You beat the driver
There's only about 12 SRT-4s in this town. I actually think there are more Ferrari's and Lambos driving around than people with Turbo Sport Compacts. Damn Retirement/Tourist town.
whats faster, bone stock Neon srt4 or the MS3
- Thread starter 18psiWhiteMS3
- Start date
You beat the driver
There's only about 12 SRT-4s in this town. I actually think there are more Ferrari's and Lambos driving around than people with Turbo Sport Compacts. Damn Retirement/Tourist town.
18psiWhiteMS3
Banned
- :
- 2009 MazdaSpeed3
I think mazdaspeed3 sounds cooler then srt4...... the name, not the exhaust note
skylar2ups
Member
- :
- 2011 Mazda3 iSport
My name is Skylar Ross Toups... SRT. s***.
I just got my 09 MS3 yesterday, I had a silver 04 SRT-4 HEAVILY modded, then went to a 07 Cobalt ss/sc moderately modded and now this car, my SRT-4 was WAAAAAY faster than this MS3 but the aftermarket is ridiculous for that car, getting 300whp is cheap and easy, I made it over that with no problems at all.
I don't understand what all this "stock vs. stock" talk is about because in my years of going to meets the only stock SRT's I ever saw was the Caliber, seriously a good aftermarket wastegate was cheap and upped the power on its own, no-one keeps those cars stock.
Here is the major differences I see, and several others have already pointed these out:
SRT is raw, mean and does not want you to be comfortable, it kicks your ass because it knows you like the abuse, you are after all in a powerful neon, it turns like a mac truck though, U-turns are near impossible outside of 4 lane roads and it is not what you would call comfortable especially if you have any kind of sizable stomach, basically it is fun beast.
MS3 is quick, lets you know it has the power without letting you forget its comfortable, going from SRT seats to Cobalt seats then sitting in a MS3 I felt like I went from a crooked wooden rocking chair to a lazy boy and turning is magnificent, I am not fighting the clutch, steering wheel and pushing into the bolstering, instead I am gliding into and out of the turn confidently and I havent even hit the full turn radius of the steering wheel, basically a comfortable fun car.
I test drove the Cobalt ss/tc and it is an insane car and people are hitting great numbers with it but I couldn't take the 2 doors anymore and the blunt look of it.
I cannot wait for the aftermarket to seriously kick in for MS3 and see what these cars will really do once you can go stage for stage with an SRT.
I don't understand what all this "stock vs. stock" talk is about because in my years of going to meets the only stock SRT's I ever saw was the Caliber, seriously a good aftermarket wastegate was cheap and upped the power on its own, no-one keeps those cars stock.
Here is the major differences I see, and several others have already pointed these out:
SRT is raw, mean and does not want you to be comfortable, it kicks your ass because it knows you like the abuse, you are after all in a powerful neon, it turns like a mac truck though, U-turns are near impossible outside of 4 lane roads and it is not what you would call comfortable especially if you have any kind of sizable stomach, basically it is fun beast.
MS3 is quick, lets you know it has the power without letting you forget its comfortable, going from SRT seats to Cobalt seats then sitting in a MS3 I felt like I went from a crooked wooden rocking chair to a lazy boy and turning is magnificent, I am not fighting the clutch, steering wheel and pushing into the bolstering, instead I am gliding into and out of the turn confidently and I havent even hit the full turn radius of the steering wheel, basically a comfortable fun car.
I test drove the Cobalt ss/tc and it is an insane car and people are hitting great numbers with it but I couldn't take the 2 doors anymore and the blunt look of it.
I cannot wait for the aftermarket to seriously kick in for MS3 and see what these cars will really do once you can go stage for stage with an SRT.
the neon SRT4 is a fast car, but I'm not sure why they wanted to keep it so raw, if they could have refined it more, I think it would have been more appealing. The MS3 is a good mix of rawness and being refined. It has a ton of tq, but is still comfortable. In a straight line, it would be very close, but on a road course, I haven't seen any srt-4 that could really hang with the ms3.
Now about the caliber srt-4, I'm so confused as to what dodge was trying to do here? It's like a baby Jeep srt-8. High center of gravity FTL!
Now about the caliber srt-4, I'm so confused as to what dodge was trying to do here? It's like a baby Jeep srt-8. High center of gravity FTL!
They kept the car basic because the SRT team was basically making a point, they managed to pack a LOT of HP into a reliable engine but cut a lot of comfort features of the car to save money, you can push almost 400hp on that engine without replacing stock internals, if you look at the original advertising for the car it was all about the speed, they didn't care about much else, 03's didn't even have LSD, they had to tack that on as standard for 04 and 05 because its hard to have that much power without it.
The MS3 is definetly targeted more at giving the FEEL of SRT power with incredible refinement, they push the torque at lower RPM's because that makes a car feel powerful, honestly, stock for stock MS3 would probably lose by half a car length on the 1/4 assuming equally skilled drivers but most SRTs on the road today will take a MS3 in a straight line because of mods, on a road course I very much doubt the MS3 would lose even to a moderately modded SRT, ACR editions might be able to hang because they could corner better but the MS3 is still better in turns.
I am one of the rare people who actually likes the CSRT, in fact if I could have gotten as good a deal as I did on the MS3 I would be on a different forum today but it does have far too high a center of gravity so the car ends up with the same issues as the NSRT in that it can be modded well and is good in a straight line but its not so hot in corners.
Right now there are 2 issues the MS3 has to overcome and I can bet that once those are fixed or worked around the MS3 will have little trouble being modded the way the SRT is, first is getting rid of computer controlled limitations of boost, airflow and throwing codes with heavy mods and second is figuring out what kills the engine (though it really seems to be the throttle plate closing too early), once those are figured out the aftermarket will explode for this car.
I don't think the aftermarket will explode for the speed3, mazda is done with it in 2009. But that's okay, we already have alot of parts for the speed3, and most people that own the speed3 that are willing to mod will only need those bolt-ons and a slight tune. I see alot of modded srt4's, but a majority of them are the same as the speed3's, some bolt-ons and a slight tune. The few that I have seen that have went over 350whp end up lasting just as long as the speed3's before they either need new turbos or a rebuild.
How much was the srt4 when it came out? I could be wrong, but I thought I remember it being around $22k? I think I would have still paid the little extra for the speed3 and got the better refinement because like the mojority of people, we are not going to be building 400hp monstors.
I think the aftermarket for the MS3 has a decent size already, coming from a mustang its not as big but it has alot to choose from. They are continuing the MS3 in 2010, but wither the current aftermarket parts will work is the big question.
the SRT had a 3 year production run and MANY of the mods out now did not appear until the production had ended, people with turbo cars tend to spend a large amount of money for a long time getting to that next level of speed so companies are willing to spend the R&D developing new products well past the end of a production line, the NSRT didn't have the stage 3 until near the end or maybe a little after the line had ended, 4 years later the SRT team still has regular chats with the community and is still researching new mods though at a greatly diminished pace. All this with a car that truly ENDED, there wasn't another SRT-4 model for 3 years after that.
The MS3 isn't ending it is merely switching to a new generation, sure some stuff will change but that may well bring in new vendors, many of the mods start out with someone in the community trying something new and a vendor deciding to run with the idea and investing money in creating the mod for production, so far the biggest limitation seems to be the motor, but who knows what some skilled garage mechanic is going to create in the next year or so.
Many people will not start seriously modding until their warranty expires, especially on a first generation model, take the eclipse gs-t's and gsx's, there was a major lag between those cars hitting the market and the point where tons of mods started to appear and that was mostly due to people waiting the warranties out, once they expire people start pouring money into their cars because they know what the car is about at that point and have a lot less to lose.
The main path SRT owners follow, at least in my neck of the woods, is simple, stage 1 ECU, AGP wastegate, CAI, TBE and hardpipes with BOV, in this process you end up removing almost all the stock vacuum lines from the solenoid, running wastegate controlled boost at around 18psi running right at 300hp for about $2k or less if you buy used or e-bay, I hit this level in a month of owning the car for around $900 due to lucky finds. Where I am at I wasn't even close to being the most powerful SRT around by a long shot, in fact I was about second to last place in the group of 20 cars rolling around the northern VA/DC area. You could hit 350whp on the stock motor and run it reliably with no problems at all, I met a few at the 400 mark with no problems too but in that range you REALLY have to take care of the car and know what you are doing.
I believe the SRT was around 21k-22k new.
I wouldn't discount seeing MS3 with close to 400hp in a few years, in fact the very day I hit the 36k mark and my bumper to bumper expires I will be doing everything in my power to get back to the magic 350 number.
PS, just noticed you are in the DC area too, I am sure you have seen some of the absolute monsters rolling around here, most of those guys meet up on a regular basis and work on each others cars, I am going to have a couple of them start looking at the MS3 and see what can be done that isn't already available, nothing like having everything custom fabricated so nothing can be easily replaced.
The MS3 isn't ending it is merely switching to a new generation, sure some stuff will change but that may well bring in new vendors, many of the mods start out with someone in the community trying something new and a vendor deciding to run with the idea and investing money in creating the mod for production, so far the biggest limitation seems to be the motor, but who knows what some skilled garage mechanic is going to create in the next year or so.
Many people will not start seriously modding until their warranty expires, especially on a first generation model, take the eclipse gs-t's and gsx's, there was a major lag between those cars hitting the market and the point where tons of mods started to appear and that was mostly due to people waiting the warranties out, once they expire people start pouring money into their cars because they know what the car is about at that point and have a lot less to lose.
The main path SRT owners follow, at least in my neck of the woods, is simple, stage 1 ECU, AGP wastegate, CAI, TBE and hardpipes with BOV, in this process you end up removing almost all the stock vacuum lines from the solenoid, running wastegate controlled boost at around 18psi running right at 300hp for about $2k or less if you buy used or e-bay, I hit this level in a month of owning the car for around $900 due to lucky finds. Where I am at I wasn't even close to being the most powerful SRT around by a long shot, in fact I was about second to last place in the group of 20 cars rolling around the northern VA/DC area. You could hit 350whp on the stock motor and run it reliably with no problems at all, I met a few at the 400 mark with no problems too but in that range you REALLY have to take care of the car and know what you are doing.
I believe the SRT was around 21k-22k new.
I wouldn't discount seeing MS3 with close to 400hp in a few years, in fact the very day I hit the 36k mark and my bumper to bumper expires I will be doing everything in my power to get back to the magic 350 number.
PS, just noticed you are in the DC area too, I am sure you have seen some of the absolute monsters rolling around here, most of those guys meet up on a regular basis and work on each others cars, I am going to have a couple of them start looking at the MS3 and see what can be done that isn't already available, nothing like having everything custom fabricated so nothing can be easily replaced.
18psiWhiteMS3
Banned
- :
- 2009 MazdaSpeed3
i think a 1995 honda civic dx with a cat back exhaust is faster then an srt4
well obviously someone cares or these types of threads would not exist, a lot of people want to hear that their car is faster than XXX car, makes them feel better about their purchase. Unfortunately a lot of those people end up being the ones that have to insult every other car out there, SRT is a good car for what it is, MS3 is a good car for what it is, both have problems, both have strengths, that goes for every single other comparison you can imagine, MS 3 is better in almost every way than an '89 escort GT but the Escort you can beat the hell out of and feel no guilt because parts cost $5 a piece and it gets amazing gas mileage and it has cast iron body structure, I mud bogged one and scraped boulders with no damage, but they are completely different cars.
You end up being better off comparing your MS3 to anothers MS3.
You end up being better off comparing your MS3 to anothers MS3.
lil_red_wagon
Member
- :
- lil white p5
i don't.
also, i don't understand why you all are comparing your NEW model ms3 with the OLD model srt.
you dont what? care or not care?
the same reason that MS3 owners want to compare their cars to the STI. it is a benchmark in performance that everyone hopes to be as good as or better than.
oaklandopen
Member
i believe it was "i don't not care" which would be a double negative, which would mean he cares
i compare my ms3 to a corvette, and i justify mine being better cuz it has room for 3 more butts and lower insurance rates
i compare my ms3 to a corvette, and i justify mine being better cuz it has room for 3 more butts and lower insurance rates
lil_red_wagon
Member
- :
- lil white p5
i do not care, smart guy.
all that i can say about the corvette comparison is to think about it this way; base trim for each -- naturally aspirated 2.3L mazda3 with manual tranny, naturally aspirated LS2 (6.0L) corvette with a manual tranny. mid-level trims -- naturally aspirated 2.3L mazda3 with auto and lots of goodies, naturally aspirated 7.0L corvette with manual tranny and some extras. top-end trim levels -- MS3 GT with forced induction 2.3L and manual tranny (mazdaspeed goodies included), forced induction 6.2L ZR1 with a manual tranny and all of the ZR1 goodies.
so, apples to apples, you would be comparing the MS3 GT to the ZR1. the ZR1 is the same car that stomped the crap out of the new GTR, so make your comparisons if you will.
oaklandopen
Member
so im not allowed to compare any 2 vehicles according to seating capacity, it has to be on engine size and performance? oh and the performance comparison on the 2 cars included another car outside the comparison itself (your gtr reference), even though the gtr STILL has backseats.
why not just add bikes to the comparison. low-ball 2.0L mazda3 and the gsx-r600. so then the ms3 gt can be compared to the hayabusa?
someone already called me out on this thread for no reason before, and it happened again, and a mod no less so i must be F'ing up somehow
