V6 powered Mazda 323

Set up and test fit day... Swapped the suspension over from the stock winter stuff, over to the summer fun stuff.. :)

cleaning up/maintenance work on the coil overs..

My codriver Rob lending a hand..

Couple more clearance issues.. a 15mm spacer will solve these issues..

A nice shot of my car from the first cup event last month..

The latest issue... Just this past weekend we corded the left front tire on robs 3rd run in the morning.. We had to do a quick tire swap in the pits putting it on the rear so that I could finish my final run.. Anyone have any ideas how to pick up on tire ware like this and prevent it?? I know about flipping the tires on the rims but I don't know how to pick up on when I should do it..

A long over due update.

This summer was full of auto crossing fun. Locally it was a hard fought battle in my class. Right until the final event I managed to hold 3rd place. I was unable to hold on though. I was bumped down to 5th place after the final points were totalled.

My codriver and I made a trip to Packwood for the national tour. This was a very eye opening experience. We did very well down there. Finishing 2nd and 3rd. It was a very close battle and came down to the final runs on the final day to decide 1st and 2nd. After day 1 I was in the lead by 0.020 sec. My competitor on his final run of day 2 beat me by 0.067 sec. After 2 days I lost by 0.047 of a sec.

A pic of the car from the event.

All this excitement has motivated my self and my codriver for this upcoming season. We hope to make it to 3 possibly 4 tour dates. With some improvements to the car of course.

Christmas came early today. Our new rims finally arrived. We've been waiting for these since late April.

Jongbloeds Areo 500s. 15x10s up front 15x8s for the rear. They sure look pretty.

Holy cow those are much lighter than I expected! Great work, keep up the updates!

Christmas presents

2 new seats. Floor models on blow out pricing. 5 gallant fuel cell. Walbro 255 high out put pump. 5 point harnesses. Next month we get back to work on the car. :)

Awesome stuff.

I just discovered this was Thomas' car way back. I raced with Thomas many moons ago at Boundary Bay when he had an F/SP B13 Sentra and I was running F/SS in mine (original CACC rules).

Very impressive work you've done. I owned one stock and it was a horrid dishrag of mush. I like what you've done here.

SkinnyG wrote: I just discovered this was Thomas' car way back. I raced with Thomas many moons ago at Boundary Bay when he had an F/SP B13 Sentra and I was running F/SS in mine (original CACC rules). Very impressive work you've done. I owned one stock and it was a horrid dishrag of mush. I like what you've done here.

Thanks bud. I am good friends with Thomas. Talk about a small world. I helped him build this car and then bought it from him when he thought he was going to move out of country. I still have his rims and tires from that old Sentra he had.

I keep bugging him to come codrive it with me. Him and I shared the same dream that these cars could be competitive. So far i think I am doing a good job making it a reality.

Well there is not turning back now.

The hole for the fuel cell cut, and mocked into place.

The splitter being fitted, its getting there.

A fun comparison in weights. The fuel cell is dry with no gas in it. The stock tank is about half full. When racing we had to run it over 3/4 full to avoid fuel starvation. Looks like this is where we will reduce the most weight.

Yaa! more updates.

I swapped out the Stock Mx3 GS front sway bar for a Zx2 front sway bar. This was done for 2 reasons. 1 because its larger, and 2 because I was installing stock 323 control arms which use a different end link set up then the Mx3 stuff.

I also built both mounts for the driver and passenger seats. Some pictures of the passenger side.

A Jig I built to help locate the rails and make sure the seats went in level.

Using the jig to locate the mounting tabs.

All finished.

Brackets to mount the fuel cell built.

Fuel cell mounted. The floor is pretty flimsy metal, so I used 1/8" flat bar on the top and bottom to sandwich the floor and give it some structure.

Getting closer to having the front splitter finished.

A couple more pictures my friend Rob took.

So only really looking at the last post, and seeing the fuel cell mount + scca sticker, what's your plan for covering the cell?

16.3.d.1: "...No part of the fuel tank or fuel cell shall be closer than 6” (152.4 mm) to the ground unless enclosed within the bodywork and mounted above the floor pan. A metal bulkhead is required that provides total separation between the driver compartment and the compartment containing the fuel tank and/or filler/neck....."

Love the build.

Thanks bud. If you see anything else feel free to say something. This is my first large scale build.

The idea is to built a sealed cover for it.

I haven't decided if I'll make the whole cover with quick release attachment points. Or if I'll make a center door on the top so that I can easily access the fuel cell to fill it.

I think I mounted the cell a little higher then it needed to go. But the idea with that was safety. The cell is as low as it can go but it's higher then the exhaust and rear sub frame to keep it safe from getting hit.

In the picture of the fuel cell install; what's that red thing doing around the fuel cell, is that a battery cable?

If so, get that thing into some conduit, and get it away from the fuel cell. Power cables and flammable fluids / vapors need some separation distance.

I'd probably just make a door with an easy latch on top of the cover, but that's just me.

Pres589, Looks like a battery cable, and I suspect that's one of the reasons why the SCCA requires a cover over the fuel cell.

Also, this really brings back my want of a KL powered Mx3 to replace my crx as a daily.

Pes589. It is my main battery cable. Once the over it completed it'll be isolated from the fuel cell. As part of the class rules the fuel cell has to be separated from the passenger compartment.

Tpwalsh. You should. I drove this car as a daily driver for the last 4 years. The torque of the KL and the gear ratio swap I did made it such a nice cruiser.

In reply to crazycanadian:

My only issue is that I get 40 mpg on my 35 mile one way commute with the CRX. I'd expect significantly less than that with the KL/MX3.

In reply to tpwalsh:

I don't think anything but a little geo metro would come close to the little old Hondas for fuel milage. Haha.

My klg4 swap averages 26 - 29mpg. Everyday mixed city hwy driving. I don't drive it nice either.

I have seen low to mid 30s all hwy. The gear ratio swap I did was the best thing brought my rpms down by 1000 ok the hwy. Also it spread 3rd and 4th out nicely for the power band.

Yaaa more progress and more pictures.

MMMMM pure sexiness. Brand new Hoosier A7's. A6's are discontinued so we had to dip deeper into our savings to step up another level. This might not have been a bad things since they should last longer.

Test fitting and checking for clearance. As you can see the air damn is now finished on the front splitter and she's looked great. We discovered at this point the rear tires needed some small 5mm spacers to clear the suspension. Unfortunately the new rims have a thick flange making our wheel studs to short for proper thread engagement. We'll have to order some longer ARP wheel studs and get them installed.

After looking at last seasons photos this was about the point we realized our front suspension is to soft and to low. If we leave things like this we will pulverize the new front splitter. So its rush time to find some 800lbs front springs. I'll stick my 600lbs in the rear, this will keep the roll rates the same as they were before. We had planned to do this, but not until next year when we looked at having the shocks rebuilt. She sure does look bad ass though doesn't she?

This is the point where I panicked. In changing out the Mx3 lower control arms for the stock 323 control arms I narrowed the track width. I happen to be running an mx3 GS power steering rack in the car though. The Mx3 has longer inner tie rods to make up the track width difference between the two cars. I had forgotten about this little fact. Well as I was setting the toe I quickly ran out of threads on the inner tie rod. CRAP! This added with the spring rate issue, added to the fact I booked the alignment for next friday means I am in a rush to fix the suspension. I have 8 days to find and get parts, tear it all apart and fix it before my appointment for the alignment. Sounds like lots of time, but I still have to work, take a couple days for evening training courses and spend quality time with my son over the weekend while he's visiting. I had made promises to take him out on a big bike riding adventure. Sleep? whats that for? haha I am sure a few of you can relate.

The "to do" list. Tonight we only added to it as well. This list we need to complete before April 12th when we finally get to test and tune the car. April 16th we load the car on a trailer and head off for Crows Landing. My codriver ran into troubles getting time off work for San Diego, also budget for this year has become and concern due to the tanking canadian dollar. So we decided we weren't going. We have 90% of things finalized for Crows Landing though so if you are in the area, come say hi.

On another note, I don't have pictures but the fuel system has been plumed. The car once again moves under its own power. Sway bar end links are installed and progress has been made on a template for the rear spoiler.

crazycanadian wrote:

Air DAMN!

An an autocrosser. That's sexy!

Thanks guys. She's getting torn apart this weekend to fix the suspension then work will continue on the rest of the mods.

Scratch a little more off the list. 800lbs springs arrived and I got them installed. Swapped the 600ish front springs to the rear and ditched the 400lbs. I ran into an issue trying to swap to stock 323 inner tie rod ends. Turns out an mx3 gs rack has M18X1.5 thread inner joint. All the other 323/protege/4 cyl mx3/ZX2/escort inner tie rods I looked up were M16X1.0 soooo nothing I found would actually interchange. Rob and I managed to fit the inner tie rods in his dad lathe and mill them down so we could rethread them and shorten them.

We've also raised the ride hight about 5/16" all around. Slotted the shocks for more camber adjustment at the knuckle. Adjusted all the camber we could out of top and maxed out caster. That should still get me 3deg camber up front yet lower my SAI down below the factory 12 degree. It should also give me 5 degree castor. Should be an interesting set up for this year.

We also cut a little out of the fender and bumper to help clear the big 275s up front. Lots of work done and still more to come.

how about some pictures?

Mx3 compared to 323 inner tie rod.

inner thread differences between the mx3 and 323. The mx3 inner thread is also a friction fit.

Rob working away at the lathe.

you can see how much we milled down. At the end of the day we went further then we needed.

shortened and re threaded mx3 tie rod compared to the 323 tie rod.

coil overs all cleaned up and springs swapped around. Pretty new red 800lbs springs in the front.

Cutting away at the fenders and bumper. We ended up taking 3/4" out of the bumper and the front half of the fender arch.

face masks? Who needs a stinking face mask. It actually looks worse then it is with my facial expression.

If you did some old-school wired fender edge happening, you'd be less likely to bleed all over Pitt Meadows looking for a band-aid when you change the tires. Will you put some kind of anti-finger-severing shield over that lovely Tetanus-inducing edge?

I'm a big softy - I wear leather gloves with everything.

Still, this project is SUPER-COOL. I love the detailed updates, and this is one of the handful of threads that make my heart go pitty-pat at every update.