hi there everyone,

im new to the club. a guy came by my work today and told me to check out the club. i feel bad because i totally forgot the guy's name. he drove a white protege i think.


i drive a white protege 5 on black rims. if you have ever driven by Paul Mitchell The School in colorado springs, you have probably seen it.

i am totally interested in doing some things to my car to make it faster.

Welcome to the club! Get some pics up if you have some.

Welcome! We are glad to have you!

Sweet! Another Protege owner!

If you have some pics, post'em up.

Have you done anything to it yet? Which transmission do you have? I've done alot of stuff to my Protege.

Welcome!

Right on bro!!! welcome to the club. I'm sure in no time u'll feel right at home...with the rest of us clowns :P

Welcome...

Welcome to the club.

btw the guys name is Mike.

welcome, nice to see another mazda in springs

i will post some pictures as soon as i have time to take some.

i bought the car the way it is now.

its a 5 speed transmission for those who were asking.


i havent personally done anything to the car, i think the only thing done to it is the exhaust.

i would love to dump some money into the little guy when i have some spare change. what do you guys recommend i do first?

You can pull the VTCS butterflies out of the intake manifold. You can do that for free (plus the cost of new gaskets) if you do it yourself. You could probably get it done in a day. I bought a spare manifold and swapped them.

Protege motor mounts are known to be very weak. I bet you have at least one torn by now- probably the front and right side. Getting new or upgraded mounts is nice. I have the AWR 88 durometer mounts at all 4 positions.

Header is popular. The OBX 4-1 header is probably the most common. It's what I have. I've had it for over 2 years now and haven't had any problems.

The factory mid-pipe is fairly restrictive. I just swapped mine for a high flow catted pipe from SLS. I think it helped a bunch. Added some noise though.

Do you know what kind of exhaust it has? I have the Racing Beat. Again, it's probably the most popular.

I have an Injen cold air intake. I also have a spare ebay brand short ram intake. If you are interested in that, let me know. The fitment isn't the greatest (rubs the brake master cylinder a little) but it gets rid of the factory intake. I trashed the cheap filter it came with and got a nice K&N filter for it. I'll sell it to you cheap.

Brakes, tires and wheels are always good upgrades too. I have 15" wheels for the winter and 17" wheels for summer. There are some nice looking 17" Mazda factory wheels that look great on a P5 and those show up on craigslist and ebay and forums all the time really cheap. 18" wheels on a Protege leave you with rubberband tires and I'd recommend staying away from that. The P5 has some fitment issues in the rear with certain tire sizes and wheel offsets so you have to be careful. I'm in the process of prepping some front brake calipers from the Mazdaspeed Protege (about an inch larger in diameter over the P5/sedan rotor size). I plan on installing those in the spring.

I have the Mazdaspeed Protege suspension on my car. It won't work very well on the P5- rear end sags too much. But there are some great options out there.

Short shifter for the transmission.

Window tint if you don't already have it. There's a guy on the forum (firestoned) who runs a tint shop north of Denver. He's done many cars on this forum with great success.

Check out www.protegegarage.com for lots of great Protege parts.

My cardomain (in my sig) has all (or most) of my mods.

Well.... um.... yeah what tom said! lol... goodjob!

Hello, I am Mike, the guy you talked to. Sorry I didnt respond earlier than now, blame the holiday season and all. If you want, CMZC has a meet every friday and we usually specify the location via a thread I linked at the end of this post. Since your new here, feel free to check out one of the meets and get to know everyone.

In regards for things you can do to your car, porting the manifold is a great start as tom mentioned. You can also look at under drive or light weight pulleys to free up our already torquey low end. Headers are a great start but most of the time (in regards to the obx brand vs the awr), the headers will take a little from the low end. Also our cars could use a good tune via a piggy back ecu for open loop. Many people have gone the way of the split second air to fuel controller (afc) or the unichip setup to trick our cars to hit open loop via a toggle in the air to fuel range (afr). Sadly we have a very stubborn closed loop setup on our ecu, so open is our best tuning range. Also in regards to the ecu, it apparently is unflashable. If you ever get the chance to find a mp3 (trim of the protege before the turboed mazdaspeed) ecu, grab it, especially if under $250, this will advance your timing and smoothen out idle and such. Its a great setup and is told to net 10hp. If you want, mgs_freak is a local mp3 in the springs that is also a little bit of a drag fiend from what I read and can give you a bit more info than I can.


and the information can be found via http://www.coloradomazdaclub.com/forums/showthread.php?p=65603#post65603

Welcome!

I'm a drag fiend huh? lol I'll admit, I used to despise drag racing, I wanted to do only road course. But then I started, and now I'm addicted.

My name's Jarrod (or J-rod). I've got one of 2 or 3 blue MP3's here in town. I definately recommend the Medieval lightweight pullies. I've got the full set on my car and it dropped my ET in the 1/4 by .3-.5 secs. Plus the power steering pulley is one of the best looking parts you can add to our cars. I've got a K&N cold air intake I'm looking to sell if you're interested. Also I'm in the process of trying to afford a mazda racing 4-2-1 header, so I might be selling my coated wagner shorty header. A lot of people also like the feel of a short shifter. I've got the TWM and love it. It's the shortest throw for our cars. I might be able to get my hands on a set of lowering springs for the P5 as well. Let me know if you're interested.

4-2-1 sounds nice, but i hear the 4-1 is better for top end... wonder if thats right (was in a obx vs awr headers debate). As for pulleys, i complete agree with mgs_freak, the medieval set is nice. Im just running the crank pulley, front motor mount, and rear motor mount, but every piece that guy puts out seems to be pretty good quality.

jarrod, you know what you should do right? install that damn standalone and give me your mp3 ecu, lol. :P