Shadowden's Mazda3 Build thread

[Shadowden]

225 for your exhaust? that include buying it? i got mine installed for 70 and the exhaust was 80. They welded it and put it on, nothing special needed besides extending the tip cuz i have a sedan


And shadowden if you can find the exhaust now id say get it now until you can install it. i had mine sitting in my backyard for 6 months till i decided to get it done

Where did you have your exhaust done? I cannot weld (though it is a skill I will acquire after I finish school).

[AuroraAxela]

EXHAUST PROS
9440 East Colfax Avenue
Aurora, CO 80010-5008
(303) 367-4900

[Shadowden]

Thanks AA. Probably won't use them based on price and proximity to me...and I actually don't have an exhaust yet.

[AuroraAxela]

No worries, like I said, gonna check back in with them as far as how much it was... I forgot.

[SecondGenPAt]

I'm betting that most of them were on stock springs, or stock dampers at a minimum. I'm on eibach pro kits, and Koni yellows in the rear...still stock struts at the moment as they are riding well. NOt many folks on performance coil overs in these cars except to "stance", even then, I think most are on "cheap" coilovers just to slam them down.

So these bars should really make an improvement. Sway bars more or less balance understeer vs. oversteer, "snap" as they were saying is a geometry phenomenom that is caused by a moving roll center point. Most FWD cars are not independantly sprung in the rear so "snap" as they are saying is really just the rear end falling off of a very sharp traction plateou.

Just making sure they don't have you misled on sway bars

[Shadowden]

I get the impression that for autox that some understeer is a good thing. The front and rear MS3 bars are both 26mm solid bars, though who knows the lever arm distance for them which has an effect on stiffness. The stock MZ3 bars are different diameters with the rear being smaller. I assume that installing the rear only will give some understeer, but nothing insane.

I'll continue tosolicit your help on installing the front sway bar. I have a note out to a machinist at work to see if he would make me sleeves to convet the stock MS3 bar to fit the MZ3 endlinks.

[RX-7 Chris]

usually the stiffer the rear, the more oversteer you get.

[Shadowden]

usually the stiffer the rear, the more oversteer you get.

Thanks, that iswhat I meant. A little oversteer is good for autox. Something about quicker turn in blah blah blah.

I'm really learning as I'm going, so all of the information and corrections are really appreciated. sincerely. I really appreciate the time you guys spend helping me along.

[Shadowden]

Trying to get some stuff knocked off of my to do list.

SpeedJunkie helped me switch out some convoluted tubingon Saturday.




Doing some CF Vinyl in the interior. The plan is to do the center console, door switch panels, the triangular pieces that hold the small tweeters by the front windows, and the triangular pieces on the rear windows. I am also going to consider covering the silver surrounds on the vents and the speakers in the front doors, but I am not sure about that yet due to the glove box latch and door handles.Those may all get painted black. Have some more interior work coming up real soon too.

The vinyl is interesting to work with. So far I have done some of the inside of the cup holders (under the lid), and the front of the console where the airbag light, cig lighter, and small cubby are. Before I do anymore, I need to pick up some adhesive promoter.

[Shadowden]

Ended up redoing the CF vinyl where the ash tray/passenger abs ligt/cigarette lighter is. Due to the lirft tab on the ash tray (where I havemy garage door remote secured), I couldn't get that to work, so I ended up cutting around it. It is now good. I also took more time to line up the pattern.

Pat also helped me rerun the breather tube for the crank case. On the Simota SRI, it just ran to the box. I was still ahving oil consumption issues, so we moved it to the silicone tube so that it is more like the stock set up. If you look at the corksport intakes, they have a fitting for the breather tube there as well. I need to keep watching oil levels to see if that was the cause or not, but running out of options really.

This weekend, I plan to finish the CF on the center console and likely rear triangles since they are easy to get too. Paint some more pieces under the hood (fuse box), and change the MTX fluid.

[Shadowden]

I took a little bit of time and did some more vinyl work. I'm not as good at working with vinyl as I would like to be. Here is what I got done last night (shifter surround).

I am using a 3m dinoc imitatation. I am really curious to see how regular dinoc compares...otherthan being twice as expensive.

[KILLER_VIZ]

Hey shadow I should have some speed parts for you this summer! Going to get sway bars and rrm.

[Shadowden]

Purchased some MS3 sway bars from Batman. Had the machine shop here at work make some sleeves to make the holes where the end links mount the right diamter for my MZ3 (10mm).

Look forward to gettng the front and rear bars installed this Monday.

[KILLER_VIZ]

Hoping I get to come see you drive sat bud. The vinyl is looking sweet by the way.

[Shadowden]

Well Monday was a substantial day for me. Pat helped me install the MS3 sway bars front and rear, the spin on oil filter adapter, and change the mtx fluid. When we got under the car, we (or I should say he) discovered that the driver's side CV boot was done. Grease strewn everywhere. So we also replaced that.

If I hadn't of had my head in the sand, I would have done a rmm at the same time since we needed to drop the sub frame for the front sway bar.

Limited opportunity to test for a difference, but this morning I used the off ramp from 25 to east bound 6th ave as a trial. Hugged tighter to the gaurd rail with more speed and didn't feel like I was pusing as hard as I could. But maybe it was learning something about cornering on Saturday...