New to mazdas, and have a few Q's
 

Well i've been doing alot of straight line racing with my turbo Honda. I just got a new mazda protege last year as my daily but now i and want to try Auto X. i only have 17k on my car and want to do some mods but don't ant to kill my warranty. What suspension mods can i do that will allow to to keep my warranty. I have 17" wheels and that's it. I know the protege is no powerhouse but it handle pretty well IMO.

GT Spec chassis upgrades are the goods. You think it handles good now... try these things corksport.com and AXRonline.com both sell them. 17' wheels? Is it a MSP? If so then do not get coilovers your suspinsion is perfect for autoX, with the GT Spec add ons. These should run about $700./$800. for all of it

it's not a MSp i just got some 17's when i got the car, and 2 days last some stole my front center caps. But i did get some drop spring new when i bought the car from the dealership, their RED.

The 3rd generation Proteges (and the 1st gen too!) make great little auto-x rides. Great "turn-in", not too bad on plowing, and very forgiving and easy to drive 10/10ths at the limit. While they aren't rocket ships, it's one of the best handling FWD chassis out there, especially "right out of the box" stock. Don't spread that around either, we Protege owners like to keep it Our Little Secret! Some minor mods can make it sweeter still. Enjoy!

I'm partial to the Mazdaspeed suspension componants. I know you guys will argue about some other products but the Mazdaspeed Protege is rated as THE BEST HANDLING FWD PRODUCTION VEHICLE EVER MADE. You can't argue with that. Mazda went as far as to buy the rights to Laguna Seca Raceway to use as their testing grounds to fine tune the suspension on their cars. Look at the 60' slalom on the MSP....74mph!! That ties with a porsche 911 TURBO. Seriously, do you need anythign better?? If you put the Mazdaspeed suspension (struts, springs, sways) and you're getting beat it's because you're a bad driver and no amount of parts is going to help that.

Let's raise an offering!

Get yourself the racing beat front and rear sway bars, tockico blues, you've got springs, a front strut bar, some camber bolts and real tires and you've got a sweet handleing car!

be aware that MOST of teh GT-spec chassis parts will put you in S-mod where slicks and serious power ar required...the mods I listed above are quite good for STS

I'm new to the protege engines are they very responsive to engine mods like other companys.

Nope they dont seem to be very responsive to any engine mods aside from a turbo or maybe soon to be a supercharger.

I knew Mazda has a bunch of races there, but I didn't know that about the MazdaSpeed testing grounds bit. Thats pretty impressive considering Laguna Seca is one friggin' bitch of a track.