And so it begins....323BG hatch ----> V6 powa with a few extra surprises

[bomdoutscort]

How about oddrey2 for the plate lol or ahdrey2

[SPENONE]

AMAZING build dan....AMAZING.

I agree tho, some GT-X(R) sideskirts would set this thing off nicely!

[Dan [Sac]]

All in due time

I tried pretty hard to score OEM side skirts (GT-R style that are 'lower' on the rear 1/4 panel area) but I haven't been able to source a good set. I'm really not that keen on fixing broken sets or trying to make a poor fiberglass copy fit, so I'll bide my time till the right deal shows up.

I have plenty of paint left so when I do find the right set, they can go on pretty quickly.

[CODY004WD]

Audrey is her name, and Audrey2 would have been the plate if it weren't already taken (a little throwback to "The Little Shop of Horrors" for those who care since it took quite a bit of blood, sweat, and cursing to 'grow' it).

"Feeeed mey!" LOL

Car looks great Dan, keep up the good work. Hopefully she wont try to eat you though.

[Crazy Drummer69]

All in due time

I tried pretty hard to score OEM side skirts, so I'll bide my time till the right deal shows up.

This is the icing on the visuals department cake, lovin' it!

[Dan [Sac]]

Still trying to work out the clutch issue.

Turns out it's not the rod (all of them are the same length - even a 95 Probe GT has the same rod, so at least Mazda is efficient).

I thought I had some clutch pedal travel obstructions but even after clearing those the pedal still goes all the way to the OEM stop tab and still nothing on the other end.

The one thing I did notice is that the clutch master cylinder is 'longer' than the JDM one. I'll take a pic of what I'm talking about and then I want to see what an OEM MX3 clutch master looks like (or how long it is at least).

The clutch slave moves fine when operated by hand.. I'll try gravity bleeding the master as well to see if that helps any.

[Dan [Sac]]

Well I have good news & bad news on the clutch

Bad news is that I was chasing a problem that didn't exist....

Good news is I had a dead clutch slave cyl, changed that sunofobitch and we got clutchness now.


Aside from that, I made the harness for the 3 gauges today, and attached the boost sensor for the boost gauge. Nice to have quality parts, no more running vacuum lines inside the cabin....

[wheresthericego]

gratz on finding the problem and the easy fix

[Mazda_Powered]

nice! glad it was a simple fix...sounds like those gauges are pretty fancy haha, i have vac lines booo

[craigandrews]

So long since an update.

Im having withdrawals!!!

[Dan [Sac]]

I'm still working on wiring. I have a ton of solder joints, shrink wrap, dozens of feet of electrical tape, etc....lots of slow, painstaking work.

The battery relocation is now fully wired up, ready to go live pending a few more wire joints and checks. I'll have to do a full chassis ground check to make sure I have good grounds on the engine before I begin.

I also need to wire the headlights up (stock 323 to H4 bulbs for the Euro lights). Thanks to Google this job is easier now...for the 323 there are a black (ground), solid red and red with white stripe wire. I think the solid red is low beam, I'll test it out once I have power.






Also looking for a switched wire to hook up the gauges to under the steering column. For the dimmer function, I'll test the dimmer wires to see which one is doing the dimming.

I also jumpered the clutch switch that was causing my no-crank condition last time (the 323 pedals were missing that switch so I didn't think it could be that).

Side markers are now hard wired also. Alternator, starter, fuse box, everything else is connected.

Spent $55 on 3 quarts of Royal Purple gear oil for the transmission....this stuff has doubled in price over the last 2 years.

I still have a checklist of about 35 items to do before I am 'done', but only about half of those are needed for the engine start phase. I'll probably have some pics tonight after I'm done working on it for the day.

[Dan [Sac]]

Some of the late work:


Cabin side of the gauge wire harness:







Battery power to engine bay - was not looking forward to soldering/brazing 1/0 gauge...lol...dielectric grease on the inside, twice weatherproof shrink-wrapped on the outside with electrical tape in between for good measure. I did leave a stub of 12-ga wire coming out (isolated now) if I need power in the engine bay in the future (which I will for the fog lights and alarm).









Couple of brackets - one for the coolant overflow tank, the other a weird one to keep the oil lines off the exhaust manifold flange. Got some good insulated clearance now and the lines should be safe in the close quarters but I will continue to monitor them.









Side markers:







Engine bay mayhem:

[Ace]

So nice, I can' wait to see this thing pass inspection so you can put all the goodies back in.

[DeeAOne]

everything is just so...so....right! lol if you have one problem after getting it running id be highly surprised.

[mx-3_4evr]

Looking good man! What gauges are you running? The plugs looks like the innovate ones, that's what I'm running! You need a A/F ratio gauge though