Living with LaLoosh

[tracrat]

Although he looked really hot in his bunny suit, thats not what I mean. I unwittingly bought his car for my wife. I posted here a couple of times to try and figure what I had gotten myself into, and then crawled off to die!

Compession and leakdown numbers were still pretty good, and the engine sounded pretty healthy, and my wife loves the car so I figured WTF, roll the dice. I was able to indirectly contact LaLooosh, and he gave me a pretty honest appraisal.

About 12K miles later, Ive managed to work out some of the glitches, and aint blowed yet. The only things I have done are go back to stock plugs, and change the oil. It was throrwing a bunch of misfire and rich codes on the ECU, but now mostly just throws evap leak codes now.

Inspection is coming up in April,, so I'm gonna have to start digging deeper. The only problem that my wife observed was bad hesitation when it was hot last summer. I took the car out a couple of weeks ago, and it pukes out pretty bad @ WOT nearing redline.

I' prolly gonna upgrade the fuel pump, and see where that goes. I am looking for advise on which way to go with the pump, and looking for a basic ECU management tool to better trace out the problem.

Alan

I think

 

[LovinMyMS3]

These cars puking at redline is pretty common. Anything past 6k they're usually on their face.

 

[cpolly69]

being his car the diagnosis of issues could be tough - does the car still have the standback on it with a tune? if not does the car have increased boost over stock? - if either of these is true and you are running additional boost, you may need to go back to a 1 or 2 step colder plug
- but as far as the fuel pump goes -
most folks say cpe is the best all around pump (which is really just a stock pump with someone else's internals)
kmd makes a decent set of internals & ptp is also doing various stages of internals and/or full pumps
i haven't seen much of anyone complain on the cpe pump (it's expensive)
i've seen a few up and down stories for kmd or ptp, but with ptp John is always there to take care of you if you have an issue..

 

[Mid_Life_Crisis]

I unwittingly bought his car.

You poor bastard.

I am looking for advise on which way to go with the pump.

I personally am of the opinion that rebuilding these pumps is not a do it yourself job. If/when the time comes, I will only replace this part from a shop with proper facilities to bench test the unit and make sure it is delivering the required volume and pressure after the rebuild is completed.
Don't get me wrong, you can certainly swap the internals out, but given the extreme lowest bidder approach Mazda took with all the components that went into these cars, I don't trust the pump tolerances to be consistent enough to blindly assume that a one-size-fits-all kit is going to do the job. I want verification before it goes in the car.

 

[tracrat]

updates

I'm not certain it is the pump, but the PO told me that the car went back to stock with a used stock pump that he got from someone to sell the car. His advise on the plugs really helped. If I do the pump, I'de probably go OE or cpe.

The puking I described isn't just running out of steam. It seems more like a boost dump or fuel delivery issue. I haven't checked the codes on the ECU since I test ran it a couple of weeks ago. It mostly just sat out the winter as my wife drove the beater subi.

I doubt she ever pushed it hard enough to experience what I did, but she gets some hesitation which probably isn't turbo lag. Is Dashhawk a decent option?

I have some dates coming up at Lime Rock Park in April. I could take the sp3 along and see whats happening during periods of prolonged boost.

thanks,

 

[LovinMyMS3]

Are you sure it's not just cold weather cut?

 

[SRTie4k]

A Dashhawk would at least give you the ability to monitor the engine parameters in action. Then you can at least check your fuel psi, AFR, boost, etc.

 

[tracrat]

thanks

A dashhawk it will be!

 

[cpolly69]

OP - This is a quote from another forum actually from Loosh

If someone can go on the other site and tell that dude the pump is shot, that would be swell. I told him already in an email, but I guess he forgot. The plugs were 2 steps colder, and the pump which was Jakes, was a total piece of sh#$. Like i said, that motor is not going to blow up, I didn't sell someone a broken piece of s#@t. The car needs simple things to get running like new again. As for what pump, I havn't kept up to date on what the newest and greats failure pumps are out there, but Id go with the cpe one lol.

 

[Sport6]

Also check to make sure the plugs are gaped correctly (.028-.032"), that could be the cause of the hesitation.

Also in the winter fuel cut can happen more often if that's what you mean by puking up high. But with it happening at upper rpms, it seems like that would mean you aren't getting enough fuel.

 

[cpolly69]

Hey OP
I don't know if you're still checking this, but if so - Can you do me a small favor, check behind the glovebox.... See if there's anything back there..

 

[robin2660]

Hey OP
I don't know if you're still checking this, but if so - Can you do me a small favor, check behind the glovebox.... See if there's anything back there..

(hippy)(smoke)

 

[bykeryder4life]

Hey OP
I don't know if you're still checking this, but if so - Can you do me a small favor, check behind the glovebox.... See if there's anything back there..

lol man good s***. I miss loosh. darksun did the same.. "mistakes were made, but this is still a good car"