One more thing - which hose do you plug? The one going up, or the one going towards the back of the car?

 

Shaderman,

I disconnected the hose at the entry into the solenoid and pluged the solenoid, as this is a direct path into the intake manifold. If you turn the car on and put your finger over the solenoid hole with the hose disconnected, you should feel a suction (if the car is cold). I would imagine if you don't plug the solenoid, the computer may pick up this vacuum leak and could turn on the check engine light (just a guess).

As for the hose itself, I put a little tape on it just so I dont get bugs crawling up it or anything.

BTW I used a little rubber cap that fit the solenoid hole just right to cap it off.

 

I think MOST people are exagerating about this "rattle". I have a slight rattle, if you want to call it that, in the morning when I start the car. I couldnt tell you if Ive been in a car that didnt do this when you first start it in the morning. It only last about 15 seconds for me. After I start driving, its nothing but fun! :P Remember, even tho the Protege is a great car (best bang for the buck) it is NOT a perfectly built car (you tell me a car that is). It will have slight irregularities. I LOVE my P5, and I dont take these things to serioulsly, unless I see it causing a problem down the line.

My question is, does any 2000 and 2001 Protege Sedan owners hae this? Or is it just the 2002 P5 owners?

 

mnkyboy - I don't think people are exaggerating. I have this rattle, and it really bothers me. It is quite loud and people do turn their heads when they hear it. It also lasts for more than 15 seconds for me. It usually takes about 2-3 minutes for the car to warm up to a level where the rattle goes away. This is not a build irregularity - it is a definite problem which needs to be fixed. When I disconnected the solenoid I became *much* happier with my ride.

Cheers,

Eric

 

Does your engine light come on? What does the solenoid do for the car? Does it affect performance?

 

Yes, my light comes on because I simply disconnected the solenoid instead of plugging the hose. I plan to plug the hose soon so that the light will go off, but to be honest the light doesn't really bother me compared to the rattle. Performance wise, there's absolutely no difference from my perspective.

Cheers,

Eric

 

Yeah its no exaggeration, it sounds like ****. And yes it does last for about 2 minutes. And no it doesn't not have to be freezing outside. It was 67 degrees here yesterday, and I started my car and rattled all the way out of my apartment complex, GHETTO, and didn't stop till I was down the road aways. I did that unplugging the solenoid, and my light came on too. I plugged it back in cause I didn't want the code to do anything else to my computer, but if its no big deal, then yeah screw it. I would much rather roll around with my check engine light than that hideous rattle. I'm still trying to figure what lines that one dude is talking about pluggin up. I'm confused. And when you have whatever hose you're tlaking about plugged up is your solenoid unplugged too. I can't quite fiure out what you're talking about. But I would like to know, so I can stop this. Thanks.

 

here are some pictures of my engine, can you give us some more detailed instructions on how you did this:

 

Wouldnt it be stupid to have your engine light on all the time, knowing what is causing the engine light to come on? If you did this, then if something else where to fail, then you might not know until it is to late, since the engine light is always on!

 

Well than it'll be time to call Mazda's punk asses up, plug the solenoid back in, and tell them to fix your ****. AS long its still under warranty, I ain't worried about having the chek engine light on, when I know that I'm causing it.

 

I'll put up pictures and clear instructions as soon as I do it (hose plugging) to my car. That will most likely be sometime early next week. For now, disconnect the green connector circled above if you don't want the noise ...

Cheers,

Eric

 

I dont think you understood me, if you have the engine light on all the time, and "something" happens to the car that you cant see or hear, but the engine light would come on if this thing were to happen, then if the engine light is already on, you wouldnt know that "something" has happened. Just wanted to give you a heads up in case you didnt think of that.

 

My plan had been to plug the connector back in from time to time to make sure everything was ok. Now that I plan to do the hose thing I'm not so concerned since it will just bypass that part of the diagnostics.

Cheers,

Eric

 

Nightowl,

A while back Rodslinger helped me out with this.

On the 6th picture down, right above/behind the red strut tower brace you see the 2 solenoids mounted on top of the intake manifold. One has a green connector and one has a white connector. The green one is the only one I worked with.

It seems the people who have the check engine light may have disconnected the actual electrical connector. What I did is left the electrical connector "as is" and disconnected the actual vacuum hose on that solenoid. If you follow the vacuum hose on the green one it will get to a vacuum actuator near the rear of the head. This seems to actuate the plate inside the manifold (which apparently is at least partly to blame for our noise). If you remove the hose from the source of the vaccuum at the solenoid, that vacuum actuator will no longer move the plate inside, and the noise goes away. If you play around with plugging and unplugging the vacuum hose at the solenoid while the engine is on (and cold), you'll see this actuator snap open and closed (like if it were part of the throttle body). Once the car is warm the solenoid seems to switch off not letting any vacuum through (hence our noise goes away when the car warms up).

I have not disconnected the electrical connection. Maybe this, along with plugging the hole where the vacuum hose was attached to, fools the computer into thinking nothing has changed. I would not leave the hole on the solenoid unplugged as it essentially allows unfiltered air strait into the intake manifold(since that is where the vacuum comes from).

About the only change I have noticed is that at idle when cold, the exhaust doesnt smell perfectly clean, like an ULEV vehicle would. From what I have gathered from this forum, the plate I was refering to above is a big part of what makes our P5's ULEV.

So far so good (after about 3000 miles). But if something bad does happen, oh well... I plug the hose back in and take it to the dealer to take care of.

Sorry for the length, hope this clears this up some.

 

For those who want the abridged version of my previous post (sorry about the length)

1. Open hood
2. Find the 2 black side by side solenoids on top of the intake manifold (one with a green connector, the other with a white one)
3. On the one with the green connector, simply unplug the vacuum hose on top of the solenoid.
4. Get creative and find something to plug the hole on the solenoid that will give you a good seal and wont get sucked in. (Seems like electrical tape worked for about a week until I found a good plug).
5. Close hood and enjoy normal operating engine sounds

PS
6. Dont blame me if something breaks