Here are now some pics from inside the car:

I just finished the door cards

Picture of the light pod

And the skid plates

Still need a lot of work but it really close to the end. Tires will be Pirelli T6 (deals with Relais Tuning from Sherbrooke) mounted on 14" VW wheels

Suspension should be Hotbits DT1.

 

Looks clean,but cage appears to be missing gussets (and cross bracing in the backstays) that are required by FIA standards- I'm curious as to what guidelines it's built to?

 

The cage have already been CARS approve. Don't know much about...

 

I re-read- I may be incorrect about the backstays needing bracing.


Bumeister's Protege had a lot of non-Protege parts on it. A nice, clean sensible 2WD car is easy to campaign and have fun.

 

Is P class more populated in CARS? I ask because my old MKII GTI was a P class car, but I ran it in G2 anyway. Mainly because I didn't need to follow stricter P class rules, and second, nobody ran the class. I'd just run G2, will make it easier when doing modifications to the car down the road.

But the Protege is a nice car. I ran a previous generation (pretty much an Escort) for two 24 hours of LeMons races. Car was strong both events. Running with Mazdaspeed contingency is also an added bonus. Lurch might chime in on lessons learned with his, although he had a pretty in depth G2 build as well.

 

Nice looking car !

Is P class more populated in CARS? I ask because my old MKII GTI was a P class car, but I ran it in G2 anyway. Mainly because I didn't need to follow stricter P class rules, and second, nobody ran the class. I'd just run G2, will make it easier when doing modifications to the car down the road.

I'm not sure about Quebec, but here out west, it's mostly the opposite - the few cars in production class are there mostly ( I think ) because the class is un - populated and there are a couple of very fast gr. 2 cars that would be hard to compete with. It's easy enough to change classes in CARS especially from Production to Gr 2 / 5.

The only question from the pics is the seat mounts ( can't see them clearly ), they must be to FIA specs. and as it just changed June 1 you can bet they will be checked...If your logbook was issued in the last couple of months, they probably have been checked and OK.

There is some lee-way for previously logbooked cars, as long as the mounts are strong, but new logbooks MUST meet FIA diagrams. You can bet seat mountings will be checked at CARS events for the next while....

 

Here in Quebec P class is not as popular as the G2, but for a starting point it will be hard enough. I will have to compete against some very fast Civic SiR (Si for US guys) and like rally 99 says it will be esay to upgrade later.

I just have been logbooked. The mounts are square tubing welded to the car and OMP sides bolted to the seats.

 

Stay in Production until you have the either 1) the budget to do G2 properly or 2) you Actually come across the theoretical "its hundreds of dollars cheaper to fix it with an Open fix, than a production fix.

Everyone told me not to run P, "its too expensive" ... well 1200 stage miles later I'm still waiting to run into something that's more expensive to fix with the correct stock or oem part. Can you say pick n pull anyone?

I ran in production class for 3 years, GREAT EXPERIENCE. while a lot of the G2 fields was staying at home, typing into a keyboard , saving up for for the next big upgrade, or paying off their Visa bills for their awesome build up, i was out at rallies. (yes a few times grumbling about how it would be nice if i could upgrade some part) but truth be told upgrading cost money.

when i finally did upgrade my car i had to miss a few rallies. and i'll probably miss a few at the end of the season to finish paying off my upgrade debt.

Worst case that will happen to you is you'll be the only one in P-class. uhm, oh well, its very easy look at the over all results and see who you are beating. and even better, everyone else will see who you are beating (and know you are in a lessor car)



USRC does an awesome class inclusion rule that i love!!! USRC Open 4wd, is everyone 4wd, and usrc Open 2wd, is everyone 2wd. production awd/2wd points are done separately. Not sure if CARS does something similar or not?

you never know, if you sign up to a few events as production, maybe there are a few other guys who have production cars but have been signing up as G2 because they **think** there is no one else. or maybe even some peeps will downgrade to play with you in P class.

 

Stay in Production until you have the either 1) the budget to do G2 properly or 2) you Actually come across the theoretical "its hundreds of dollars cheaper to fix it with an Open fix, than a production fix.

Everyone told me not to run P, "its too expensive" ... well 1200 stage miles later I'm still waiting to run into something that's more expensive to fix with the correct stock or oem part. Can you say pick n pull anyone?

I really think you're right, I just bought 500$ worth of parts:

It's complete and everything work, same engine/tranny...

 

Brilliant! ... it can double as a recce car too! hehe

 

Through your build have you reinforced any areas of the car like strut mounts steering comps ect. Are you allowed to in production class? I am interested in how much you have done. Thanks.

 

For production classes the assumption is unless you are specifically told you can change something - you can't......

To quote the CARS rulebook, however The reinforcing of the structural parts of the suspension (with the exception of anti-roll bars) and
its anchorage points by additional material is allowed. Strut tower braces may be added, provided
no alterations to air cleaner housing or other components are made. The roll cage may be used
to brace the vehicle’s suspension.

So you can to a point....*** I'm not sure about NASA & Rally America***

However welding the suspension pieces MAY be a problem for the highway safety inspections

Mike Dyer
Rallywest Tech Director

 

Great parts car buy by the way, now if you can just keep it on the road and have someone drive it to service.........

 

BTW i had a lot of luck running the smallest rims that would fit over my brakes (13's) then i paired that with Silverstone S505, Porterfield R4 pads (a nasa membership gets you 20% off) and hi temp fluid, i was using wilwood 600 exp (has a much higher west boiling)

any who sorta off on a tangent. but small rims, small tires, great brake fluid, and great pads, and you'll be full of win

 

For now I've got no reinforcement in the strut tower, I've had a strut tower bar in front from Protegé5 and the cage tied the rear suspension as seen here:

Great parts car buy by the way, now if you can just keep it on the road and have someone drive it to service

No more road for this car, the reason it was so cheap it's because he need an inspection to get it back on the road

any who sorta off on a tangent. but small rims, small tires, great brake fluid, and great pads, and you'll be full of win

I've bought Pirelli T6 and mounted on some old VW wheels. I'll take your advice about the fluid and the pads and try to keep it low cost.

 

No bars in between the rear stays? That's odd for a new cage.

Also, I'm not exact on this so need to research, but you can cross the harnesses in the rear, helps make sure they don't slide out if I'm correct.

 

Also, I'm not exact on this so need to research, but you can cross the harnesses in the rear, helps make sure they don't slide out if I'm correct.

If you are using a HANS, definitely think about crossing the belts to help with retention, especially with that distance from the mount to the seats.

 

and the belt needs to loop back one more time (from http://www.schrothracing.com/main/Media/3barSlide)

 

Great looking Car BTW... when does it hit the stages?

 

Cool build. I've codriven both Lurch's & Nui's Protogs and driven Nui's in several rallysprints.

 

All those X braces add strength, but do they ever make cleaning the rear window fun ! The Arrow hatchback I ran is nice for that, but comes with other issues ( fuel cell & lines in passenger compartment & some wierd metal work for the required bulkhead )

 

Thanks guys for all the advice, I will make sure that the belt doesn't need a third pass. Like rally99 said, the X in the back stays are optional, the only brace I may need to add is an horizontal bar in the main hoop for the harness.

I really appreciate all of your comments, keep them coming!

 

Here's a little update for you guys,

Light pods done and everything is working well!

New dash is in, still need some more bracket but almost done.

Also need some wiring to be done for the terratrip, terraphone.

I've been to a car show to promote the Rallye de Charlevoix

And finally decide to put a Mazdaspeed wing

 

Awesome work on the Protege.

Where did you pick up that light pod?

 

Thanks,

The light pod was sold to me by TEST Racing. He made a mold from the one you see on my car...

Here's an update:

The car now sits on HotBits DT1 and he's race ready, my first rally is in a month (Sanair april 22, I'll do the rally-x) and my first regional should be Saguenay in june.

car in action with the old suspension set up:

 

Nice looking car! Good luck with it!

Things to watch for:

-1.8s use the F series gearbox, which is a bit weak.
-A 2.0 from 2001 should bolt in with a G series box. Might need fore/aft cradle and mounts. And ECU/wiring obviously. I may have donor parts for you if interested.
-If you do go to a G series box, the MX6 and Probe GT had the best gear ratios/final drive of the stock geared boxes. They do seem to hold up to welded diffs/spools, too. Use RedLine ShockProof Light in them.
-We built a custom rear subframe and replaced all the rear lateral links and trailing arms with track rods made from tube with 3/4" rod ends. Much more durable and easier adjustment of rear geometry. Not legal for production, though.
-Our rear subframe bolts through the rear of the floor to some pads that tie into the cage. The stock rear subframe looks as if it could be removed by a sizeable chunk of Canadian Shield, taking the whole rear suspension of the car with it.
-Order the AWR front motor mount from Mazdaspeed (or AWR). The stock one will not last a single rally. In our first season in the car (2001) we returned rental cars with broken motor mounts even after filling the voids with urethane windshield glue. The one on the right side of the engine bay needs stiffening, too. We made some out of urethane/aluminum/stainless bushings.
-The strong point of the car is the knuckles. They are bulletproof.
-Front refresh requires both fenders, hood, and bumper if you want to give it the Mazdaspeed look. Protege5 had the best headlights of the bunch.
-Replace front wheel bearings often. They just don't last super long.
-Another advantage of the 2.0 cars...5 lug wheels same offset and spacing as Evos/better brakes.

I had a street car for 140K very abusive miles. It was beat, jumped, submerged, etc. To my surprise, the rear suspension I thought wasn't up to the task of rallying held up fine on that car, so maybe our mods on the rally car were overkill back there.

Good luck!

Eric

 

Thank you for all the input! I'll keep an eye on the front motor mount and wheels bearings!

For now I keep the 1.8 with stock tranny for production rules. But if I go group 2 I'll do the 2L swap with everything that goes with it (tranny, brakes...) anyway there's much more parts available for those engine.

 

^^^Good info.

I am currently prepping a Protege 5 for rally.

 

-If you decide to turbocharge the 2.0 down the road (or even put a lot of compression into it), invest in real rods.
-An afternoon of creative thought will net a scheme to relocate the alternator to in front of the engine where the AC was, instead of behind. You'll have to use a little from both, the alt and AC brackets. Makes changing alternator a snap instead of dropping skidplate and fighting with the right axle shaft.
-I used an over-center type cam belt tensioner...I think from a Chrysler product...to add an idler to keep the PS belt from taking regular vacations.
-I use spherical bearings in the back pivot of the a-arms. Aluminum carriers with big bearings and stainless bushings. We make them, if you need a set. Otherwise, plan on replacing the rubber ones regularly and fighting with more wheelhop in sand. (Soft motor mounts contribute to the wheel(engine)hop, too.)
-Make sure and put some kind of underbody protection under the whole car (plastic). Use weldnuts and stainless M6 or 1/4 bolts with fender washers to install em. Nothing else lasts.

 

Done some testing before Sanair rally-X in mid-april; had to change the front calipers and at the same time i've put some SS brake line and Hawks pads.

I was really happy with the car at Sanair, finished 13 overall (23 cars at the start and 21 at the end of rally)

 

More pics of the car all cleaned up after Sanair: