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Sam's Protegé5

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    Sam's Protegé5

    What you should expect out of this thread is a lot of small changes that a hobbyist racecar mechanic would do to their street car excluding those prohibited by SCCAs H Street rules. OK there is some of that too since I have some Smokey Yunick tendencies ;P but I don't autocross enough to threaten anyone.

    So after 6 weeks with my 03 Portege5 I feel good about posting my progress.

    I bought the car with just under 96k in Sunlight Silver and a 5 speed. This is a daily driver and will also see an occasional autocross in the H Street class.

    Most of the cars life was spent in California so rust is minimal but street parking took it's toll. The wheels were also flaking badly.

    I'm going to break the first couple posts up into roughly: interior, exterior, and mechanical.

    Sam

    #2
    Interior:

    I installed an oil pressure gauge. Since several members have found out the hard way that the oiling system is marginal I want to know if I'm about to be the next. Finding a place that was reasonably easy to read but unobtrusive was a little challenging even with the 1.5" gauge I selected (Equus 8164). The spot I chose was under the e-brake handle. The gauge came with a back light and red filter. I started with a hole saw but had to open up the hole a little with a deburring tool. I had to cut down the backing flange a little for clearance. There is almost no extra space around it. I added a 47 ohm resistor in series with the back light to better match the rest of the dash lights. Many people find the dash lights disappointingly dim and initially I did too. After some thought I decided that destroying your night vision for the sake of sensory overload is a job best left to Audi headlights.

    I installed a generic delrin shift knob in place of my worn through stock knob. It was $23 and I didn't want metal because winter.

    I took apart the floor vents and put electrical tape on the edges where they snap together to get rid of some idle rattles.

    I also took apart the drivers side door and fixed a broken spot weld with an angle bracket because it rattled. I stuffed a rag between the crash bar and outer sheet metal to make the door closing feel more solid.

    That's it for interior.

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      #3
      Exterior:

      I went through 2 bottles of touch up paint on the bumpers. The back bumper still looked awful so I bought one in better shape at the junkyard. It needed only a little touch up.

      I used a diamond impregnated rubber bur to take a couple paint chips down to metal so they could be touched up without trapping water underneath the paint.

      I took the wheels down to metal and then painted them gunmetal. I think they came out decent. Certainly better than they were!

      I replaced the badly cracked taillights with mild stress cracked taillights from the junkyard. These shouldn't fill with water or get me pulled over. Hopefully.

      Plans for the future are minor dent removal, repair of the front passenger wheel well (only bad rust area but requires cut out and weld new in) and then POR-15 for all the wheel wells.

      That's exterior.

      Comment


        #4
        Mechanical:

        First stop was rotors and StopTech pads all around. I had always heard good things about these pads but initially I didn't like them. Now I love them. They required that I think differently than a standard pad. With a standard pad I would modulate the brakes by pressure. With these it's closer to displacement. This allows better modulation and control but I had to adapt.

        Next up, replace the aftermarket oil cap with an OEM version and replace the broken dipstick pull.

        Looking under the oil cap showed the initial signs of sludge. I'll be running short interval oil changes until it looks cleaner in there. The first two oil changes I used the stock filter but I'll be going to the slightly bigger V6 filter from here out. I wasted an afternoon researching about oil only to decide to stick with what I've always done- quality semi-synthetic oil and a good oil filter changed at 3k mile intervals.

        I replaced the accessory belts.

        I replaced the front motor mount. I accidentally got one for the 626 due to a bad cross-reference. It was a fairly easy fix by cutting down the sleeve a little.

        I bought a 93 MX-6 transmission from the junkyard for $50 and swapped the 5th gear set to lower my highway rpm. This is the perfect combo for me. Highway noise is reduced but I still have short gears for around town. I put my old gears back in the MX-6 transmission and it'll be a spare for my friends LeMon. The gear sets are different heights which required modification of the MX-6 transmission parts to get them to line up again. There was no problem in the Protege5 transmission at least for the 03 version (it's different than the older ones). For reference the 0.717 set has 33 teeth on the small gear and 46 on the big gear. The stock ratio- 0.756 has 34 small and 45 big.

        Transmission fluid was replaced with Synchromesh- surprisingly better shifts.

        I replaced the oil pressure switch with a combination sender and switch that came with my gauge. I reversed the connectors on the new sender so I wouldn't have to modify the factory harness but I did tweak the contacts so they would grab. The gauge kit included the BSPT to NPT adapter needed.

        I did the VTCS delete and VICS loctite mod to keep my engine from lunching screws. Fortunately all were present I cut the shaft short and tapped the end for a flat head screw. This allows the system to look completely functional externally. I was a little surprised how small the intake ports look and also at the VICS path. I cleaned up the roof shelf in the intake where it meets the head with a carbide burr. I cracked my new dipstick pull in the process but that's fairly minor. I might make a new pull from aluminum.

        K&N filter, not huge gains but easier to maintain.

        Replaced all the shifter bushings with the Kia alternatives and urethane for the support shaft. I found it curious that there were two different bushings in mine. They're all the same now and what a difference. Much better!

        I've got 2 Dunlop DZ102 tires in transit for the front. Not the greatest tires, but good, and $90/ea to my door. They should be a good match for the DZ101s that will be on the rear as well.

        In the future I will be doing the timing belt when the odometer gets closer to 105K.

        I'm probably going to hold off on a rear sway bar and shocks until next year. As spring and summer approach my focus (and finances) shift to racing and non-car stuff. But who knows maybe I'll want to leave the street class- 7" wide wheels are really appealing. So are better motor/transmission mounts.

        Thanks for reading!

        Sam

        Comment


          #5
          Pictures of progress would be nice.

          Comment


            #6
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              #7
              The odometer was creeping up on 105K so I did the timing belt last night. It's a good thing too, the tension-er was stuck and the belt had stretched. I was thinking it was broken mounts that were making it hard to shift smooth and quick. It was actually the timing wandering around. I still need to do mounts as they are quite bad.

              Anyone have experience with MTC brand engine mounts? I've used Anchor on other cars and they disintegrated quickly. I'm also going to get inserts. I've been to 0 auto-crosses and 1 track day this year so there's no reason to live with crappy engine mounts.

              Sam

              Comment


                #8
                Welcome!! the car is still in surprisingly good exterior shape. Im also extremely glad to hear you took care of the intake manifold mess before it took out your engine.
                ---Has ClubProtege helped you in someway? show your support by Contributing--- Click Here---

                1992- project FE3..... 313 WHP @ 9.3psi




                I pet my dash when I get into the car..."good car"
                he actually has a mazda tree, parts grow on it

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