse box and made a fitting gasket to keep the
wire from rubbing and shorting out on the fire wall, ran power and remote on though the driver side door panels to the back behind the seat and through the pop out section with a notch for the huge 1/0 gauge wire to fit through to the amp. Then ran the ground to the chassis (-) through the opposite cutout on the passenger side.
Then I ran 3 sets of rca outs(1 for sub, 2 more for an upcoming 4 channel amp and some new comp speakers for the doors) as well as a back up camera video cable to the back through the passenger side door frames. Ran a mic and cable up the drivers A pillar to just left of the visor, and ran the gps antennae to the passenger side strut column which gets held in place by a nice strong magnet... And viola, mad beats we drop. The subs and head unit are in. With GPS to boot.
Photos of this install to come.
Second... the wheels.
A few of you might have already seen this part, but I'm adding it here for posterity.
I debated on just getting after markets, but i honestly like the OEM protege wheels. So instead... Lets refinish them.
I started with this...
View attachment 217432
each wheel was pretty bad but this one was the worst.
I started with a chemical stripper which mostly just loosened the paint up enough to actually be removed with the wire wheel in a grinder.The grinder works quickly but can't hit the tight corners so i also went to town with my dremmel and a flap disk. After that i used a metal reinforced body filler to fill any major curb rash or pitting. Sand it all up to 600 grit nice and smooth, then cleaned it again and used a self etching primer. Two coats of primer, knock it back with steel wool, clean again, and then the color goes on. Its a black wheel paint by duplicolor. Just 2 coats of color to get a nice dark black, let it dry, and then the matte clear coat. 3 coats all within the same 4 hours to get a nice protective coat and i leave it to dry over night.
Next day i ended up with this:
1 wheel every Saturday for a month, catching up on my youtube and researching more while i wait between coats.
Here she is with her new kicks:
So what do you guys think...
More to come.
--------------------------------
What I've done so far
--------------------------------
-New Head unit and Subs installed(Soundstream HU)
-OEM wheels refinished to back the match back accents.
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