Protege5: Harder, not Smarter!

Alright you nailed it.

Its a MR2 Turbo Transaxle. The turbo versions are very hard to find, they came with factory LSD. It took me over a year of looking to find one locally as it has been floating around in my head for a very long time. I bought the LSD axles, transmission, shifter cable from a guy selling his project car.
 
Sweet baby jesus! This is going to be even more interesting than all that weight shaving, and fiberglass/carbon fiber parts.
Epic!
 


CNC machine full assembled, electronics hooked up I plugged it into the computer, flipped on the motherboard powered via the USB cable, fired up fine, I installed the arduino drivers fine and gcode parameters installed correctly. Now, when this all started I said I would post it all up here, the accidents and retarded moments included. Here you get a very fine example on how to not do something.

Maybe some of the more observant will take a look at the above picture and see what is wrong...or maybe you didn't give it a second thought like me. Good for you if you noticed.

I plugged in the main power for the boards and motors and there was a loud popping and a massive fireball erupted from the boards nearly incinerating my eyebrows. Yes...if you look above I hadn't built a box to house the electronics in yet so I had just set them on top of my coke can...



Here is the burned remnants of my stepper driver chips, 12$ each...ouch. The capacitors on the motherboard also exploded on the other boards. In total I managed to incinerate about 90$ of electronics in under a second. Way to go idiot!



The "new" transmission...10 bonus points to anyone for guessing the model. (Cres not included)



Dropped the front subframe off the car, jokingly I have tried lifting my car with my hands on occasion...too my utter surprise I can hold the entire front end with a single hand right now. Pretty neat.





Example of how to not do something #2:



This is what happens if you take a 50 pound sledgehammer and drive a screwdriver through a windshield.



This is where not to blow your windshield into 47 billion particles of pain and misery. Yes I counted.

long story short: spent 5 hours carefully cutting the windshield seal, on the last corner it cracked...I tried to knock windshield out with hammer...windshield explodes into 47 billion bits inside garage.
idiot spends 2 hours on hands and knees vacuuming "most" of the glass up.

4 years down the road: idiot finally cleans the last of the glass explosion up.


Morals of the pictures: don't use coke cans for insulators and don't use a sledgehammer to smash a windshield inside your garage.




maybe i missed it, but what the hell is all over your fenders? im so lost right now i cant even try to explain...
 
^ He built a foam wall to carve into fender flares. Once shaped properly, he can fiber glass over. I assume he is using great stuff? I watch people make spoilers with them too
 
^ He built a foam wall to carve into fender flares. Once shaped properly, he can fiber glass over. I assume he is using great stuff? I watch people make spoilers with them too

I used some home insulation foam and then use spray insulation foam over that, I can then shape it into the shape I want for fiberglass cores for fenders. I'm still waiting on the dimensions of my new axle setups to see long they are going to be before I work on them further.

you ughh....you gonna drift it? :D

First p5 drift? :P

Unsubscribe. This thread is getting stupid.

Accept my apologies for shaking things up a little and building a car that I want.
 
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I must say that I still can't understand why you're sticking with the FS when going thru all this effort, but definitely interested to see what you end up with.
 
Phen has a point. I understand the FS is easy to work with and parts are cheap, but there has to be other compatible motors with all the pros and less cons
 
Phen has a point. I understand the FS is easy to work with and parts are cheap, but there has to be other compatible motors with all the pros and less cons

It's cheap(ish), lightweight, I've beat on it at multiple track days, taken it on 2,000 mile road trips, and driven to 65 mpg, nothing but good experiences with it. It's also easy to find donor parts and I like idea of sticking with the original motor and having something more unique that the "get on the engine swap bandwagon" that is so commonplace right now. It just keeps the essence of a p5, if the transmission, engine and chassis are all different, is it even a p5 anymore?
 
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