Putting a little more power back into my protege.

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2k Protege LX
My trusty Protege is almost 11 years old and quickly reaching the 200k mile mark. Its still running strong but having some trouble making its way up some of the steeper hills. Aside from the regular oil, oil filter, air filter, and spark plug changes I don't do much preventative maintenance. What would be some things I should do to my Protege to keep it running strong and, if the car Gods be willing, running into the 300k range? What are some things I could do to get a little more power out of the stock engine?
I have some sea foam that I'll be running through it tomorrow before I make my way to pick up some new plug wires, I've always had good results with that.
 
nope and I don't even know what that is ha ha. I'm not very mechanic savy when it comes to engines but if I can learn it i'll do it.
 
One thing to look at would be your timing belt. If that's never been changed it would be good to get that taken care of before your ride leaves you on the side of the road. If you will be changing your timing belt I'd change the water pump while you're at it since you have work in the same area and remove parts that cover up both. I would also check your hoses, brake lines, etc.

As long as you do the usuals (oil, filters, plugs & wires) your car should keep going for a long time.

You should also replace your other fluids if you've never replaced them (i.e. brake fluid, power steering, tranny fluid). It may not improve the performance of your car much but you will feel a difference. Your car may feel a bit more responsive over all. These engines respond best to boost but if that's not your intention you might want to look into an exhaust. That'll free up a little bit of horsepower and make your ride sound more aggressive.
 
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That's how a bad "molten" knock sensor looks. If yours is leaking the black goo of death....It's time to replace!!!
Is your car Automatic? If yes & the sensor is bad it will send a signal to the ECU to retard timing, thus causing a lazy feeling & leaving you in 3rd gear when you press the accelerator trying to accelerate to overtake for example.
At the age of your car, AzteCypher is right to change your timing belt, pulley, belt tensioner, fuel pump, water pump. Use Redline D4 ATF in your transmission, change the filter while you are at it! Don't flush the tranny just drain & refill every engine oil change
for about 4 oil changes!
More info here http://www.trinituner.com/v3/forums/viewtopic.php?f=35&t=259987&start=30
 
awesome info guys, i really appreciate it. I'm gonna be cleaning the EGR tonight due to a problem with the intake hose deteriorating and causing some buildup. I just replcaed the intake hose so we'll see what heppens with the egr.
 
So I cleaned out the EGR last night and its idling much better now as well as took a little bit of the sluggish feel out of it at low rpm's. I wish that my camera was in the car, it was pretty bad ha ha. The trans is a manual on my car, does that have any affect on the trans fluid such as change intervals or whatnot?

On a side note, I'm not sure what kind of trans fluid is in the car now and would only assume that the same rules apply between synthetic and conventional oils in the tranmission. I don't want to get some cheap oil and it seems that there are more synthetics out there for me to choose from. Would that mean I'd have to flush the system in order to change over to synthetic?
 
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