EastPhilly's Blood Drop Build. (An average modder)

[EastPhilly]

I have a 2011 Mazda 2 Touring Edition in Red. It is my first car which I bought a few months ago. It only had 4.5k miles on it (dunno) After driving it around for a while I felt it was lacking in a lot of aspects, but these forums and other peoples builds have helped me get some good ideas of things I want to buy for the 2.

Here is the 2 on the day I bought it and named it, "Blood Drop":

It looks so happy to find a new owner!!!!

My gf's parents use a custom rug guy and he had some custom Porshe rugs from a different customer. He gave them to me for free since the other customer didn't need them:

After that I did some plastidipping. I did all the emblems. None of just the back "M", but the others came out well:

This person parked me in. i had to go in through the passenger side... jerkface

I also tried to get some extra horse power... but it didn't turn out too well...

I recently (today) bought the Metra dash adapter kit as well as a Pioneer DEH-X6600BT Stereo Receiver. I bought this because I wanted to be able to streammusic through BT as well as answer calls when needed. I got the ASWC-1 to keep the steering wheel controls as well. I am not very wire savy so it will be taken to a shop to get done. Most other mods I do I hop to do on my own though.

I also added a https://www.amazon.com/dp/ (commissions earned) antennae I bought from Amazon. Doesn't fit perfectly (a little flaired at the bottom), but it doesn't bother me. At least it's not the long cord that was there before.

Things I want (in order from nearest time to most distant time):
- Boomerang Armrest: I may buy this within the week. I plan to do this install myself as it seems simple enough

- Black Plastidip + Glossifier on the wheels. Some guys from work and I are going to do a dip party and do all our wheels. I my do the fog light bezel things while the car is up.

- New/better headlights and fog lights. Any recommendations of light under $50/each?

- While I'm at it I may also switch to the Euro Style Tail lights. Found an installation guide too. Seems really easy.

- Possibly the nice https://www.ebay.com (commissions earned)

- Still undecided for bike holder. I found the Sea Suckers that someone on Reddit suggested. My main concern with this buy is storage. I have no where to put the rack when I don't have it on the car (boo city living...) so the Sea Suckers seem really cool, though a little expensive. And I don't want to spend ~$500 on the OEM roof rack and bike rack. If I had a garage or somewhere to store stuff I would have bought the Hidden Hitch. That way i could get multiple attachments for other things I may do. Any reccomendations?

- GPS Nav: Not sure which yet. Just something simple. I was thingking about getting a tablet style receiver+nav system for the dahs kit, but they are really expensive and I won't really need the nav for a while because I started a new job and vacations won't really exist for a while (yay civil service (five-0))

- Red LED strips under the doors as an "entry" light. I got this idea from Cosh68's build. I love how it looks. Still undecided whether I will get these wired to the dome light so they turn on when the doors open or just to a 12v switch inside the car. If I do the switch I may do some other LEDs in the car for appearance sake and good night lighting.

Unless it helps me in some way or helps the MPG ratings I probably won't do any big mods to the car. I need to save as much $$ as I can, so gas milage is a higher priority than engine or suspension mods. I may try to get it a little lower at some point (the lower height means more aero... right?.... right?)

edit: Oh yea. And it's pretty dirty now, but I have to park in a dirt lot for another 4 months, so I won't be doing any large amounts of detailing on it any time soon. After I get to park back on the streets I plan on making is SHINE!!!!

 

[kamui157]

Nice. I think you'll be happy with the boomerang. It's priced lower than the OEM and gives more function.

 

[utmorpheus]

edit: Oh yea. And it's pretty dirty now, but I have to park in a dirt lot for another 4 months, so I won't be doing any large amounts of detailing on it any time soon. After I get to park back on the streets I plan on making is SHINE!!!!

Pro-tip: This is when you WANT to clean and wax your car. Clean it really well and use a paste wax like Mother's Gold or Meguiars. Then if you're really into it, get the 3M spray on 'clear-bra' paint protector and hit the areas behind the wheels. This is where you're going to get rock chips from the dirt lots; mud guards work too, but OEM looks terrible on this car.

As far as the bike rack, why not have a trailer hitch installed and get one of the bike racks that attach to that? I mean the 2 can't tow much more than a couple bikes but it's got to be cheaper and safer than the options you posted.

Regarding better MPG if you do a good amount of highway driving or just want to keep your engine bay clean, get the Corksport skid plate. That reduces drag and will slightly increase fuel economy. The same with lowering it, just not as much. Combine the two with some easy driving and you should be looking at a small but noticeable increase in fuel economy.

 

[EastPhilly]

Pro-tip: This is when you WANT to clean and wax your car. Clean it really well and use a paste wax like Mother's Gold or Meguiars. Then if you're really into it, get the 3M spray on 'clear-bra' paint protector and hit the areas behind the wheels. This is where you're going to get rock chips from the dirt lots; mud guards work too, but OEM looks terrible on this car.

As far as the bike rack, why not have a trailer hitch installed and get one of the bike racks that attach to that? I mean the 2 can't tow much more than a couple bikes but it's got to be cheaper and safer than the options you posted.

Regarding better MPG if you do a good amount of highway driving or just want to keep your engine bay clean, get the Corksport skid plate. That reduces drag and will slightly increase fuel economy. The same with lowering it, just not as much. Combine the two with some easy driving and you should be looking at a small but noticeable increase in fuel economy.

Ill see what I can do with washing it. i need to find some time.

For the bike racks. I don't have room to store the rack anywhere, so the SeaSucker is a great choice, though I would love to get the hitch some day.

I was thinking about the skid plate for less drag and keeping things clean. Wasn't sure how well that would go over when doing servicings and how easy it would be to actually get on.

 

[utmorpheus]

I was thinking about the skid plate for less drag and keeping things clean. Wasn't sure how well that would go over when doing servicings and how easy it would be to actually get on.

From what I've seen, and from the instructions, it's pretty much a couple hours and some hand tools. As far as servicing, the cutouts for the oil drain and oil filter are already in the skid plate, so it would only need to be removed for major service(like most any factory skid plate).

 

[EastPhilly]

New radio stuff is in!!! After looking at the instructions I may have a go at it myself, but I didn't buy the wire connectors seeing as I thought I would be getting the shop to do it. If I can buy them cheap at PepBoys I will do it myself. But if I have any trouble getting the panels off and finding the caps I will just do the audio shop this weekend.

I don't know if I want to buy the tail lights or the boomerang next.

 

[cosh68]

EastPhilly..... Nice clean ride.. good line-up of mods there... especially the door lights ;-)

There are plenty of threads about the radio removal, just remember the bolt on the side of the radio that you get to from the glove box removal....

Shaun....

 

[EastPhilly]

EastPhilly..... Nice clean ride.. good line-up of mods there... especially the door lights ;-)

There are plenty of threads about the radio removal, just remember the bolt on the side of the radio that you get to from the glove box removal....

Shaun....

Yea. The door lights are something I may have to wait on though. First because I'd rather have a friend do the wiring for me for cheaper (shop cost $75 for install, though the LEDs only cost about $30). Second is my lady doesn't really like the idea and I'll get a talking if I spend that money for that reason. hahaha.

i'm fine with the idea of the removal. It's more of the steering control wiring that I'm worried about.

edit: I went to Pep Boys to get the connectors and, between the price for those and the tools needed for stripping/crimping the wires and taking out the dash I think i will just leave it to the shop to do. They said it's a quick job and I have something to fill up the time anyway, so I figured I might as well just take it there and have it done correctly. That way if any of the controls or something doesn't work correctly I can go back to them for corrections or instructions on what to do.

 

[EastPhilly]

So they didn't fill me in completely. It is going to cost me $75 for the kit install (+ routing of microphone for bt calls). But they decided to drop the "oh... and it will be $100 for the steering wheel control install". I didn't get that. I figured for that price I could shop around a bit, especially since I have the ASWC-1 adapter. They said the cost was for install and radio detection set-up. I paid the $75 for the regular install and will use my Pebble Smartwatch for track skipping for now.

 

[EastPhilly]

Radio installed. Car washed and waxed. Picture time!

Say Cheese!

Urban Shot

True Red ZoomZoom... And a messy front seat...

Dat Rear

Stubz

New Radio

Edit: Me And Car

I'm in "church clothes". I hate wearing clothes like that. Jeans an t-shirt for me.

So here's the pro/con section of the new radio

Pros:
- Bluetooth, USB, and AUX connections for using audio devices
- External mic mounted to dash behind steering wheel for BT calls
- Customized colors (red matches the cars theme well)
- Extra space under radio to put stuff

Cons:
- No steering wheel controls yet, but may put them in later (Will cost an additional $100 for that install...)
- Since steering wheel controls weren't added I cannot change the "info" buttons setting. So I now cannot see my avg MPG or current MPG. It is stuck on Mile Remaining. Not horrible, but harder to really see how my mileage is doing. I'm glad it got stuck on miles remaining since it had to get stuck on something.
- AUX chord will now ride up front of dash to be plugged in. Factory AUX has no function. If it's possible I'd like to turn that into another 12v converter or even just a USB port.
- Space under radio is kind of not cool to look at, even though there is a pro in it as well.

So it's an ok mod. If I had the money to go for the touch screen with nav system I'd have gone for it, but at the moment money isn't great and I have no need for a nav system. Once I get everything on it tuned to how I like the sound it will be much nicer. I can still use my Pebble Smartwatch to control track skipping on the BT streaming, so it isn't too bad.