MX-3.com

Hey All I figured I'd start one of these just updating along with what i do whether it be big or small! First, I purchased her 12/27/10 in Elkhart, IN for 600 bucks. I jumped on the opportunity because The last time i had an mx3 it was the base version. I was very disappointed mostly because I had a Honda CRX that i loved and sold it to buy the mx3 that i was told to be a GS but arrived to only count 4 cylinders! but anyways Plans are as follows upgrade exahust, short shifter, clutch, flywheel KLDE swap intake and headers that should be it as it is my daily driver.

Exterior Mods
17's of some sort
Dropped
Tint
Carbon Tails
Black Headlights

1/09/10
Cut the Cherry Bomb off as the muffler and replaced it with a Dual Tip Muffler I bought off ebay for like 30 bucks
Jacked up

Pic of the Ugliness

Comparison


i'll post pics of it when its light out again!
It sucked to have to do it out in the cold my garage was being used by the probe!

Pic of The Dual Tips:

That's some dedication! I don't do anything in the snow, but ride down it on a board! I'm sure it looks much better. I hope it sounds better.

lol thanks! I was bored and it was about 20 degrees so not to bad! it was a fast job! I board as well! i came to the conclusion that the 3 will be getting the DE out of my probe. The Timing Belt Tensioner holes are stripped soooooo the probe will be sitting til spring and when income tax time comes Ill have a ze for my probe and the DE will get a new home! But for now i have to change a few things on here.

Car is Up



gotta have my tunes


Shifter is out


Shifter is In



Nasty Shifter Linkage Where can i get some new linkage?


Interior


This was a lot easier than I thought it was going to be it went pretty smoothly! Next will be headers

Sorry about the rust, man. The rest looks good, though.

4/18/2010 Hot Shot Headers and Resonated Test Pipe install

My Set of Exhaust Manifold gaskets arrived at advance auto parts this morning! So we started on the headers, and not gonna lie have an old car makes changing these things a b----. The front came off no problem the rear as well, but we couldn't get the egr to break free from the manifold sooooo we're blocking it off! what a pain! I hope i can feel somewhat of a difference with the hot shots on and the test pipe..Should fix the ginormous exhaust leak i had, where the cat meets the cat back basically when we took it off there was no gasket to be found, just remains lol We found this in the winter when we looked under and tons of smoke was just pouring out of that one spot. Can't Wait!

Pics will be posted in about 2-3 hours!

Just Chilling(was like this most of the day)

Picture of the Ugliness! Rear Manifold!

New next to Old


Installed



Pieced Together Probe/MX3 Exhaust
I know theres rust at the resonator but my mx3 exhaust was much worse

My Dad workin the Grinder

Exhaust Installed



Engine Shot


Let me know what you guys think!

Nice progress!
Why does you Dad get to have the fun? Grinding is 1 of my favorite things.

Lol we couldn't find my safety glasses and he has some from his work that are prescription otherwise I'm the student he's the teacher and makes me do everything ha! Thanks, I'm just keeping mysel busy with this car and my probe until i can find an engine to swap into my mazda. i think i'm going the ZE route!

Any suggestions on rim size? I was going to go with 17's but now i'm almost thinking 16's

Rim size depends on what you want from them. 17 look great, but will hurt your performance. 16s are a good compromise. I have 17s on my fast car right now (and they're not too heavy, for 17s), and can feel a little difference. If I put them on my stock GS, it would kill the little performance it has. I'm keeping the 15s until I can afford some really light 16X7s, and the tires for them (probably never ) Since Miatas run 15" wheels, you can get 205-50-15 performance/ street tires like Falken Azenis for relatively cheap. That's what I'm going to do. The 16" and 17" tires are almost 2X as much, and rims that weigh the same as stock 15s are more than I'll probably ever spend on rims.

Sounds good I think i'll go with some 16's,

Another question this tick/knock I need opinions on what it could be!


The guy told me it was lifter tick but I would like the community's input!

Its likely not HLA tick, they have a distinct sound. From what ive encountered with the K engines
is that sound is from the timing belt tensioner. It can also occur when the belt pulleys are
installed reverse, the smaller one should be on the bottom and the larger one is for the
alternator.



Here is another K with a tensioner problem:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zc6hS9nP3gU

thanks! I'll have to check it out this weekend! I really hope it is this

IMO it's the tensioners, sounds like it anyway... same thing happened to me and it sounded the same. IIRC I was told that it could have also be the power steering pump/pulley.

4/25/2010

A fellow probe owner on probetalk, is selling me his spare DE, so I'll be picking that up this coming saturday cannot wait.
I'll post pics of when it arrives.