The "do everything" wagon build

M

moparmansfield

Member
:
mazda protege5
Whats up guys/gals,

I know how much you guys like pictures, so here's a couple quick ones. Yes one side has black rims, one chrome, going to finish after alignment.






Just picked her up for $3,500. 2002.5 133,000 miles, 5 speed, leather(in good shape), upgraded deck and speakers-no sub, rack, sunroof, Eibach pro-kit, maintained well. a little rough around the edges cosmetically on the outside, but very sound mechanically. I am moving for school and plan on doing a lot of traveling in the next couple years, and this will be the ride. My old DD was a 99 cherokee on 32's locked and geared and got about 16mpg, which I still have.

I have already installed 205 Falken ZE950's as a good all-season with decent warranty (got them at cost from old job). Installed a hitch to carry my bicycle rack and possibly a small dirtbike trailer. Did the normal tune-up stuff. Found 3 of the 4 rear lateral links bent in one way or another so I jumped on a set of PINK Megan lateral arms, front and rear, for 70 bucks a set shipped ($140 for all 4 arms). I think it said they were overstock. Brakes are good, but when they need to be done I will be doing the MZ6 brake swap.

I mainly want to make this thing reliable, practical, and fun as hell to drive. I've had a few fast cars, so I'm a little disappointed in power, but that was to be expected with the gas mileage ratings. I might throw a SRI or header on one day, but I doubt I will feel much of a difference. I will mostly stick to the handling performance to get my modding fix. I like the height of the springs but will probably put in better struts and sways.

If you have any tips or advice shoot em my way!
 
nice find and welcome to the club. looks pretty clean to me so try to keep it that way. these cars are very reliable over the long term if you keep up on the basics. major failures are pretty uncommon unless you drive like a 16 year old everywhere.
power... a speed might have been a better buy but i own both and p5 is so much more practical.. so much.. EVERYONE says they wont go too crazy on modding for power, but then people part out msps and suddently there are a bunch of turbo p5s kicking around.
bang for your dollar, that is hands down the best power adder you can do. I wouldnt bothere with sri ect. that stuff just makes the car louder and doesnt really do anything for noticable power.
mazda parts are pretty cheap and the work is easy to do. so enjoy your girl for many years to come.
 
welcome welcome
Valk nailed it with what he said about the msp partouts, thats why i have a turbo p5 now
aside from turbo charging, the best power mod you could do for NA is getting a mp3 ecu. plug and play with that and it will give you better results than a sri and header
the handling is where its at, like you said. i would also suggest looking into getting a short throw shifter, twm is a great choice.
youll be able to find msp racing beat swaybars for pretty cheap, too
 
as far as handling is concerned, an LSD is where its at.. even without tons of power the car will carry much more corner speed on the throttle... but thats not a cheap mod nor a quick and easy one to do ha.
mp3 ecu, vtcs delete, lightweight flywheel, short shift, one step up clutch, lsd and grippy tires... car is light. turns well. just difs out and pushes like a banch...
 
Welcome man! Looks very clean indeed. Any rust? I'm guessing Bay Area means Cali so I doubt there's any rust, which is always a plus. The mileage is nice and low as well! I just picked my P5 up about 2 weeks ago and noticed that the stock shifter blows haha I agree on getting a short shifter as one of the early mods. TWM or Kartboy, if you can find one, seem to be the best choices, along with the bushings of course. Looking forward to see what you do with it
 
stock shifter isnt really bad, you just have to be patient with the transmission. you cant just jam it into gears, particularly 1/2, its prob gonna bounce off heh. short shifter has a nice feel but you can never get away from the notchiness of it. just get used to it and let the shifter move how it wants to.
 
Thanks for the replies guys. I have definitely thought about the MSP turbo swap, but that would be when I don't really care about fuel economy anymore. I've owned 2 srt-4s and an 04 STI.. so I know all about boost and how fast it will suck the tank dry(with how addictive it is). Never really thought about the shifter as it shifts fine to me, but yeah a shorter throw and tighter would be nice. Clutch feels like it on the weaker side so I have looked at a few better clutches and also a braided clutch line. I am going to keep an eye out for sways as I do quite a bit of canyon carving.

Tacocat- Yeah CA, but the car spent a lot of time in Nevada. Its got a rust spot coming through on the passenger side fender and some surface rust on the under carriage. Nothing too bad though.

My first mods will most likely be motor mount inserts and sways (besides the Megan lateral arms).
 
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A lot of people including myself prefer the notchiness of the short shifter... i think it helps shifting since there is less play, but it is all a preference thing
also, a few other members and myself have noticed an increase in gas mileage after switching from NA to turbo, but it does depends on how you drive... having a turbo will not destroy your mpg unless you build full boost in every gear all the time. but at that point, you would want to get an ssafc for tuning.
+1 for clutch flywheel and lsd upgrades, that is next for me
 
zackmac said:
A lot of people including myself prefer the notchiness of the short shifter... i think it helps shifting since there is less play, but it is all a preference thing
also, a few other members and myself have noticed an increase in gas mileage after switching from NA to turbo, but it does depends on how you drive... having a turbo will not destroy your mpg unless you build full boost in every gear all the time. but at that point, you would want to get an ssafc for tuning.
+1 for clutch flywheel and lsd upgrades, that is next for me
Click to expand...

Odd, my experience is that any time your in boost, its dumping much more fuel. I noticed if I never hit boost and drove it very easy, my mileage wouldn't be half bad. But, even just mild boosting every now and then really made a dent. At least that's how it was in my previous turbo cars, even with tunes. Sounds like a short shifter might be a good idea since its a popular suggestion. I'll check into them .



Another thing I picked up for the car is a 4 gauge OFC amp wiring kit from KnuKonceptz. Not sure if was the best deal I could find, but the quality of the components is top notch. Should be installing that this weekend, as well as the lateral links.
 
i can vouch for knukonceptz, have the 0g kit but havent had time to install. quality is top notch, for sure. they don't use the Copper Clad Aluminum garbage in their kolossal line.
and as far as the fuel usage goes, i probably made it seem better than it is. of course any type of boost will use more fuel and hence decrease mileage. i guess the point i should have made was that it will not destroy your mpg or make it a prius... should be generally the same, once again, depending on how you drive. sorry about that
 
About half way done doing the Megan lateral links. The rust is strong with this one. Literally took me 45 mins just to knock out the long bolt on the wheel end. I highly recommend pb blasting the night before, and maybe the night before that. Should have her buttoned up by tomorrow morning, then off to alignment. Also installed 2 6" Hella off road lights behind the lower grill. Not sure if they will be staying, but it doesn't look half bad. I just had them laying around anyways.

Any install just the front solid poly lower engine mount, like Awr's? Mine is ripped, but not really ready to replace all of the mounts.
 
Those long bolts really sucked for me. I fought with them for a couple hours each.
And I'm running just the awr front engine mount. I've had it for like four years now. So far, its been good. Slight increase in vibes and cabin noise. Better shift feel and little less hop with it.
 
Little update on the pro5. Had 2 codes pop up, One for heated o2 circuit and random misfire. replaced o2 within new Denso unit and code went away for a week. A week later the codes came back.. Took another look at every thing and found a lot of corrosion on the battery terminals. Cleaned them and reset a couple grounds and the codes went away with out clearing them. Installed the Megan lateral arms and got an alignment. I feel like there is less back end movement on fast switchbacks. I am ordering the awr front motor mount soon and possibly the side mount inserts. I also now have a hook up at a lighting store that sells high end led products and I got a bunch of small led strips for free so I plan on adding some lighting to the trunk and possibly under the front seats lighting up the floor behind. Overall the car is holding up great and I'm pretty happy with the purchase.


This is a list of things to do on the car (mainly for my own reference, ha):

*motor mounts
*rear sway
*lighting
*headlights
*mz6 front brakes once front pads go
*new rear rotors(slotted)
*possibly wider rims 16's
*passenger cv boot (very small tear)
*short shifter
*maybe mazdaspeed axle-back, if I can find one.
 
Filled the front motor mount with PL S40 from home depot. The mount was still intact but was starting to rip. I let the mount sit for 3 days before reinstalling it. I kind of wish I noticed the color when I bought It, but whatever. First impressions is that it might be too soft of a durometer, but time will tell. It definitely stiffened everything up and I get minimal vibrationS at idle, but I'm not sure if it's going to hold up. I guess we'll see.
 
How well did that PL S40 hold up? Just got a P5 and the front mount is trashed, ordered a new stock mount to hold me over until I can afford AWR mounts, but would like to stiffen it up a bit.
 
Fluxmaven said:
How well did that PL S40 hold up? Just got a P5 and the front mount is trashed, ordered a new stock mount to hold me over until I can afford AWR mounts, but would like to stiffen it up a bit.
Click to expand...

It's holding up very well. I would actually suggest only filling the mount 50% and trying that out first. It feels great, but has made all my other mounts wear much faster and now I'm due to repair my rear MM.

A little progress report on the car- I dd this thing 5 days a week and once a month make a 5 hour trip to the bay area. I take highway 25(50 mins of twisties) both ways on that trip and the car does great. I'm really happy with how nimble this car is. Once I have some cash to burn I do plan on getting the progress rear sway bar, wider 16's, and upgrade the brakes. I get consistently good gas mileage and haven't had any major issues with it. It does have the randomly timed random misfire code that pops up at least once a month but then goes away after a couple drive cycles. Overall I am very happy with the car.
 
Got the progress rear bar off ebay and made some end links to go with it. Definitely made a difference in handling. I noticed the front weak sway bar now though, so I might be picking up a MSP front sway bar to even it out.Overall good bang for buck. Low speed turns around town got much less body lean and its a lot funner on turn ins.





 
I love my progress bar. And I have an msp front bar that I've been meaning to put in, but I've been procrastinating for well over a year now.
 
Where did you get the parts to make those end links??? I assume you mean you pieced them together
 
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