Protege ES and AutoX?

[dugrant153]

Will this car get owned?

I'm talking to a few guys. Yes, I know the driver is 90% of the time attack result... But still, does it have a "good suspension"? Or is the one on the Protege 5 much much better?

Was thinking of getting a Protege ES (cuz it gets 4-wheel disc brakes), but if the suspension is still family-ish... ouch.

Probably gonna run under SCCA rules (if I do run autoX)... I could probably change the springs atleast... right? And sitll be considered... is it G-stock?

 

[DistantTea]

The regular protege is going to be an H stock car. You cannot change the springs, but you can change the shocks. Koni makes some adjustables for it that should do just fine. You can do a catback and r compoun tires and not much else.

The protege is an excellent autocross car. It has good handling and a fairly competent power curve (for h stock). I'd say leave it entirely stock except put some better performance tires on it and have fun. Learn to regulate your tire pressures and start asking for help on how to drive.

Right now H stock belongs to the mini coopers... but regionally a protege will do very nice indeed.

Do it.

 

[dugrant153]

How about sway bars?
We're allowed one, right? or something like that...

Is the Protege 5 suspension the same as the one in the ES?

Wootz! FWD fun

 

[DistantTea]

You can change the front sway bar but not the back. Check out http://www.moutons.org and go over some of the rules there. There's not a whole lot you can do in stock.

Shocks, Alignment, tires, catback exhaust... thats about it as far as practical mods go. I would just take the car and start racing. Don't do any mods until you know what you want.

Now if you wanted to even the playing field just a little you could go into the STS class. In there you can do intake, exhaust, shocks and springs, sway bars, Limited slip, seats, pedals, shifter...a few other things of great importance like camber plates. But you have to stay on street tires. Goto that link and read through the rules. If you have the mod bug that might be the way to go.

 

[Raptor]

All the 01 + Protege except the MSP and MP3 share the same suspension setup

 

[dugrant153]

Hmm... well, I'm looking at both the Impreza and the Protege right now as options. And well, the Impreza seems to have more things going for it in terms of value per dollar. I'm pretty much looking for a daily driver which will allow spirited driving

Could someone convince me otherwise?

 

[rowan]

Koni makes some adjustables for it that should do just fine.

Since when? Link?

 

[scapamouche]

Since when? Link?

(stupid)

 

[DistantTea]

I just assumed they did for the regular protege. Apparently its not on their list yet. Thats odd... there's only a few hundred thousand proteges on the road today you think there would be more of a market than making them for an MX6.

I thought they just didn't make some for the MSP and MP3 yet.

 

[dugrant153]

hmm... 130 hp...
well, I'm kinda in a debate between Impreza and Protege.
Impreza has more power and AWD and disc brakes for a bit more (not much more).
Mazda has handling... and... looks?

Quite a few people in my car club are running Imprezas in AutoX.
Not too many Protege people

 

[dugrant153]

Anyways, to stay on topic of this thread, what kind of things could I do to a Mazda P5 or ES to keep it in ... is it H-stock?... in terms of modding. Like, what I'm trying to figure out is what are the limits I can take my modifications before I get pushed up into super stock?

And with talk of the Mazda 3 coming, with the hp and torque rating being higher, it wouldn't run in H-stock, right (assuming H-stock IS the class which the P5 runs in)?

 

[eMKay]

Anyways, to stay on topic of this thread, what kind of things could I do to a Mazda P5 or ES to keep it in ... is it H-stock?... in terms of modding. Like, what I'm trying to figure out is what are the limits I can take my modifications before I get pushed up into super stock?

And with talk of the Mazda 3 coming, with the hp and torque rating being higher, it wouldn't run in H-stock, right (assuming H-stock IS the class which the P5 runs in)?

You can change shocks, front swaybar (can't touch the rear), cat-back exhaust. That's about it, if you want to change things like springs, intake, header then you would be in STS but in that class you can't run R-compound tires. Super stock class is for cars like the 93-95 RX-7 and the Corvette Z06.

As for the Mazda 3 it hasn't been classed yet, but it most likely will be a G-stock car (Neon, Celica GT, SE-R etc...)

 

[cjstringer]

Koni is mad at Mazda and will probably not make a strut for the Proteges any time soon. Mazda screwed them over on the MP3 deal and went to Tokico after Koni did all the R&D. Don't count's on them having struts for us any time soon.
Can't blame them. Mazda seems to like to screw people.

 

[dugrant153]

In regards to Subaru vs Mazda P5 for autoX, the Subaru's MSRP and Mazda P5's MSRP is only about 2000 dollars in difference.... which IS quite a huge gap, now that I think about it. And I DO know that the base model Impreza is a hard-to-get car. Are you saying that Subaru would start adding tons of useless options that you don't want in order to get one in?

edit: Wow... STS seems like more fun?