GOT my 323 today...8/26/03
 

Woo-hoo I got my 323 today....It needs some work but its in good enough shape for my DOHC LX pro conversion which will be completely finished by the start of october for sure... with a whole list of extra goodies to go with it....:D

I'll post some pics as soon as i can.

are you dropping the DOHC into the 323 or what?

post all what you plan on doing! :)

How much did you pay for it?

323 are very fun to drive :D

I tried a nissan classic 93 and a toyota corolla station wagon 4x4, both std, and I found them less fun to drive than my 323, even if they were in better condition than my car...

The corolla was really slow, probably of the high milleage(near to 300k km) it had no power until 4000rpm, and no power highier than 5500 rpm.... Still a good car beacause of 4x4, where I live there is a lot of snow :(

I would like to drop a dohc engine in my 323, but its a little bit rusty to do that, but for 500$can its a very reliable car, I've made almost 10 000km with it an abolutely no problem, I've only changed the brakes :D

Congratulation for your buy :D

And we aint the 26 of august :D

look up to your calendar, hope that you didnt miss something important hehehe :cool:

whoops wrong date....thanks for catching that...

First off its a White 91' 323 whith 79582 on the odometer
I picked it up for $950 and it came with stock alloys from a protege lx... (7 spoke 14") with all new brakes all-around also it had mexi-fenders on it (chrome fenderflares...which are only good for collecting rust. so it has some minor rust restoration to be done on it...but only on the wheel wells and theres a spec on the door...

The dealer i bought it from was the worst hick/redneck hillbilly shop i have ever seen. so it had some problems associated with it....
1. Needs a new gas tank (filled it full $14 worth and it leaked out over a quater of a tank.:mad:
2. Bad alternator-and belt
3.cooling fan sensor broke on it.
4.dirty ass interior with the factory radio harness cut off and a 60's truck style radio in it.:rolleyes:
5. Had a vacum leak-but got that fixed.

Found out all of its problems after driving it for an hour...
got it to the nights destination and decided to clean the engine bay...(bad idea) it ran fine before i did this. i just used some high pressure water from a garden hose to make it look a tid bit nicer. and oh boy did that screw things up.

and to top it all off... it came with a whistler alarm system and a cruise control modual both of which were not even hooked up...let alone in working condition.
SO those are going on ebay...unless someone wants them...

And to answer all other questions....
The 323 will have a complete 91' protege LX suspension and drive train...along with the blue interior from the lx
The 1.8l DOHC will be rebuilt and bored 50 over with 10.5:1 compression pistons. intake manifold has been modified for a top end equivalency gain of adding a rx7 MAF...I'll add one of those on as well... it WILL become turbocharged before the year is up.
i have a set of darryl's lower tie bars which are to be installed. as well as his strut tower bars front and rear (when they are perfected)...I have all new calipers front and rear with crossdrilled/slotted rotors in the front and slotted in the back, running SS brake lines. Swaybars are a must as well as lowering springs and cusco front camber plates and all around new struts.. When time becomes allotted it will also under go a change to a GTR block with pauter rods and arp main studs and head studs... following a 99-00 miata head conversion with the valves customed 2mm bigger and 1 mm longer... as well as a good cam setup.

17"s are in order with H&R wheel spacers... and the full OEM GTR bodykit will be the last thing to come around(very pricy though) gotta get it from corksport.

The tranny....well lets just say that ive got plans for that already.

couldn't figure out how to post pics....
so heres a link... the picture is a little big though and fuzzy.


left side
guage cluster
engine bay
interior

Nice car :)

Do the cruise control modul was a factory one?, if yes I might be interested...

Why not do an how-to about the swap? :)

Nice. Sounds like a good project.

Looks like you bought a bundle of trouble, too!

Are you going to do the alternator mod that Darryl did?

Looks decent for a 323. I would sand that engine bay down and paint it over once the engine is dropped out ..
Bruce

Its funny to me to see this gauge cluster in mph :)

Well....Indeed I did buy a bit of trouble
...
first off turns out the alternator was fine just got wet and freaked out(sketchy)

still trys to die on me around corners and such not...(it appears to run out of fuel
(tried to replace the gas tank last night as well
ran into a couple of problems there
1. rear frame bolt broke off in the frame
had to cut it out and replace it from the top down(3hour job- and a big pain in the ass)
2. got the old gas tank out but turns out that I bought a different tank for it and it was the wrong one.:mad:
had to cut out the frome alittle on the underside of the rear seat...
gotta fix that now as well:(

as of now im still out of a car...
and need a new gas tank from the dealer( not gonna try an aftermarket one again)
so thats gonna run pretty pricey as well.
if all doesn't go well with that then im gonna check the fuel filter as well. I might as well go and buy a bosch one and fix that issue for good.

Damn , don't you hate when those little delays frigin hold you up for like 3 or 4 extra hours. I wish ya the best of luck .. Were you not able to find any Gas tanks at the junkyard. I would figure that would run you a fraction of the cost of one from the Dealer ...

Bruce

sounds good project.....some of wut u said i already have on my 323 hopefully we could all meet up someday. goodluck on the project. once u get that engine installed u wont regret it.

My only question is why go with 10.5:1 pistons if you are planning on turbocharging it only a couple of months after you finish building the motor?