Aloha,

When the protege was running it was smooth, it would idle rough only at stops. can feel it very much thru the steering wheel. put the car in neutral and that would help alot, almost taking away the vibrations, no other problems....any ideas?

second, my son ran the car with a leaking freeze plug and one of the heater lines had a pinhole leak in the metal stub that's pressed into the head. Anyways it lead to a blown gasket. i could not locate a reconditioned head since i couldn't use the old one with a small leak in the heater pipe that is pressed into the head under the distributor and my shop here couldn't help me. i found one online. bought it and find that my z5-105 head that is DOHC with a chain connecting the cams is replaced with a head that is stamped z5 14-2. it looks exact except it does not have the chain, it uses two sprockets to drive the cams and so i don't use the large sprocket and small intermediate sprocket, they're replaced with two sprockets of the same size side by side. I can't get my timing belt over the sprockets, they are too tight. the seller told me this is the correct head and asked if my original head is a japan engine, but in my hayes manual, my head is the standard head with the chain. my standard belt is 125 teeth. do i just change to the 145 teeth and that'll solve my problem? also, i'm wondering if he may have sent me the wrong sprockets as he sent them in a second shipment once i told him the head was different and had no threads for my intermediate sprocket or threads to reuse my chain for the cams. he said he had another head with sprockets on them and would send them to me to use with the head. can i still salvage this head with a belt change? could he have sent me the wrong size sprockets thats for another engine, or am i wishing too hard and need to fight for a refund?

oh yeah, when the car ran, my a/c worked fine on all settings except high. it would shut off completey, fan and all if i switched to high, any ideas on what that could be? my switches were the manual lever where i had to move the lever from left to right to changesettings.

 

i forgot to add that i have a 1997 protege 1.5l DOHC

 

i would just swap out the belt for a larger one and see if you can get the timing right. if the right timing cannot be found, the cam gears are the wrong ones. they should be correct though. the only differences that i have seen with cam gears in these cars are two different sizes large and small. hemay have sent you the head off of a 1.8L 626, in which case, the heads are interchangable

 

you should try the belt off of a 2002 protege 2.0 L. you may also have to swap the tensioner.