Cheap thrills, Mazdaspeed protege?

Since i'm selling the '01 sport pack miata soon to raise founds for a more familly oriented car (already bought a 06 legacy wagon), i'm thinking about a fun economic toy for about challenge budget..

So in the searchs, i came across miata (again) that needs a lot of works, chevettes, and.. surprisingly about 10 mazdaspeed protege! All in the 2000$ ball parks.. since i remember having fun rebuilding some salvage titles ones when they were new i'm think about getting one th play with.

I remember that they came with big brakes from the 6 and racingbeat suspension. Do they also got the lsd diff?

What do you guys think? Do they age well? Especially with the basics power mods they all seems to have (intake exhaust and such).

IIRC the engine is a ticking time bomb with the world's worst engine management from the factory, and the transmissions are also made of glass. Plus, they RUST.

I occasionally see them, then remember just about anything is a better choice.

The MSP is the reason that all subsequent Mazdaspeeds were developed in-house at Mazda instead of being done by aftermarket tuners. Thank you, Callaway.

The Protege5 is a good little package, though. Can't comment on rust or busted transmissions, but they're a good size and kinda fun to drive with the right suspension.

You want one of these:

Turbo, cheap, practical.

That one almost looks like mine.

They are one of the best handling FWD cars out there IMHO.

While I wouldn't call the transmission robust, it seems the only ones I see that are broken belong to ham-fisted young ricer's, so.... The turbo engine is pretty crappy indeed. They are fantastic candidates for KLDE/ZE swaps if you can find one that isn't terribly rusted.

Or if you don't want to mess with a project, you want the Protege MP3. Same great chassis, with a plain old NA engine.

In our brief foray into the Protege aftermarket - all owners are ham-fisted young ricers. You can tell a Miata owner "10 psi is safe, don't go above that" and 99% of them will listen. On the Protege owners, about 99% said "but it runs so great at 10, so I'm gonna turn it up to 12". Boom tinkle tinkle.

Keith Tanner wrote: Boom tinkle tinkle.

I imagined this was said out-loud it would've been completely deadpan, but with a bit of a hand-wave to indicate parts all over the floor.

I laughed.

In reply to Keith Tanner:

Ah, those sound like the same folks like the ones in the UK who bought cheap-ish JDM FD RX7s, turned up the boost "because me mate wivv the Evo runs his at 30psi on an unmodded engine, innit" and then were surprised when they saw the apex seals exit the exhaust...

I heartily second the suggestion of getting a turbo Saab instead.

The g series transmissions are glass when any sort of power gets put to them, it does have an lsd, problem is the welds on it break on stock power.

The engine (fs-det) is almost literally the na engine (fs-de) with oil squirters and a turbo, nothing forged or upgraded in anyway and as stated the engine pcm is better placed in something like the trashcan.

As others have said the P5 is a good choice (I love mine) and what good things are in the MSP you can bolt directly to the P5, only real issue is an fs-de has little power you can get from it and is not too fast as is, and MPG is just okay (best tank on the highway for me was 32mpg)

If you can find a viggin 9-3 and a bunch of bracing and be done with it.

bgkast wrote: You want one of these: Turbo, cheap, practical. That one almost looks like mine.

Yes. This. The MSP seemed so great at the time. Now we know better

What model Saab is that? She's purdy.

It's an original generation 9-3, which is just a facelifted version of the last Gen 900.

The MSP is garbage that blows engines and transmissions in stock form.

Awesome chassis though.

Not a mazdaspeed,but have a Protege in the family that is rusty in the rear quarter panel.Crawled under it yesterday and discovered rust holes in the frame .Seems alot of them where I live in Illinois have rust in the same place on the body,don't know if the frame rust is common.

Mazdaspeed3s have dropped in price quite a bit. While still not in Protege range, one of these is a better deal.

The Mazdaspeed6s are usually even cheaper.

We have a 2001 Protege 2.0 ES and they are a great handling car. The MSPs do suffer at the hands of the driver. If yank on the shift knob like you're trying to pull start grandpa's old lawn mower you'll issues. They are fine stock.

Tom

Except when they're not. We can blame the owners for some of their faults but the fact remains that these suffer catastrophic failure at a rate that would make VW or Subaru blush.

Probably fine if puttering around town.

The two locals we had who ran them had no issues with them. I know at least one of the owners upgraded the oil pump, otherwise stock. Note they also ran street tires one them. I wish Mazda had shipped us the 165hp non turbo, I seems anything over about 175hp starts to cause the tranny and motor issues.

Tom

I'd rather have an MP3 or a Protege5. Great chassis, Mazda quality.

https://charlotte.craigslist.org/cto/5102268044.html

A friend had a stock one and he is pretty gentle with his cars. Motor popped a head gasket twice. Yeah....

Well thank you, that was about right with what i suspect. I already know for the rust issues, i'm in near montreal, quebec.. lot of salt on the road....

A friend of mine used to go to track day on a modded protege with msp upgrades. Slightly worked engine, still n/a.. seems that is the way to go.

Most of my experience was when they had less then 20 000 miles... I'll continue looking for a better project.

I'll go put the miata together to put it on sale...

Thank a lot!

By the way, i'm not sure about the mazdaspeed6, the 2 owners i know, bith of them had to put a lot of money on it... diff, bearing, turbo... may have neglect it though..

In salt country (yea I am there too!), Mazda's tend to be very poor choices.

I haven't seen a Mazda under $5K up here that isn't a rust bucket.

For reliable/modernish/family sedan for challenge budget, you want this:

That's me at PMG Blainville auto-x last month. Finished first in Street and third overall.

Bought it three years ago from a kid, and once I took care of the deferred maintenance, it's been more reliable than my 2012 Mazda5.

And they don't rust that badly.

bgkast wrote: You want one of these: Turbo, cheap, practical. That one almost looks like mine.

Another vote for one of these.

My statement about in-house development of the Mazdaspeed cars was based on our experience of the development process - there was a RFQ out to selected tuners for the Mazdaspeed Miata. When it became obvious what a cluster the MSP was, that RFQ was recalled.

The MSP cars spent quite a bit of time at the docks before delivery, some sort of work had to be done. They also underperformed due to some changes in specification between prototype and production. Plus they just didn't perform as well as they should have. I don't have any knowledge of warranty claims.