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Whoo! this car has been needing this modification for too long

Ryan wrote:Whoo! this car has been needing this modification for too long

I know! Since the early days of my MX-3 I have been wanting to do a BPT swap... this is a great, more realistic, affordable alternative and will make me very happy once it is complete!

I recently tried painting my eBay CAI with the semi-gloss black engine enamel I used for my valve cover.. don't know if it was the humidity or what but when I applied the clear coat it turned whitish and came out looking grey. I was very upset due to my wasted efforts and set it aside to dry, only to find that today it had started peeling. I was going to repaint and started removing the old paint with my stainless steel wire brush when I noticed... the brushed aluminum looked great!





The CAI looked chrome to begin with (see earlier in my worklog), and I am not a fan of chrome on out cars (I think it's ok on muscle cars). I do however love the look of brushed aluminum so I may just keep them this way, it will also match my AZ-3 Door Sills, Mazdaspeed Miata interior door handles, and Pioneer speaker grilles!

I am polishing the BP exhaust manifold heat sheild, looked crappy and I bought some dremel attachments for polishing so I will update when I have the finished product. So far looks much much better than the drab, dull, oxidized way it was!




Installed New Brembo Blanks today + Wagner Thermo Quiet Semi-Metallic Brake Pads




After tracking them down and waiting for them to be shipped I finally got the pressure plate bolts/washers, flywheel bolts, and MTX housing bolts to install the flywheel and clutch and guess what... I got the wrong clutch! DAMN EXEDY they told me to get part # 10040 which seems to be for the F-series transmission. I really needed part # 07074.

Got the clutch... come to find out it doesn't mate up with my flywheel. What was the problem? I got the F-ing F-series flywheel! I found out the BP flywheel has raised points where the pressure plate mounts and mine did not... thus why it wouldn't mate up correctly. So after tracking down a flywheel from a used part dealer for $50 and resurfacing for $40 I got home and got to work. Installed flywheel, clutch, mounted transmission, and fed my hungry car an engine and transmission...!





Still need to get some bolts from the JY for transmission mounts, wire everything up, add fluids, wire VRIS, install axles and wheels and should be done!!!

So after tons of hours, went to start the engine last night and nothing. Didnt crank. I suspected maybe starter wiring or ground, checked and found I left the oil pressure switch unplugged (oops), plugged it in and still nothing. Cleaned up a few grounds and still nothing. I looked at the ground running to the transmission bell housing and the clip that it attaches to was rusted to Sh*t so I removed it and just left the ground ring, sure enough it started! (well after turning it over for a little while without spark so the oil could lube everything up then plugged coil wire back in)... the BP runs! Wow what a good feeling!

It idles fine, has some kind of clicking sound though not sure what the issue is if it is originating from the timing or alt belts but they seem to have the correct deflection. Oh well I will spend more time with it, just got done putting the bumper back on and will route my CAI next. Also have to get the PS/AC belt from an B6 since I think the BP is too big (maybe bc I used my power steering pump and AC compressor from the B6?) Also have to bleed the clutch again for some reason it seems to have air in the lines even though I bled it last night. Oh well minor details in the scheme of things

Well done, first start is always a great feeling

Especially when it starts and stays running!

The clicking is more than likely HLA's, and after a few good runs over 3k RPM, it will go away and be smooth as butter.

Ryan wrote:The clicking is more than likely HLA's, and after a few good runs over 3k RPM, it will go away and be smooth as butter.

So glad to hear, one less thing to be concerned about.


Here's some other pics:




So today I bled the clutch lines and noticed the clutch would hold pressure and then feel more spongy after a little while. Found a small leak above the end of the transmission and tightened the connection from hard -> soft clutch line and it seems to have stopped leaking. Bled it again and I believe it is better now (although pedal still feels pretty light... nothing to compare it to since I never had a clutch pedal in my car before!) The rear drums had seized from it sitting so long so I had to take the wheels off and bang on the drums a bit to get them to spin... not a huge deal. I was obviously getting CEL codes and let me preface this by saying I have a BP ECU from an ATX Protege and I have kepy my B6 ATX harness. Here are the codes I got:

9 water thermo sensor
25 solenoid valve (pressure regulator)
41 Solenoid valve VICS
60 1-2 shift*
61 2-3 shift*
62 3-4 shift*
63 lockup solenoid valve*

* assuming this is because of my ATX ECU.

I should be getting an MTX BP ECU tomorrow so some of those codes go away (and the hold light quits flashing)... I will look into the other ones. Thought I wired the VICS correctly but the issue could be at the harness going into the ECU, difficult situation to snake in a terminal into the blank spot in the harness and get it to complete the circuit.

60 to 63 = transmission codes

did you wire the VICS up? It's not standard on the RS so needs to be wired in.

Solenoid valve is the solenoid next to it.

In fact, all of those sensors (Water sensor, VICS, solenoid pressure regulator) are all on the fuel rail harness.

I did wire the VICS up correctly to the best of my knowledge: took the black/red wire from the VICS solenoid plug, cut it and ran that wire to the ECU (pin 2S: four in from top left of big plug). See the VICS solenoid plug below:

The fuel injector harness, since it was 8 pin and my B6 wiring harness had a 6 pin was handled in this fashion: I removed all 6 pins from the 6 pin plug, inserted the pins into an empty 8 pin plug I grabbed from a Protege LX and matched the color wires to where they meet in the fuel injector harness. This left 2/8 wires dead and I taped them off (seen in photo below). Did I somehow mess up this wiring thereby throwing these CEL codes? I thought it was hooked up fine.

So today I got some SE door panels (yay) although they needed some cleaning and have a few imperfections. I'll post up pics installed soon.

I also got the correct shift boot (92-93 style) and a MTX ecu. I figured the MTX ecu would clear out some of those codes I listed above. After I installed the ECU, I wanted to see how it would run... turns out it won't. It will crank but not run. I am wondering if it is because I have a 4 wire TPS and the MTX engine's have 3-wire. That's the only difference I can think of since it runs fine with the ATX ecu. Hmm idk.. anyone have any ideas?

Sorry if it's posted somewhere, but can I ask where you got the slim visors? Loving them.

Lateralus wrote:Sorry if it's posted somewhere, but can I ask where you got the slim visors? Loving them.

The visors were made by Fowljesse a few years back.

Regarding the CEL's I managed to get rid of Code 9, turns out one of the wires in the 8 pin fuel injector harness was in the wrong place.

I still have codes 25 (pressure regulator solenoid valve) and code 41 (VICS). I am not sure what the problem is with these, I wired it as shown above and don't know what the issue is... any ideas?

Jovian2k wrote:

Lateralus wrote:Sorry if it's posted somewhere, but can I ask where you got the slim visors? Loving them.

The visors were made by Fowljesse a few years back.

Regarding the CEL's I managed to get rid of Code 9, turns out one of the wires in the 8 pin fuel injector harness was in the wrong place.

I still have codes 25 (pressure regulator solenoid valve) and code 41 (VICS). I am not sure what the problem is with these, I wired it as shown above and don't know what the issue is... any ideas?

Are the wires by chance swapped? Like do you have the VICS ecu wire going to the FPR ecu plug? I know when I did mine and I had the issue that you have (showing codes for VICS and FPR) it was because my gruond was wrong. Just make sure that the ground goes to same ground wire that the injectors are on (that white/red wire)

Drove my car this weekend for the first time after the swap, I am living and working in Brooklyn so I only drive my car when I am back at my family's place in CT.

Got the anti-drop bracket installed, works great. Also had the key lock in the ignition due to the ATX lock cable but I fixed that too. The clutch lines have been giving me hell. IDK what the problem is: I have a new slave/master and I'm on the second set of clutch lines from a protege + SS corksport clutch line... bled the clutch lines this weekend and it got pressure, drove around for 2 hours (love the BP!) and all of a sudden... no pressure. I couldn't identify a leak, all the fittings are tight. Also realized some crappy news: MTX I got has a jacked up 5th gear! won't engage... blows. I will replace it as soon as I get a chance to work on it.

Other than the clutch and 5th gear trouble, do you like how it drove???

The car's looking great BTW.

So happy with how it drove, was a blast. After fixing those two issues I will be so happy with it... Finally has the power it deserves! So glad to look under the hood and see my nice BP... That I put in!