Considering selling my 93' MX-3, sadly. I got a new job that requires me to drive in DC traffic every day, and since DC metro is 2nd worst traffic in the country (and possibly the world) it is a living hell driving a 5-speed, lowered car with a shitload of low-end torque.
In case you don't know what my car is, i'll run down the basics of what it was when I bought it:
1993 MX-3 GS 5-speed with power package. It is equipped with A/C & A sunroof, as well as front & rear mudguards as options. I bought it with 144k miles, and it currently has around 173k on the body. I bought it with a f'd up transmission & blown engine. I swapped in a KL-ZE with low mileage, a new transmission and it drove great out of the box. I have since done quite a few things to the car that I consider tasteful, non-ricer, non retarded, all functional.
Modification List:
Engine/Drivetrain:
-Straight-neck KLZE with curved-neck KLZE intake manifold. Stock 60mm curved-neck TB.
-Custom 3" cold air intake redirected to drivers fenderwell
-HEI Modification with MSD blaster 2 ignition coil & 8.5mm ignition wire
-Accel 8.5mm red ignition wires w/NGK V-power plugs.
-Custom 4-gauge grounding wire kit installed in daisy-chain orientation.
-SSAutochrome Chrome headers (the hotshot knockoff style NOT the paceshitter).
-Carsound 2.5" free flow cat, 2.5" free-flow resonator & 2.5" exhaust tubing directed to a JUN Titanium 2.5" muffler (has a silencer in it, very quiet with it installed).
-Customized transmission with ford ZX2 brass synchronizers & gears, including a taller 5th gear. Mazdaspeed Protege (Tochigi Fuji Sangyo) 2-way limited slip is also customized into the transmission
-Exedy clutch....less than 8k miles on it.
-Mazdaspeed Protege shifter w/shiftknob for shorter throws.
-Driveshaftshop.com driveshafts. Rated at 200 ft/lb of torque according to them when I bought them.
-3-year old urethane-filled Mazdaspeed motor mounts.
Brakes:
-Front & Rear brembo Blank rotors, replaced about 8k miles ago. PAINTED SILVER and so far they have held up with NO RUST forming in the middle & on the edges, they look aesthetically pleasing.
-Front Hawk HPS brake pads & rear Axxis brake pads, stops pretty good w/these.
-Stainless steel brake lines, techna-fit brand.
-ATE Blue DOT4 high performance brake fluid.
-Millenia master cylinder retro-fitted
-Brand new remanufactured front & rear calipers, painted with high-temp silver paint. Still looks great after about a year.
ALL of the above brake parts I installed at the same time & have less than 5k miles of use (haven't been driving my car until recently much).
Suspension:
-Custom Front & rear control arm bushings (i used to sell these on the board). They are urethane & work well.
-Ford ZX2 Tokico struts w/thrust bearings, strut mounts, dust boots, perche's, all of the parts are OEM and were brand new 2 years ago when I bought them.
-H&R Sport Springs, I just recently installed these.
-Factory 15" wheels with Falken ZEIX-512 tires...about 10k on the rubber, still brand-new looking with plenty of tread. Wheels are painted gunmetal with polished-lip...see pictures.
Exterior:
-Custom Noble Green Metallic paint with clearcoat
-Mazdaspeed Front bumper (erebuni type)
-Front clear turn signals w/amber bulbs
-E-spec drivers & passenger outside mirrors (20% more convex = you can see more)
-E-spec headlights, from czech republic (they are plastic NOT glass), use H4 bulbs and considerably better beam pattern than stock. Some euro-spec osram "Silverstar" bulbs are also installed (not the same s--- silverstars we get state-side, look it up on google...;P).
-Rear SUPRA STYLE tail-lights (black) with sylvania silver star "blue-look" bulbs for turn signals (still shines amber when active). Reverse lights are some kind of hyper-white bulbs, i think APC brand, they look blue from the rear.
-Painted 15" factory wheels (gunmetal) with polished lip, for appearance.
-Shaved antenna, a Fuba-style antenna sourced from a Mitsubishi Lancer has been installed in place of the rear washer nozzle (which never worked anwyays), and is fully functional.
Interior
-BRAND F'KIN NEW SE Leather front seats (yes they are brand new, i have pics to prove it)
-Rear bench seat sourced from a 60k mileage SE.
-Door panels & rear panels are also sourced from the same 60k mielage SE and are in great shape
-Automatic seatbelts removed in favor of 94-96 style manual belts. Safer, less weight & functional.
-Indiglo gauge cluster with aluminum bezel
-Indiglo HVAC panel with MX-3 icon for the recirc control, fully functional
-Custom black fabric-covered headliner
-Black dyed A & B pillars
-Dual-gauge pod on drivers A pillar with oil pressure & Air/Fuel ratio gauge installed, its black in color. I also have the factory A-pillar that is already dyed black in case you want to remove this gauge pod pillar
-Chrome door handles from a 99+ miata. Nice solid metal door handles.
Stereo
I'm most likely going to remove the amp & sub that are installed in the car. I will only sell them with the car if the price is right. Currently the car has:
-Infinity basslink 10" 200w all-in-one subwoofer. sounds excellent. Mounted on drivers-side of trunk
-Alpine F-340 4-way amp. 55wx4 RMS (not sure the peak wattage..i think its like 80-100x4).
-Infinity Reference 6.5" components. The B-pillar covers on the Interior have the tweeters custom-mounted flush. looks nice & is functional. Xovers are inside the speaker grills mounted to the inside of the trunk panel.
-14-ga speaker wiring throughout.
-4-ga amp kit installed with a distribution block splitting 2 8ga wires to the 2 amps (1 for basslink sub & 1 for alpine amp).
-80amp fuse holder on batter.
-Dual gold-plated battery terminals w/2 4ga & 2 8ga inputs each
Now for the description of the car:
The car runs & Drives decently with some minor annoyances that are common with ZE MX-3's. The engine starts up every time & idles properly. It accelerate strong through all the gears and makes an awesome deep-throaty sound. The car ran a 14.2 1/4 mile about 3 years ago when I last ran it. Since then I have installed the LSD and different gears.
The engine burns zero oil and under the valve cover is golden, no deposits or black crap. I've seen between 22-26 mpg in the city & 24-32 on the highway with about 23/27 being the average fuel economy. Its tank is small so you stlil have to fill up every 250-280 miles before the light comes on, but it only takes 9.5-10.5 gallons at this point (13.2 gallon tank).
The suspension works well, but does have a few noises that I should note. The passenger-side balljoint makes a clunk when you steer to the left abruptly and is noticeable at lower speeds. The H&R Springs & Tokico struts are good on bumps & rarely bottoms out, but the car still has a low ground clearance so you have to be careful with the front bumper (which is actually higher than the stock GS bumper w/lip as far as ground clearance).
The brakes also work really well. The pedal feel isn't what I was hoping for (still feels a bit squishy, even after i replaced the lines & master cyl), but the car stops extremely well. It does NOT have abs so in the rain its not too difficult to lock up the wheels if you slam on the brakes in a big puddle, or snow.
The exhaust has a minor leak somewhere near the cat. I removed the headers after i originally installed them once & replaced the gasket, but I must have not fully tightened the bolts. The exhaust is no louder than it was beforhand but you can hear a whizzy sound under acceleration coming from under there, and sometimes you can smell exhaust fumes from the center console if you are stopped at a light for a long period of time.
These things put out a decent amount of low-end torque and the engine tends to buck in 1st & 2nd gear when you let off the throttle & Roll back onto it. The mazdaspeed mounts & Urethan filling I installed helped but still didn't remove this problem.
The transmission shifts crisply into every gear with no buzzing from synchro's. I have redline MT90/MTL mixture of fluid in the trans which provides really smooth shifts. The clutch engages nicely with no slipping.
The body has NO RUST WHATSOEVER. Underbody parts like suspension arms have a slight bit of rust forming, but nothing more than some slight bubbling under the black paint. In other words, there are no suspension components that are browned-over with rust flaking off, just minor spots of brown here & there with some bubbling in spots. The BODY however has zero rust forming anywhere, this car was originally a southern, MD car (little snow in that area) and since I've bought it, has never been driven during salty winter months.
The car was originally red. I later repainted it titanium silver (same color as miata & mazdaspeed protege). I wasn't satisfied with the paintjob so I later repainted it Noble Green Metallic (a factory MX-3 european color). I'm still not 100% satisfied with the paintjob, but it looks good from what people tell me. Up close I still think it sucks but you be the judge by the pics. The biggest problems is some light orange peel, and some swirly marks on the paint itself that you can see in direct sunlight. I buffed it out but never 100% finished the 3-stage polishing process. I have pictures of both of these.
The area where I shaved the antenna is starting to show the outline where the hole was. I think the dark paint in combination with the underlying bondo caused this problem. The passenger fender has a ding on it, and the rear drivers 1/4 panel has an area that I attempted to smooth out with bondo that still looks wavy if you look up close. It was dented originally there but I filled it in when I repainted the car. The front bumper has some chips but is overall in good shape. The lower-lip area has some cracked paint from hitting some speed humps & cement parking things. See the picture.
The windsheild & other glass are flawless, no chips or cracks at all & the windsheild isn't sandblasted with little pits either.
The interior is the best aspect of the car from m ypersonal standpoint (next to the stereo). The leather seats give the interior a new-car smell and the door panels & fabric aren't ripping off at all. The rear seat cushion & back are also flawless, but the leather is more aged on the rear cushion since it wasn't brand new when I replaced it. The fabric has no tears on the seatback whatsoever.
There are NO leaks on the interior, never have been. No mold or other problems like that are apparent in both the cabin & trunk area. The carpeting is clean all around. THe rear cargo cover was replaced and is not bent in half like most MX-3 cargo covers. It has a broken area (see picture), but again...it is better than 90% of the cargo covers that are still in existence today.
The Bad:
The air conditioning needs a recharge. THe lower hose that comes out of the a/c compressor had a leak & all the R12 leaked out. I have a replacmeent hose/pipe that i sourced from a lower mileage MX-3 that I have yet to install.
The power steering works, but when its cold outside it works intermittently until you cycle the steering wheel back and forth a couple times to circulate fluid. The problem is...it has a small leak somewhere that I've yet to pinpoint. When idle you can often hear the pump making a mechanical noise. I have NEVER had the power steering totally fail on me, but I'm pretty sure the pump could use replacing & hoses should be replaced to prevent a future leak.
As mentioned before, the passenger balljoint makes a clunk sound when you steer abruptly to the left (at lower speeds for example). Sometimes when you hit bumps on the highway (like asphalt dips where they are repaving) you'll hear a clunk from that corner. The balljoint needs replacing.
Also mentioned previously, the engine movement isn't 100% contained, depsite the mazdaspeed motor mounts & urethane filling. This is very annoying in 1st & 2nd gear (mostly in 1st), especially when you are stuck in traffic on a highway and can only creep forward at 5-10mph or less.
To summarize the body problems...the paint has some minor orange peel and swirlies since I never finished fully buffing out the clearcoat after painting it. The front bumper has some chips, but nothing major. The shaved antenna shows an outline of where it was. There is a ding on the passenger fender & some wavy-ness on the rear 1/4 panel from when I tried to repair a dent that was there.
Pictures are located here. Not all pictures are in this directory yet, i'm working on taking some more:
http://www.imazda.com/wil/MX3FS/
Sale Details:
The car is located in Arnold, MD 21012, which is 30 minutes east of Washington DC & 30 minutes south of Baltimore, MD. It has a CLEAR Maryland Title and has never been in an accident according to carfax.
I am entertaining offers for the car. I'm looking to get something like $3500 USD for the car with all of the above modification (including stereo).
I"d be willing to remove a few of these parts to reduce the price of the car...for example the amp & sub, the A-pillar with gauge pods. the springs/struts assembled, and maybe the entire leather interior if I can source a decent-condiiton black interior to replace it.
I will NOT part the engine componets out on this car or offer to trade someones stock engine for my KLZE w/mods. Too much work is involved for me to mess with this thought, so buy the car whole if you want its powertrain. Same goes for the exhaust system & brakes.
email me at firstgenprotege@yahoo.com, AIM me at GroHarlem6 or PM me if you have questions.
Sorry for the long post.
-Jim