[DEFUNCT] The College-Budget P5

From memory, my drivers rear (your passengers side) needed the caliper taking off to get the bolt out, not a major, just the 2 14mm bolts and stick it somewhere out of the way

That voltmeter looks great without the glass, how bright is it?

Exactly what I recalled! I don't like screwing with the brakes if I don't have to, but looks like I must if those springs are going in.

And that voltmeter gauge was actually reasonably lit without the cover. I set it to 12V with a very low current (just in case the thing wasn't designed to exceed 1/4W--couldn't find any info), and it seemed alright to me. It does its job for a cheap little thing :^)

i had to take a rear caliper off when installing gabe's lowering springs & struts. i don't remember which side...you can be like the cool kids and leave the original oil pressure sensor just plugged in and dangling since it doesn't turn on until it's too late anyway. no it won't light up the cel

I knew it! A minor inconvenience, but I'll live. It's comical just how useless our oil "pressure sensor" is. It wouldn't kill them to at least extend the signal range...that light might as well be a skull and crossbones.

This is the original pressure switch for the P5.

You can test it with an ohmmeter. It has continuity until the oil pressure is above 3-9 psi.

For you to test your new gauge, you would need to unscrew the stock switch and screw in your new sensor.

Your new sensor has variable resistance proportional to the oil pressure.
The gauge sends voltage through the resistor and the voltage drop is interpreted as a needle movement or digital readout.

The voltage going to the sensor would be DC ranging from 0 V to 12 V.

You kinda need to thread the sensor into the engine because it's the oil pressure that adjusts the resistance of the sensor and it's hard to apply pressure to it if it's not installed
...
I just noticed this picture.

It looks like you didn't get the matching sensor that goes with the gauge.

The sensor for each gauge can be different.

The resistance can vary from say 0- 100 ohms or 0- 1000 or 10,000 ohms or whatever.

You need to have the matching sensor for your gauge.

The wire coming from your stock pressure switch won't work.
The needle will be pinned at either 0 psi or 100 psi.

Thanks for the info! Always a bastion of knowledge. It's a shame I forgot that the pressure sensor actually wires into the block, but I was never known for having all my bases covered :^)

I have a feeling that I may end up purchasing proper, higher quality gauges in the future. The volt meter's simple enough, and may stay for a while.
 
Suspension-Disbelief

Today, I took the time to install this MX-3 rear strut tower bar. As I stated, it's incredibly solid, and it only stood to reason that it would improve handling.

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Much less eye-candy, but it's quite practical and effective! Next on the list of tasks was to investigate the strange clunk from the rear that recently appeared.

Shortly after taking a peek at my EVAP canister and dumping fuel on myself, I drove the car again, and began to hear some weird rear clunks. I figured my EVAP canister's chassis connectors weren't tightened enough, so I went ahead and took a peak today.

Holy moly, it wasn't the EVAP canister!

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The damn bracket snapped at the holes!

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Jee-sus. I think I finally reaped what I sowed due to my ghetto fix. If any one of you break your rear-subframe weldnuts, be wary about dropping in a bolt in the opposite direction of how it's normally oriented. It'll work for a while, but the excessive play in the brackets will catch up with you.

I had to remove my rear swaybar, as nothing was even holding it into the subframe. It was more or less a lower rear strut tower bar. Take a look at the good bracket vs. the broken one:

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Poor thing wasn't just broken...it was tortured and mutilated :^(

As a bonus, I decided to test-fit the fiberglass grille, and, well...

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It unfortunately isn't held in by anything! It's kind of floating where the grille is supposed to be, and it lacks any sense of security. The tabs that would at least align it to the bumper are also missing, so it's practically junk.
How does it drive without the swaybar?​

IT LEANS! God, does it lean! Although, even without the swaybar, it's still lots of fun to drive. I didn't notice any direct loss in handling capability. If anything, I can tell a little better what the rear's doing, but at the cost of it being almost twitchy. Turn the wheel a little bit or lightly use the brakes and gas, and then the rear acts up and rolls. That'll make precise turning and apex-hitting difficult, but should still be fun if I pay attention.

It also makes me wonder whether I've gotten more confident in my driving or not. The car will still turn as well as if it had the swaybar, but with lots of lean.

Until then, it's muscle-car simulator.
 
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I feel you on that body roll, my rear sway bar is off currently and man that body roll gets wild huh. Watch out making sharp hairpins, the understeer comes in all at once. It almost feels like the body is pulling the inner tire off the ground, a bit of trail braking helps.
 
yeah that's the reason why the cr3 relocation brackets were made so you can use aftermarket bushings and brackets. the stock brackets are proven to never hold up with the mp3/msp rear sway bar.
 
I feel you on that body roll, my rear sway bar is off currently and man that body roll gets wild huh. Watch out making sharp hairpins, the understeer comes in all at once. It almost feels like the body is pulling the inner tire off the ground, a bit of trail braking helps.

That's the idea, but it seems like even without the swaybar, my car's got a much more neutral handling feel thanks to the new stiffer RSTB and trailing arms. It wants to roll, but not to the point of lifting the front-inner tire in respect to the turning radius. You know, it's really not bad at all...I think I might break my "no racing" clause for this weekend, just to see how the thing handles in a focused environment!

yeah that's the reason why the cr3 relocation brackets were made so you can use aftermarket bushings and brackets. the stock brackets are proven to never hold up with the mp3/msp rear sway bar.

The goal was to install those bad boys once I got my weldnuts replaced or fixed. I almost got them fixed, but that was right as I thought I wouldn't own my car for much longer. Oh and yeah, those stock brackets are trash, but those Energy Suspension brackets were the ones that snapped, not the stockers! I think that's the most surprising part of all this. I'm not 100% confident, but even those tough brackets can't stand up to such janky tensional forces 24/7.

Since the swaybar's going to be off for a while, I think I'll give that welding fella another call to let him know I'll be ready for the job. Gonna have to figure out what the weld nut thread size is, though. He told me that the price of the job will decrease drastically if I remove the swaybar myself and clean up the subframe, so hey, I'm about half-way there to a good price!
 
Does he have to cut a hole in the subframe to gain access to do the welding?

Well, yes and no; he came up with a unique solution. Rather than re-welding in new weldnuts, he'd take individual pieces of thick steel to drill and tap according to the old weldnuts' specs. Then, he'd slide it through the square hole, drill some holes on the underside of the subframe for some spot welds, and have that sit as is. I trust him, as his quote was dang cheap, and he's "the guy" to go to for fabrication and custom work in town. He told me working on my car would be a nice break, since he's always building crazy rock crawlers from the ground up for customers!
 
Cleaning Up

The day turned out gorgeous. I figured it was time I washed my car again!

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I probably should've taken a picture of it, but I decided to get a little Banzai Bill vinyl sticker to put on my fuel door. Thought it was perfect, since Banzai Bills in Super Mario World are slow as hell...(naughty)

I used some black trim restorer where I could, got some nice results. The best results were on my roof rack and that plastic molding under the windshield wipers. Again, should've taken pictures...

And finally, I cleaned up that lip/those lips(?), repainted them, grabbed some 3M double-sided tape, drilled in some self-tapping screws, and wallah!

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I like them! Nice and subtle. I was never a fan of ostentatious ground effects or body parts, but I still wanted just a little something to continue making my car mine. From another angle:

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At first, I hurt a little while drilling into my bumper, but then I remembered its paint is cracking and chipping and not looking so hot up close anymore, so I was fine with it. Yup, some pieces of 3M double-sided tape, 5 self-tapping screws, and they feel pretty secure, but fingers crossed they don't rip off on the highway tomorrow...

In other news, I'm still looking for a shop around town that'll take a look at my carbon fiber hood. School and Work are especially voracious towards my schedule, so really any and all time with my car gets deferred to the weekend.
 
Do the fog deletes just pop in? Im gonna grab mine outta storage today and try to get them in! Forgot I even had them until you posted this lol


Also, its crazy how much a swaybar helps. My sedan doesnt have one and Ive been driving a lot of back roads recently and the car doesnt feel nearly as planted as the P5. I have the front strut bar and brackets but couldnt figure out how they went on and ran out of time. I need to install my Megan rear strut bar one of these days. I feel kinda bad chopping up the side panels though :/
 
Do the fog deletes just pop in? I*m gonna grab mine outta storage today and try to get them in! Forgot I even had them until you posted this lol


Also, it*s crazy how much a swaybar helps. My sedan doesn*t have one and I*ve been driving a lot of back roads recently and the car doesn*t feel nearly as planted as the P5. I have the front strut bar and brackets but couldn*t figure out how they went on and ran out of time. I need to install my Megan rear strut bar one of these days. I feel kinda bad chopping up the side panels though :/

Do you have the MSP fog deletes (smaller ones with square hole through the middle) or the MP3/P5 fog deletes? I actually don't know if the latter ones can fit with the MSP lip. Or maybe they do...dunno lol, but at least, mine were just pop in, two or three screws, and done.

And you know what, here I was thinking I could be mister macho cornering-god without my swaybar, but God in heaven did I perform horribly in the races today. The swaybar is the key to unlocking the first stage of amazement from our chassis; without it, you might as well be driving a torsion bar rear suspension car. The front end would not stop lifting up around corners, and again and again would my open diff go crazy and peel out one tire. I had no front grip, too much damn roll, and pitiful run times that sent me to the back of the pack, only to beat out two complete newbies and a stock Corolla CE. Damn, it was a discouraging day. With that being said, get a swaybar ASAP. The chassis is the only good thing about these Proteges (besides their looks lol), and to neglect the chassis is downright suicide.

Yeah, it's a bit of a cringe affair having to cut up your car's interior panels, but a RSTB is nice and worth it. If you want to make it look nice, cut the panels with a hole saw rather than some box knife, and smooth out the rough edges when you're done. Mine were already ugly, so I got over it :^)
 
More and more I'm realizing how much I hate not having my rear swaybar in, it felt fun at first almost makes you feel like your going faster than you are. Then the front end lifts up and hello under steer, I agree man rear sway bars is where it's at.
 
I have the MSP specific fogs, I'm just paranoid of them falling out for some reason. I might go to a junk yard and grab an extra set of the side panels so I have a nice set just in case
 
Look at this picture:

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Look carefully at the spacing between the front wheel and the fender arch, and the rear wheel and its respective arch. Here, I outlined the rough distances:

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Now that's some serious squatting and diving. I don't even need to explicitly state what pedal I hit here lol...Christ this thing needs some better suspension. Take a look at this lean, too:

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It's profound how much the thing rolls. I really can't wait until I get my rear subframe all fixed up. I'm probably going to buy some spring compressors for next weekend for some suspension operation, and will get in contact with the fabricator again to see if he can fit me in.
Almost forgot to mention, had a funny bonding moment with my little sister last night.

I picked her up from homecoming, and before long came to a stop light just before the curvy section of my favorite city road. Some d-bag in a very generic WRX or STI (who gives a s***) takes off fast to flex on us, and I get a little annoyed. I then told my sister how too many dudes like that neglect the handling aspect of their car. All they do is just take off fast in a straight line, in the city or on the highway. Then, to demonstrate the point, I told her "hold on", dropped a gear, and caught up with him just before the curvy part of the road. Right as he lifted off and sat on the brakes to slow down, I zoomed right past and neogotiated the first curve, and my little sister went "woohoo!". He quickly vanished in my rearview mirror, and I moved over into his lane to top it all off. Naturally, he moved over into another lane that allowed him to rocket past me once the light turned green, so as to not understand that a 17 year old car without a swaybar outhandled his rally-origin machine. She was impressed by how far back he was after the curves, and used that opportunity to admit how she enjoys racing her engine and cornering in her own car. She's got some chutzpah if that's the case, since she drives a fairly high off the ground 4x4. Hell, she's probably got more potential on a race track than me :^)

I think next race I attend, I'll bring her along and buy her a pass.
 
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Damn that's allot of brake dive, cant imagine what mines like with no rear brakes. Is this without the rear sway bar? If its with a bar that's just sad, I thought our wagons were sturdier than that. You have a beefy strut tower bar too right?
 
Damn that's allot of brake dive, cant imagine what mines like with no rear brakes. Is this without the rear sway bar? If its with a bar that's just sad, I thought our wagons were sturdier than that. You have a beefy strut tower bar too right?

Yeah, my brake nose dive is monstrous, mostly in part due to my beefier 626 brakes! In fact, sometimes my tire grip can't keep up with the brakes, which makes threshold braking tough. That picture was taken when I nailed my threshold brake, and you see the results lmao.

And it's definitely without any swaybar. God this thing's unbearable without a swaybar. It's truly insane just how the rear multilink suspension is rendered useless without it.

I do have a beefy strut tower bar, but unfortunately RSTB only really help with cutting down chassis flex. It does very little to prevent body roll, which absolutely obliterated me this last event. I'm still salty about it!!
A little bonus, I got to drive a pal's stock 6-speed Subaru BRZ. I know I was talking mad smack about Subaru drivers recently, but this guy's great, hear me out lol

Wow-ee, I got some more perspective on just how underpowered our cars are. People were complaining and whining about how the BRZ/FRS/GT86 shipped from the factory underpowered. My pal here told me that it's very peaky, and doesn't do much past a certain RPM...but it was very eager to rev and accelerate! It's got quite a bit of gumption, and doesn't quit revving past 5.5kRPM like a certain car I know. It was pretty fun driving it at WOT and then making a couple U-turns. I got the rear to slide out just a little bit; quite a new feeling for me. I handled it alright.

That coupe weighs as much as our P5s, but has 70 more horsepower from the factory. Man, if our cars had that sort of power stock, think about the amount of weight they would've carried in the car scene years ago...
 
Wheeeeeeee! That actually looks like fun, but definitely isn't the best for track times!

I wonder if you could use the body roll and weigh transfer to get the back end out and a pseudo drift going on, it'd be wildly uncontrollable, but it'd be fun!
 
Wheeeeeeee! That actually looks like fun, but definitely isn't the best for track times!

I wonder if you could use the body roll and weigh transfer to get the back end out and a pseudo drift going on, it'd be wildly uncontrollable, but it'd be fun!

Trust me, it only looks fun, but persisted as a major buzzkill throughout the whole course! It was a very tight and winding one in particular, and my chassis could not keep up. Anytime a quick maneuver would've come in handy, the front wheels lifted and spun.

I couldn't get a powerslide, unfortunately. The front rolled at a greatly lower rate than the rear, which meant the rear would still be finding it's maximum while the front's at it's limit, henceforth having the rear lift the front wheels around corners. The rear RSTB mitigated this slightly, but not enough too keep the front down :^(

Although, maybe if I flicked the steering wheel and yanked the handbrake...eh, I probably would've killed myself lol!
I'm contemplating taking my chances with a whole new rear subframe, and maybe some new front/rear lateral links on top of it.

This is due to my finding of a concerning dent around the driver-side bolt hole on my rear subframe. I got to take a picture of it for you guys' input, but I'm afraid it may even mess with the structural integrity of the swaybar system. Plus, a rear subframe at the local junkyard is shy of 30 bucks, versus 120+ dollars spent at the fabricator

Problem is, weldnuts got me in to this mess. If the weldnuts the rear subframe's connected to snap, then I'm in a real fix. Maybe I should get a torch if I plan on swapping the subframe...
 
... Maybe I should get a torch if I plan on swapping the subframe...

Cheers dude, it worked for me!

And that was from my rusty parts car that has been sitting for 4 years.
I was nervous about my gas tank being so close as well as my fuel lines so I didn't glow it red hot.

If you have your parts subframe detached, you can torch the shyte out of it.

PS... Put anti-seize on every nut, bolt (and even some screws) that you remove and reinstall on your car.
 
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get on this level of gap! haha jk i know i'm comparing the wrong side. also yes, i was just in the other cars way

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get on this level of gap! haha jk i know i'm comparing the wrong side. also yes, i was just in the other cars way

Man I want to be on that level of gap! If I can get that low and stop dipping and diving, I'd actually be competitive.

That must've been fun. Was it a HPDE, or open track day? Those are some fat Mustangs behind you; you could've easy thrashed them in the corners. I hear that a lot of those muscle car fellas are cunts on open track days, since they expect you to point-by after they finally catch up to you on a straight line.

Either way, I want to attend an HPDE some day. I'm really not confident in my car's ability to operate under constant duress.
Thought you guys might appreciate this.

I finally took the CDCV to the lab to test if it works. I first calculated the internal resistance, which was very low compared to a lot of test circuits I'm accustomed to working with. From there, I calculated my "safe" operational power given the internal resistance and voltage. That led me towards finding the proper current per the test 9V.

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With my values all calculated with an expected safe operation, I hooked up some alligator clips, and...


Neat, huh? Just a little click, and it opens right up. I think this weekend, I'm going to drain the most likely flooded EVAP canister again, replace my two-way check valve, and replace the CDCV. Heck, might test it, too.

This weekend, I'm going to try my best to go to the junkyard for a new rear subframe, and am going to try to get the lowering springs in. Gotta hit up a pal about my hood, too. He told me that he'll take a look at it, see if he can get anything done on it.
 
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