Jeff's MSP GTR Build
- Thread starter jeffmsp
- Start date
Im pretty sure I just need to redo my wiring. It has been a work in progress for a long time. When I get back from vacation I am going to ditch the idea of making everything fit in the foot well and just mount the ecu under the cup holder area which will make it easier for me to clean everything up and will give me an excuse to clean up all my hacks. everything needs nice new proper connections. i have changed the wiring around so many times over the last few years i really just need to pull everything out and redo everything nicely.
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- 2003.5 Mazdaspeed Protege
Thats sweet man. Good work with your build i sure hope i can get to this point with my car in the near future.
well some good/bad luck
On Friday me and a buddy had the time of our life with the car.
Tuned my fuel table up to 21psi and made several improvements to the tune. Everything was going great. Hours of fun.
Then Saturday while loafing on the 401 in 5th on the way to wasaga I looked down and saw 220 coolant temp.
Decided I should get in far right lane and get off at Mavis and just coast to a gas station as the offramp was about 1km away.
In the 40 seconds it took me to do this coolant went from 220 to off the charts.
Turned off the motor and coasted the whole offramp and down Mavis to a Esso.
Picked up a bottle of water at the station and started filling her up. Steam was shooting from the back left of
the block as fast as I was pouring water in.
Got her towed on a flatbed and eventually ended up at a friends house (lukas) to see what happened.
Figured the head gasket had blown. The motor started and ran but was on 3 cylinders.
Lucky for me Lukas happened to have a 1990 BP from a Protege GT with far less milage sitting there just waiting for a home.
It took about 4.5 hours to pull the whole drivetrain out stopping every hour for a smoke/drink.
As we were pulling the motor out we discovered that the head gasket DID NOT blow.
There was no coolant in the oil and vice versa.
What had happened was a freeze plug located in the cylinder head behind the Cam Cover backing plate had come loose
and was now sitting in the space between the cover and the block.
I think the freeze plug was leaking whenever there was high pressure in the system and eventually worked its way loose
enough to pop out during regular driving.
Long story short pulling the motor was a piece of cake and in the grand scheme of things I have nothing to be upset about.
This motor gave me 3 years of fun and was a blast right up until the end.
She died at 35X,000KMs and 22 years of age. Best motor I ever had. Best money spent in my life. Unbeatable fun/dollar ratio.
Now I am just going to finish swapping everything over to the 1990 protege gt bp and pick up where I left off.
The incident was just a small hurdle. Lucky for me it does not get any quicker/easier to swap drivetrains
than with my setup.
It is a piece of cake and ended up being a fun afternoon.
Now I am just going to spend some time later this week and clean/paint the new bp and then slap her in. Should be fun.
On Friday me and a buddy had the time of our life with the car.
Tuned my fuel table up to 21psi and made several improvements to the tune. Everything was going great. Hours of fun.
Then Saturday while loafing on the 401 in 5th on the way to wasaga I looked down and saw 220 coolant temp.
Decided I should get in far right lane and get off at Mavis and just coast to a gas station as the offramp was about 1km away.
In the 40 seconds it took me to do this coolant went from 220 to off the charts.
Turned off the motor and coasted the whole offramp and down Mavis to a Esso.
Picked up a bottle of water at the station and started filling her up. Steam was shooting from the back left of
the block as fast as I was pouring water in.
Got her towed on a flatbed and eventually ended up at a friends house (lukas) to see what happened.
Figured the head gasket had blown. The motor started and ran but was on 3 cylinders.
Lucky for me Lukas happened to have a 1990 BP from a Protege GT with far less milage sitting there just waiting for a home.
It took about 4.5 hours to pull the whole drivetrain out stopping every hour for a smoke/drink.
As we were pulling the motor out we discovered that the head gasket DID NOT blow.
There was no coolant in the oil and vice versa.
What had happened was a freeze plug located in the cylinder head behind the Cam Cover backing plate had come loose
and was now sitting in the space between the cover and the block.
I think the freeze plug was leaking whenever there was high pressure in the system and eventually worked its way loose
enough to pop out during regular driving.
Long story short pulling the motor was a piece of cake and in the grand scheme of things I have nothing to be upset about.
This motor gave me 3 years of fun and was a blast right up until the end.
She died at 35X,000KMs and 22 years of age. Best motor I ever had. Best money spent in my life. Unbeatable fun/dollar ratio.
Now I am just going to finish swapping everything over to the 1990 protege gt bp and pick up where I left off.
The incident was just a small hurdle. Lucky for me it does not get any quicker/easier to swap drivetrains
than with my setup.
It is a piece of cake and ended up being a fun afternoon.
Now I am just going to spend some time later this week and clean/paint the new bp and then slap her in. Should be fun.
we were having a good laugh about the bp vs fs scenerio with some coworkers today.
how much boost were ya running?...just 21psi.
Holy crap! did ya bend a rod? nope. did ya melt a piston? nope. did you loose oil pressure in a turn or under boost? nope.... then what the heck happended?.... freeze plug fell out.....lol oops.
how much boost were ya running?...just 21psi.
Holy crap! did ya bend a rod? nope. did ya melt a piston? nope. did you loose oil pressure in a turn or under boost? nope.... then what the heck happended?.... freeze plug fell out.....lol oops.
tweety2300
Member
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- 2001 mazda protege mp3
Bp ftw, older mazda motors are awesome
protege3690
Member
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- 2003.5 MSP #290
lol sweet. if i EVER blow my built block. i think i may go this route as opposed to building another FS or going KL.
protege3690
Member
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- 2003.5 MSP #290
thats not the toyota trans right? or is it?
1991 escort GT Trans 4:10
still no toyota box install. no plans of needing it anytime soon.
getting bored of FWD.
either guna buy a new car or buy a sport20 awd rear clip and AWD E153 trans to bolt up to mazda bp once I win the lottery.
still no toyota box install. no plans of needing it anytime soon.
getting bored of FWD.
either guna buy a new car or buy a sport20 awd rear clip and AWD E153 trans to bolt up to mazda bp once I win the lottery.
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protege3690
Member
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- 2003.5 MSP #290
lol i think thats everyones dream. win it big, finally dump all the funds needed into the protege just to say it is finally complete haha. but still unreliable lol.
I could use the Toyota celica all trac trans and convert the sport20 rear end to accomodate the toyota diff/axles with a custom driveshaft.
if i stayed with mazda parts i could use a GTR\X awd transmission which bolts up to my current bp, oem gtr\x front axles, custom driveshaft and a OEM sport 20 rear end (from what i have read it is the same as the oem gtr but who knows, sometimes the internet is wrong lol).
there is a guy selling everything from a jdm 1.8 323 gtx on kijiji for under a grand near me, but then i would have to make the 90s rear end work in a 03 protege. Im sure it can be done but not sure exactly how close it is.
I believe If I could actually aquire the jdm sport20 rear end/gas tank would bolt right up, but importing one isnt cheap.
the gtr/x route would probably cost the least. the toyota option would probably cost more and take more time, but would be good for beating on the car. the gtr setup from what i have read is not that strong in comparison.
anyways nothing is happening anytime soon. heck i might even sell the car someday. Ive been driving the same car since I bought it new over 10 years ago and the new house has absorbed all of my "spare" money at the moment.
270hp/2600 pounds makes a great MSP. But im getting bored. Its literally been over 10 years of the same car everyday lol
i took a drive in my buddies C5 vette the other day and wanted to roll my car off a cliff.
its not that its a super car or anything, and from our testing it is about the same at acceleration as my msp @17psi, its just "different" and I am kind of getting hung up on the whole FWD thing lately..
not sure how many original owners are left in the club. we are a dying breed lol
if i stayed with mazda parts i could use a GTR\X awd transmission which bolts up to my current bp, oem gtr\x front axles, custom driveshaft and a OEM sport 20 rear end (from what i have read it is the same as the oem gtr but who knows, sometimes the internet is wrong lol).
there is a guy selling everything from a jdm 1.8 323 gtx on kijiji for under a grand near me, but then i would have to make the 90s rear end work in a 03 protege. Im sure it can be done but not sure exactly how close it is.
I believe If I could actually aquire the jdm sport20 rear end/gas tank would bolt right up, but importing one isnt cheap.
the gtr/x route would probably cost the least. the toyota option would probably cost more and take more time, but would be good for beating on the car. the gtr setup from what i have read is not that strong in comparison.
anyways nothing is happening anytime soon. heck i might even sell the car someday. Ive been driving the same car since I bought it new over 10 years ago and the new house has absorbed all of my "spare" money at the moment.
270hp/2600 pounds makes a great MSP. But im getting bored. Its literally been over 10 years of the same car everyday lol
i took a drive in my buddies C5 vette the other day and wanted to roll my car off a cliff.
its not that its a super car or anything, and from our testing it is about the same at acceleration as my msp @17psi, its just "different" and I am kind of getting hung up on the whole FWD thing lately..
not sure how many original owners are left in the club. we are a dying breed lol
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Yeah, that's why I was wondering. I know that the GTX / GTR / Sport20 bits are rather weak in comparison to other things. I just wanted to pick your brain a little bit on that idea. Even if you don't do it for a while, it's fun to discuss.
forgot to add that the new motor started on the first crank 
no freeze plugs have fallen out yet
thanks to lukas for letting me do that swap at his place and helping out, particularly with drilling / tapping the cylinder head when I snapped off a stud for the thermostat housing. A butcher like me would have botched it for sure lol
new motor seems good so far. just need to spend a few nights perfecting the tune for the minor differences between the motors. It seems as though this motor has better compression as right off the bat I noticed power in the lower part of the curve seems to be up compared to the last motor.
no freeze plugs have fallen out yet
thanks to lukas for letting me do that swap at his place and helping out, particularly with drilling / tapping the cylinder head when I snapped off a stud for the thermostat housing. A butcher like me would have botched it for sure lol
new motor seems good so far. just need to spend a few nights perfecting the tune for the minor differences between the motors. It seems as though this motor has better compression as right off the bat I noticed power in the lower part of the curve seems to be up compared to the last motor.
now running 215/45/17 up front 205/40/17 in the rear as no amount of fending rolling seemed to truly stop the rubbing anytime I had passengers in the car and hit "whoops" in the road.
I think the rears would need to be "pulled" or "stretched" to work with my wheels and 215/45/17s (heck even the "phonebook" method probably would have worked but I could not risk exploding the rear fenders as there is so little solid metal left. its mostly just rust under the paint).
otherwise not much else has been happening with the car lately.
i redid the front lower trans mount with a fresh oem piece as my previous solid mount ejected itself during a hard 2nd and 3rd gear pull (still need a insert for a 1st gen bp fwd if anyone has one lying around).
she pulls nice but I have been in the "fwd blues" mood lately. 10 years of driving the same car everyday can do that to ya i guess.
anything else ive driven lately rwd/awd just seems like so much more fun. maybe its just nice to drive something different.
having a fast fwd car is great and all but really you cant have fun without putting your license on the line with that damn 50 over rule we have in Canada. fun is great, but not if your license gets cut in half.
been thinking of doing a hydro rear ebrake like brianmp5t to make the winter more interesting.
also gonna try to meet up with moss sometime this week and grab a FSDE awr solid top trans mount to clean up the engine bay a bit and help hold things tight on the little 1.8l BP-T.
then it will be snow tire time before ya know it and hopefully spending some time sideways in the speed will brighten my mood.
winter time checklist:
0: take some fall weather pics before it snows.
1. install winter tires
2. uninstall rear sway bar
3. re install cold start valve
4. convert to warm air intake
5. either new e-brake cables or hydro ebrake conversion
6. re install splash guards
7. lube all bushings
8. new shifter bushings
9. winter mats
10. new wipers and ice scraper
I think the rears would need to be "pulled" or "stretched" to work with my wheels and 215/45/17s (heck even the "phonebook" method probably would have worked but I could not risk exploding the rear fenders as there is so little solid metal left. its mostly just rust under the paint).
otherwise not much else has been happening with the car lately.
i redid the front lower trans mount with a fresh oem piece as my previous solid mount ejected itself during a hard 2nd and 3rd gear pull (still need a insert for a 1st gen bp fwd if anyone has one lying around).
she pulls nice but I have been in the "fwd blues" mood lately. 10 years of driving the same car everyday can do that to ya i guess.
anything else ive driven lately rwd/awd just seems like so much more fun. maybe its just nice to drive something different.
having a fast fwd car is great and all but really you cant have fun without putting your license on the line with that damn 50 over rule we have in Canada. fun is great, but not if your license gets cut in half.
been thinking of doing a hydro rear ebrake like brianmp5t to make the winter more interesting.
also gonna try to meet up with moss sometime this week and grab a FSDE awr solid top trans mount to clean up the engine bay a bit and help hold things tight on the little 1.8l BP-T.
then it will be snow tire time before ya know it and hopefully spending some time sideways in the speed will brighten my mood.
winter time checklist:
0: take some fall weather pics before it snows.
1. install winter tires
2. uninstall rear sway bar
3. re install cold start valve
4. convert to warm air intake
5. either new e-brake cables or hydro ebrake conversion
6. re install splash guards
7. lube all bushings
8. new shifter bushings
9. winter mats
10. new wipers and ice scraper
hornsfan10609
Certified Mazda Tech
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- 2003.5 Mazdaspeed Protege x2
That's cool you can get the WW bumper and P5 headlights. The emblems shouldn't be chrome though and the grille is black instead of body color.
