I've been wanting to ask about the Mazda Proteges in Speed World Challenge since summer. Are they based on the Protege 3? Those have POS 2 liter 130 hp / 135 torque engines. Did they really tweak those engines to have more power than even the BMWs? Those weren't rotary engines?

 

Could always IM Roger Foo on here

 

no, they aren't rotary.
i wouldn't say that they have more horsepower than the BMWs but i will say that our motors were NOT stock.
(we used to run a 3 car protege team in WC)

-tony

 

Off my mind they are 220hp engines supplied from Mazda. Have no clue what kind of engine they are though.

 

i think its the same engine modified with "big" cams

 

Check out the rules on the Speed World Challenge website. Full engine specs are detailed out there for each car.

 

Nope they are built by sunbelt - all the mazda engines for all the teams come from the same place. High compression, balanced and big cams. I do not know the power #'s however. Also dont forget weight - the protoge weighs much less than an E36, stock vs. stock.

 

They're a high horsepower version of the 2.0 liter 130/135hp engine. They make about 220 hp, and are race gas only motors. 13 to 1 compression, Mazda cam blanks reground to spec, Custom tubular 4 into header, etc. Factory Protege 5-speed gearbox is retained and bronze clutch/lightened flywheel assemblies are installed. I dont know much more about them, but I do know that they run ground-control sleeves w/ Eibach/Koni's and race rubber.

 

they run shaved Toyo T1-S tires, the spec tire for the series....

 

we actually ran JRZ shocks and shaved toyo street tires.

 

you wont find any professional race teams running OTS components like koni and GC sleeves...

 

Forgive my ignorance, but a few months back I saw an article in SCC. And the guy had a yellow Protege5 race car that was running a GC/Koni combo. Not sure if was a Speedvision cup car though. Either way all those little Mazda's ROCK! That's why I bought one Mazda picked up where Honda left off...


[Modified by H-PIMP, 4:43 PM 12/30/2002]

 

LOL! Funny, TodaSi and I were just discussing this very issue today after he test drove a new 6. I think I read on the SCCA WC board or SPEED Insider board that Mazda was developing the 2.5L for WC use.

cheers,

 

when i spoke to peter C.. he mentioned that the mazdas are tweaked more than the ITRs... but then the ITRs handling and susp is hell of a lot better than the mazdas. so it all pretty much evens out.

 

actually, we DID run the gc sleeves over our jrz shocks.

-tony

 

Thats interesting to know - although i guess the sleeves is something that cant save you time on the track by spending more on the part.

 

not only that, but it also allowed to run shocks of our choosing and it also made swapping spring rates incredibly easy.