World's First: An automatic MSP

:
Calgary
:
Blue MP3, Grey MSP
Did anyone ask for this? No
Are you getting it anyways? Y e a b o i

After removing the drivetrain to swap into my MP3, a little project for my rustier titanium shell to make you all upset.

IMG_20191020_181439.jpg


Titanium shell remains after engine pulled

IMG_20191020_202855.jpg


Engine and trans from donor car pulled, don't have any pics of the donor but it was a mechanically sound ES that unfortunately was in very bad shape body wise and frame rotted. At least we can give the powertrain a new life.

74936951_532646053968238_1897854208816709632_n.jpg
73341315_539534336620853_898306596235378688_n.jpg


Turbo bits cleaned up and retrofitted to donor motor

IMG_20191024_173220.jpg


Both dashboards had to be completely taken out in order to retrieve the dash harness and shifter cable

90792084_653018288791229_3785551786346020864_n.jpg


Rough in-progress photo with shifter and dashboard remounted back into the MSP

92460514_244178580042678_2292093504639205376_n.jpg


Engine gets dropped in. After bolting everything back up and plugging everything back in, she started, ran, and "drove"!

The cluster wasn't working and the car was stuck in either 2nd or 3rd gear when in drive. However, it was operational enough to make it the 10 mins or so drive back home.
 

Attachments

  • 90792084_653018288791229_3785551786346020864_n.jpg
    90792084_653018288791229_3785551786346020864_n.jpg
    188.4 KB · Views: 216
  • 92460514_244178580042678_2292093504639205376_n.jpg
    92460514_244178580042678_2292093504639205376_n.jpg
    253 KB · Views: 216
  • 101680858_271767234183954_5025443449529171968_n.jpg
    101680858_271767234183954_5025443449529171968_n.jpg
    215.2 KB · Views: 204
As it turns out, we only swapped half of the dash harness, the other half going to the left side with the cluster and fuse box and whatnot. It actually hadn't been an issue if we had used the "regular" automatic, but the tiptronic auto actually has 2 additional feeds off the radio fuse that power the shifter and an additional line to the cluster. Because power had been missing to these two things, the cluster wasn't powering up, and the ECU wasn't getting a signal that it was in drive to actually shift.

101680858_271767234183954_5025443449529171968_n.jpg


101529806_351153952513905_8771282563802071040_n.jpg


Relatively simple fix and once power was added in to the two components cluster was working and she is shifting!

20200602_190250.jpg


Split Second FTC to hopefully facilitate turbo with the auto ECU

20200602_200427.jpg


Interior coming back together and actually starting to look like a car again! Decided to swap the ES seats and wheel over, as my MSP ones were in rough shape.

More progress soon! Turbo is not hooked up yet, need to bring it to get the intercooler piping done up at some point in the near future.

Special Thanks:
Tim - hosting this BS, providing parts, and actually doing a ton of the work
Andrew @mazdaspeedp - General emotional support and semi-frequent bitching about how this is wrong
Nick on MSPE for the SSFTC
 
20200604_172328.jpg

SSFTC mounted - didn't realize how much bigger it was compared to the SSAFC 👀

20200604_172249.jpg

Rest of the interior is back together (at least in the front), wiring finished and tucked away, radio put back in

20200604_172317.jpg

Pillar triple gauge pod installed w/ wideband, boost, and trans temp gauges

CEL is only for an EVAP sensor that I'll be working out shortly, nothing actually mechanical related - woo!

20200604_172400.jpg

Temporary setup without intercooler just to make sure things are working and it is in fact building boost (which it does!). Car is still parked for now, but will be getting FMIC setup piped soon.

20200604_172232.jpg

Maiden voyage just to the car wash down the street and back, for his first wash since October last year. Clean and shiny again!
 
Brian you mad man.. might have to turbo swap an auto p5 I may be getting in the future hehe. Would love to see how the car behaves with the turbo and how the trans holds up. Curious to see how smoothly the car shifts when stepping on it lol
 
Brian you mad man.. might have to turbo swap an auto p5 I may be getting in the future hehe. Would love to see how the car behaves with the turbo and how the trans holds up. Curious to see how smoothly the car shifts when stepping on it lol

So far it downshifts and upshifts just fine under boost. I haven't been romping on it yet though as it's untuned, but done a few short pulls so far and shifts pefect.

excellent work. That's such a cool idea- that probably should have had an option from the factory lol.

Probably wasn't worth it due to being such small production numbers. People have also wondered how well it will hold up to the extra power, but with how fragile the manual trans are in these cars, I have my doubts it's actually any worse.

The biggest factor would be heat. I have the trans temp gauge that will be connected inline and I'll see how temps get after some hard driving. If they're getting too high, I'll probably end up adding an additional trans cooler as they're cheap enough.
 
Neat! I’ve skimmed other auto boost builds over the past decade that I’ve been on here. I see a few of them upgraded the valve body to handle more power. Not sure if that part is still available but it’ll prolly do you some good if it is. Also a trans cooler is definitely a good idea.

Edit: I dug up one of the old threads (Fishdonotbounce's ATX Turbo Build) and found that it's a valve body from Lentech Automatics!

@Gabe710, copy for your sedan.
 
Last edited:
Back