Hi fans of old Mazdas,

recently my wife crashed her Tigra Coupe, leaving us in need for a new car. Since she is into small coupés or sports cars, the choices were limited:

On top of the list was a >2011 MX5 NC2 Roadster Coupe Sports line (esp. the special edition Karai). Great car but i only hat two weeks to find one and although i did, we couldnt agree on the price.
Since they still are very expensive, we decided to buy a cheap car for now (maybe future winter car) and look for the MX5 next year. That was after ruling out other alternatives like Audi TT and Hyunday Coupe.
At the end i did what i wanted to do a few years ago when we bought the Tigra: find an MX3.
And i'm in love It's a 94 FL with the cooler cockpit and the B6D 1.6 DOHC engine (107hp). In my favourite color: noble green VQ.
Although it's called MX3, it really is (especially as the 94-98 model) a 323 BG/BA mashup coupe. Engine and interieur are almost 50/50 BG and BA parts. Which is cool if you have a lot of BG and BA parts floating around.

I might add that we moved house (from souther germany to central germany) just 3 weeks ago so basically 2 days after moving we got the car and i'm working on it since - in parallel trying to fix up the house while my wife startet a new job two weeks ago. Busy times.

Anyways, the car. Choices in the MX3 market were limited and i basically bought this one because it had no exterieur body rust (just the front struts which will be fixed), new MOT only 60k miles and they had a second car from which we could swap over parts. Oh, and it's a second owner car.
Unfortunately the first owner was a technology fan (in the early 90s, remember) and the last owner did the repairs himself. Including head gasked (no idea why) and clutch. Oh well.

Upon first inspection i caught the following problems:
- moist interieur / trunk
- no air con although advertised - took me 15 min to convince the seller
- rust at the front struts - but then they all have that nowadays
- early 90s Bosch alarm system with imobilizer and only one half broken remote control
- engine running very rough, lumpy idle
- few dents

But there was good stuff, too and after paying half the asking price we took the car with us, well aware that a lot of work would be coming up...


Compression check before buying to make sure the engine is ok after the head gasket swap:


11s on all 4





So, swapping parts with the donor since the interieur had mountings and holes of mobile holders and cd changers as well as some scratches...




And on the way home - tough choice?


The next day the real fun should start...

Looking forward to your updates!

A car enthusiast will never get a car and not improve it/tinker with it.

Arne

Thanks man - the updates are actually 2 weeks behind now, but i've got a lot on my hands atm. Anyways, day 1:

Let's get started


Since idle was really bad, i suspected wrong timing - so i got some parts and got to it...


There seems to be somthing wrong


First things first - prime the valve cover ^^


Then i got distracted by oil in the cooling system (apparantly the reason for the previous head gasked change)


So i flushed the system and cleaned out the reservoir - if you ever need to do that, dish washer solvent works really well....

Better now:


Then test fitted my winter tires and removed some silly stickers



Dried out the boot aquarium...


And removed 90s spec entertainment


....which is when the real fun started....

...actually, i just wanted to change the radio. I quickly discovered that it was hooked up to the 90s spec Bosch alarm system (must have been expensive).
Well, one thing led to another and i decided to remove it all since we only had one working (but dying) remote control for the alarm and without it, the car wont start.
Alright then.


Chasing wires.


Chasing wires everywhere....






Re-did the patchy wiring on the steering column...


Almost there...


Done.


After 2 days of chasing, pulling and rewiring, the car started again. Next...

Okay, unfortunately the front area has had some undfriendly contact in the past leading to a slightly warped and bondoed front bumper and literally all front lights being damaged in some way. So i got "new" parts and even found some JDM spec yellow fog lenses



Painted the housings



Nice


Decided to renew all the aftermarket wiring starting with the radio...


Updated the gauges with some alloy rings




Added wiring for heated seats due to winter use...


Exchanged almost all of the bulbs for illumination of the switches, sometimes i had to fabricate custom solutions....

You've been busy mate! Good job!

another great job
keep going

the alarm had all that wiring?

Yup, was a great mess ^^

Thought i should post more recent pictures.








With added Mazda6 repeaters:

Now that does look tidy!

Looks beautiful Chris, great work.

Huh, I've been neglecting this forum for far too long
So, we just discovered, how very useful and practical the MX3 is as a family car and it has not missed a beat since it got back on the streets. Therefore it will continue to stay with us
It recently received a new front bumper, V6 lip and spats, new Alpine stereo and JDM Eunos 300 door sills. Pretty happy with the result. The color is just awesome!

Still looks stunning Chris, lovely colour

Just imagine a Lantis in noble green

Think I could just about manage that............

That's looking really good Chris, very nice, I must admit I've been looking at them as a replacement for Meanie while I get the welding done on her

I can only encourage you to do so. Just make sure to get a later model 94-98 and i'd go for the K8 V6 if i had the choice....however, choice is rather limited these days.

Very nice MX3.

Was wondering why the didn't come to Oz- and just figured it out a couple of days ago: they were called a Eunos (later Mazda) 30X here in Oz and got the 1.8l V6.

Patrick

Sorry Chris, I got seduced by a ZXi in exactly the right shade of 11R

Looking very good Chris and very impressed with the work you have done on her so far.

Hats off to you sir...

Thanks for the nice words.
Sometimes i get the craving to rip out the B6 and replace it with the BP from my Lantis. This of course would free up the engine bay to be filled with v6 goodness. But who knows - family life is demanding a lot of time these days
By the way: The little MX3 is a very good family car, it fits the rear baby seat thing and still has enough space in the front. In my Lantis the rear seat belts are too short to even mount the damn thing and in our temporary car (Astra Estate) there is actually less room in the front passenger seat. So MX3 winner

Very sad story, the car got totaled last month. Currently in the process of moving everything over to another shell. Only benefit: the new car has air con and a better color (sparkle green). Will update as soon as possible.

Sad to read that the car ended like that. You came out OK?

Well, my wife still has to Deal with some aftermath, but Overall its okay.
Still sucks to see a good car to go to waste like that.
I'll save as many parts as possible though.