The Frankenprotege rallycar worklog

[jay]

I thought we were done with front suspension, but no. We get to play with the lower mounting points for the struts. When that's done, we'll decide if we still have too much articulation in the CV's at full droop. But we have the exhaust out, the orig. propshaft out, and the Toyota propshaft in, at least most of the way. We gotta finish making new mount points and maybe raise a bit of the tunnel a tad bit. I also need to redo the rear diffmount a bit, it ain't quite parallel to the ground. Front of the diff points up a little. Once that's all done, we'll move onto figuring out how in hell the turbo's gonna fit, let alone plumbed... this is looking to be another snag, prolly best solved by making a custom manifold that raises the thing up a couple inches and moves it a bit toward the passenger side. Oh, boy...

[PorkChop]

Keep at it man! Eventually you'll have a protege even Mazda
Wishes they had built hahah

[808]

Although... the longer you keep it in the air the more contingency money I have a chance for...

[jay]

Dude, that damn car's been up in the air for so long it's prolly forgotten how to move on the ground, and the loose nut behind the wheel's forgotten how to drive...

[808]

Mine hasn't had a motor or transmission since 01 when Mark Tabor ran it into a stump.

[jay]

Sheeeeze we both need to git crackin!

[Lex]

Jay is that your GTR street car in the background. Let's see some pics of the street car.

[jay]

Ya mean more than're in my vbgarage? I dunno if I have much in the way of recent pix o' my lil treasure. Prolly oughtta, what with the new wheels and all..

[808]

Sheeeeze we both need to git crackin!

Agreed that's at the top of my list. There's a lot of updating i have to do to get the car legal again. Luckily the cage is grandfathered in. I need to rebuild a motor, and check just how many good spare transmissions I have. Also pick up that hatch from you.

[SgtRauksauff]

hell, at least you guys have BEEN on stage. I'm still twiddlin' my thumbs, assuring myself that I'll get there one day....

[jay]

Forgot my camera so no pix but this week John got done with a customer's Excursion so back to the rallycar. Pax side (alltrac, it was gonna be a thousand bucks to mod the protege shaftr) propshaft carrier bearings are bolted to the chassis and today the brackets to mount the driverside bolts are going in and then the propshaft is DONE and in the car. We also extended the tierods by the same 20mm we lengthened the LCA's, and now all that's left to do under the car is the exhaust.
We did have to cut the roof of the trans tunnel out, about 18" worth, right where the shifter goes, to get the shaft to clear. None of the GTR guys make mention of having to do this, but this ain't a GTR. Of the very few pix I've seen, it looks like them fellers might be mounting their engines a tad lower than we are, but we decided not to let any mechanical bits hang any lower than they did before the conversion, so the skidplate isn't any different than before and we lose no ground clearance. Turns out this ain't no big deal anyhow, and it puts the shifter up higher, and lets me use a nice short throw. Olympus rally is at the end of April and I'm starting to think that the car is gonna be ready. Damn, I hope I'm right...

[808]

Olympus!!! Let me know Jay, if you make it out there I'll make it up and volunteer in some regard.

[Georonimo]

Glad to see you're making progress! For the sake of spares; how do your modded control arms compare to the standard issue FWD pieces? I had one collapse on my 4wd a couple years ago and the longer FWD arm gave me some serious toe and camber issues.
Are you using an st185 or st205 driveshaft?

[jay]

I dunno about the fwd lca's as I have none of those around. We're gonna have toe and camber issues with these till we resolve those issues, being the aforementioned lengthened tierods and relocated lower strutmount boltholes.
Driveshaft is off an ST205 car. I don't think there's any difference tween it and a st185 part but ain't sure about that.

This does remind me though, to get another set of LCA's and get 'em stretched now and back in the parts bin...

[loupgarou91]

looking great bud

was reading through... do the driveshafts for the gt4 box and diff mate with the gtr hubs?
and for that matter would they mate with any other mazda hubs??
sorry if i missed it but i did read through quickly

Lew