Kev's '98 Protege Thread

[Turpro]

Are you going to have him take the front and rear bumpers off? Just for safety when loading and unloading.

[Foofighter8008]

Have you asked pics of the engine bay? Just curious to see what upgrades there are myself

[irishkev90]

The rear bumper is stock, but he does have the JDM rear skirt thing, just not on the car. I told Stateway about the mods and it being lowered and they said some 2x4s should help with loading and unloading. I'm sure it wouldn't be a huge deal to take the bumper off if needed, though.

As for the engine bay, it's a fairly stock Z5 bay. Painted valve cover, some blue plug wires and cable cover things, and some aftermarket short intake. He does have a front strutbar, but I'm going to swap my Mazdaspeed one on when it gets here.

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[irishkev90]

Best shot of the engine bay I could find.



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[irishkev90]

Oh, forgot to say earlier, I called up Stateway and they'll have the car picked up within five days. Another few days after that and it's mine

[Ace]

aw man, I thought it was BP, oh well. Still a pretty sweet 2nd gen.

[Mazda_Powered]

I thought it was too lol, either way it'll be a sexy cruiser

[irishkev90]

Yeah, just an LX. BP would have been nice, but I'm sure the engine will feel hugely different compared to my old, leaky Z5, haha. It's also automatic, but I've got that Kia trans with an MFactory diff I'll swap in over winter along with the ES brakes I got from Chris a few years ago.

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[irishkev90]

Deep cleaned the seats and some of the carpet. In the process of figuring out how to make some new sun visors. The passenger side mirror flap is torn almost all the way off (damn exgirlfriend). Been wanting to do some custom interior stuff anyway.

[Foofighter8008]

Yeah I hate the stock sun visors. Cheap, ugly, and doesn't even have mirrors. I'm wondering how easy it would be to replace the shift boot with a leather mx3 boot. I might have to do some experimenting of my own

[irishkev90]

My LX visors have mirrors. Got some from a junkyard to replace the torn passenger visor and when I got home I realized there were no mirrors so that idea was put to bed real quick, haha.

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[MazdaNoob]

Yeah I hate the stock sun visors. Cheap, ugly, and doesn't even have mirrors. I'm wondering how easy it would be to replace the shift boot with a leather mx3 boot. I might have to do some experimenting of my own

20 min job

[Foofighter8008]

^ Yeah I guess the hardest part is finding one

[irishkev90]

Replaced the A/C compressor and filter with units from Advance. Waiting to get the system charged and told there's now a leak. I'm having them find the leak now so I know where to start.

I hate this ****ing car right now. The A/C system is just looking like a heap of scrap metal at this point.

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Edit: Just ordered some new o-rings from Jim Ellis Mazda.

Also, a little light of hope in an otherwise horrible start to my day, Stateway says their driver is in the Fort Worth area and the car should be picked up today. Good thing because the seller is leaving for a vacation tomorrow. The car should be delivered by next Tuesday and I should be getting the title in the mail this week.

[irishkev90]

The car was picked up earlier today and is on the way to its new home

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