A Question

[icespeed]

Hey all, just bought my '10 MS3 this past weekend....

I've read through all the posts in this sub-section ('10+ Engine, tranny, etc) and still had a question...

Bought the car with 12 miles... currently ~200miles. I'm trying to be gentle with her (as I blew up my MSP twice), so other than a few (quite literally four) WOT in 1st and 2nd, I've been pretty conservative driving the MS3. I've yet to boost her in 3rd +.

I've noticed a few things...
- a "crunchy" feel shifting from 1st to 2nd... not really any noises or a noticeable "resistance", just not a smooth shift. Same thing with 5th to 6th (plausibly and possibly that I'm not used to shifting to a 6th?) The other three shifts are smooth. This does not happen every time, but perhaps 1/4 of the time.
- letting her cooldown the minute or so after driving, I hear a random putter out of the exhaust... for lack of a better phonetic, a muted popping... more like a "puh puh" followed by a one to two second pause and then the "puh puh" again. Only noticed b/c I had stepped out of the car for a smoke.
- valve chatter as I sucked down said cancer stick. Of the other 6 mazdas that have been in my family, it took many thousands of miles before the valve chatter was noticeable... again, perhaps just paranoia.

Question is: Are people familiar with these nuances?

I will admit that I haven't had a new car since I bought the MSP in '03, so it's been a long time since I've worried about breaking a car in. Unfortunately, I've become quite paranoid about noises coming from a mazda engine, they always start with a soft tick before the loud boom...

Thanks in advance!

 

[special--k]

I think you are exaclty what you say. A little to Paranoid, take it easy on her for a few gas tanks and then let it rip.

 

[JCell]

well, the first gen ms3 also has an interesting shift feel. i think ppl fix that with motor mount inserts

congrats on the purchase man!

 

[8.5MS3]

1. Stock Rear motor mount is garbage, pick up an aftermarket one, I recommend CPe's. That will keep the engine from rocking, and clean up shifting feel. Solid base bushings will help as well

2. The exhaust sound is normal, as will be the copius amounts of black soot you will begin to love to clean off every 1/2 mile

3. ALWAYS warm up and cool down the motor, these turbos have a history of shitting the bed if not taken care of properly

4. the "ticking" is the DI fuel injectors, and is normal.

Enjoy

 

[icespeed]

Copy that.

Thanks!

Paranoia Level now lowered to Yellow.

 

[8.5MS3]

i still cant believe the tards at mazda didnt give you guys a coolant temp gauge....i mean we all know thats not important on a turbo car

 

[icespeed]

No temp gauge?

Paranoia Level elevated to Level Orange....

lol

In all honesty, anyone who's driven a turbo car should (?) know not to boost right after turning the car on anyways.

I don't think I need the boost gauge in it either... but maybe (?) I'll pay attention to it when I have a few more hundred miles on it and I'm actually boosting. Prolly not.

Of the two, I'd rather have the temp gauge, but in all honesty I didn't really pay attention to it when it was in the MSP. The only reason I put the boost gauge in the MSP was cuz I cranked up the boost from 6 to 12psi... I won't be doing that... evar... again...

Now, if I could only get the overhead blue LED to turn off and get audio streaming from the iPhone I'd be pretty much set.

 

[JCell]

but it was so much fun running that high boost 247

 

[icespeed]

it really was! and it lasted a long time... 80k miles iirc before zzb... then another 30k before zzb2. Unfortunately, after all the money dumped into it... it wasn't worth it.