I don`t know about EXEDE,this and that pipe and intercooler what not but,whats really dissapointing is that although its been almost a full year since this MS3 has been sold in the USA,no one or motorsports company has been neither able to develop or come out with a true reliable bolt on turbo and ECU upgrade that works or renders at least a 100hp at the crank so. I`m actually really dismal about it.No one can really tune these DI TURBO CARS or rather their ECU`s,not enough thorough knowledge or research and effort is being done by the sponsoring vendors when more so than not,this is the flagship race car of Mazda if not ,the quickest from 0-60 and the best looking and popular.In the Usa alone i`m sure there are 5000 potential customers looking for a true Turbo upgrade Kit like AA has for the BMW`s and i see that its not really getting much attention from HKS,AEM and Greddy who are the leaders in the Japanese tuning industry and Japanese cars.
It simply appears that a DI turbo engine is really not upgradeable and that goes for GM and VW cars as well.Example Soltice and Saturn Sky turbos.We need some true Engine management gurus to look into this like the guy from AEM at HPF who cracked the Siemens ECU on the M54 E46 M3.(sad1)What i mean is tuning without using other types of fuel etc but pump gas.
if you think the aftermarket for the MS3 or MS6 is poor, its a good thing you never owned a Mazdaspeed Protege.
There are alot of reasons why the kinds of things you mention don't happen in the way we'd like nor the timeline we'd like. One, Mazdas have been traditionally niche cars. The brand simply doesn't have the kind of tuner charisma or reputation that the other import or even domestic brands have. Part of the problem is factory encouragement. The big 3 US makers have decent programs in place at the dealer level to encourage people to modify thier cars. Honda, Nissan, Scion do and have had those kinds of programs in place for years. Until very recently, with Mazda's purchase of Mazdaspeed and the whole "zoom zoom" campaign, Mazda really did nothing to encourage the end user to modify the car. Thats where alot of the enthusiasm begins for modifying a car. When the brand itself lacks the image of a vehicle that can and should be played with, fewer people that want to modify cars are even going to think about buying one. Look at GM Performance and Mopar Performance. They make no apologies about pushing thier performance parts in all the right places right down to the dealer parts counter. It took Mazda over a year to get the parts in thier Mazdaspeed catalog into physical warehouse inventory. Its shameful and halfassed and I've always felt that way about their performance parts program. Its an afterthought. For companies like Mopar, its a priority.
Two, because so few companies have focused on Mazdas outside of the Miata in the last decade, there are no companies really with the kind of knowledge to attack the platforms head on and make real quick and decent progress. Mazda ECUs are traditionally very hard to crack. The Accessport has been promised for almost a year now and we still have next to nothing. But on a Subaru, Cobb can whip out an Accessport with relative ease because they know those cars like the back of thier hand. Mazda has few dedicated tuners with that kind of goal or talent. Cobb has years of experience with Subaru. We don't have that kind of support in the Mazda community. Sure you have your Flyin Miatas with Miatas and Racing Beats with RX-7s but thats about it with a few exceptions and they're focused on those particular cars. Its growing, but its not yet at those levels. I hate to use the phrase but "its not a honda".
Direct Injection is perfectly tunable to make real power. Carburetor gurus said the same things when EFI hit the market, no one can make power with those fancy injectors, you need a good old fashioned Holley to make power! Time proved them wrong. Diesel operates on similar principles and there is tons of companies making amazing power with those engines. Direct Injection has been mainstream in affordable cars for a very short time now, and until its more mainstream or its been proven to most companies that people are actually going to modify these cars, few companies and fewer big name companies are going to want to invest in researching and producing parts for them. You mention HKS and AEM and other Japanese companies. They're not going to bat an eye at any Mazda lacking the words "miata" or "rx7" in the title until they can see what people are doing with these cars and that there is a market for them. I think, in time, the Mazdaspeed3 will help change that perception.
It should also be noted that tacking on 100hp at the crank has been done a bunch of times by more than a few people with both the ms6 and ms3. I myself am working on a bunch of stuff for this car, just because I don't talk about it doesn't mean things aren't in the works. I am the kind of guy who doesn't like to talk about things until there are results.
Give it time, there will be more parts for this car in a year than you know what to do with. Honestly, based on my experience with Mazda, I'm amazed there is this much support for the cars so far.
I miss my MX-6's.
