I've always wanted a BJ chassis Mazda Protege. Looking at the car, it has a mix of boxy body lines smoothed over with rounded corners. In the past, I've always fancied the boxy generation of cars such as E30 BMW 3 series, SAAB 900s, MK2 GTis , GLis, Sciroccos, Corrados & older Hondas. Cars like these have something that the newest don't....and thats Character of the timeless sort. And they won't be building cars like these anymore, ever... So when the chance to buy one came, I jumped on the opportunity. I spotted this car sitting on a car lot, way in the back as if hiding it from view was the attempt. My query about it revealed it was a DX model with a 5spd manual, 2.0 liter FSDE engine and the optional sports suspension with 140k on the clock. After a test drive and some negotiating, I bought my first Mazda. I knew it would need a few things, typical of a used car. The car started fine, drove well, a/c cranked out ice cold air, but it had some clunks in the suspension. The shift lever was awfully loose, and it had what I found later to be electrical ground issues. The ground issue turned out to be a badly corroded ground cable. When fixed, this remedied a lot of problems, especially with lighting and ac blower motor but it wasn't over there. It wound up needing a battery, starter and alternator. After that, I drove the car around for several hundred miles and months to see if anything else would break......to my surprise, nothing broke. At this point, I started to develop a trust relationship with this car as it seemed willing and able to take me anywhere I wanted without any issues. After I saw the rumor about these cars being reliable was true, I started replacing parts that would keep the car going. Timing belt, water pump, radiator, hoses, belts, gaskets and seals, you know preventative maintenance stuff. From there, I repaired the shift lever with brassoil shift bushings from Corksport. Then like most car enthusiasts, I started looking at the car wondering how I could make it look, ride and sound better, remedy issues that plague the car and give it extra HP for that all around great fun factor......And that is when the mods began. If you've read this far, then maybe you can watch a little more as I put my personal touches on this fun, reliable daily driver. For updates in text or video form, follow this post. 
The pictures show the car before and after lowering and its current state. Please note: The Youtube videos about the car do not show the addition of lowering springs, or wheels. These were added at " a spur of the moment ". The videos cover issues and additions starting with an a/c compressor bearing repair. ( This is when I decided to start a video catalog ) The actual first repairs were mentioned above along with a few others not mentioned here or shown in video format.