The aspire is my first car. I picked it up on craigslist for 1000 bucks in very good condition. This pic was taken the day I brought it home. It was some time in june 2007.

Auto to manual conversion

The 3 speed automatics in these cars are terrible. They don't even have a locking torque converter. The 5 speed swap was my first real mod to any car ever. It was well worth it. I got almost 10 mpg more over the auto and it made the car "zippy" but still pig-slow.

Paint job

I hated the stock purple-blue color. It looked very feminine. Nothing's more manly than black. Too bad I didn't have money at the time and painted my car with spray paint. This is what a car looks like after you spray paint it. POS paint job to match a POS car. I don't recommend using spray paint.

this is what waay too many hours of clear coating, sanding, and polishing will get you. You can see the damage on the drivers door in the second pic from when I slid off the road in the winter and smashed into a road sign. The paint job looked nice for a couple months but then the winter salt and snow destroyed it. I didn't paint it right anyways.

Engine swap time! It's a 125 HP 1.8L DOHC mazda BP engine from a '93 Protege lx.

I completely cleaned the engine inside and out. Put in new rings, rod bearings, crank bearings, water pump, timing belt, and a new gasket set. I didn't put new pistons in because the engine had low miles and the cylinder walls were almost perfect.

Here's my car as it sits now. The paint looks terrible, but I'll do it the correct way next time. No more rustoleum spray cans with no surface prep.

Under the hood

The BP beats the piss out of the crappy 63 HP 1.3L aspire engine. The stock aspire engine barely pulls to 4.5k rpm then falls flat on it face. This beast pulls harder and pulls all the way to 7k rpms. It makes the aspire a fun car to drive. I would recommend this swap to anyone.

Other modifications

Fuel door and hatch release levers.

I can pop open either the fuel door or the hatch by pulling a lever down on the floor next to the drivers door. I got it straight from australia where they come standard on aspires. This is my most useful mod so far.

Fully adjustable intermittent windshield wipers and fog lights. I got the intermittent multi-switch from an mx-6. It fits right on the aspire steering column and looks stock. You can also see my stand-in fog light switch. I hooked it up to the factory fog light wiring. I couldn't find an actual fog light switch (which is rare) so I jerry-rigged up another defrost switch in it's place.

Tachometer.

Inside-adjustable mirrors from a 4 door aspire.

Battery relocation to the trunk.

6 1/2" pioneer speakers all around.

Future mods:

Window tint.

2 1/2" exhaust.

Hatch cargo light.

Power locks.

Power windows.

Small subwoofer in the trunk.

15" rims.

G-series tranmission swap, stage 2 clutch, and a good turbo set up for my new engine.