Kev's JDM 1997 Protege

[im_a_kobe]

Beautiful work man! I wish I could bring my 200k beater to that quality haha. Did you manage to solve the idling issue?

[irishkev90]

It seems to idle fine lately, though I haven't needed the A/C on recently.

The past couple weeks I've been working on the sound system. I just have the front-passenger side to finish up then I can start working on getting the sub figured out.

[JPro]

My friend is trying to convince me to move to LA with her in the next couple months. My car barely passes emissions here, it'll never pass in California.

No worries, sir. If you moved to LA, I can hook you up with the "dont worry, it'll pass....for a price" smog station. Your car would look very nice in this southern California weather! No salt!

[irishkev90]

That would be great! One less thing to worry about, haha. I keep it off the road in the winter and drive my rotted-to-**** '98 instead.

Anyway, I finally got around to installing the front-passenger speakers. Music is a million times better now. Just need to get the sub situation figured out, then I can clean up the trunk area and be completely done.

Found a scratch off in the front-passenger door, it expired in 2001. The ducting for the HVAC has random holes in it for no reason and duct tape holding joints together. I have no odea what this guy was thinking, but I'll slowly get this thing straightened out.

[Kitty]

IIRC he had gauges in his vents at one point. I might be mistaken.

[irishkev90]

He put vacuum and voltage gauges in the storage cubby area under the HVAC controls. No sign of ever having them in the vents. I'll upload pictures to better explain.

Edit:

I dont know what he was doing that would cause this kind of damage behind the headunit.





And this clearly cut hole leads to the passenger-side vent. No clearance issues with the stock duct and no evidence of him trying to add a duct to somewhere else.





Also, the vent mixer control doesn't work very well. Air blows out of the top vents no matter what setting it's on and blows almost nothing out of the foot and window vents. And there's duct tape around the bottom of the whole assembly leading to the floor vents for the rear seats. In addition to this, it looked like he tried taping up what look to be drainage holes for the A/C unit. All of these pieces in my '98 are untouched and will be swapped in at some point. I just don't have the time to deal with it right now.

But I did find a gas money scratch off inside the front-passenger door. Too bad it expired in 2001, though.

[irishkev90]

Anyone have any tips for quieting the exhaust? I've been pulled over three times for it this summer and more annoying is the droneing inside the car. I want to keep the muffler, if possible, because that's the part that actually says "MAZDASPEED" and just replace the center section with a resonator. I still need to get under the car and measure the area to see what will fit, but has anyone done something similar?

[KAinjection]

Kev's JDM 1997 Protege

A vibrant ultra quiet resonator would be a good choice and they can be had for around $100 or slightly less on eBay.

[FE3-323]

the plastic damage almost looks like a rodent was in the car at some point

[M323GTR]

Im with ryan on that looks like chew marks to me

[irishkev90]

Yeah, someone else brought that up, too. I guess with everything else I've found/fixed, my mind turns directly to poor/unexplainable work from the previous owner.

A vibrant ultra quiet resonator would be a good choice and they can be had for around $100 or slightly less on eBay.

Summit Racing has them listed for around $90. Looks like a lot of people use them and they have decent reviews. I'll have to see what size I need and get some straight pipe and fittings.

Any other opinions on resonators? The '98 doesn't have a resonator any more (rusted out, replaced with straight pipe), but still has the stock muffler and two catalytic converters. Would adding a second cat. con. along with the resonator have any effect? Could be helpful for California emissions, but noise-wise? What about changing pipe diameter for this section? Not too worried about performance since this engine feels weaker than my abused '98 Z5 with stock exhaust.

[FE3-323]

a cat will definitely help out with noise. so will the resonator

[irishkev90]

I've recently been getting a weird grinding/bumping feeling when accelerating. If I lift off the gas, it smooths out, but if I get back on it, the feeling comes back. It's smooth while cruising at a steady speed or if I rev it in neutral, though. I haven't checked fluid level yet, but I will in the morning. Problem with the diff or torque converter is what a coworker thinks.

[Kitty]

The diff usually sounds like a UFO/whirling/oscillating noise if the fluid is low on these cars. Then again it's an autotragic so all sorts of crazy things happening in it.

[irishkev90]

took it out for a drive the other day. The grinding feeling went away after a few miles of driving. I haven't noticed any damage or negative effects from it. Drove around for a while to make sure everything still worked right. Still needs an alignment, but drives well.

Cleaning out the garage/basement/shed and I'll have a couple items up for sale soon. The RSR springs and 19mm adjustable rear sway bar are two known items so far.