Need Help!

[metaluzc]

So I was looking at buying a Mazdaspeed Protege, autocheck score is fine, the car runs fine, shifts fine, all looked to be as it should. I get back to the dealership after test driving the car and as I'm talking with the salesman, one of the mechanics comes up and says that there isn't a turbo on the car. I took some pictures of the engine before I was told this, but for there not to be a turbo, that would mean someone swapped engines? I noticed what looks like a header and CAI as some of the mods. Here are the pictures, hope someone can give me more information on whether the service department is wrong of if a previous owner swapped motors:

 

[03zoomzoom]

That is defiantly a N/A motor setup. It is also very surprising that they will sell you a car without a catalytic converter...dealerships can get in a lot of trouble for that..I guess it is possible somebody did all the body work to make it look like a MSP. The VIN will tell you for sure.

 

[metaluzc]

well i have the autocheck report and it comes up as a mazdaspeed protege, that is why it's confusing. I'm thinking that maybe one of the previous owners blew up the turbo engine and just went cheap and got an N/A engine.

 

[03zoomzoom]

I've never heard of an autocheck report, but take the VIN and call a Mazda dealer. They'll be able to tell you for sure. It sounds very fishy to me...esp with no converter.

 

[Spiced MSP]

yeah, someone more than likely blew the motor and dropped in a NA motor as a quick replacement. Probably sold the turbo setup before selling the car. It has the MSP rad./SMIC so it is a legit MSP. Must have sold the strut bar too. Also, it is kind of hard to see but the water return elbow on this car is the one that only came on the MSP as it has the third outlet for the coolant line going towards where the turbo would be on the car. All other proteges have a regular return elbow. This particular one appears to be recirculating back somewhere since the turbo is gone. I attached two pics to show what Im talking about. The first pic is the stock MSP water return elbow and the second pic is a Samco hoses setup. The little elbow is the regular protege water return elbow. You can see the difference between both elbows since the regular protege elbow doesn't have the third outlet for the coolant line like the MSP elbow does.