Southrnfresh Mazda Protege 5 Track car project : Road Atlanta with the new setup
I wanted to clean up the engine bay for awhile, but i wanted to wait until i knew the car was all good and ready before I started to mess around with anything. I also wanted to install the 1.8 coilpack conversion on the the car as well. This mod is somewhat of an update, it gets rid of the Dual Coilpack setup that tends to fail. It removes the shared coil on plug setup, and replaces it with 2 coilpacks mounted elsewhere.
I got lucky on Ebay and was able to find an brand new Mazdaspeed axle back for the Protege 5. Back when the car was new they sold these as an accessory on the Protege 5. There were 2 versions one for the Sedan and one for the Protege 5.
It’s different from the Racing Beat Exhaust that comes on the Mazdaspeed Protege. These are designed for the Non -Turbo models. I did not get any photos of it installed at this point, but I will add some later. The muffler has a much better tone then the AutoExe axle back, which was very quiet.
I was able to get an Injen Cold Air Intake in a trade. I had been looking to experiment with a cold air intake on the car over the short ram, and my friend was wanting to get rid of the cold air and go with a short ram, so it worked out.
June 2020, we finally get on track for the first time since we were locked down. For me the extended break gave me time to correct the errors that I created with the engine catastrophe.
It took a few sessions for me to get back in the groove. The last time the car was at Road Atlanta. It was running on a 300k mile oil burning engine, stock clutch, flywheel and a full interior with all of the creature comforts.
The changes were so dramatic it was like driving a whole different car. It was much lighter on its feet. The FS-ZE felt much more smoother through the RPMS, the car was much more responsive with less weight. The wheel / tire combo gave me so much more grip.
I have a video of me doing a lap, and followed by another lap from Gino Manley. Just to see how much I need to improve. The biggest thing I the shifting and engine braking. Its hard to be so aggressive on the car when I will be the one having to fix and or pay for the repairs. But its something I will need to be more comfortable doing. I loose so much time being gentle with down shifts, and easing the clutch into gear , and coasting instead of using the engine / trans to assist with braking. He also showed me how I should be shifting, mainly going into Turn 1 in 5th Gear, and downshifting to 4th, instead of holding 4th gear all the way into turn 3 when I shift down to 3rd. Its tough for me to do that mentally im still fearful of losing control and spinning again. But I will eventually have to pickup these habits.
