As fun as it is featuring the “hot” and “popular” cars within our sport compact market, it’s always refreshing to shine the light on something different. Victor Colon is an auto mechanic for American Airlines so he’s no stranger to tinkering on mechanical toys. But what’s unique about Victor is not only his job, but his choice of car to build. You see, Victor has gone through quite a few toys in his time, but ultimately decided that the one you see breathing down our necks in the following pages is his biggest pride and joy. Starting off with a 2002 Protégé 5 wagon and moving onto a Subaru WRX STi and even the great Acura NSX, Victor couldn’t help but jump back to his roots when Mazda announced the Mazdaspeed Protégé. A turbocharged sedan fully equipped with Garrett’s GT25R turbocharger from the factory, Victory wanted to explore the limits of the factory setup while setting up the entire package to really show off the potential of the Mazdaspeed Protégé. In Victor’s own words, “The Mazdaspeed Protégé is often dismissed from the beginning. I chose to nickname this car ‘No Respect’ because whether it is at a show or on the street, the Protégé has never gotten a respect, not even a well built one. That was my number one reason to build one, not to be the same as everyone else.” Well, we were listening to Victor’s demands and decided to take a much closer look at his Protégé.
Victor started us off with a story on his first Protégé 5 wagon. Even though it was difficult at the beginning with the 2.0L 130hp motor and no real aftermarket support, Victor with the assistance of HiBoost made a custom bolt on turbo kit. That’s when he got completely bitten by the forced induction bug that we can all relate to. Since he wanted more power, he decided to switch to the STi platform before a deal came up with a Midnight Pearl NSX-T. Now many of us would be hard pressed not to jump on such a beautiful, exotic machine and Victor agreed. After a year or so of the NSX, he felt like he was missing his turbocharged Mazda Protégé 5 more than anything. When Mazdaspeed announced the release of the Protégé, Victor jumped straight on it as a daily driver. But like many of us, he found himself modifying the Protégé more than the NSX! “So out went the NSX so I could concentrate and build what I think is the most completely tuned Mazdaspeed Protégé out there. Not an overly overpowered engine, although it has enough horsepower to compete with other tuner cars. It’s also built to compete in shows and the occasional track day.”
So what all did Victor do to pursue his dreams of having the most completely tuned Mazdaspeed Protégé out there? Well once again Victor ran into the issues of not having an overwhelming amount of aftermarket support so he scoured the web for assistance on his new project. That is when he ran into Sam Lo from Crossover Auto Performance in Plano, Texas. “Sam has been tuning Protégés since the Mazdaspeed Protégé 3 hit the market in 2001 and he specializes in Mazda performance. With his help I found obscure manufacturers making products for the Protégé like custom manifolds, intake, carbon fiber parts, etc. Little by little it seemed that the aftermarket took notice and the big companies started making products. That’s when the pieces of the puzzle started following together and made the car sing.” Some of those major companies were GTspec, Vibrant Performance and Unichip. With their assistance along with several other companies, Victor’s Protégé really came to life.
Starting with the performance aspect of things, Victor wanted to see how far he could take the stock 2.0L engine with the GT25R Garrett turbo with bolt-on components and tuning before he would tear into the engine and upgrade the turbo. “The project turned out to be a success as Crossover Auto boasts some of the most power stock turbo Protégés around.” Victor informed us. Under the hood of his Protégé lies an Injen SRI intake equipped with an AEM dry flow air filter. Additional fuel has been added into the system with Subaru 440cc injectors and a Walbro 255lph fuel pump. Beau at Mental Addiction Motorsports made what Victor would like to call “a work of art” in the form of a turbo manifold. The rest of the exhaust components comprise of a 2.5-inch Callaway downpipe that leads through a Vibrant Performance 3-inch exhaust with high flow cat. Cooling off all the pressurized boost is a Perrin intercooler setup and last but not least, an HKS Super Sequential blow off valve completes off the turbo-related components. With the additional fuel and boost, Victor was content with the power it was making but he desired a little bit more when the competition starts to heat up. Nitrous Express filled that role with their kit along with an n-tercooler ring. Unichip tunes the Protégé with their GP Series ECU while an HKS EVC 5 boost controller makes things quick and easy for Victor when he demands the additional psi.
Ensuring that the car stayed reliable and that no other components would start breaking down or “slipping”, Victor dove straight into the drive train and pulled out the stock clutch and flywheel replacing them with an Exedy clutch and Fidanza flywheel. His preference for an upgraded differential pointed him towards Tochigi Fuji for their LSD piece. Victor also took the time to upgrade the motor mounts with AWR 70 Durometer polyurethane pieces and assisted the Mazdaspeed short shifter with Kartboy urethane shifter bushings.
Now after that was all said and done, Victor realized that many other companies were coming out with some very high quality suspension components. Starting it all off is a set of coilovers from KSport, but GTspec is who really stepped it up on this Protégé. An exorbitant amount of suspension components came from GTspec to really tighten up the chassis and make the Protégé handle like a bat out of hell. Their strut bar, rear trailing arms, front tie-bar, front 4-point ladder bar, rear v-brace, and trunk reinforcement bar are just some of the key components you’ll see bolted on Victor’s Protégé. Balancing any under steer or overseer issues is a set of beefier sway bars from Racing Beat.
Victor then looked into complementing the package he had come up with on his Protégé with some aesthetic modifications that not only made the car look more aggressive and cleaner, but perform nicer when needed to. The first set of Rotora brakes ever sold for a Protégé found its new home on Victor’s and rightly so. Equipped with 4-piston calipers, the Rotora rotors are almost overshadowed by the mint condition Volk Racing TE-37 wheels. Sized at a perfect 18×7.5-inch on each corner, Victor called upon Toyo Tires for their T1R rubber to wrap each wheel. Onto the aesthetics, Victor was pleased when Japan based AutoExe made a few exterior modification pieces for his Protégé. Their front spoiler and front grille founts its way on and then creativity ensued. Victor opted to fit on an OEM Mitsubishi EVO rear spoiler and pulled several carbon fiber components from other companies. TC Sportline helps accent the side of the car with their dry carbon F1 style mirrors, while Xcelerated concepts made Victor a custom carbon fiber trunk. Matching the trunk’s shade is a Fiber Images carbon fiber hood and a set of custom carbon fiber eyelids. Last but not least, Victor sent his Protégé off to Carlos at Mansfield Paint and Body for a splash of Mazda Blazin Yellow Mica paint.
Pleased with the result so far, Victor looked towards finishing touches on his car. Crossover Auto not only worked on the engine performance of the vehicle, but persuaded Victor that a simple 4-point cage with harness bar would do the Protégé some good. So that went in along with a set of Sparco Torino seats and their 3-inch seat belt harnesses. More Sparco components adorn the interior in the form of their Mugello steering wheel, e-brake handle and Grip pedals. A series of gauges from Defi not only entertains Victor during his spirited drives, but also allowed Crossover to help tune the vehicle. Defi’s BF series gauges lights up the interior displaying boost, EGT, water temperature, oil pressure and fuel pressure data. None other than AEM’s Wideband UEGO gauge was used to replay back air/fuel mixture. What Victor would like to call icing on the cake is the ARC titanium shift knob and a series of custom carbon fiber accents in the interior. Stereo wise, Victor kept it simple by swapping out the stock head unit for a Kenwood double DIN DVD player and their speakers.
Hopefully now Victor doesn’t feel as if his Protégé gets no respect nationwide. At the end of the day, his list of quality parts and his determination to build something to set him apart from the crowd. Now here’s to hoping that Victor spends that much time and quality on his daily grind to ensure us the same quality while flying the friendly skies!
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