Maahes' new car! It needs work.

[Bee]

Well, I'll refrain from the insults, so my post will be rather short.

Mazdas aren't build for speed. It isn't a V-8, rear-drive torque-monstrosity.

First thing you should do is purchase a service manual for your car. It covers a complete teardown and rebuild of that particular car, as well as outlining common repairs and how you should properly do them. Chiltons makes a great manual, and every time I get a car, I grab a Chiltons manual(current one on my shelf is for a 1990 Ford F-350 Diesel).

Second thing you should do is a basic tune up. Do an oil change, replace/rotate the tires, throw in a bottle of fuel injector/carburetor cleaner, replace the air filter, spark plugs, and belts. This won't increase your horsepower by much, if at all, but it will ensure that little engine keeps ticking.

I can't recommend offhand any Mazda-specific parts, but for performance parts in general, I can offer a few tips. get a Jegs, a Summit, and a JC Whitney parts catalog. Each is free, and each offers performance parts for a wide variety of vehicles. If you throw enough shit at the wall it'll stick eventually.

For performance work, crack open your yellow pages and look for a reputable machine shop. They'll help outline a good course of action for your engine, with the most obvious courses of action being to overbore the engine, balance the rotating assembly, milling the cylinder head, and boosting the compression ratio. But keep in mind, you gotta pay to play. These are more serious and involved modifications, so save your pennies if you want to run with the big dogs.

Nitrous Oxide on a factory engine is a HORRIBLE HORRIBLE Idea. It isn't meant to run like that! If you want a spectacular explosion, strap a bottle of Nitrous on that factory engine. If you want to run Nitrous, you'll need a forged rotating assembly and new piston rings.

Turbocharging or Supercharging a factory engine is also a bad idea, since boost is increased pressure, and increased pressure on an old engine WILL lead to damage. Any and all serious performance parts should be done on a engine that was prepared to handle the abuse.


I've worked on everything from the lawnmower to 4-cylinder fuel-sippers, to big, beastly V-8s, to thundering Diesels. My current workhorse is a 7.3 Liter non-turbo IDI Diesel engine. It doesn't make much horsepower, but it makes plenty of torque, and it will run until the end of time.

Purchase yourself a tachometer, and search online what the maximum RPM is on your engine. Mark that point on the tach. NEVER get near it. That's another good way to see parts fly through your hood.

and keep in mind, if you build your engine, you have to build your transmission, too, otherwise you'll still be stranded.