Dragyn Vyrus's 93 ZE-T *update May 25th, the build plan*

[Dragyn Vyrus]

Well, seeing as though i don't have anything better to do right now, just got my wisdom teeth ripped out of my head, I got the brilliant idea to start a work log finally! YAY.



This is how it was when i bought it, didn't take any pics of the engine bay though... oh well


So to start things off i bought my MX-3 in late February of 08. As soon as i saw it i knew it was destined to be mine. The car came with summer and winter tires/rims. The summers are awesome they say their advans, but i don't believe it, they weigh a tone... I probably had the car no more than a month before deciding that i wanted to mod it.

The first thing that I did would be the exhaust, an impulse buy! Awesome those are the best haha. The exhaust lasted me for a while and then once i got some more cash i bought a cold air for the K8. At this time I had already spent countless hours reading as much as i could on this site and gaining a wealth of knowledge, this is where i learned about the KLZE and it was always on my mind. It only took a couple months until i realized that i wanted something more from my car, and begun the search for a KLZE. I didn't particularly want to order one from a site and have it shipped over to my place, and have to swap over the tranny and all kinds of hard work, I'm rather lazy. But if it came right down to it i would order one. One night when out with a local tuners club of mine, a guy approached me asking what i had in it and asked he asked if i wanted a KLZE of course i said yes, and soon enough i had a KLZE'd ford probe sitting beside my mx3 in my garage!


This is a picture of the K8 being pulled out of the mx3, you can also see the probe in the back ground.

in preparation for the swap i had to move my battery to the hatch! Only took about an hour.

The swap went well, although it took just over a month to complete.... learned a lot from the swap itself and thankfully i had my friends there to help me out. I was lost at the wirings and all that so i brought it to a shop that specializes in all that.
The ZE does have the STRAIGHT neck on it, I just ground down some of the k8 throttle body and ground part of the front bolt on the brake reservoir. it is possible... and it works haven't had any issues so far, I am intending to get a different TB on with a larger bore size, and some new solid motor mounts, I need the linkage to be the same as the k8 because the ZE linkage is too long and would have to be sitting in the brake reservoir... not going to happen...


So thats the epic story so far, I'll get some pictures up soon. Tones more things planned for this car!

[fowljesse]

Cool. Let's see more pics!

[Dragyn Vyrus]

I'm trying! but i can barely walk straight, all loopy on T3's haha.
I'll post more up after i get it back from the shop, damn brakes...

[Daninski]

I filled my mounts with Durathane 94. Its a two part system. For $50 bucks you get enough filler to easily do your front, back and pully side mounts. I would advise you not to fill the entire mount. My dash shakes went I'm idling because my mounts are so solid. lol
Lots of people buy the cheap filler but I'm against that, Durathane 94 is meant as a rubber part mold replacement. Even if your mounts are shot this stuff, if you properly prep the rubber mount will make your mounts like new again.

[Dragyn Vyrus]

hmm sounds alot better than buying a whole new set of solid mounts and installing those... haha
how much did you put in each, i dont want my dash to vibrate... haha

[Dragyn Vyrus]

Alright so finally the weather was nice this morning and i remember to take some pictars! and i made a few movies on top of that just to make everyone all happy! the movies however don't have any sound because my camera is kinda stupid....

Anyhooo...








WHAT IS THAT!? its true a straight neck! awesome pawesome!!






this movie kinda shows the top view of the mod i had to do to make it fit







So as you can see i just ground down a bit of the throttle body and a bit off the front bolt. This is however the K8 throttle body, I want a larger bore, but i'll have to see how the intake would handle that and if it would hit the brake resivore or not, i wouldnt think so... and the linkage has to be the same as the K8 otherwise it just wont work....

[Daninski]

Just curious, why are there two plugs not conected. Your not finished yet? Do you have a vac line connected before your VAF? Other than that your install must of been tight with that straight neck. I was wondering if the throttle body could be removed and the intake machined a bit to move the TB back a bit. If you haven't filled your mounts yet the engine might still strike the Brake reservoir. Filling the mounts: OK I cleaned the mounts first and sanded the rubbers to give the filler something to grip. Then I masked off one side and simply poured the filler in untill the mount was full. You can try only filling about 2/3 and see how that does. With them filled completely you know your running a ZE, lol and there's enough filler to do your other car as well if you buy the 1lb can.

[Dragyn Vyrus]

No its finished the only thing that i am waiting on is the probinator chip, other than that everything that needs to be connected is. The plugs are most likely for the EGR, i got rid of that bastard and just plugged the hole on the exhaust manifold. There are no vac lines connected to the intake before the VAF nope. i don't know what was done with them but one of them is in the third last picture actually, in the bottom of it in the middle the vac line with a breather filter. I'm not sure if i can machine the IM back a bit, I'll probably just keep it the way that is right now and fill the mounts, i haven't had any issues with the things hitting, but I'm sure that they have hit, and its only a matter of time until something goes wrong... filling the mounts is next on my list. Speaking of which, Can i just take the Mounts off without dropping the engine or anything of that sort?

Edit -Yes the engine took about an hour or two just to drop in it... uhg, had to do it with out the tb though or else it wouldn't go in.

[Daninski]

I would of thought if you supported the engine from underneath after you jacked your car up and used a sling on the top of your engine for safety you could undo the mounts. you can fill the front, back and the passenger side mount. Not sure about the drivers side I didn't see a way to do anything with it. Front and back take all the torque anyway. Did you install new bolts and grommets on your shifter linkagae? That really tightened mine up. Finally I'm pretty big on new O2 sensors, I compared my old one with my new one and the new ones were so much more responsive. Enjoy your ZE, cheers

[fowljesse]

Looks good!
Be careful torqueing on it. I've read about a couple of guys that did the same as you, shaving and all, and all was well until they hit the gas, and... fluid everywhere!

[Dragyn Vyrus]

d--- thats not good... dont want that to happen...
thanks for the heads up man!

[Dragyn Vyrus]

Alright, so yesterday i spent probably around 3-4 hours securing my battery in the back. Sick of it bouncing around, and it's dangerous too.... also this means i can go on the track now!

Anyway, What i first did was put a small piece of plywood under the battery, between it and the box. then got some more plywood and try to fit that into the inside front and back of box between it and the battery. that didn't work out... the plywood was just too thick! gah! well all that i had to do was just split the plywood in half and it fit more or less. I also had to cut a little slot into the piece in the front to make room for the side terminals, so that the battery would go all the way down and be level. after that i put "L" brackets onto the top of the battery to stop it from bouncing up, and i screwed them onto the wood on the back of the box. I also added, as a precaution, some shrink wrap onto the exposed bracket on the top of the battery to prevent any electrical mishap... awesome! now it can all go together finally, and after a bit of paint to the wood and brackets, it was good too go.
only thing that i had left to do before putting it back was to screw the four other "L" brackets to the plywood under the carpet, two on the sides of the box and two on the front. The ones on the sides had to be bent to fit so the would be under the box then bend out onto the sides to be screwed into the box(and wood on the inside). once these were done i cut two small holes into the carpet to expose the part of the front brackets that would be screwed onto the box, then everything was screwed down and that box isn't going anywhere!

Now after that explanation, here are some pictures for those of you who don't read


Front


Back


Side bracket


Top view of the side, you can see the wood that the side and top brackets were screwed into


Back


Front

[Dragyn Vyrus]

Alright, tis been a while so i think that it is time for an update! and oh, an update it is. I've been busy!

So i started a while back... early August when i decided to waist some time and hook up some blue leds into my headlights and hook them up to my alarm system. There are two switches, can have them on or off, or have them off and hooked up to my alarm system. their mostly there for the alarm system.


These are the switches on the interior. do their job perfectly.


Wires coming from the inside.



the ground.

so that was fun. But as it turns out, i get bored easy haha so..... i decided to take out my A/C radiator, the ze didnt come with the A/C on it and mine was broken on my k8. Now it gets to be taken out!

these are the pics i took when i was about to take it off, then my camera died. So the after pictures are with the bumper and everything back on.






That was fun! but, as it turns out, still bored. ITS PAINTING TIME WOOOOOO!! hahaha

Started with the drivers side seat rail, it looked like crap, i fixed that...

Before:


After:


realized just now, that picture sucks, ill get a better one of it inside my car sometime soon.

Anyway when i was doing that i realized that wasn't enough and that the radiator bolts and headlight bolts look just as crappy, so i got some different paint, high temperature just in case.




and at the same time thought the bracket holing the fuse box didn't look all to great itself either, time for a paint job.

Before:


and the after pictures can be seen in the stuff for the A/C Radiator that i removed.

And yet again, yes, thats right i got bored. I painted the interior! looks awesome IMO.








looks a bit shiny in the pictures but oh well...

and then finally a note for my mechanic,


The chip came its in, and its sick! love it just that much more!

and one last parting picture...

[Mooneggs]

how's that straight neck working out for you? any problems?

[Dragyn Vyrus]

so far so good, been to the track and everything, no problems yet.
Still need to fill my mounts though now that i have money....