solution for the Mazda 3's unresponsive takeoff?

[brandanasan]

anyone with a manual transmission, or even automatic as i have recently come to understand, is well aware of the trouble with the delayed response of the throttle during takeoff (when the light turns green, you let out the clutch and step on the gas, but there's no response for up to a couple seconds before the car suddenly takes off like a bat out of hell)

i've been looking around other forums trying to find the cause of the 3's refusal to take off smoothly. someone suggested that the problem could be caused by the car's poor electrical grounding from the battery. someone even sanded the paint from their car and reattached the groundwire and claimed to have significantly smoother takeoffs. i considered doing this myself, but i'm afraid the exposed metal would rust, and that would be just awful.

today i was doing some browsing, and i found this.

does anyone know if this could possibly aide in the 3's unresponsive takeoff? if so, i would buy it in a heartbeat, this problem being the ONLY one i can think of for the car.

 

[NOmz3]

I've noticed that problem in my AT 3 as well, and was severely annyoed with it until i installed my cai and condenser. since then, i have yet to experience serious lag. i'm not sure what causes it, or if what little mods i've done have solved it, but to me it feels like the cai and condenser have done the job.

 

[JRH1]

I just installed a CAI today and that reduced that accel lag by about 90%.

 

[brandanasan]

i was actually looking for an inexpensive, and far less involved mod. it looks like you have a voltage stabilizer on your car. i bet that was what improved your take off.

 

[NOmz3]

if you get a chance i'd recommend goign with a CAI, it will def. help with engine response and performance. It is a bit expensive but def. worth it.

 

[goldfish]

if you get a chance i'd recommend goign with a CAI, it will def. help with engine response and performance. It is a bit expensive but def. worth it.

There are some very cheap cold air intakes on ebay that some members have used to great success and are pretty cheap you just need to use a different filter. The filter provided is crap... do a search on ebay for "mazda 3 intake".

Take a look around and try to do some research and maybe you'll find the one other people on there have been buying. Recommend you buy a dryflow or a k&n style filter to replace the crapper one with the CAI. You'll probably end up spending around 100 on the intake.

I have grounded my throttlebody only so far and it seemed to help a bit when I did it,but then again looking back I believe it was probably more placebo than anything. I read all these "slight" benefits people were reporting and I don't know it actually did anything in the end. I have exhaust, intake and some other more intensive mods that have helped once my car is warm, but when my car is cold it goes slow until it warms up. I also baby it when it's not in the normal temp range

If you're going to try the grounding thing I don't really see how a capacitor connected to a grounding setup is going to help anything more than just running better grounding wires to where stock ones already go. Scratching away the paint on the factory ground wire could be a start, but you might want to actually FULLY replace that wire with some very, very thick speaker wire from an audio shop.They probably could even cut it to length and crimp ring terminals on for you for relatively cheap.

Let us know what you find, my car is pretty zippy most the time, but there is always room for improvement and as of late I've actually been looking at getting into grounding more stuff. It's kind of bad in our cars, I have xenons now but the stock halogens would dim A LOT if I used anything else like power windows. The xenons don't dim at all, but I made a harness for them to pull directly from the battery.

Good luck dude.

 

[thebeansoldier]

I can't think of anything that really solves that "unresponsive take off". Check my 3 dyno graphs on my sig. See that flat-spot on all 3? Looks like you get no immediate boost in torque until about 3K, WOT was immediately done around 2K, so for about 1000 rpms, which is about 2 secs probably, you barely move.

I checked with a scantool, the moment the pedal hits the floor, the ECU knows the driver's requesting 100%, but VVT won't kick in till about 3k.

I've read that ECUs are slow to respond to immediate change in MAF readings. That could be the issue as many dynos of the dynos I've seen on NA 3s start out as being VERY lean, then just very slowly richening out.

The best you can really do is possibly half-throttle until 3k, then floor it. That's how I do it to feel the VVT. If you don't have a ground kit, you'll feel it- like something just turned on.

This is why it's good to shift at 4k. The rpms drop to 3k or higher (depending on how quick you shift) and when you floor it, no flat spot in torque.

The flat spot-- and this is with an AEM CAI.

http://www.msprotege.com/forum/showthread.php?t=123634585

 

[AzMz3]

I'm pretty sure that has nothing to do with the VVT. And these computers are very quick to adjust for anything within certain specs.

I found the taking off smoothly to be just something you had to get use too as it felt alittle different coming from a similar car with the only differences being the throttle bodies.

I do know that most ECU's have what is called throttle tip in which is what most of the lag is. Could be a few things that the ecu is doing during this time..pulling timing or fuel.

I have never experienced any lag as you guys describe, especially 2 seconds worth.

There is a fix but it is not cheap.....turbo!
There are no flat spots and torque pretty much rises from start to finish. :lol:

 

[brandanasan]

i'm not concerned so much about acceleration as i am about taking off smoothly from a stop. taking off smoothly can be done if i rev the engine up to 3k and let out the clutch SLOWLY from there. however, i'm afraid doing this is going to wear out the clutch. all other manuals i've driven take off smoothly around 2k. if i try and take off at 2k, the revs drop to around 1k and i have to engage the clutch and try again. it's a huge pain in the ass, especially in kansas city, where it seems at every red light, i'm stopped on an incline. i've driven hondas and my previous car, a 1992 mitsubishi mirage had a MUCH more connected feeling clutch pedal than the 3 i'm driving now.

it's all just very frustrating, considering the boasting mazda makes about their cars' driving excitement.

 

[thebeansoldier]

I'm pretty sure that has nothing to do with the VVT. And these computers are very quick to adjust for anything within certain specs.

I found the taking off smoothly to be just something you had to get use too as it felt alittle different coming from a similar car with the only differences being the throttle bodies.

I do know that most ECU's have what is called throttle tip in which is what most of the lag is. Could be a few things that the ecu is doing during this time..pulling timing or fuel.

I have never experienced any lag as you guys describe, especially 2 seconds worth.

There is a fix but it is not cheap.....turbo!
There are no flat spots and torque pretty much rises from start to finish. :lol:

ha, i'm surprised you didn't feel that flat spot- as your last NA dyno shows it that same flat spot until it's past 3K

I don't really think it was the VVT as that really starts at 2K or below- realized that a few hours after I posted it. So I now think it's the MAF. I wonder if that flat spot would be there if I disconnected the MAF connector.

it's all just very frustrating, considering the boasting mazda makes about their cars' driving excitement.

yea, but they don't show their cars starting from a stop or starting from a low RPM; the cars are all wound up and everyone's smiling


http://www.mazda3forums.com/index.php?topic=53544.0

 

[bbrich57]

There are some very cheap cold air intakes on ebay that some members have used to great success and are pretty cheap you just need to use a different filter. The filter provided is crap... do a search on ebay for "mazda 3 intake".

I know a guy w/a Protege5 that said after replacing his cheap one w/a name brand, that he actually had FEWER problems w/the one from eBay, and noticed no power improvement from the more expensive one.

I have grounded my throttlebody only so far and it seemed to help a bit when I did it,but then again looking back I believe it was probably more placebo than anything. I read all these "slight" benefits people were reporting and I don't know it actually did anything in the end. I have exhaust, intake and some other more intensive mods that have helped once my car is warm, but when my car is cold it goes slow until it warms up. I also baby it when it's not in the normal temp range

A very good idea for anyone.

Brandanasan,
you don't need to spend money to do this mod. The main reason for doing it in the first place is to give it a more direct grounding point (to the battery would be about as direct as you can make it) and to slave off any static electricity build up that may "confuse" it's normal operation. But, the little motor that operates the ETB doesn't pull very much juice and whether using 2awg, or 14awg will make no difference at all. Mine cost me about .50 in materials lying around in my shop.

Goldfish, have you tried resetting the ECU? I seem to have some luck w/this method as the ECU seems to adjust, or "relearn" after +/-100 miles. When I grounded my ETB, I definitely noticed a difference in a rough spot starting right around 21k through 23-24k. But after a while it came back again. By resetting the ECU, I get almost the same results as I had gotten when I first did the ground. Also, try grounding the fuel rail, but frankly, I didn't see much (re: any) improvement doing this. But again, it won't cost you anything and it can't hurt.

 

[RHAGEL]

i'm not concerned so much about acceleration as i am about taking off smoothly from a stop. taking off smoothly can be done if i rev the engine up to 3k and let out the clutch SLOWLY from there. however, i'm afraid doing this is going to wear out the clutch. all other manuals i've driven take off smoothly around 2k. if i try and take off at 2k, the revs drop to around 1k and i have to engage the clutch and try again. it's a huge pain in the ass, especially in kansas city, where it seems at every red light, i'm stopped on an incline. i've driven hondas and my previous car, a 1992 mitsubishi mirage had a MUCH more connected feeling clutch pedal than the 3 i'm driving now.

it's all just very frustrating, considering the boasting mazda makes about their cars' driving excitement.

I have the exact same problem that I posted on another forum. I notice it mostly on hills. I definitly think it is the throttle body but the clutch has a pretty small engagement point also. It seems as it is sticking at a certain position and with a little more gas it opens too wide. Pretty pathetic concidering we have an electronic throttle. But not everyone has it either. I just deal with it, after 3,900 miles I am learning how to adjust. This is my third Mazda and all of them have it to some degree. That is one thing I like about Hondas, their clutch and gearbox are awesome, super smooth clutch engagement.

 

[bbrich57]

It may be too early to tell for sure, but I just installed a Vibrant exhaust w/high flow cat today and was surprised that I didn't have to backpedal when starting out. No lag at all. It's not an effect that I ever expected from a new exhaust system.
Has anyone else noticed this after an exhaust?

 

[RHAGEL]

It may be too early to tell for sure, but I just installed a Vibrant exhaust w/high flow cat today and was surprised that I didn't have to backpedal when starting out. No lag at all. It's not an effect that I ever expected from a new exhaust system.
Has anyone else noticed this after an exhaust?

No exhaust yet, but glad to hear it solved the problem for you.

 

[bbrich57]

Thanks! I can only hope it stays that way. As stated above, I haven't had much luck keeping these sort of MODs going for very long before it seems to get right back to where it was before. (Can ya' tell I'm a the-glass-is-half-empty kinda' guy.)
I'll keep y'all posted, but either way, it does sound cool as hell when getting on it!