Just introducing myself.

Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening guys.

If it wasn't obvious enough, I'll explain that I am new around these parts. To start off so you guys could maybe get a better idea of who I am, I'm 19 live in florida and just last saturday bought one of my dream cars (2007 Mazdaspeed 3 GT, with about 120k miles) I got a great deal on it and the interior is immaculate which was one of my huge gripes with buying a car with leather.

But anyway the car seems lightly modded how it is now but something tells me there was more to this car that how it sits now.

I know for sure the car has a HKS short ram intake, I think, I'm not sure but I don't think the exhaust is stock either, If I remeber right the MS3 has its name in the exhaust tips, where as this one is all steel. The car from what my more car savoy friends tell me it was tuned and runs a little rich, (Smells like unburnt gas under throttle) The car pops loud in between gears when hitting it. and the last thing that throws me off is a really aggressive redline limiter, almost sounds like a antilag.

I know so little about these cars, so please please please don't roast me too much on stuff that may be obvious to the rest of you.

Either way I look forward to learning from all of you.

 

Welcome, bud.

Big question when you've bought a potentially modded car is if it has upgraded fuel pump internals or not; you definitely want those to be done. Also should grab an AccessPort, VersaTune or some other method of datalogging and tuning.

If you snap some pics we might be able to help you figure out which parts look stock or aftermarket. We also have some FL guys around here who might be able to help you give it a look-over, depending on exact location.

 

I have been thinking about this a lot since I bought it, I'll be honest I don't know where exactly the fuel pump is, I don't know how to tell either. Any help would definately be more than appreciated.

$650 is alot of money to drop on a car the week after buying it, ya know? Does it make a difference if I were to buy one used?

I'll try to take pictures tomorrow when I get off work, anything in particular I should show? Also someone being able to see it in person would seriously be awesome, like that I could get a lot of tips about my car without bothering everyone on the forums.

 

Best first mod is to peel off the side moldings on the doors.

Oh and welcome! Where in Florida are you?

 

I for some reason can't picture the car without them, I'll have to look it up

Thank you for having me. Central, in kissimmee.

 

Side molding delete will give you +50hp.

The HPFP is in the engine bay, between the intake and valve cover. The only way to really tell if the internals are upgraded is to open it up and look at them. CorkSport has excellent directions to walk you through the process.

For an AP, there's no problem at all with buying one used BUT you have to make sure it's been unmarried from the previous car or it's just a paperweight. Torque is a cheap alternative for basic datalogging, if that's all you want to start with; AP or VT will let you datalog as well as flash custom tunes to the ECU.

In the bay, it can be kind of tough to get good pictures to show mods since a lot of things aren't readily visible, but I'd suggest taking off the TMIC shroud and grabbing snaps of the intercooler, intake, bypass valve, boost tubes, etc. If any wiring or connections look to possibly not be factory in appearance, get 'em in there. Try to cram the camera down in to show the turbo inlet pipe and downpipe, if you can. Pics might not be a huge help, or they might allow one of us to spot something that we know isn't stock but you that you don't necessarily recognize yet due to being new to the car.

If you can get some shots of the exhaust, we might also be able to tell if the catback is stock or not; or if any of the cats or resonstors have been deleted. The tip (lol), and full length of exhaust running under the car could give us an idea. My guess is, if you're getting any popping or burbling sounds, that something on the exhaust has been modified.

The best thing would really be to get someone experienced to put eyes on the car, if you can; I'm up in WI or I'd be willing to help out.

 

Welcome,

don't hesitate to ask the community questions. We where all new to this platform at one time.

New Member Question and Answer Section

Also try search for your question first as someone may have already ask it.

Also read read and read some more before doing anything, is my suggestion.

 

I certainly recommend to keep your discussions here, but when searching for info, remember to also search the older forum mazdaspeedforums.org. Note that the older forum's search function is completely broken so you need to use google to search it. You can either use site:mazdaspeedforums.org or there is a custom google search link if you'd like.

 

Hey, welcome aboard. The previous posts have pretty much said what a new guy needs to hear. You may have seen some less than friendly welcomes at some of the other forums but truth be told, this is about the friendliest Speed forum on the `net. Yeah, we have our grumpy members (I may or may not be a member of that club LOL), and yeah, it`s always going to get a better reaction if you put in a little bit of work to find the answers you`re looking for but it`s pretty rare that a new guy gets flamed (much) for asking questions.

 

My in-laws live in Kissimmee. Not sure when I'll be up that way next, but I'd be happy to help if you still need it when the time comes.

 

Alright I just want to say thank the lot of you, I'll try and follow your advice as much as I can.

On to whats even on my car, I took pictures of everything I could think of, If I missed anything I would be more than happy to take more tomorrow, luckily enough I don't work this weekend.

I did a quick look around, I didn't find any loose wires or anything that seemed out of the order.

Here's the intake, It's missing a vacuum line (That's my guess) or it could be a sensor, Here you can also see the stock BOV/Reserc, I am not sure which this car has. Either way this short ram intake lets me hear my turbo and bov, which is honestly super addictive.


This is the passenger side of the firewall, Nothing for me really sticks out here, but then again I honestly don't have a clue what I am looking for.


Here's the driver side of the engine, If i'm not mistaken you can see the stock turbo inlet pipe, by the way the turbo inlet pipe, has two tubes what is the second smaller tube for?


Stock shifter linkage, again nothing out of place here either.


The exhaust tip, nothing to really go off of here.


Missing the muffler? looks like it was just straight cut out and just left straight pipe, this definitely explains how loud it is.


Is this the resonator, doesn't look like it would be stock, too clean, the welds don't look like they would be factory.


This caught my attention, those green sub frame chassis bushings are those factory green?


Orange? my first guess was this car comes with tokico shocks like the RX8, but I've never seen orange shocks stock.


sorry for the blurry picture here this was a little hard to take without being in an awkward position, but I did manage to read what the shocks said, Koni, I don't know if if Koni is a reputable brand but they're there. I also don't know what Koni shocks they are.


Factory label? Figured I throw this in there just out of curiosity maybe you guys could get something from this.


And that's all I have currently, If you want to see something else by all means tell me, and tell me how to get to it, and I'll gladly show you guys. All in all it's super cool of all of you for welcoming me into the forums and dealing with my newbie questions about this car. I seriously appreciate all the help, and all the welcomes.

 

Koni Orange shocks, those are aftermarket. Looks to be the same with the exhaust. If you don't have a cat after the turbo I'd worry about the turbo seals going.

crapatalk it sucks for free

 

Are they any good? are they adjustable?

I wish I could have gotten further under my car to get a nice shot of the midsection, but I didn't fit.

 

Oranges are not adjustable but they're much better than stock for budget aftermarket struts; I'm running them on my juan.

Exhaust has definitely been messed with; like monkey said, you'll want to figure out if the cats are still there or not. If not, you definitely need the HPFP to be upgraded.

That does look like the stock inlet pipe; the larger hose is recirc to your BPV, there should be a smaller vacuum hose going to your EBCS. The cap on your intake is blocking off where a breather hose normally connects it to the valve cover.

 

Alright awesome, does this mean if I ever do want to go an inch or two lower all I need is lowering springs?

I know this may sound like the dumbest question you've ever heard in your life but how do i know if the cat is still there?

That hose, is it important to have it?

 

Yup, lowering springs if you want to drop the car; or swap over to coilovers that would be height adjustable.

If you can get the car up on jackstands and crawl underneath to see the exhaust further up toward the front, there are two cats in the stock system: one in the test pipe and one in the downpipe. The test pipe, you can see through the mid chassis brace. If you look at CorkSport's installation guide for their pipe, it will show you. the downpipe is then further up than that, and you can get an idea of what that looks like, again, from the CS installation guide for their downpipe. Look for a couple of bulky cylindrical/round ugly mothafuckas, and those will be the cats.

I would have to defer your final question to someone more knowledgeable, but it may depend on how the other end is capped off and what the overall setup of the car is (if there are catch cans or an aftermarket PCV plate installed, for example). My 2007 has it intact.

 

On stock turbo cars, or even lightly modded, it's a good idea to have your intake pulling a vacuum on the valve cover by having that hose connecting the two. Heck, I have modded pretty much every thing you can without building the motor, including running 25psi on an upgraded turbo, and I still have that hose in place.

BTW, welcome

 

Hey, welcome from the old guy here.... Your car looks clean and there are definitely mods there. There are lots of nice folks here to answer your questions....the folks here are a lot more welcoming than some other forums.

 

Alright guys sorry for the super slow reply, this weekend was incredibly busy.

But on to something important, I haven't been able to Jack up the car just yet, but I did peek under it looking specifically for the cats for the turbo, and I didn't see two small cats, but rather one large one connected to the exhaust. It looked factory to me. Is the stock turbo on these cars that prone to blowing the bearings?

For taking off the moldings it's just all 3M tape? No clips?