ok so my 2.0L just decided out of nowhere while driving down the street to just have a loud boom now i have hardcore engine knock. thinking about an engine swap to the klze engine. does anyone know if it fits directly to the auto tranny the 01 protege comes with or would i also have to put in a new tranny? thanks for all the help
No the KL motor will not in any way mate to the auto tranny in your car. Even if it did, the gear ratios are all wrong, and even if that weren't the case, the KL would nuke your tranny in a week anyways.
As far as i've been able to figure out, your options are to convert your car to MTx while you're doing the swap, which is process that is pretty hard and poorly documented, and also produces substandard results (no spedometer, no tach, no reverse lights, etc) --OR-- try to rig a way to use the KL auto tranny in the Protege. I'm trying to figure out if option #2 is possible, but, assuming the trans fits in the car, you're looking at SERIOUS fab. I'm talking custom trans mounts, custom axles, and potentially major changes to the control arms , ASSUMING the angle of the axles was close enough that the CV joins could take the stress.
There's just not a good way to know for sure how it will all play out until someone trys. Also keep in mind that the shift linkages might be in different places and that the computer is much more involved in shifting an auto trans so the solutions for the MTx people might not work on an ATx car.
in summary -
We know that the AT and the MT in the Protege share the same footprint (they both fit in the same space) and share the same basic mounts (bolt on in the same place). We know you can use the MT axles in an AT car.
We know that the MT in the Protege and the MT in the 626 are more or less interchangeable, sharing the same footprint and mounts. We know you can adapt the Protege axles to work in the 626 Trans.
What we DO NOT KNOW is if the 626 AT and the 626 MT share the same footprint and mounts. IF they do, there is a HIGH PROBABILITY that the 626 AT will bolt up in a Protege, and then the challenge becomes electrical.
We know that because AT in protege = MT in protege = MT in 626.
so if MT in 626 = AT in 626, then we can infer that the AT in the 626 = AT in Protege.
Hope that makes sense, because I'm confused now too, lol