MX-3.com

Alright, I bought my mx-3 in august. Love the car, lacks in power (1.6 dohc) but I am going to be fixing this problem soon. Recently, my tranny has been giving me problems. When I started to drive, the transmission would slip and just rev and go no where. Pissed me off when this happened. I checked the fluid (yes with the engine running and in neutral) and it was a lil low. I figured this could be the problem so i brought it back to its normal level. Everything was fine till yesterday until it started doing it again. Im pretty sure I have a leak, I have some cardboard under htere now to see if I can pinpoint it.

I hate this transmission. If I knew this was going to give me so much trouble, i would have just looked for a manual mx-3. Im trying to extend the life as much as possible, until i save up enough dough for a atx to mtx swap. Oh that leads me to another question, i searched for it but didnt find anything definitive. Can a MTX be used in my current 1.6 dohc engine, or would I need to change something?

Yes a mtx can be swapped in relatively easily. Do a search there are threads all over on how to do it. You'll need the tranny, clutch, shifter, clutch cylinder, etc. If you have tools, a garage, and a little know-how everything you need to do this in a weekend is right here if you search around some first.

In the meantime find the leak and fix it or you'll be doing this swap before you know it. You can spend $50-$100 changing the fluid and filter, sealing the leak, and adding a cooler and you may get some decent service life out of the current tranny if thats what you want to do. Or take that $100 and a few hundred more, do a search to find out all you need to swap to a mtx, and head to the junkyard. I have yet to see a thread where someone did the mtx swap and wished they didnt (except me, I get sick of raking the shifter all day in all the slow traffic I always get snagged in).