Just bought a 2007 mazdaspeed 3

[mazdaspeedGhali]

Hey,

my names Mike and I just bought a 2007 mazdaspeed gt with navigation. I bought the car used for 16600. It has 45,000 miles. Amazing condition, no mods at all and the plastic on the rear cup holders was never touched lol. Made me wonder that this must of been a single older guy.
Ive owned slow cars all my life. My first and second cars were ford escorts. The zx2 escort was fun to mod and to drive but it really had no balls at all.
I did my research and set my hopes on a mazdaspeed 3. I didnt care about the color I just wanted low miles and a good price. 5 hours of bs with the dealer got me 264 a month with 3.99 apr. SWEET!
All i can say is wow, auto headlights, auto rain wipers, Projector HID. It hauls sooooo much ass and its completely stock. This is the first car I've bought and it was the car I REALLY wanted. I swear almost everything is done on this car. I still want to mod a little. I recently found a Cobb CAI that is CARB approved!! I'm controlled by Cali's super duper restrictive Air laws. The visual inspection is ridiculous.
I'm excited to be part of this forum. There is a ton of good information. But i would like to ask what should i do maintenance wise to help the car last? I was thinking synethic everything, oil, tranny fluid....
Mike

 

[ScrtRcR]

Synthetics are a good start. Some other do's and don'ts:

Don't go WOT under 3000 rpm.
Do get a RMM.
Don't be afraid to mod and return to stock prior to inspection.
Do drive it like you stole it.

 

[Z-Indy]

Congrats!

I was in the same boat as you when I got my 2008.5 MS3 back in May, meaning I was coming from a background of mostly completely gutless vehicles (my daily driver at the time was a 99 Protege LX, which I'm pretty sure is powered by the same 20 hp briggs and Stratton as my riding lawnmower).

Car was sooo much more powerful than the past cars, I said "I don't need to mod. It's good enough." Ha! (drive2) Stay off these forums if you are happy with your car and don't want to mod. If you read these forums for more than a week or so you'll be buying stuff left and right that you didn't even know existed a few days before. (crazy)

I have a CAI. I would probably suggest an SRI instead in hindsight. SRI is much easier to install, and in Cali where you might need to remove for inspections, that could be a big deal. and performance wise they are basically the same.

To answer your question; Yeah, a high quality synthetic oil is good. A lot of people suggest Ford XT-M5-QS transmission fluid (available online or from ford dealerships).

Oh, don't shut the car off right away when you park, particularly if you have been driving it hard and getting into boost heavy. Let it sit for 30 seconds or so to let the turbo cool down. Then shut it off.

 

[BillTheCat]

Welcome to the forums! Congrats on your purchase.

How far away is Calee-fooornya from banning internal combustion engines altogether? lol

 

[mazdaspeedGhali]

its been getting worse and worse. i remember when a smog check was checking the emissions at idle. now they do it at idle,25 mph and higher rpms. freakin ridiculous!!

the car is sooo much fun. i havent seen any mazdaspeeds by me at all. it really is a rare car!

 

[JBR]

Nice Deal!! Congrats and Welcome!!

 

[SPEED305]

congratulations. a few tips:
look into the mounts...upgrade if possible
it loves mods
do frequent oil changes
and last but not least....like scrtrcr mentioned above...
DO DRIVE IT LIKES ITS STOLEN....IT LOVES IT!!!!

 

[mazdaspeedGhali]

why shouldnt i use WOT under 3000 rpm? Also, should i do oil changes every 3000 even with synthetic?

 

[bigdaddy]

why shouldnt i use WOT under 3000 rpm? Also, should i do oil changes every 3000 even with synthetic?

because this car has s*** rods, and you could send one flying through the block. But its ok in like 1st and 2nd, where there isnt much load on the engine, even
3rd can be ok, but only from like 2500. As for oil, you could synthetic and go like 5 or so...but enjoy the car, and where in Cali are you located?

 

[///M Compact]

why shouldnt i use WOT under 3000 rpm? Also, should i do oil changes every 3000 even with synthetic?

You can go at least 5000 miles on a good synthetic(Such as Mobil 1 5W-30 or Pennzoil Platinum 5W-30)

 

[mazdaspeedGhali]

im in san jose 95123, are you in california? it would be awesome to arrange a meet!

 

[Domino81]

This thread actually brings up a question or 4 I've been meaning to ask for a while. Where do you start for modding? Say you want 300whp and possibly a turbo upgrade? Do you have to upgrade the turbo? Do you have upgrade internals? There are SO many ECU upgrades, where do you know to start and how do you know which one is best for you? Will a Cobb access port work for any mods? I HATE to ask these questions but I need to and frankly I hate to ask these types of questions on the Speed forums because they're incredible hostile. At least here feels a little more like ProbeTalk to me. I'm sure there's enough members floating around from that forum to influence it a bit. Sorry, Ghali, to hijack your thread but I thought this very well maybe relevant.

 

[mazdaspeedGhali]

no prob, I'm interested in this too. My old ford zx2 you could buy a better running computer, but since this car is sooooo much improved I would like to know how to manipulate the computer for more performance. My good friend works at VW and he told me that cars are detuned down soo much. The gti could keep up with a ms3 but they are detuned to only have 200 horses.
Can anyone recommend a good tuner?

 

[Domino81]

I believe you have to start with a handheld like the Cobb Accessport, but how far will that take you? I've seen something called standback which looks like it maybe a standalone. I'm not entire sure. I know the Cobb and Hypertech will give you a nice increase in HP and TQ, but I'm more interested HP to redline.

 

[ScrtRcR]

This thread actually brings up a question or 4 I've been meaning to ask for a while. Where do you start for modding? Say you want 300whp and possibly a turbo upgrade? Do you have to upgrade the turbo? Do you have upgrade internals? There are SO many ECU upgrades, where do you know to start and how do you know which one is best for you? Will a Cobb access port work for any mods? I HATE to ask these questions but I need to and frankly I hate to ask these types of questions on the Speed forums because they're incredible hostile. At least here feels a little more like ProbeTalk to me. I'm sure there's enough members floating around from that forum to influence it a bit. Sorry, Ghali, to hijack your thread but I thought this very well maybe relevant.

You start modding based on what your goals are and what your budget is. The bottom line is you need to do it the smartest way possible. Some mods you can do without a tune are: SRI, RMM, TP, catback, TMIC, inlet pipe, BPV or 50/50, hpfp internals, AP, and all the gauges you want. Once you get these you will want to be able to monitor your car. Cobb AP, Dashhawk do this, but with the AP you can download ATR and modifiy you own tables to adjust everything with the car's computer. You cannot do this with Hypertech (not to the extent of the AP), or dashhawk. The standback by CPE can also be used to tune your car, but the big diff between it and the Cobb AP is that with the AP you actually make changes to the cars ecu (re-flash), while the standback is a piggyback system. There is a lot more involved in this than what I don't want to go into here, but just read up on how they work. All four of these devices work great, depending on what you want to do with your car.
Once you put on a fmic, dp, turbo, meth, and mani you will want to get a professional tune, unless you are really good with ATR. There are a bunch of guys running 400+hp with stock block internals in their speed 3's.