Needa little help...

[TooMuchPhog]

I'm new to this site and to be more specific, new to the Mazdaspeed brand altogether. I recently bought a '03 MS Protege and while I'm happy with the car thus far, I've discovered a problem that I'm unable to diagnose as I am not a mechanic. While accelerating "fairly" hard, the car seems to choke quite a bit. When I back of the gas and begin accelerating again at a "normal" rate, the car does just fine. I can accelerate as quickly as I need in first gear with no problem but from 2nd gear on, the problem persists. Weak spark? Is the fuel filter located INSIDE the fuel pump and if so, is is accessible through the back seat or does the whole tank need to be dropped? Any help is appreciated.

 

[mike6185]

First of all welcome to the world of MSP problems. With that said it sounds like you're dealing with fuel cut. These cars run extremely rich across the RPM range. Do you have a boost gauge? If so, what is your boost reading? If its reading more 6.5-7 lbs your wastegate could be bad. Next, do you have a wideband a/f gauge? If you do you probably notice that it pegs 10.0 alot! Your car is running extremely rich and losing power in the process. Honestly your best bet is to get on the forums and search around on this topic (there are alot of posts lol). This will give you a better idea what type of mods you need to get to eliminate this problem as much as possible. Ultimately you will need to get your car tuned...it will make all the difference in the world! Hope this will helps

 

[TooMuchPhog]

Thanks for the feedback!

 

[Outlawstar98]

Check your sparkplugs, I had something like what you are describing, and my spark plugs were shot, Replaced them and fixed the issue.

 

[HondaEat-R]

Def check the plugs, throw some .032 gapped NGK's in there. Likely a rich condition if you're not throwing codes.