If you had a Protege5, you'd know. VTCS is stupid. rip those butterfly valves out, use metal epoxy to fill the holes where the actuator rod was, and leave the stupid sensor plugged in so that the ECU is fooled into thinking its doing its job! Alternatively, leave out the VTCS actuator/solenoid and swap out that ECU with one found in a Mazda Protege MP3; the car won't faceplant so hard past 6kRPM.

--

Real quick drawing out of my tiny sketchbook where I practiced composition, but with a little more clutter than my previous drawings. Wasn't intended to be a total show-stealer in terms of detail; just wanted to get ideas and shapes across.

Inspired after I reflected fondly upon my past car, which was a lovely little Mazda Protege5. I modified it, I raced it, and I broke parts off of it. That FS-DE is such a crap engine that Mazda themselves struggled with it when they came out with the Mazdaspeed variant. I swore and got pissed off at the thing when the piston rings and valve seals went bad and started smoking out the neighborhood, and I damn near cried when it got totaled. I miss that thing.