Weekend Projects

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08cosmic3

Member
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2008 Mazdaspeed 3
I have upgraded my Cobb air filter to an Amsoil air filter. I had 9700 miles on the Cobb filter and decided to get the Amsoil dry filter so as not to have to deal with oiling the Cobb filter. The Amsoil filter is better and adds bling under the hood.

Product
<a href="http://s245.photobucket.com/albums/gg70/scottyskywalker/?action=view&current=DSCF5700.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i245.photobucket.com/albums/gg70/scottyskywalker/DSCF5700.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>


<a href="http://s245.photobucket.com/albums/gg70/scottyskywalker/?action=view&current=DSCF5708.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i245.photobucket.com/albums/gg70/scottyskywalker/DSCF5708.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>


Before
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After
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<a href="http://s245.photobucket.com/albums/gg70/scottyskywalker/?action=view&current=DSCF5715.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i245.photobucket.com/albums/gg70/scottyskywalker/DSCF5715.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>


<a href="http://s245.photobucket.com/albums/gg70/scottyskywalker/?action=view&current=DSCF5712.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i245.photobucket.com/albums/gg70/scottyskywalker/DSCF5712.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>

Next up will be.
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I'm almost with you on the air filter thing. I've got a K&N on my airplane that I installed when I built the airplane. I guess it's a good thing; but, I'm not sure the K&N on the Miata I just purchased is. OTOH, it's kinda hidden and doesn't give me the fancy bling thing like your installation. Otherwise, I might do as you did. We'll see. It depends on the cost of the cleaning kit vs the new dry filter.
 
Where did you get the Amsoil filter..I asume these are just sized ...Not direct replacements?
I want to try on on another vehicle.
 
Ok, I just finished the tranny fluid swap and went for a drive. Like what I have read from many others that did this with the MS3, the gear shifts are much smoother now. I have also been told that the synthetic frees up HP and increases gas mileage. I'll learn more tomorrow morning when I go for a drive with the tranny cold. I have been having hard 2nd gear shifts when the temps are very low. I did this in my 1997 Probe GT and cold morning 2nd gear shifts were greatly improved. I was using the penzoil syncromesh in the Probe.

Even if I still have cold morning hard 2nd gear shifts it was still worth doing. It was not any harder than changing the oil, no way I would pay someone to do this.
 
I need to get some ramps so I can get my car into my shop. I have about a foot rise into the shop, which is a tad high for driving a car into. At the time I had the shop built, it didn't matter because it was built to build airplanes in. Now, it would be handy to have the Miata in there so I can tinker with it. I've looked at some portable ramps; but, they cost about $500. I don't know if it would be cheaper to build a permanent ramp or go with the portables. For sure, I need to do something. It's too darned cold to work on the Miata in the garage. No heat out there. The shop would also be a great place for me to clean the Roush. Decisions, decisions.

In the meantime, my biggest project was to get the radio sorted out. I'm very old school. I have to have a manual to figure them out, anymore. I got it done, though. As soon as I can get it painted and the seats done, I'll add a little bling to it. I can still do things like that.
 
Nicely done! I was wrenching Friday night, wife's oil, air filter, wipers, plugs. Then mine yesterday, oil, plugs(long reach baby!!), swapped valve covers.


I got a valve cover a year ago and prepped and painted it black wrinkle finish. I had it in my "Parts to install" area and got tired of looking at it. When I ordered a new fuel pump last week I picked up some NGK long reach plugs.

I can not believe how much money I have saved from buying parts online. The fuel pump and plugs should have ran me over 300. I paid 105 with shipping.:cool:

Next is a new oil pressure sending unit and a inner tie rod. I confirmed last night that it is the tie rod and not the axle. Price changed from 150 to 15. Nice!!

I will have to take pics on my new engine bay! It looks so much better and you would never know that I am almost at 200k miles.
 
blueprotegelx said:
Wow...Congrats! How does she run? Hopefully I'll have mine for that long, but with a complete rebuild of forged internals, and gaskets to keep her strong!
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She runs pretty well. I was going to trade her but I am now working on getting the wife's car up to trade quality. She wants a 3. They are going for crazy low prices right now due to the economy. I found an 08 3 sedan for 12,500 out the door. It had 2k miles. She wants RX8 rims and a pro kit on it, one bonus for taking the wife to Mazda meets!!
 
Diehonda said:
She runs pretty well. I was going to trade her but I am now working on getting the wife's car up to trade quality. She wants a 3. They are going for crazy low prices right now due to the economy. I found an 08 3 sedan for 12,500 out the door. It had 2k miles. She wants RX8 rims and a pro kit on it, one bonus for taking the wife to Mazda meets!!
Click to expand...

Haggle, haggle, haggle! They are desparate to get those cars out the door. Don't take any first offers. I had two Ford dealers competing against each other to sell a Mustang to us. If it had been just a GT, I'd have had more! You can do the same with Mazdas, although some of the Louisville Mazda dealers don't haggle well. I guess they're too good to compete for your business. I leave those alone. Try Paul Miller in Lexington and Alton Blakely in Somerset. It really doesn't matter who does the warranty work after the sale. You can just about buy a new car for the price of a used one, these days.
 
jmsj578 said:
Haggle, haggle, haggle! They are desparate to get those cars out the door. Don't take any first offers. I had two Ford dealers competing against each other to sell a Mustang to us. If it had been just a GT, I'd have had more! You can do the same with Mazdas, although some of the Louisville Mazda dealers don't haggle well. I guess they're too good to compete for your business. I leave those alone. Try Paul Miller in Lexington and Alton Blakely in Somerset. It really doesn't matter who does the warranty work after the sale. You can just about buy a new car for the price of a used one, these days.
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I went all the way to Knoxville Mazda to buy my MS3. They are a large volume dealer and gave me the best quote. $21,033 for a new MS3 Sport. This price was $500 under invoice and at the time was an awesome deal. I have read that recently some have gotten even better deals.
 
I have a couple more projects for next weekend. I have a Medieval Rear Motor Mount due here today and I just ordered a Redline Tuning Hood QuickLift Kit from SU. It should be here before the weekend.

MS3mount3.jpg
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My MS CAI is still sitting in its box in the basement. Even if I decide to keep my MS3(doubtful) I don't know when I'll have time to put it on. Too busy restoring one sled and track prepping another. And if the weather turns nice I'd rather ride my Speed Triple...
 
You should be able to get your money back on the intake being they don't make them anymore. Some owners want to limit their mods to Mazdaspeed only parts.
 
Getting back to the air filter, I was reading in a Roush forum that it's a good idea to stay away from filters that have to be oiled because we tend to put too much oil in them and mess up the sensors with the oil. We may want to keep that in mind with our K&N filters. This is one time a little more is bad.
 
jmsj578 said:
Getting back to the air filter, I was reading in a Roush forum that it's a good idea to stay away from filters that have to be oiled because we tend to put too much oil in them and mess up the sensors with the oil. We may want to keep that in mind with our K&N filters. This is one time a little more is bad.
Click to expand...


You can spray nonconductive cleaner on your MAF if it fouls out due to the excess oil.
 
jmsj578 said:
Getting back to the air filter, I was reading in a Roush forum that it's a good idea to stay away from filters that have to be oiled because we tend to put too much oil in them and mess up the sensors with the oil. We may want to keep that in mind with our K&N filters. This is one time a little more is bad.
Click to expand...

This is the primary reason I went to the dry filter.
 
jmsj578 said:
Getting back to the air filter, I was reading in a Roush forum that it's a good idea to stay away from filters that have to be oiled because we tend to put too much oil in them and mess up the sensors with the oil. We may want to keep that in mind with our K&N filters. This is one time a little more is bad.
Click to expand...

The oil contaminates the MAF sensor. That said, I'm no fan of K&N filters to begin with.
 
08cosmic3 said:
You should be able to get your money back on the intake being they don't make them anymore. Some owners want to limit their mods to Mazdaspeed only parts.
Click to expand...

It seems like every time I decide to hang on to the MS3 something happens that ticks me off. The car wasn't horrible on the track but it wasn't great either. Even so, I thought a set of dedicated track/wheels and tires would correct the problem, Fine. Then, a couple days before I'm supposed to drive up to Watkins Glen for a week of instructing-and with only 25K miles on the car-the LF strut starts knocking. Bad. So I have to write off THE event that I had been looking forward to for over a year. On the bright side, the new strut cured a nasty case of wet weather wheel hop that had been annoying me for months. Less than a month later I'm sitting in the drive-thru at Sonic and the turbo starts smoking. Great. Get it back and all seems fine- except that the colder weather seems to have sucked @100 hp out of the motor. I thought cold weather would boost performance, but I guess the Mazda engineers "solved" that problem. Honestly, I have a 318ti with a TMS/Conforti chip in the ECU and it feels almost as fast as the MS3. I really like did the car in the beginning, but the strut and turbo failures have left me less than enthusiastic about keeping the car and using it as my track rat for five or more years- which is what I planned to do. Couple that with the fact that the local Mazda dealers refuse to hire techs with opposable thumbs and I'm ready to move on. In almost 35 years of driving the MS3 is the first car I've wanted to flip after less than two years of ownership.
 
///M Compact said:
It seems like every time I decide to hang on to the MS3 something happens that ticks me off. The car wasn't horrible on the track but it wasn't great either. Even so, I thought a set of dedicated track/wheels and tires would correct the problem, Fine. Then, a couple days before I'm supposed to drive up to Watkins Glen for a week of instructing-and with only 25K miles on the car-the LF strut starts knocking. Bad. So I have to write off THE event that I had been looking forward to for over a year. On the bright side, the new strut cured a nasty case of wet weather wheel hop that had been annoying me for months. Less than a month later I'm sitting in the drive-thru at Sonic and the turbo starts smoking. Great. Get it back and all seems fine- except that the colder weather seems to have sucked @100 hp out of the motor. I thought cold weather would boost performance, but I guess the Mazda engineers "solved" that problem. Honestly, I have a 318ti with a TMS/Conforti chip in the ECU and it feels almost as fast as the MS3. I really like did the car in the beginning, but the strut and turbo failures have left me less than enthusiastic about keeping the car and using it as my track rat for five or more years- which is what I planned to do. Couple that with the fact that the local Mazda dealers refuse to hire techs with opposable thumbs and I'm ready to move on. In almost 35 years of driving the MS3 is the first car I've wanted to flip after less than two years of ownership.
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That saddens me!
 
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