You are about to begin your journey in the Mazdaspeed 6 world. You probably have some questions about what to look on the car first when you buy one (even if you have already bought one) what are the basic maintenance or you want to know some tips and where to begin tuning. Don’t worry I have all the answer for you so let get it started here.
Common Problems
Smoking Turbo: The turbo is prone to smoking, especially once you modify the exhaust components. It is a symptom of Mazda’s poor crankcase ventilation system, and the resulting lack of vacuum needed to pull oil from the turbo at low RPM’s. If you let your car run at idle for 15 minute and big white/blue smoke begin to get out of the tailpipe it means your turbo seal is leaking and you need to change your turbo.
Rear Differential Bushing: The stock bushings of the mounts are very weak in stock form. If you plan on driving this car casually, don’t worry about this, but if you like some spirited driving once and a while (actually using that gas pedal), these are highly recommended.
Leaking Transfer Case: Transfer case is what allows you to utilize the all-wheel drive function of your vehicle so leaking problems are often caused by “big power” and bad launching. It will require a new seal or you can choose to replace the whole t-case.
Carbon Build-Up: In any direct injection engine, carbon build-up will be an issue in the future. There is no gasoline fuel to wash clean the intake manifold and the intake valves. Compared to port injection/carburated engines that have fuel going through the intake manifold and then to the intake valves.
Our engines have a Positive Crankcase Ventilation (PCV) system. Basically, this connects the engine block to the intake manifold. In the event that there is boost blowing by the piston rings, it relieves the pressure in the oil sump. Problem is that there is also misc crap that comes along from the oil sump (oil, fuel, etc.).
An Oil Catch Can is used to prevent crankcase blow by waste from being sucked into your intake manifold. By design, this is supposed to happen (very minimal amounts to be burned off) but a forced induced engines put out a lot more crankcase pressure and manifold vacuum/positive pressure than a non-turbo engine.
Sometimes large amounts of unspent fuel, condensate and oil vapor go through the venting system usually under boost and plume of burn off come out of the exhaust tail pipe, attributes to possibly fouling the plugs, fouling O2’s and other sensors etc also some of this can be sucked into intake piping and intercooler reducing cooling effectiveness and making mess of things.
Few Useful Tips
Warm Up: Always let your car fully warm up before letting it get into boost (when you feel the turbo kick in). About midway on the temp gauge is where the needle should be, if not wait an extra 5-10min until your oil temp is warm as well (no gauge for this). If it’s colder out, wait longer.
Gaz: Be sure to run 93/91 grade gaz, whichever is available. Anything less will detune the car resulting in a huge loss of hp/tq.
Oil: To keep oil from seeping past the turbo seals (problem with this car), use 5W-40 in the winter (if it’s cold), and 10W-40 in the summer. Synthetic blend is recommended in the manual, but most use Fully Synthetic. When to change is up to you. Most recommend every 5,000 if using synthetic, 3,000 if using basic oil.
Boost: Try and stay out of boost until at least 3000RPM (3250RPM in 5th gear, and 3500RPM in 6th gear). The car will boost very quickly and easily in all gears, especially at a low RPM in 4-6th gears, so having this done is helpful to possibly prolonging the life of your engine. Boosting at low RPM’s puts much strain on your motor.
AWD: If you even need to tow your car: Always Make Sure You Use A Flatbed, Not A Regular Tow!!! The car is AWD and anything other than a flatbed could cause major damage.
Windows: It can happen after the battery is disconnected that your windows won’t go down automatically and you can’t control them from the driver’s door. Simply roll down EACH window a bit, then back up, holding the button “up” until you hear a couple clicks.
The First Step Toward Tuning
Boost Gauge: The reason you want this is to have the ability to monitor the vacuum and boost being put into your engine. You want to try and stay out of boost under 3000RPM in 2nd, 3rd, 4th gear, and 3250RPM in 5th gear, and 3500RPM in 6th gear. The car will boost very quickly and easily in all gears, especially at a low RPM in 4-6th gears, so having this installed is helpful to possibly prolonging the life of your engine. Boosting at low RPM’s puts much strain on your motor.
OCC (Oil Catch Can): The oil and unclean vapors that once contaminated the intake tract are captured by the catch can. By doing this, cleaner air enters the engine, octane rates are not reduced by oil contaminants, and less detonation occurs.
Turbo Timer: What this does is keeps your engine running after you turn the key off, get out, lock up, etc. It is especially recommended if you drive it heavy (lots of boosting), then quickly shut it off. It allows the turbo to spool back down while oil is running through it, rather than no oil after a quick shut off. This is totally optional since you can just sit in your car for 10-30seconds and wait. You can also run the car smooth and normally for a couple of minutes, to let it cool down, before you arrive at your destination and shut it off.
Tuning Solutions: These tools plug directly into your OBD II port, allowing you to replace your ECU (car’s computer) MAP (data on what to tell the car to do at certain times). The drivability and reliability of your car will improve even if you plan to stay stock. It allows the car to be optimized for any future mods and also allows you to monitor the car, so you can be certain everything is in good shape.
*It is HIGHLY recommended, MOSTLY if you want to do Power Modding.
- COBB AccesPort is for intermediate/beginners looking for preset tunes, as well as people doing custom tuning with a tuner on the road or on a dyno. The Accessport is the world’s best selling, most flexible, and easiest to use ECU upgrade solution for your Mazda. Unlock power hidden within the vehicle by replacing conservative factory settings with more aggressive calibrations. Follow the staged upgrade path with pre-loaded Off The Shelf (OTS) maps or use custom mapping for any modification level.
Fuel Pump: You must replace the Fuel Pump internals to avoid the risk of fuel cut from the increased load on the engine system. You can also replace the complete Fuel Pump for a much more expensive price. Some have even experienced fuel cut on Stage 1, however, the only way to know you are okay is to data-log using the COBB AP and verify fuel pressure is above 1600 during WOT (wide open throttle) runs.
*You WILL need to UPGRADE your Fuel Pump if you plan to do Stage II mods (exhaust, big turbo, etc)
The Build of the Mazdaspeed6 