Building my nephew his first car for under challenge money. Mazda 3 content

So my nephew just turned 15 and it's time to get him a car to drive the 15-20 miles each way to school in rural Nebraska.

So a friend of mine just bought a new to him car so he had his old car just sitting around after it developed a rod knock in number 2 rod. It has 200K miles on it but my buddy did a pretty good job keeping the car up and for the most case it was in pretty decent shape and all of the electrical worked on it. the interior on it is rough from 9 years of kid hauling when not driving to work. Overall though it'll work great for a young driver and it's a manual so he will at least learn how to drive a stick shift.

It photographs better than it really looks. It's got a bunch of dents and scrapes all over it. But if he adds another one, it's not a huge deal.

So the overall plan is to fix the major issues with it mechanically and give him a nice safe car to drive. Then I'll be driving it up to Nebraska from Texas to deliver it to him at the end of August.

Items to be fixed:

New Struts/Shocks

Put in a new motor

New headlights

Give the interior a good vacuuming and wipe down so I feel not gross driving it.

New shift knob

New rear tires

New lateral arms (The bushings are shot)

Anything else I find while in there.

Oh and the best part.....The Cost: $100 and my Lone Star LeMans tickets that I get for free anyways.

So step number 1, new headlights.

As you can see, the ones on there were pretty much toast. There was no amount of rubbing or sanding that was going to bring these back. I found a set of cheaper collision class replacements.

So off came the bumper cover.

Overall, it wasn't a hard job. Just a lot of fasteners that held the cover on so I was unscrewing them for a while but it was pretty straight forward if you have done any panel replacement.

I got the rear shocks in over last weekend. It was an easy job. Took longer for me to jack the car up and take the wheels off than it did to change them. No pictures but the original shocks had 200K miles on them and I was surprised they were not blown but there was no fluid residue on them.

On to the motor. I pulled the oil filter and saw enough flakes to make you think it was glitter so it was time to shop for a motor. I was expecting this but I was secretly hoping that it wasn't the case.

So off to find a motor for this car. With some good advice from the hive, I found a really nice 2.5L from a ford fusion in a yard a few states over. Even after shipping it was a lot less than any of the 2.3L engines locally. It arrived today:

At first glance, it seems as advertised. I was able to confirm last recorded mileage for the VIN and it's consistent with what they said. So for less than $500 shipped, I've got a 37K miles 2.5L for him. It should be a really nice motor for this car. This weekend we start to put it in.

Dude, a 2.5-swapped stick-shift Mazda3 for a first car?!? Sweet project!

Looks great! I hope the swap goes well!

Any idea why the original motor went kaput?

Javelin, I'm probably going to like it so much that I build me a hatch later. :)

Cybereric, The car has 200K miles on it so I'm just thinking age and miles got to it. They were still running the original 5-20W oil in it and I really think that you need to run 5-30W oil in these motors. I always did with my first Mazda 3 I owned.

Awesome project!

I had an 05 SP hatch, and loved it.

I'd like to get another hatch, but rust free and MTX. I'd bet it runs great with the 2.5 swap

I had (fairly sure) the first 2004 Mazda 3 hatch sold in Rock Hill SC / Charlotte area. (Charlotte mazda did not have them and was still trying to clear mp5's, we bought from Rock Hill and were told it was the first.)

Nov 2003. I was not allowed to drive it until dec 25th... I snuck it out a few times and remember people stopping me to find out what I was driving.

Had it for 6 years and 75k miles. 4 sets of tires (I was abusive) lots of autocross (I suck at fwd) and one thermostat were the only issues. Oh and a rear set of brake pads every 30k miles. I also put a "trubendz" exhaust on it. (Magnaflow cat back exhaust) and a AEM cold air intake. I thought it sounded fantastic.

Had to sell because the center console put a semi-permanant bruise on my knee and I wanted a 350z...

Hopefully your nephew is under 6ft or the soft part of his knee will hit the hard corner of the center stack when riding the highway.

Hopefully this works.

I wonder if they changed the console because I'm 6'1" with a 35" inseam and never had a problem with my 2008 I owned prior. I know they did some interior changes for the mid-term refresh of the Gen 1's. I drove that thing 50K miles in 2 years running all over south Texas and Louisiana

I'm really excited to work on this. I just wish he wasn't so far away so he could get his hands dirty with me. I told him that he is going to have to learn to do the basic maintenance on it as the normal jiffy lubes would see that pull in and say WTF? as soon as they get to the oil filter.

Dad drove a mazdaspeed 6 ca 2007 or so when he was looking for a new sedan. He was enjoying the entire test drive. Just before we pulled into the dealer I asked him. "how is your knee" moment I said that he turns to me "it freaking hurts, wow"...

I did not know there was a fitment issue, so the driver side is very narrow? My wife has one of the newest Gen's and it seems fine.

it's actually fine, other than when driving the gas pedal leg usually leans against the console. I've spoken to a few people and it is hit or miss if you've had the issue.
For Dad he only noticed it once I mentioned it. Then it bothered the heck out of him.

I have the same fitment problem but it is solved by using cruise control a lot on long drives. On city or spirited drives my foot moves around enough from gas to brake that it is not an issue.

I don't know if the 2.3 was available as a stripper with the 5spd, but if it is a true base model without cruise, adding cruise is super simple. If so, also look at replacement seats, the true base-model non-adjust ones SUCK.

Both this one and the one I had prior were S model 5 speeds so they both had cruise. My nephew is a little shorter than me so I don't see it much of a concern. I guess I use cruise all of the time so I never noticed it on trips.

So I started to strip the motor down because most of the accessories will be from the 2.3L. You can tell they weren't lying on the miles because the insides look immaculate. There was nothing in the oil filter and the valve train and chain guides look really good.

Looks like I got a really good motor. I'm happy. I'll start to tear into the car Friday and try to bust it out in a weekend. I've got an AC unit to keep the garage nice and cool while we are working.

Oooo! Please post details on the cam sprocket or cam swap part of this swap too. I really want to do this to my '03.

He shouldn't need to do a cam or sprocket swap as the chassis is an 07. I never even took the timing cover off when I did this swap to our 07.

Yeah no work with the Cams for me.

Here is a good walkthrough on the works needed with the cams for your 03 though: http://www.mazda3forums.com/61-powertrain-2004-2009-mazda3/692793-how-mazda-ford-2-5l-swap.html

is it a direct, no need to change the ECU swap? like plug in and run?

I dreamed of a bit more torque/power when I had mine.

edit: just spent way to long reading about doing something to a car I no longer own...

Yeah, It's plug and play. The 2.3L ECU can run the 2.5L with no problems. For the most HP, there are some flashes out there for the swap but you can just plug and play by using the right sensors from the 2.3L engine.

So I got to work pulling the motor. I got the old motor out and found a lot of carnage from age. I shouldn't be surprised but all of the motor mounts were toast, both ball joints were destroyed. I took the CV joints out and they were in pretty rough shape. The boots were ripped on the outer tie rods. So I had to do a bunch of shopping. I took off the upper mounts on the front struts and they just were toast. The mount just disintegrated

Oh well, he will have a car with a transmission that has 50K miles on and an engine with 38K. The front end will be mostly rebuilt and I'll get him a fresh alignment.

The engine actually came out pretty easy. The nice part with how they are building these things is it's pretty easy to pull out the engine and transmission as a complete assembly and then separate them outside the car.

So I won't get the motor back in this week but I'll have it all ready to go so I can drop it in first thing next Saturday.

I have fond memories of our old 1st gen Mazda3. This kid is going to get an UNUSUALLY good starter car.

I'm assuming you took it out from the top? I've read about both ways... Just trying to learn from the others here. :)

Yeah, I took it out from the top. It's really easy that way. I didn't want to drain the AC of freon so I just left that all connected in the car and then lifted the motor out from the top. By putting the front of the car down as low as you can and still move the engine hoist, it comes out really easy from the top.