KL Swappin' Protege5

31N007

31N007
:
Mazda Protege5
Figured I'd finally document my swap. Putting a '00 Milly motor into a '02 Pro5, non-ABS, manual.

Got the engine from a forum member back in August 2017 and delved into refreshing the motor. Like a complete and utter nonse, I didn't bother checking compression, mostly due to the lack of having a starter/ manual trans bellhousing to crank the motor over.

New timing components/head gaskets/head bolts/water pump/oil pump were thrown on, as well as an oil pickup and pan from a Probe GT (because it turns out the Millennia got a different style oil pan due to the way the engine mounted, and of course a different pickup was added as a result.


Jimmy kindly offered to help me make such a silly decision by hauling the mill with his truck

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Miles on the motor. For s**** and grins
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Heads were pretty clean for the mileage. I took them apart and changed out the valve stem seals. Ghetto compression tool courtesy of PVC pipe was created to get the retainers back together

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Suitable for r/knolling?
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Knife-edged intake, left the throttle plate alone. I also did a super mild port match because the Milly got a square runner intake mated to oval port heads. The head stampings suggest this is a KL-DE and not the super amazeballs KL-ZE that I wouldn't mind having one day...
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Took me two months to get to this point, engine reassembled and waiting for wiring
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Now that the engine mechanical is out of the way I should get to the crux of the swap: wiring.

My goal was to retain OBD2 functionality, mainly because I'm a pleb and didn't want to have to worry about trying to do hokey diagnosing of any issues that may arise. That meant sitting down and grabbing the wiring diagrams to sort out what wires go where. As of today (3-6-2020) I have what I believe to be an accurate pinout diagram of a system that will work fine on this particular car. The exception to this is that the VSS is incorrectly pinned to the FB-03 plug where the working solution is to pin it to the X-06 plug.

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Wiring in progress, spaghetti monster...

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All that was pared back from the KLP2 ECU. Transmission connector entirely deleted from ECU. Downstream O2 sensors and EGR system (vent, vacuum, and position) deleted. ABS system removed too (we don't need no stinkin' ABS)

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This is/should be roughly what the completed system looks like.

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This was roughly the completed harness. The stock Milly wiring has the ECU and solenoids on the same 12v+ wire, which I was less than thrilled about. I took it upon myself to try and breakout the systems to use the Pro5 circuits available. The injectors were easy, the rest should have been too if it wasn't for me forgetting things along the way (EGR Boost solenoid (A.K.A. MAP sensor))

Two circuits were added to the JB inside the vehicle, those are highlighted on the first page of the wiring diagram. They are 12V+ constant for the ECU, and 12V+ switched, non-dying through starting for the distributor. These could likely have been added another way, but this was how I saw fit to add this circuit and retain the amperage protection that's called for.

As it stands, the ECU is now on its own circuit (FB-03 'S') and the solenoids are all on (FB-03 'O') as that's what made the most sense to me. The injectors are on the same circuit as what the stock Pro5 injectors are on - (FB-03 'M')

This has been updated 3-30-2020 with digitised pinout diagram. Changes to wire terminations are noted in blue on the connector sheet.

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The lucky thing in this swap, so far at least, is that there is a direct-swap Mazda 626 alternator that can be substituted in place of the Milly alt which has its own internal voltage regulator. Feed it a 30A source of what should be battery voltage and it's a happy camper.

EDIT 04-09-23: I initially left the "load" terminal at the alternator unoccupied, which lead to the alternator overcharging at around 15.2V. For the AGM battery I was running, I found that to be okay, but over the winter it kicked the bucket. This past weekend, I looked more at the wiring diagram from the '01 626 and found that the "load" terminal should see -1V compared to battery voltage when the car is running. I gave it the same voltage and watched on my multimeter as the voltage dropped from the 15.2V right down to 14.7V. I'm going to monitor how this works while I still have the car in my possession, and see whether this leads to any issues. I am kicking myself for not having addressed this sooner, but I suppose I'm still learning things pertaining to this swap.

EDIT 04-15-23: I thought wrong when it came to the "load" 12V signal, in that, this signal needs to be switched. Went to where I store the car at on the 11th, and the battery was as flat as a pancake. I'm going to reinstall the battery without anything being changed, to see if my theory is correct, and that there is a large draw in the current arrangement. Looking at the 626 manual, the 'charge' light is on a switched 12v circuit, so I will assume this is what I have done wrong. Again, I'll update this post with news once I have more!


(Removing the stock ECU from the mix meant that I lost the old voltage regulator, so that's why I'm lucky to have found that the 626 alt is internally regulated.)

The KL ECU controls fuel, ignition, cooling fan, fuel pump, and that's about it. The missing functions are:

- A/C
-Transmission (ECU throwing codes for shift solenoids that don't exist anymore)
- EGR and associated vent/vacuum solenoids, as well as positioning sensor
- Downstream O2 sensors (I will eventually be running a high flow cat once I'm able to get the exhaust put together)
- ABS (the Pro5 chassis didn't come with ABS) (no light shown because no wires for that are hooked up to the cluster)

I did retain, for whatever reason, the:
- pressure relief valve on the firewall (charcoal canister?)
- fuel tank pressure sensor (the voltage range is within the same spec between the Pro5 and Milly sensor, despite the sensors being different)
- FPR solenoid (for hot start fuel pressure)
 
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A/C system:
As far as the odds and ends go, I didn't care to retain the A/C because I made it through one Michigan summer (hot and humid) without it and wasn't completely dead afterwards. I've also not removed the condenser inside the car in case I decide to go back on my word that it's "tolerable."

Cooling system:
Overall
I wanted to retain the OEM style radiator without the burp container, and further ease of installation due to the fact that the Milly rad mounts were just a bit wider than the Pro5 ones. Laziness at its finest. More recently I came to buy a Mishimoto radiator from a friend, so it worked out doubly as well.

I'm running the loop backwards to how it's setup on the stock Milly - the outlet to the car is on the top of the radiator, and inlet from is on the bottom (at least that's my current understanding?) Basically, the stinking radiator inlets/outlets are backwards on each car, but it's not caused any issues so far - coolant temps have hovered right around 192-196 cruising.

Hose (in different area codes)
As for radiator hoses, there's a common substitute for the passenger hose: Dayco 72011. I cut the last 2" off the end of one side as it flares up to a larger size than required, and it fits really quite well all things considered. I made a bracket that bolts up to the alternator that keeps the hose away from the accessory drive. The driver's hose I fabricobbled together a mix of the KL upper hose and FS upper hose, and joined them with a reducing nylon hose barb. Not the prettiest in any way, but it's done the job and I trust it to withstand the abuse I'll end up putting it through.

I've not yet hooked up the heater core because I'm a lazy S.O.B. (a common trend you may observe) and to be honest, I need to source a second 90 degree coupler from the firewall, which requires a trip to the junkyard in the near future.

Fans
As far as the fans are concerned, I modified the stock driver's side fan to clear the distributor, and that's all I am running for now. I have the shroud provided with the Mishimoto rad to be able to run the slim fans, but of course, that bumps the pass side fan out too close to the header... More work to be done there - I may just direct mount the fan on the pass side and run the ground wire to a switch inside the car so I can manually operate it.

Power Steering
This part was pretty simple, and then I complicated it somewhat. The stock high pressure line mates just fine to the pump, but the stock FS pump is mounted up high, near the front of the engine bay, where the KL pump sits nice and close to the rack itself. To remedy this, I decided to get some -6AN adapters for the rack and banjo bolt, and made some PTFE -6AN line to easily join the two together. For the suction hose, Mazda uses a mahoosive 7/16" I.D. hose that I couldn't be arsed to go to the junkyard to grab, so I took the inlet to Lowe's and found "heater hose" that was the right diameter and again, a brass barb was inserted inline to join the old and new hose together. I did end up removing the flared portion of the inlet as the hose fit on there like stink, so I'm not too concerned about it popping off at any point in time...

Edit: I updated this in a later post, but I ended up reverting back to using the OEM high-pressure line because the adapter at the rack leaked and I didn't want to faff around with trying to find something that would keep it from leaking. You can see more info in post #19.

Fuel
Simpler than the P/S system, and kept that way, I took the barbed ends off of the stock Pro5 hoses and put them into the soft line that runs from the intermediate fuel rail (mounts on the side of the block near the transmission). This way I have true quick-disconnect lines to facilitate easier removal should that bridge need crossing any time soon.
 
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Progress shots, the old FSDE sitting in the corner thinking about why it's there.

Transmission
I decided to retain the stock gearing as I felt that going to the 4.388 final, or mucking with the 2-5 ratios was 1) too much work and 2) not something I wanted to modify at this point. I wanted to baseline what I have and see if it works. As I mentioned in post (insert number here), I can hit 65 (Excel and actual calcs say 63) in second gear, which is likely to be more than enough for autocross situations. I'm impressed with how well it pulls in all the gears (despite it being frowned upon to do WOT or near WOT pulls on a new clutch). I picked up through a black friday special a MFactory LSD, non-racepack upgrade. So far it's proved itself worth it.

I've got the stock-replacement halfshafts installed for now - the G 'box is light and as a result (not directly?) is as robust as wet paper mache. Being that I'm not going to be grannying it, I wanted to keep the weak links outside of the box. Which brings me to the next cause for slight concern - the jackshaft. Sourced from a junkyard Probe GT, I'm not sure just how much I trust it to hold together. The CV at the jackshaft joint has a suspicious amount of play in it - something I'll have to look into the next time I'm back home and able to work on it.

VSS
I must have misunderstood the factory manual, as I could swear that the VSS feeds to the car through the fusebox, but I bypassed that and ran it directly to the main connector in the car with no issues. The stock wiring is long enough to make it to where it's got to go!

Throttle Bracket
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I need to re-do this to add a stiffener (or make it out of thicker sheetmetal) but this allowed me to retain the stock throttle cable and clear the brake booster/master cylinder. Another reason I'm happy to use the Milly curve-neck manifold as opposed to the KLG4 or straight neck ones.
Shifty shafty
The MX-3/MX-6/Probe GT have a different setup at the transmission where the shift and stabilizer tube tie into. The tube on the Pro5 is too long, so it puts the shifter in a peculiar position when all is said and done. For the interim, I have trimmed it, inserted a tube with an OD around the same as the ID of the stabilizer tube and taped/hose clamped the works together. That will be welded not far off from now (read: next time I'm back home) The shift shaft itself was replaced with the unit from the Pro5 as that's allowed me to run the CorkSport Bronzeoil bushings that I've got laying around.

Exhaust
Fleebay strikes again. This time in the form of $107 headers...
I could only expect so much, and honestly, aside from the small fact that the rear bank fouled on the oil pan, I'm pretty impressed. I had a local muffler shop modify the bend to clear the pan, as well as tweak a few other things. Currently I've had them run the headers to the stock system so I can drive it around without deafening myself to death.

Cruise Control
Not a must by any means, but that's been retained too. Tested it out the other day with success - the only thing I'm missing is the "brake" signal to the ECU as well as from the ECU out to the cruise control module. The "brake" signal to the CCM from the pedal is good though, so I'm not quite sure what the ECU does with the brake signal. Maybe I'll hook it up to see at some point?

Other odds and ends and issues (I hope nobody reads this bit lol)
I currently am chasing a loose wire issue, likely the cam position signal wire. All was going well this weekend until I took a rather aggressive turn and the car cut out on me. So I gingerly drove it back home and started wiggling wires. There's either a loose wire at the ECU itself, or a loose wire in the loom from the firewall to the ECU. I didn't re-wrap the harness anticipating issues like this, so out it comes (again, next time I'm home) hopefully for the last time. I'm going to take this time to split apart the cooling fan wires so I can run a second, manually controlled fan, and run that wiring through the firewall in a simple spot rather than poking holes and running wires all over creation. All in all, I'm pretty happy with how things have gone with this swap. Considering the end goal is a nearly year-round daily (minus winter because salt), that can be autocrossed, I'm fairly certain it'll accomplish those goals.
 
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Oil Pans

Something I wrote to Rockauto about and they removed the Doorman pan from their listing for the Milly as a result (whoops) (but not really)

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The slotted oil pickup is from the Probe (and likely MX6) Note the height difference. Probe pan will not clear the Milly pickup (I tried and got royally cornfused)

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Milly pan and pickup.

There's a small difference in capacities to the flange of the pan:
5qts to the lip on the Probe pan
5.75qts to the lip on the Milly pan

Obviously this is assuming that the pan could be filled to the lip without the crank frothing the oil up, which I'm inclined to believe would happen. The windage tray is mounted to the bottom of the block. Both pans are just stamped steel.

I've just kept it simple and fill to full on the dipstick - a whopping 4.5qts (lel)
 
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Heater Hoses

Let there be heat!
They didn't have the under-the-radar black hose, so I had to pay for pReMiUm 5/8" hose. I snagged a second 90degree heater core elbow to be able to straight shot these hoses. Thing gets nice and toasty
:)

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I re-wrapped and reinstalled the loom and am happy to report no stalling issues (as of now). I think that the way the wiring runs to the ECU in this configuration puts stress on the pins and that's why I have had a loose connection. I checked the crank and cam position sensor wires and there appears to be no breaks/knicks in any of the wires. I actually installed the ECU kick plate and jarred it while the car was running to see what would happen - no dying this time!

Now on the to-do list:

inspect power steering system, diagnose why pump whines
- may be bad pump, hopefully not
- may be insufficiently tightened connection to the pump/rack, likely

weld up shift shaft
- bringing to a mate's to have that done hopefully before the week is up
That has been done successfully, but of course no pictures to accompany

inspect the jackshaft
- I now have an OEM MSP replacement axle for both sides. I need to re-boot one of them, and may end up doing both and relegating the "new" halfshafts to being spares.
The OEM junkyard finds have play where the inner CV meets the jackshaft, so I'm going to keep a spare halfshafts in the boot should the need arise. I don't anticipate massive problems.

front strut tower bar
- need to either modify the studs that the bar mounts to (have longer ones welded on to space the bar away from the KL intake
This won't work now for a few reasons. The spacers would put the bar in contact with the hood and I also mucked up the bar trying to be stealth with how it was modified, so it's junk now. Such is life I suppose!
- or buy an aftermarket bar, which I would prefer to retain the OEM plus look. I could source spacers to fit under the bar that way I can go back to OEM if I sell the car for a better chassis
 
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Just curious, why did you decide to swap in the KL vs fixing/upgrading what you had?
 
Just curious, why did you decide to swap in the KL vs fixing/upgrading what you had?

TL;DR:Mainly because I wanted to.

Realistically, it has been something on my "list of to-dos" ever since Lewis7789 swapped his first P5 way back when.

It was a challenge to myself to learn automotive wiring more than anything. And to do a good job of documenting things for anyone wanting to go this route.

I really enjoy the sound the V6 makes over the I4, and to have something "OEM+" was another end goal of mine.

Granted anyone who's been around Proteges will be able to pick this out in a lineup of otherwise stock Proteges, but I wanted something that functioned near as OEM, without actually being something that was offered from the factory.

Locally I autocross against a few friends, one of whom has a 3L swapped SVT Contour. Riding/driving his made me want the added torque and wider powerband that wasn't as easily possible with the FSDE.
 
Yaaasss, always wanted to see what was required for one of these swaps
Good work so far, keep us up to date!
 
Yeah, I wanted to troubleshoot mostly alone so I could "info dump" what I found works for me.

Some "issues" I've had so far

Due to no EGR and no grill and a roof rack installed and flogging the car and likely the alignment not being 100%, I'm returning low 20s for MPG.

I have no rear O2 sensors, so I am curious to know if the ECU is running a rich map as a result. I have a wideband O2 sensor that I need to have the bung welded for, so I can monitor steady state driving to see what the car settles out to.

It's also not a vehicle that I intend on dailying consistently, so I am not so concerned/upset with the drop in MPGs.

The power steering pump I've still not sorted out, but the fluid level in the reservoir hasn't gone down and throwing an IR temp gun on the pump and lines, there doesn't appear to be a dangerous increase in temperature, so I'm going to continue to monitor things.


GOOD NEWS:

The clutch is finally broken in, not that I wasn't romping on it at 200 miles in or anything... It grabs just as easily as a stock unit and the flywheel makes for an even more lively driving experience.

Figured pics of the bits that nobody sees would be in order...

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OH AND A VIDEO:

 
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Damn, that sounds good! How does the extra weight up front affect handling? looks like it pulls much harder than the old FS engine

Love the all-black nardi wheel too!
 
That does sound good especially coming out of a Protege. I've played around with the idea of putting a KL in my Protege, but then I swing back and forth between finding out how hard I can push the 1.6L, or just selling the whole car. The wife tells me I should hold on to it because I'll miss it after I've sold it even though I hardly drive it now. I get a feeling she's right.

Awesome work you've done there. Have you done this all at home?
 
Awesome work you've done there. Have you done this all at home?

Everything but the transmission rebuild and the exhaust was done at home (in my mom's garage no less lol)

I'll be honest, this being my third Protege, it's been cemented as the years go on that it's just a fun car to drive. I know that, by all means there are quicker cars out there, and at one point I was considering getting into an SVT Contour, but the pep, even stock, has been what's kept me with them.

For cars of this era, all the issues have been worked out for the most part, and the community is pretty helpful!

Damn, that sounds good! How does the extra weight up front affect handling? looks like it pulls much harder than the old FS engine

Love the all-black nardi wheel too!

I have yet to get it on some scales for a true measurement, but it's really not been too much of a change. It certainly has a wider wave of torque/power, which has been VERY welcomed. I find it washing out somewhat when I give it the beans coming out of a corner (which may be partly the diff and partly the worn front tires)

Sadly the wheel is stock! Or not-so-sadly. I wouldn't mind getting my hands on a nicer wheel, but I like the OEM functionality of this wheel coupled with the cruise control buttons!
 
Never looked too much into the KL swaps, but man that sounds amazing. Really makes me consider it when I start up my straight piped FS.
P.S. what does torque feel like? Lol
 
Nice work! Sounds like a blast to drive (y)
Thanks! It's been hard to drive it in a reserved manner, that's for sure! 😂
Never looked too much into the KL swaps, but man that sounds amazing. Really makes me consider it when I start up my straight piped FS.
P.S. what does torque feel like? Lol
I have hopes that the diagram I put together near the start of this thread helps anyone wanting to go the exact same route that I've gone with regards to the ECU and engine choice. It's definitely more constant throughout the RPM range. Looking at a rough plot of the two engines (I found rough dyno data for both engines), the KL appears to have around/above 140 tq from 3000 all the way to 6500 RPM. The FS torque, in comparison, tapers off from above 100 tq after 5000 RPM.

In a word, "nice." lol!
 
Sometimes I don't know my own strength. Or the mechanical strength of the things I touch...

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And this is a PSA to check behind your fender liners where the front panel meets the unibody...

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I've started looking into it and man that torque sounds nice, I find myself flooring it through 2nd and 3rd just to keep up on freeway on ramps. How much room is left in the engine bay? Is it going to be a pain to do normal maintenance like plugs and oil changes?
 
How much room is left in the engine bay? Is it going to be a pain to do normal maintenance like plugs and oil changes?


Plugs and oil changes are still a breeze. Rear plugs are able to be reached without pulling the manifold (a nice perk what Ford on the V6 Duratec didn't give owners)

Oil changes will be easier as the filter is on a pedestal rather than on the backside of the block :)

I ended up reverting back to the OEM pressure-side power steering line, so now the only non-OEM aspect of the power steering system in terms of lines is where the suction line from the OEM reservoir transitions to a 3/4" I.D. heater hose... I fixed the leak at the pump on the PTFE AN setup, but there was still a leak where the blue adapter met the rack. If I'm honest, the line likely will stay this way unless I begin to experience issues with it.

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Blue fitting doesn't seat on the rack-line like the OEM fitting does.

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Realized why STudMUffin asked about engine bay room - I've neglected to upload photos of the completed engine bay!

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I tried to maintain as many OEM things as possible. The MAF is from the Milly, but a reverse of the grommet allows me to use the otherwise stock airbox. It's been moved, since I can't quite mount it in the OEM location without modifying or replacing the flexible hose going to the throttle body.
 
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