Southrnfresh Mazda Protege 5 Track car project: 20 steps forward, and 21 steps backward..

Its been a few months since the last trackday, and finally after the holidays settled down.  I was able to get back in the swing into working on the Protege and make a few changes for 2020.

The car has been very reliable and did everything that I asked it to do.  First thing was changing the wheel size from 17″ to 16″.  The  17″ Konig wheels did great, they only weighed 16lbs but I did not like  the 215/40R17 tire size on the 17×8 wheel.  The car rubbed under harsh turning , and the 215/40 stretched slightly on the 8″ wheel.

Finding a 5×114 wheel in a 16×8  in anything besides a Enkei for a reasonable price was tough.  I could have went with anything, but I did want to get something that I can feel comfortable with tracking, and somewhat lightweight.

I ended up finding a set of 16×8 Work Emotions from a guy in Florida off FB Marketplace.  Even better the set came with a great barely used set of R888Rs in 225/45R16 .

They had been painted a metallic blue color, but they were straight and had good tires on them.  So it was exactly what I needed.

The next thing I wanted to focus on was the engine.  The old engine ran good, but it had 301,000 miles on it, and it burned a lot of oil.  I had kept the oil level full all last year, and it ran strong.  But when the car sat, it would smoke like it was on fire for about 10 minutes.  So it was time to either refresh the motor or replace it…

This is what a typical cold start would look like for about 10 minutes… 

The good folks at Mazmart had been sitting on a block out of a 2001 Mazda 626 with only 18 original miles!  The story behind it was that the car was delivered to Jim Ellis Mazda in Atlanta and the car fell off the truck somehow, and the accelerator was stuck in full throttle, and the car overheated.  Mazmart purchased the damaged car back in 2001 brand new with only 18 miles on it.  And parted the car out.. and the only part left from then was the short block..

The original plan was to get my cylinder head rebuilt, and use it with this short block.

While I was putting together a parts list and making a plan of action for the motor swap.  I ran across a wrecked P5 with 98,000 miles on it being parted out.  I decided to just take this known running motor and use it.  Once I have the old motor out I plan on using that head with the low mile block to try and put together a motor for force induction in the future.  I mainly just wanted to get the car back on the road with a fresh motor as soon as possible.

I had some plans to do a few things in the engine bay while the engine is out.  I wanted to remove the A/C , relocate the battery, and remove some clutter out the bay and clean it up as much as possible.

Motor out!

I never knew how old the clutch was in the car, but it really never felt bad.  But by the looks of the flywheel, it was clearly on its last leg.

The residue left in the bottom of the oil pan, is a mixture of any and every kind of additive, oil weight, I experimented with to stop the oil from burning.  And also showed signs of sever bearing wear.. even though car ran fine , but after 300,000 miles what can you expect..

You can see oil pooling on top of the valves on the intake side.

And on the exhaust side you can see the results…

Block prepped and cleaned for oil pan and baffle.

One of the best things I ever did for the car was install this oil pan baffle .  It has a trap door in it to help keep oil in the pickup.  The FS engine suffers from severe starvation so this was a must.  And it has proven to be a very worthy investment!

Found a killer deal on a used lightweight crank pulley on Ebay.  The OEM crank pulley weights 5lbs, and the lightweight one is 1lb.    

With the motor out it gave me a chance to wrap the header.

Deleted the EGR with the use of a Mitsubishi 4G63 block off plate. 

The power steering pump worked fine, but I had a super low mileage one I got from Mazmart available.

Ready to go… 

I stuck with the OE Exedy clutch but did upgrade to the Fidanza 7.5lb lightweight flywheel. 

If you look closely you can see that I forgot to install the pilot bearing in the flywheel prior to installing it.  And of course this was after I torqued the flywheel bolts and everything.. 

It was late, and I thought it would be a good idea to install it with the flywheel still attached… as you can see from the photo it was damaged by the time I got it to sit flush.

The pilot bearing barely rotated and would have been a problem if i had used it.. 

Early morning trip to Oreilly’s got me a fresh one, that went right in with no problem the correct way after removing the flywheel.  

Clutch installed and ready… 

The radiator didnt have any issues, but it was in bad shape, and I did not want to take any chances with it falling apart. 

Install was pretty smooth honestly.  The engine started on the first crank without any issues.  I had finished the car on Wednesday, installed the radiator and a few things on Thursday.  And Friday after work was my day to take the car on the road, and put some miles on it and make sure it was all good to go.  

Friday I get home, take the car to get some dinner and put some miles on it to make sure everything was fine.  The car felt great, lightweight flywheel really woke the car up, everything was perfect.  It was great to finally drive the car with a healthy motor.  

As I am driving I smell a constant scent of coolant.. I figured it was just what I spilled burning off, and never really worried about it or bothered to check.  I get about a mile from getting my destination , and the car shuts off , but immediately cranks back up.  I get to the restaurant and order my food, and then I check everything out under the hood while I wait… and it looks fine.  

I head back home, and the car starts to misfire like crazy, and hesitate, and loose power.  I am thinking maybe its a loose vacuum line or something silly I forgot to tighten up.  Not once.. did I stop and or look down at my gauges…

I get about 4 miles from my house, and the car finally cuts off at the light, and wont crank.  I push the car out of the street and get it in a parking lot….

And finally I take a glance at the temperature gauge and see the car blazing Hot and about a inch past the H symbol…. by then I realize that I never once looked down at the temperature gauge when the car started to act funny.  

I get out and pop the hood, to a steaming hot and smoking engine like something you would see in a movie.   I grab my light and look down and see the lower coolant hose completely off from the radiator and the car bone dry of any coolant.  The clamp did not fail ,but I did… and never even clamped the hose on to the radiator.  And halfway through my test drive I had dumped all the coolant on the road.   I made one last effort to save the day, by walking to the gas station to get coolant and  attempt to possibly fill it back up and limp it home.  But it was way too late for that..

Got the car towed home, and let it cool off reconnected the lower coolant hose and secured it this time,  filled it up with coolant and topped the oil off, and it started up and idled fine for about 10 minutes.  But as soon as I drove about 50 feet the temp would start to creep up, and the sweet smell of coolant out the exhaust was overwhelming…

At first it was actually kind of funny what I had done.. But a few hours later I was so mad at myself for doing something so silly, and ruining a perfectly good motor.  

Saturday morning, the only way I could feel any better about what I had done, was to remove the head and investigate more on the condition of the motor. 

Once the head was off, I could see that the root of the problem was a blown head gasket….

I decided to take the head to a machine shop, and have them check the head and see its condition before replacing the head gasket. Maybe I could get away with a new headgasket and everything be ok.. 

I dropped the head off at the machine shop on Monday , I received a call early Tuesday morning telling me that the head was severely warped and none of the valve seals are holding.  And he suggests to replace the head and or spend way more then its worth to repair it.  And also that the block maybe damaged by the looks of the cylinder head..

So here I am back to were I began……..