Eduardo's 99 Protege LX

[edumspeed]

Pics of the muffler I installed some months ago.

[edumspeed]

Update!!!!

The car's almost finished! Here are some pics of it's progress;







Painted today

[Turpro]

Lookin good

[edumspeed]

Thanks. I wonder if they'll call me tomorrow to pick it up :D I truly hope so!

[FE3-323]

looks nicely repaired!

[edumspeed]

looks nicely repaired!

Yep. It's good to have your best friend work in an auto body shop. Still no word when I can go pick it up. Oh well.

P. S. I'm loving the new look of the forums, great job you're doing!

[edumspeed]

Got the car yesterday, and it's better than when I purchased it. I already have a new present for it, a new steering wheel cover lol!

[FE3-323]

well damn, post some pics !!! geez lol

[psiturbo]

Nice, you have come a long way with the car.

I hope you keep it clean and don't go the all out flashy look.

[edumspeed]

I'm so pissed off since last night. The f*****g timing belt broke @ 11:30pm while my dad was driving it. Replacement belts are a POS, didn't even make it to 20k miles. What a way to start 2010, w TWO broken cars. The other one is down since Nov. 15, the day "The big flood" happened here. Diagnostic, bent connecting rods, and now the Mazda too.

[edumspeed]

Update:

Upon closer inspection, the timing belt is fine, whew! It's now either the crank or cam sensor, since there's no spark in the coils. And the crappy haynes manual I have isn't very helpful either. I get reference voltage on the cam sensor connector, but no resistance on the sensor itself, and on the crank sensor I get 600 ohms on it, and roughly 0.8-9V on the connector plug, so I'm not sure wtf went wrong here.

[edumspeed]

Bought the cam sensor today. As the sales person told me, it's a really common problem w modern Mazdas. I also returned the wrongly dispatched brake rotors and got a credit for them that I applied it for the sensor, so I only paid $43 for it, half of what it retailed Hope this solves my problem.

[edumspeed]

Installed early in the morning the cam sensor and the #1 spark plug, cranked the engine again, and zero, not firing up. I also noticed that it sounded kinda funny. A compression test showed me barely 90 psi, so I immediately removed the valve cover and I found this;


My first guess was correct, unfortunately.
Some pics of my progress.



Before 3:00pm the cylinder head was off. We didn't notice any bent valves. Dad and I headed for our favorite machine shop to have the head inspected just to be sure. After a pressure test, they were all fine! It will receive new seals, valve and seat reconditioning and a through cleaning. It will be ready this Monday. I'll be $140 poorer, and the parts I'll need will add up even more to the sum.

[FE3-323]

just slap another belt on it quick & keep running it. but please for the love of god. put a quart of ATF in your oil 3 oil/1ATF & do that for the next 5 oil changes.
look @ a low deposit oil too

[edumspeed]

just slap another belt on it quick & keep running it. but please for the love of god. put a quart of ATF in your oil 3 oil/1ATF & do that for the next 5 oil changes.
look @ a low deposit oil too

I noticed that oil varnish the first time I changed the valve cover gasket when I got the car. It's previous owner was a college student (as evidenced by some papers I found laying inside the trunk) and the oil wasn't changed as often. I've been changing it between 3-5k miles max w either full synthetic or blended, That crap is all good and gone by now, but thanks for the tip!