Newbie to your site with a couple of questions/etc.

[Atmos]

Hi everyone, new member here. I have a couple questions concerning my '93 MX3 GS.



You see..I've had my MX-3 for about three years now. Bought it for $3000. US. It's only had one previous owner (he was an older man) and there are only about 60k miles on it. There doesn't seem to be any tampering with the odometer either and both the engine and transmission (it's an Automatic..sadly) seem to be in great condition.

There are some minor problems..such as any time I round a corner with a slight hill there'll be this loud THUMP-CLUNK noise. The interior isn't in such a great shape either..dashboard has two deep cracks in it that I've attempted to seal together. The section with the lighter is loose..so you can't plug in a phone charger without exposing wires when you go to pull it back out so it seems he might've been a smoker. The roof is kind of a mess. Spots and pieces of fabric are falling off. The driver side door power window switches snapped off..and I know some of you might say I used too much force when pulling on the buttons - to be honest I just lightly pulled up on the switches to raise the windows and they kind of snapped off. Upon further inspection it looks like they had snapped off before since there was a sort of glue residue where the two sticks that lead further down into the electrical box snapped off at.

Oh, and evidently the guy sealed the sunroof shut because rainwater was seeping in and he didn't want to spend the money to get it fixed..so I don't have that.

Now a couple weeks ago I thought about selling my car..but after coming here and reading about all the tweaks and mods and upgrades you all do to cars in much worse condition than mine is in, it's changed my mind.

I was never much into upgrading cars and such because I never had the money for that. Computers was always more my cup of tea, cheaper to mess with, instant results.

But..now that I have a better source of income I can actually afford to do all the nice things this car deserves. I keep hearing about ATX to MTX swaps..it's something I'd love to do but I have no idea how to go about doing this. I've gone to a couple junkyards trying to find a 93 MX3 with a stick shift so I can rip that out but I haven't had much luck.

I have no friends as far as shops go, none that know about cars either. The few mechanics around here (Hialeah, FL) seem a little shady, I don't want to get ripped off either.

I don't have a whole lot of knowledge about vehicles either, at least not enough to perform an engine swap or something like converting an automatic to manual by myself. Even if I did I wouldn't have a lawn or backyard or garage to do it in.

So my question to you all is:

What should I do without having to burn a hole through my wallet? The first thing I'd like is to change out the automatic for a manual. Where can I go for something like this?

The rest such as the interior will likely come shortly after that. And I do apologize for any ignorant questions I'll likely be asking in the future.

[Tropical Emerald 1993]

If you're happy with accelration and fuel consumption leave the car as it is.

[bubsy83]

The thumping noise...is it coming from the front tires?? Mine did that and it was the CV joint...could just need to be lubricated or possibly replaced.

I can't offer MTX or ATX advice, I am in the same boat as you...love the car but know nothing about how to fix them. We all gotta learn somewhere! I am lucky to have a good mechanic who went to highschool with my husband, so most the time I just call him and he takes care of me, but I would like to dig in and do stuff myself. I have been lurking around the board searching thru other posts that are similar to my cars problems and the information is very valuable and there are some good people here that know their stuff and you wiil soon find out who they are.

Mine is a 5 Speed and it's a lot of fun to drive. The first thing I learned on this board was buy a V6 5 Speed, and so I did and I don't regret it. I didn't even know how to drive a stick 'til I bought this car. You will learn a lot thru trial and error, and thru the advice of the members on this board and that alone will save you $$$. Have fun!!

[Atmos]

If you're happy with accelration and fuel consumption leave the car as it is.

I'm not as happy as I could be. It almost saddens me that my friend's POS 4 cyl Focus can accelerate three times faster than my Mazda.

Then again..her car is newer. *shrug*


And as for the thumping noise, yes, it's coming from the front tires. I'll try what you suggested.

[Atmos]

No other ideas/suggestions?

[ariesdude]

First off - if you take it to a mechanic for your mods things will get extremely pricey very soon.
Most people learn how to do things very quickly.

As for your option - search for "klze" - you will find so much info that you can keep reading for months 9if you want to).

Atx to manual swap also has been discussed a lot - there's even a thread with a shopping list of parts i believe.

It will be a lot easier to do the engine swap and tranny conversion at the same time.

[Atmos]

Thanks for the info on where I should look to get me started. The prices and such shouldn't be much of a problem for me right now.

With the exception of taking it to a mechanic of course. This doesn't seem like it's something you can just pick up a book and read how to do it..and unfortunately for me I don't have much room where I can take my car apart. (It would be much like taking a car apart in the middle of the street.)

I have nothing against attempting to do it myself and learning..but I'd rather not royally screw up my car doing it.


........Trial & Error at the local park then?

[Tropical Emerald 1993]

........Trial & Error at the local park then?

did you see any pic of a swap? You need lots of tools and some sort of crane, you can't just use rope over tree.

I suggest you find somebody in your area who knows more about mazdas.

[Mnemonic]

Thanks for the info on where I should look to get me started. The prices and such shouldn't be much of a problem for me right now.

With the exception of taking it to a mechanic of course. This doesn't seem like it's something you can just pick up a book and read how to do it.

Swapping a K series motor is easier than any Honda swap there is, its directly plug and play. As for a book, no your right there isnt one, but i know there are tons of tutorials that provide more than enough info on How to..,
what i recomend doing is research research research and once you get tire of doing all the research do a little bit more, the more you read about these cars the more you will become more comfortable doing things yourself. Lets start out slow with the mods, go ahead and do your CAI (cold air intake) doing this is cheap, gives you a lil improvement in power (dont expect to be faster). 2nd you can go ahead and get you a set of headers and put them on, basically what you need to do is go through the mods you feel you can do yourself 1st, easier being 1st then moving on to the tougher mods. Dont waiste your money on any mod that will not transfer over to the other engine. After you get your headers and exhaust done, feel free to move into the suspension area, strut bars rear/front, springs/struts etc.... you may have to take the springs and struts to a shop to get them assymbled (if you dont have the tools) but you can put them in yourself (no point in spending the extra 150-300 the shop would charge you to do it). From there i would move to brakes, learn to do them yourself, if you can do a proper brake job and it doesnt fail then you should have enough know how to do a motor swap, you just need to read up on the how to...


hope that helps

[Nd4SpdSe]

The interior isn't in such a great shape either..dashboard has two deep cracks in it that I've attempted to seal together. The section with the lighter is loose..so you can't plug in a phone charger without exposing wires when you go to pull it back out so it seems he might've been a smoker. The roof is kind of a mess. Spots and pieces of fabric are falling off. The driver side door power window switches snapped off..and I know some of you might say I used too much force when pulling on the buttons - to be honest I just lightly pulled up on the switches to raise the windows and they kind of snapped off. Upon further inspection it looks like they had snapped off before since there was a sort of glue residue where the two sticks that lead further down into the electrical box snapped off at.

The interior is easy to fix, except for the top part of teh dash, I haven't done it, but you can look around on here and at junkyards to find them parts you need, and most go for relitively cheap as well. Once you start pulling them apart, after a few times, it'll be really easy and be able to walk into a junk yard with only a flat head and philips screw drivers and talke most of it apart.

I was never much into upgrading cars and such because I never had the money for that. Computers was always more my cup of tea, cheaper to mess with, instant results.

I know what you mean. I was pretty much a basement-dwelling computer nerd until i got the Mx3 (yep, she's my first car), although I always had an interest in cars. I got her with no knowledge of her potential or aftermarket. I cause it cause it was a manual v6, sporty 2-door, and a Mazda, because of the amazing reliability of my parents '90 626 I tortured, I was quite impressed with their quality. All i knew is that i wanted to implement a CarPC and integrate it into the stereo (this is way back before *any* CarPC components existed in the market). Well, from doing that, tearing apart the car, getting ideas, trying new things out, you really start you understand and know the car.

Like you, I found the Mx-3 website, started reading, researching, and not long after a year later, swapped to the KLZE. Although, from my job at a computer store, I my boss's had a highly recommended mechanic they recommended that fixed the 626 for me. Basically, I had to do all the research and get all the parts, and he would do the swap, which i helped where I could. Even to this day, I still get him to do alot of the work, mostly because my dad's over-critital when I do any project around the house or in the garage, so because of that, I dont really get a chance to do my own work, thus, not really mechanically confident, although like everything, I research and know exactly what's doing on and what's needed, i just don't do most of the dirty work because of my dad. But regardless, my mechanically admitidly likes to work on my car. He definitely knows his stuff and then some, but I tend to do non-common, out-of-the ordinary stuff that you don't normally do at a shop. Basically, a project car for him, but he makes money workig on it, lol. But even then, his knowledge and experience alone is worth it in itself, could definitely consider him a teacher in a sence.

But if you have time,patience and best case, your own place to work on it, than it's a great project. If you want to get an idea of the progress of my car, i posted a video on google a while ago, check it out:
http://video.google.ca/videoplay?docid= ... faith+mx-3

If you're happy with accelration and fuel consumption leave the car as it is.

Well, i'm sure getting rid of the slushbox will not only net him a few more HP, as well and lightning the Mx-3 by 50lbs, but should also improve fuel economy as well, but that could vary since the shift points would then be controlled manually. I know myself however when we swapped to a ZE, my fuel ecomony increased.