Hello, everybody!
I am the concerned owner of a new-to-me 2008 Mazdaspeed 3 with 117k miles. Long story short, I won this on auction as a "runs and drives" car as my daily is down indefinitely. Yes this was a risky play, but I'll openly acknowledge my gamling promblem. My goal with the car is to basically clean it up and get it running well until my daily is back on the road. Then maybe we'll see about a big turbo 2.5 build.
That said, it does indeed run and drive. I made it the entire hour and a half back home with only a couple hiccups. Outside of the battery being dead when I got it, and a single problem in traffic, it actually did far better than I had hoped. I double-checked that I had roadside covered before I left that morning if that says anything.
Mods I've found:
- Cobb intake
- HKS BOV
- HKS Exhaust
- Rev9 coilovers (ride is awful)
- Added boost gauge
Problems:
- Again, the ride is awful. Either these coilovers are shot, are installed wrong, or are just terrible. Loud clunks on bumps at highway speeds, and it feels like practically no suspension movement. It's an old car, so I'm thinking some bushings all round wouldn't hurt.
- Does not like to idle. It wants to try sitting around 500 RPM and it just tries to die, then sometimes effectively restarts itself. I let it sit for a while and it sat around 1k, but if revved it tanks back down to 500 when the revs drop.
- It will not go north of 5k. It's just like hitting a rev limiter. I've seen a few people have this issue, and resolutions have been all over the place (clutch switch, collapsing intake, no resolution, etc.).
- The shifter feels reluctant to move. It just feels sludgy and doesn't really want to go into gears. I'm hoping cleaning up the shifter components will smooth this out some. I'm thinking this has a short shifter, but I have not verified this yet.
- Clutch does not disable cruise control. It just sends the revs to the moon (which is 5k in this case). Maybe a clutch switch is in order, but unsure which one. The car does not start if the clutch is not pressed.
- Hood latch handle is broken. Using a universal hood popper at the moment (read: pliers).
- Some body issues. Paint is rough in some places, and clear coat is in need of love. Front bumper is coming loose at the top on both sides near the fender. This is apparently a thing with these cars. Sidesikirts both have a random screw holding them in at the rear. Somebody must have hate these wheels. They hold air, but man they are not in good shape. And the headlights need buffed out.
I believe that's the majority of my observations at this point. It's been in the teens to twenties the last couple days, so i haven't been really motivated to dig into it much further. I did go start it up to make sure it would still do that, but not much else. I'm really surprised that it does seem to pull well between that 2k to 5k range given how weird it is outside of that. I'm open to any and all suggestions on where to start with the issues I'm having. I wanted one of these back when they released, so I'd like to finally have a fun one to cruise the kids around in. Again, any and all help and insight is appreciated.
I am the concerned owner of a new-to-me 2008 Mazdaspeed 3 with 117k miles. Long story short, I won this on auction as a "runs and drives" car as my daily is down indefinitely. Yes this was a risky play, but I'll openly acknowledge my gamling promblem. My goal with the car is to basically clean it up and get it running well until my daily is back on the road. Then maybe we'll see about a big turbo 2.5 build.
That said, it does indeed run and drive. I made it the entire hour and a half back home with only a couple hiccups. Outside of the battery being dead when I got it, and a single problem in traffic, it actually did far better than I had hoped. I double-checked that I had roadside covered before I left that morning if that says anything.
Mods I've found:
- Cobb intake
- HKS BOV
- HKS Exhaust
- Rev9 coilovers (ride is awful)
- Added boost gauge
Problems:
- Again, the ride is awful. Either these coilovers are shot, are installed wrong, or are just terrible. Loud clunks on bumps at highway speeds, and it feels like practically no suspension movement. It's an old car, so I'm thinking some bushings all round wouldn't hurt.
- Does not like to idle. It wants to try sitting around 500 RPM and it just tries to die, then sometimes effectively restarts itself. I let it sit for a while and it sat around 1k, but if revved it tanks back down to 500 when the revs drop.
- It will not go north of 5k. It's just like hitting a rev limiter. I've seen a few people have this issue, and resolutions have been all over the place (clutch switch, collapsing intake, no resolution, etc.).
- The shifter feels reluctant to move. It just feels sludgy and doesn't really want to go into gears. I'm hoping cleaning up the shifter components will smooth this out some. I'm thinking this has a short shifter, but I have not verified this yet.
- Clutch does not disable cruise control. It just sends the revs to the moon (which is 5k in this case). Maybe a clutch switch is in order, but unsure which one. The car does not start if the clutch is not pressed.
- Hood latch handle is broken. Using a universal hood popper at the moment (read: pliers).
- Some body issues. Paint is rough in some places, and clear coat is in need of love. Front bumper is coming loose at the top on both sides near the fender. This is apparently a thing with these cars. Sidesikirts both have a random screw holding them in at the rear. Somebody must have hate these wheels. They hold air, but man they are not in good shape. And the headlights need buffed out.
I believe that's the majority of my observations at this point. It's been in the teens to twenties the last couple days, so i haven't been really motivated to dig into it much further. I did go start it up to make sure it would still do that, but not much else. I'm really surprised that it does seem to pull well between that 2k to 5k range given how weird it is outside of that. I'm open to any and all suggestions on where to start with the issues I'm having. I wanted one of these back when they released, so I'd like to finally have a fun one to cruise the kids around in. Again, any and all help and insight is appreciated.
