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I was at a buddy's place the other night and I was looking down at my MX-3 parked below from his 17th floor balcony and just found it neat how it was smaller than all the other cars ;D

Work has been keeping me busy. Also been helping a friend fix his vw for him to sell.
Ive been spending some time also getting parts for my car. Hopefully i can slap my stuff together real soon. Just need to but a few more things and i can start putting it together.

I was tired of my MX-3 looking like crap so I decided to do a few visual mods. I blacked out my side markers and threw on my smoked turn signals that I've had laying around for a while.



Also I took the headlamps off my red MX-3 as they were in better shape and then I polished them up on top of that. Below are both pairs side by side, my old ones are at the bottom and the ones that I polished up at the top. Big improvement, no more yellow!

Did some engine work recently. Let me start by saying that I've put on just over 4k on the ZE already and the oil level is still at full! It's so nice to have a fresh(er) engine! Ahhh. A while ago I had picked up a bunch of goodies from an old school member from back in the day who is local, some of which included the SS headers and powdercoated red valve covers. So I decided it was time to do a switcharoo as I was still using stock probe headers and I liked the look of the PC valve covers more.

Here are the headers as I got them (after removing the 4 seized O2 sensors), heavily used:


After I restored and painted them



While I was under the car I thought I'd show you guys some of the goodies I've got on my KL-ZE that I never got a chance to before =P

My sexy aluminum EGR block-off plate:


My Fumoto quick-drain oil valve:


And here are the valve covers side by side for a comparison, powder coat on the left, high heat paint on the right. It's not so much that I don't like how mine turned out, it's that they are a darker shade of red which I don't like, it's almost brown. Those caps on the cans need to be more accurate !

damn that looks really good. i like the clear lens' too.

Looking good, I like the idea of the quick drain plug. Where did you get that?

Your obsessed with KL01 PCV's man.. Almost tops my shot

I had a hard time focusing on the motor because that rusty rad cover was glaringly distracting. Not sexy dude, not sexy.

Dan I wouldn't be talkin' if I were you, the engine bay in J-Beef's MX-3 could use some serious TLC

Jordan, it's true! Guilty. But ya can't blame me, they look so much better than the ugly brown and blue ones that are only available now. It would top yours if I had a cleaner engine and a DSLR And yeah I can't wait to use that quick-drain valve for my 1st oil change (since the ZE) soon! Honestly it's probably a useless mod, just keeps your hands cleaner during oil changes and makes things a little quicker. It was like 25 bucks online.

hey Dan...................shhhhhhh

don't knock him down on something he so excited about.......huh

He'll get to it......i'm sure

Igor..it looks great........nice colour!

DEB

Get ready for a long read, I've had quite a dramatic weekend lol. I decided to tackle the Probinator chip which I've had for a while now but have been too intimidated to attempt the job. I've got very little soldering experience, I've soldered basic things like speaker wiring and harnesses for decks and stuff but never an integrated circuit onto a circuit board

Let me tell you, I've only got 1 ECU (that matters) so if anything were to happen I'd basically be screwed. All this time I've been running a MX-6 ECU with a KL02 VAF. It was good but obviously not perfect. However being that my MX-3 is a 94 there is the issue of only having 1 coolant sensor and the supposed problem of the chip (designed for MX-3s) reverting everything to 92-93 and requiring that extra sensor. I wanted to avoid this issue so after looking into it and doing some research I decided I'll actually chip the MX-6 ECU to ZE specs and run the KL02 VAF, just like a Probe/MX-6 setup as they never seem to have any issues.

So here goes, it took me ALL day yesterday to desolder the stock EPROM and solder in the socket for the chip. And oh man what a nightmare it was; getting all the solder off was messy and some of it went where it shouldn't and I was worried it was gonna short out some circuits or something. Plus I was paranoid I'm gonna fry something! I cleaned up all spilled solder as best as I could with a wick and put the chip in and eagerly put the ECU back together and went to the car to start it up. It did, except it died right away I put it in diagnostic mode to see if I got any codes ...and it wouldn't. With 10 & ground jumped it acted like nothing happened, as if there was no ECU at all. So I'm thinking "F***! I hope it's the chip being on backwards", took out the ECU, took it apart again and pulled the chip out but wasn't careful and broke off two of its legs/pins! FAWK! So get this, I solder the pins back on to the chip lol, put it in the other way (even though I was sure it was the right way the 1st time but w/e), all that work and it still does the same thing... I had a breakdown guys, lol. I thought I f***ed up and was gonna need a new ECU and a new Probinator chip and that I should just mail him the ECU next time, aaaaaaaah!

This morning I started calling junkers to see if they had ECUs and getting quotes. But I thought I'll try to clean up the circuit board some more to make sure there is no solder causing shorts. And while I was at it I decided to give the pins a bit more solder in case some of them weren't making proper contact with the board. Afterwards another attempt at starting the car, and this time it wouldn't fire up at all, it just cranked. So I thought hmmm that's interesting. And this new result got me excited. I decided to flip the chip again back to the position it was in originally, PRAYING that this will cause it run. Plugged it back in, turned they key and... YES! She roars to life And no CEL either! Guys I've never felt such joy hahaha. I should be diagnosed with bi-polar or something cause I went from total depression to ultimate happiness!
And now photos of the progress:

The chip:


KL55 ECU from a 94 MX-6:


View of the dismantled ECU and the EPROM that needs to go:


Stock EPROM desoldered:


My messy soldering job:



The finished product:


Stock EPROM did not survive:

Good work Igor. A solder sucker would of helped to remove the excess solder. Let us know what you think of the chip.

Yes you are correct I've been out cleaning my engine well by hand with degreaser and brake cleaner. touche'

You didn't get a socket with that chip? It would've saved you so much time because you'll only have to solder once. I have a pretty awesome solder sucker that you could've borrowed, would've made everything much easier. Oh and if you're still looking for a lip there's a teal GS with a decent looking lip at Cookville Auto Wreckers, I was there a few days ago.

EDIT: Stupid me didn't read the socket part, whoops. And I broke a leg off my KL31 chip and lost it, I soldered on a really thin piece of sheet steel and it worked.

BTW: You know of anyone selling their car? I'm getting rid of mine, rust issues...

nice build man

So how does the probinator chip feel?

Demonicdst wrote:nice build man

Thanks bro

Daninski wrote:So how does the probinator chip feel?

Honestly it feels exactly the same as the unchipped DE ECU I was using, minus the check engine light for the EGR which is gone now. But I imagine it would be quite a step up from using the K8 ECU, obviously. I need to fine tune a few more things though; replace some parts, etc. It's a used engine so I don't know what I can and can't trust, it's a lengthy process. Updates are coming up!